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64https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/64'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 1, Seven Dials'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London </em>(27 September 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000355/18350927/001/0001" class="waffle-rich-text-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000355/18350927/001/0001</a>.<span></span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-09-27">1835-09-27</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-09-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No1_Seven_DialsDickens, Charles. 'Scenes and Characters, No. 1, Seven Dials' (27 September 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-09-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No1_Seven_Dials">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-09-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No1_Seven_Dials</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-09-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No1_Seven_Dials.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 1, Seven Dials.' <em>Bell's Life in London </em>(27 September 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>SEVEN DIALS.—We have always been of opinion that if Tom King and the Frenchman had not immortalised Seven Dials, Seven Dials would have immortalised itself. Seven Dials! the region of song and poetry—first effusions, and last dying speeches: hallowed by the names of Catnac and of Pitts—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! Look at the construction of the place. 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. But what involutions can compare with those of Seven Dials—where is there such another maze of streets, courts, lanes, and alleys—where such a pure mixture of Englishmen and Irishmen, as in this complicated part of London? We boldly aver that we doubt the veracity of the legend to which we have adverted. We can suppose a man rash enough to inquire at random—at a house with lodgers too—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—a Frenchman—in Seven Dials! Pooh! He was an Irishman. Tom King&#039;s education had been neglected in his infancy, and as he couldn&#039;t understand half the man said, he took it for granted he was talking French. The stranger who finds himself in &quot;The Dials&quot; 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. From the irregular square into which he has emerged, 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&#039;s with astonishment. On one side a little crowd has collected round a couple of ladies, who having imbibed the contents of various &quot;three-outs&quot; of gin and cloves 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. &quot;Vy don&#039;t you pitch into her Sarah?&quot; exclaims one half-dressed matron, by way of encouragement. &quot;S&#039;elp me God, if my &#039;usband had treated her vith a drain last night, unbeknown to me, I&#039;d tear her precious eyes out—a wixen!&quot; &quot;What&#039;s the matter, ma&#039;am?&quot; inquires another old woman, who has just bustled up to the spot. &quot;Matter!&quot; replies the first speaker, talking at the obnoxious combatant, &quot;matter! Here&#039;s poor dear Mrs. Sulliwin, as has five blessed children of her own, can&#039;t go out a charing for one arternoon, but what hussies must be a comin and ticing avay her oun &#039;usband, as she&#039;s been married to twelve year come next Easter Monday, for I see the certificate ven I was a drinkin a cup o&#039; tea vith her only the wery last blessed Ven&#039;sday as ever vos sent. I appen&#039;d to say promiscuously &#039;Mrs Sulliwin,&#039; says I—&quot; &quot;What do you mean by hussies?&quot; interrupts a champion of the other party, who has evinced a strong inclination throughout to get up a branch fight on her own account (&quot;Hoo-roar,&quot; ejaculates a pot-boy in a parenthesis, &#039;put the kye-bosh on her, Mary.&quot;) &quot;What do you mean by hussies?&quot; reiterates the champion. &quot;Niver mind,&quot; replies the opposition expressively, &quot;niver mind; you go home, and, ven you&#039;re quite sober, mend your stockings.&quot; This somewhat personal allusion, not only to the lady&#039;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 by-standers to &quot;pitch in,&quot; with considerable alacrity. The scuffle became general, and terminates, in minor play-bill phraseology, with &quot;arrival of the policemen—interior of the station-house, and impressive denouement.&quot; 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. It is odd enough that one class of men in London appear to have no enjoyment beyond leaning against posts. We never saw a regular bricklayer&#039;s labourer take any other recreation—fighting excepted. Pass through St. Giles&#039;s in the evening of a week day—there they are in their fustian dresses, spotted with brick-dust and whitewash—leaning against posts. 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. The idea of a man dressing himself in his best clothes, to lean against a post all day! 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 &quot;the Dials&quot; finds himself involved. He traverses streets of dirty, straggling houses, with here and there an unexpected court, composed of buildings as ill-proportioned and deformed as the half naked children that wallow in the kennels. Now and then, is a little dark chandler&#039;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. Handsome, lofty buildings usurp the places of low dingy public-houses; long rows of broken and patched windows expose plants that may have flourished when &quot;the Dials&quot; were built, in vessels as dirty as &quot;the Dials&quot; themselves; and shops for the purchase of rags, bones, old iron, and kitchen stuff, vie in cleanliness with the bird-fanciers&#039; and rabbit-dealers&#039;, 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. Brokers&#039; 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 &quot;still life&quot; 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. If the external appearance of the houses, or a glance at their inhabitants, presents but few attractions, a closer acquaintance with either is little calculated to alter one&#039;s first impression. Every room has its separate tenant, and every tenant is—by the same mysterious dispensation which causes a country curate to &quot;increase and multiply&quot; most marvellously—generally the head of a numerous family. The man in the shop, perhaps, is in the baked &quot;jemmy&quot; 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. Then there is an Irish labourer and his family in the back kitchen; and a jobbing man—carpet-beater and so forth—with his family in the front one. In the front one-pair there&#039;s another man with another wife and family, and in the back one-pair, there&#039;s &quot;a young ooman as takes in tambour-work, and dresses quite genteel,&quot; who talks a good deal about &quot;my friend,&quot; and &quot;can&#039;t abear anything low.&quot; 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 fire-place, over which is an inscription, politely requesting that, &quot;to prevent mistakes,&quot; customers will &quot;please to pay on delivery.&quot; 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&#039;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. Now anybody who passed through the Dials on a hot summer&#039;s evening, and saw the different women in 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. 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&#039;s) head, when he and his family have retired for the night; the two-pair back will interfere with the front kitchen&#039;s children; the Irishman comes home drunk every other night, and attacks everybody; and the one-pair back screams at everything. Animosities spring up between floor and floor; the very cellar asserts his equality. Mrs A. smacks Mrs B.&#039;s child for &quot;making faces.&quot; Mrs B. forthwith throws cold water over Mrs A.&#039;s child for &quot;calling names.&quot; The husbands are embroiled—the quarrel becomes general—an assault is the consequence, and a police-office the result.18350927https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._1_Seven_Dials/1835-09-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No1__Seven_Dials.pdf
104https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/104'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 10, Christmas Festivities'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (27 December 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351227/001/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351227/001/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-12-27">1835-12-27</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-12-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No10_Christmas_FestivitiesDickens, Charles. '<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 10, Christmas Festivities' (27 December 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-12-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No10_Christmas_Festivities">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-12-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No10_Christmas_Festivities</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-12-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No10_Christmas_Festivities.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 10, Christmas Festivities.' <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (27 December 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused—in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened—by the recurrence of Christmas. 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 —and that the present only serves to remind them of reduced circumstances and straitened incomes—of the feasts they once bestowed on hollow friends, and of the cold looks that meet them now, in adversity and misfortune. Never heed such dismal reminiscences. There are few men who have lived long enough in the world who cannot call up such thoughts any day in the year. 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—till the glass, aud send round the song—and, if your room be smaller than it was a dozen years ago, or if your glass is 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&#039;s no worse. Look on the merry faces of your children as they sit round the fire. One little seat may be empty—one slight form that gladdened the father&#039;s heart and rouse the mother&#039;s pride to look upon may not be there. Dwell not upon the past—think not that, one short year ago, the fair child now fast resolving into dust sat before you, with the bloom of health upon its cheek, and the gay unconsciousness of infancy in its joyous eye. Reflect upon your present blessings—of which all man have some. Fill your glass again, with a merry face and a contented heart. Our life on it but your Christmas shall be merry, and your new year a happy one. 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? A Christmas family party! We know nothing in nature more delightful! There seems a magic in the very name of Christmas. 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. Kindly hearts that have yearned towards each other but have been withheld by false notions of pride and self dignity, are again united, and all is kindness and benevolence! Would that Christmas lasted the whole year through, and that the prejudices and passions which deform our better nature were never called into action among those to whom, at least, they should ever be strangers! The Christmas Family Party that we mean is not a mere assemblage of relations, got up at a week or two&#039;s notice, originating this year, having no family precedent in the last, and not likely to be repeated in the next. 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 some two months beforehand in a fever of anticipation. Formerly it was always held at grandpapa&#039;s, but grandpapa getting old, and grandmamma getting old too, and rather infirm, they have given up housekeeping, and domesticated themselves with uncle George: so the party always takes place at uncle George&#039;s house, but grandmamma sends in most of the good things, and grandpapa always will 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&#039;s being rewarded with a glass of spirits, over and above his hire, to drink &quot;a merry Christmas and a happy new year&quot; to aunt George; as to grandma 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 penknives, and pencil-cases for the young branches—to say nothing of divers secret additions to the order originally given by aunt George at the pastry-cook&#039;s, such as another dozen of mince pies for the dinner, and a large plum-cake for the children. On Christmas-eve, grandma is always in excellent spirits, and after employing all the children during the day in stoning the plumbs 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; and the evening concludes with a glorious game of blind man&#039;s buff, in an early stage of which grandpa takes great care to be caught, in order that he may have an opportunity of displaying his dexterity. 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 castors, and uncle George carrying bottles into the dining parlour, and calling for corkscrews, and getting into everybody&#039;s way. When the church party return to lunch, grandpapa produces a small spring of mistletoe from his pocket, and temps the boys to kiss their little cousins under it —a proceeding which affords both the boys and the old gentleman unlimited satisfaction, but which rather outrages grandma&#039;s ideas of decorum, until grandpa says that when he was just thirteen years and three months old he kissed grandma under a mistletoe too, on which the children clap their hands and laugh very heartily, as do aunt George and uncle George; and grandma looks pleased, and says with a benevolent smile that grandpa always was an impudent dog, on which the children laugh very heartily again, and grandpa more heartily than any of them. 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&#039;s children and little cousins innumerable, seated in the front, waiting the arrival of the anxiously-expected visitors. Suddenly a hackney coach is heard to stop, and uncle George, who has been looking out of the window, exclaims &quot;Here&#039;s Jane!&quot; on which the children rush to the door, and scamper 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 &quot;Oh, my!&quot; from the children, and frequently repeated warnings not to hurt baby from the nurse; 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. A hesitating double knock at the street door, heard during a momentary pause in the conversation, excites a general inquiry of &quot;Who&#039;s that?&quot; and two or three children, who have been standing at the window, announce in a low voice, that it&#039;s &quot;poor aunt Margaret.&quot; 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. 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. 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 hearty, 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 the high-spirited and beautiful woman, is widely different. 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 spirit—not from poverty, for that she could bear; but from the consciousness of undeserved neglect, and unmerited unkindness—it is easy to see how much of it is assumed. A momentary pause succeeds; the girl breaks suddenly from her sister, and throws herself, sobbing, on her mother&#039;s neck. The father steps hastily forward, and grasps her husband&#039;s hand. Friends crowd round to offer their hearty congratulations, and happiness and harmony again prevail. As to the dinner, its perfectly delightful—nothing goes wrong, and everybody is in the very best of spirits, and disposed to please and be pleased. 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: 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. Then the dessert!—and the wine!—and the fun! Such beautiful speeches, and such songs, from Aunt Margaret&#039;s husband, who turns out to be such a nice man, and so attentive to grandmamma! Even grandpapa not only sings his annual song with unprecedented vigour, but, on being honoured with an unanimous encore, according to annual custom; actually comes out with a new one, which nobody but grandmamma ever heard before, and a young scape-grace of a cousin, who has been in some disgrace with the old people, for certain heinous sins of omission and commission—neglecting to call, and persisting in drinking Burton ale—astonishes everybody into convulsions of laughter by volunteering the most extraordinary comic songs that were ever heard. And thus the evening passes in a strain of national 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 all the homilies that have ever been written, by all the Divines that have ever lived. There are a hundred associations connected with Christmas which we should very much like to recall to the minds of our readers; there are a hundred comicalities inseparable from the period, on which it would give us equal pleasure to dilate. We have attained our ordinary limits, however, and cannot better conclude than by wishing each and all of them, individually &amp; collectively, &quot;a merry Christmas happy new year.&quot;18351227https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._10_Christmas_Festivities/1835-12-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No10_Christmas_Festivities.pdf
105https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/105'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 11, The New Year'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (3 January 1836).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18360103/001/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18360103/001/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-01-03">1836-01-03</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1836-01-03_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No11_The_New_YearDickens, Charles. '<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No.11, The New Year' (3 January 1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-01-03_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No11_The_New_Year">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-01-03_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No11_The_New_Year</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836-01-03_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No11_The_New_Year.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 11, The New Year.' <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (3 January 1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>Next to Christmas-day, the most pleasant annual epoch in existence is the advent of the New Year. 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. 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. 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; 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. 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-five, penning this article, and drinking our grog with as jolly a face as if nothing extraordinary had happened, or was about to happen, to disturb our equanimity. Hackney coaches and carriages keep rattling up the street and down the street in rapid succession, conveying, doubtless, smartly-dressed coachfulls to crowded parties; loud and repeated double knocks at the house with green blinds opposite, announce to the whole neighbourhood that there&#039;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&#039; 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. 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. Take the house with the green blinds for instance. We know its 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 &quot;doing&quot; another of the young ladies&#039; hair, near one of the bedroom windows, in an unusual style of splendour, which nothing less than a quadrille party could possibly justify. 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—the very green blinds themselves have a Somerset-house air about them. Hark!—a cab! That&#039;s a junior clerk in the same office—a tidy sort of young man, with a tendency to cold and corns, who comes with a pair of boots with black cloth fronts, and his shoes in his coat pocket, which shoes he is at this very moment putting on in the hall. 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—on the first landing; and the man on the first landing precedes him to the drawing-room door. &quot;Mr. Winkles!&quot;shouts the messenger. &quot;How are you, Winkles?&quot; says the master of the house, advancing from the fire, before which he has been standing, talking politics and airing himself. &quot;My dear, this is Mr Winkles (a courteous salute from the lady of the house). &quot;Winkles, my eldest daughter Julia, my dear, Mr. Winkles; Mr. Winkles, my other daughters—my son, Sir;&quot; and Winkles 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 its lions—Captain Ross and the silent system—O&#039;Connell and Mr. Balfe—the voluntary principle and the comet—the Jewess and the Orange Lodges. More double knocks! What an extensive party! what an incessant hum of conversation and general sipping of coffee! We see Winkles now in our mind&#039;s eye, in the height of his glory. He has just handed that stout old lady&#039;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&#039;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. Charming person that Mr. Winkles —perfect ladies&#039; man. Such a delightful companion, too! Laugh!—nobody ever understood Pa&#039;s jokes half so well as Mr. Winkles, who laughs himself into convulsions at every fresh burst of facetiousness. Most delightful partner!—talks through the whole set; and although he does seem at first rather gay and frivolous, so romantic and with so much feeling!—quite a love. No great favourite with the young men, certainly, who sneer at, and affect to despise him; but everybody knows that&#039;s only envy, and they needn&#039;t give themselves the trouble of attempting to depreciate his merits at any rate; for Ma says he shall be asked to every future dinner-party, if it&#039;s only to talk to people between the courses, and distract their attention when there&#039;s any unexpected delay in the kitchen. At supper, Mr Winkles 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. Winkles is so 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, when he makes one of the most brilliant and poetical speeches that can possibly be imagined, about the old year and the new one. After the toast has been drunk, and when the ladies have retired, Mr. Winkles 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 &quot;hear! hear!&quot; and pass the decanters accordingly, and Mr. Winkles 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 [loud cries of hear!]. Much as he (Winkles) 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—that toast he begs to say is—&quot;The Ladies!&#039;&quot;[great applause].—The ladies, among whom the fascinating daughters of their excellent host are alike conspicuous for their beauty, their accomplishments, and their elegance. He begs them to drain a bumper to &quot;The Ladies,&quot; and a happy new year to them [prolonged approbation, above which the noise of the ladies dancing the Spanish dance among themselves, over head, is distinctly audible]. The applause consequent on this toast has scarcely subsided when a young gentleman in a pink under waistcoat, towards the bottom of the table, is observed to grow very restless and fidgetty, and to evince strong indications of some latent desire to give vent to his feelings in a speech, which the wary Winkles at once perceiving determines to forestal by speaking himself. He, therefore, rises again, with an air of solemn importance, and trusts he may be permitted to propose another toast [unqualified approbation, and Mr. Winkles proceeds]. He is sure they must all be deeply impressed with the hospitality—he may say the splendour—with which they have been that night received by their worthy host and hostess [unbounded applause]. 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—he wishes everybody present knew Dobble as well as he does [a cough from the host]. He (Winkles) can lay his hand upon his (Winkles) 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 [loud cries of &quot;Hear!&quot;]. 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. Calm in the perusal of the Morning Paper, 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 [cheers]. 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? Is it requisite for him to expatiate on the qualities of that amiable woman? No; he will spare his friend Dobble&#039;s feelings; he will spare the feelings of his friend—if he will allow him to have the honour of calling him so—Mr Dobble, Junior. [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]. He will simply say—and he is quite certain it is a sentiment in which all who hear him will readily concur—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 &quot;worthy host and hostess, and may they live to enjoy many more new years.&quot; The toast is drunk with acclamation—Dobble returns thanks—and the whole party rejoin the ladies in the drawing-room. 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. We have scarcely written the last word of the previous sentence, when the first stroke of twelve peals from the neighbouring churches; there is something awful in the sound. 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. But, we measure man&#039;s life by years, and it is a solemn knell that warns us we have passed another of the boundaries which stand between us and the grave; disguise it as we may, the reflection will force itself on our minds that when next that 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. But twelve has struck, and the bells ring merrily out which welcome the new year. Away with all gloomy reflections. We were happy and merry in the last one, and will be, please God, in this. So as we are alone, and can neither dance it in, nor sing it in, here goes our glass to our lips, and a hearty welcome to the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six say we.18360103https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._11_The_New_Year/1836-01-03_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No.11_The_New_Year.pdf
106https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/106'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 12, The Streets at Night'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (17 January 1836).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18360117/001/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18360117/001/0001</a>. <em>Source is faded and illegible in places.</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-01-17">1836-01-17</a><em>The British Newspaper Archive.</em> Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1836-01-17_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No12_The_Streets_at_NightDickens, Charles. '<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 12, The Streets at Night' (17 January 1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-01-17_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No12_The_Streets_at_Night">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-01-17_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No12_The_Streets_at_Night</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836-01-17_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No12_The_Streets_at_Night.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 12, The Streets at Night.' Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (17 January 1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>The streets of London, to be beheld in the very height of their glory, should be seen on a dark, dull, murky, winter’s night, when there is just enough damp gently stealing down to make the pavement greasy, without cleaning it of any of its impurities, and when the heavy lazy mist, which hangs over every object around makes the gas lamps look brighter, and the brilliantly lighted shops more splendid, from the contrast they present. Everybody who is in-doors on such a night as this, seem disposed to make themselves as snug and comfortable as possible. 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. 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 at number four has no sooner opened her little street-door and screamed out &quot;Muffins!&quot; with all her might, than Mrs. Walker at number five puts her head out of the parlour window, and screams &quot;Muffins!&quot; too, and Mrs. Walker has scarcely got the word 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’s door, when it appears from the voluntary statement of Mrs. Walker, that her kittle’s just a-biling, and the cups and sarsers ready laid, and that, as it was such a wretched night out o’ doors, she’d made up her mind to have a nice hot comfortable cup o’ tea—a determination at which, by the most singular coincidence, the other two ladies had simultaneously arrived. 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’clock beer, who comes round with a lantern in front of his tray, and says, as he lends Mrs. Walker &quot;yesterday’s &#039;Tiser,&quot; that he’s blessed if he can hardly hold the pot, much less feel the paper, for it’s one of the bitterest nights he ever felt, ’cept the night when the man was frozen to death in the Brick-field. 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’clock beer returns to his master’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. 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. Even the little block-tin temple sacred to &quot;baked &#039;taturs,&quot; surmounted by a splendid design in variegated lamp, looks less gay than usual; and as to the kidney-pie stand, its glory has quite departed, for the candle in the transparent lamp, manufactured of oiled paper, embellished with &quot;characters,&quot; 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 whereabout 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. 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 door-way, or under the canvass window-blind of a cheesemonger’s, where great flaring gas lights, unshaded by any glass, display huge piles of bright red, and pale yellow cheeses, mingled with little fivepenny dabs of dingy bacon, various tubs of weekly Dorset, and cloudy rolls of &quot;best fresh.&quot; 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 come the double monkey, or go through the mysterious involutions of a sailor’s hornpipe. It is nearly eleven o’clock, and the cold thin rain which has been drizzling so long, is beginning to pour down in good earnest; the baked-&#039;tatur man has departed—the kidney-pie man has just taken his warehouse on his arm with the same object—the cheesemonger has drawn in his blind—&amp;amp; the boys have dispersed. The constant clicking of pattens on the slippy and uneven pavement, &amp;amp; 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 oil skin cape butoned 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. The little chandler’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; 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. There was another, but it has ceased. 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—a brutal laugh at her weak voice is all she has gained. The tears fall thick and fast down her worn 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. Singing! 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. What a 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! It is no subject for jeering. 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. One o’clock! 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 &quot;goes&quot; innumerable, are served up amidst a noise and confusion of smoking, running, knife-clattering, and waiter-chattering, perfectly indescribable. The more musical portion of the play-going community betake themselves to some harmonic meeting; and, as a matter of curiosity, we will follow them thither for a few moments. In a lofty room, of spacious dimensions, sit 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. They are applauding a glee, which has just been executed by the three &quot;professional gentlemen&quot; at the top of the centre table, one of whom is in the chair—the little pompous man, with the bald head just emerging from the collar of his green coat. The others are seated on either side of him—the stout man with the small voice, and the thin-faced dark man in black. The little man in the chair is a most amusing personage—such condescending grandeur, and such a voice! &quot;Bass!&quot; as the young gentleman near us with the blue stock forcibly remarks to his companion, &quot;bass! I b’lieve you. He can go down lower than any man: so low sometimes that you can’t hear him.&quot; And so he does. To hear him growling away, gradually lower and lower down, till he can’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 &quot;My ’Art’s in the Ilands,&quot;’ or &quot;The Brave Old Hoak.&quot; The stout man is also addicted to sentimentality, and warbles &quot;Fly fly from the World, my Bessy with me,&quot; or some such song, with lady-like sweetness, and in the most seductive tones imaginable. &quot;Pray give your orders gen’l’m’n—pray give your orders&quot;—says a pale-faced man with a red-head; and demands for &quot;goes&quot; of gin, and &quot;goes&quot; of brandy, and pints of stout, and cigars of peculiar mildness, are vociferously made from all parts of the room. The &quot;professional gentlemen&quot; 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. 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.—&quot;Gentlemen,&quot; says the little pompous man, accompanying the word with a knock of the president’s hammer on the table—&quot;‘Gentlemen, allow me to claim your attention—Our friend Mr. Smuggins will oblige.&quot;— &quot;Bravo!&quot; 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 tol-de-ral chorus at the end of every verse, much longer than the verse itself. 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 &quot;Gentlemen, we will attempt a glee, if you please.&quot; 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—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. Scenes like these are continued until three or four o’clock in the morning; and even when they close, fresh ones open to the inquisitive novice. But as a description of all of them, however slight, would require a volume, we make our bow and drop the curtain.18360117https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._12_The_Streets_at_Night/1836-01-17_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No12_The_Streets_at_Night.pdf
65https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/65'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 2, Miss Evans and "The Eagle"'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (4 October 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351004/009/0001?browse=true" class="waffle-rich-text-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351004/009/0001.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-10-04">1835-10-04</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-10-04_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No2_Miss_Evans_and_The_EagleDickens, Charles. 'Scenes and Characters, No. 2, Miss Evans and The Eagle (04 October 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-10-04_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No2_Miss_Evans_and_The_Eagle">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-10-04_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No2_Miss_Evans_and_The_Eagle</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-10-04_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No2_Miss_Evans_and_The_Eagle.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Scenes and Characters, No. 2, Miss Evans and "The Eagle".' <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (4 October 1835).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>Mr. Samuel Wilkins was a carpenter—a journeyman carpenter, of small dimensions; decidedly below the middle size—bordering perhaps upon the dwarfish. His face was round and shiny, &amp; 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 &quot;haggerawators.&quot; His earnings were all-sufficient for his wants—varying from eighteen shillings to one pound five, weekly; his manner undeniable—his sabbath waistcoats dazzling. 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. 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. He came and conquered—proposed and was accepted —loved and was beloved. Mr. Wilkins &quot;kept company&quot; with Jemima Evans. Miss Evans (or Ivins, to adopt the pronunciation most in vogue with her circle of acquaintance) had adopted in early life the harmless pursuit of shoe-binding, to which she had afterwards superadded the occupation of a straw-bonnet maker. 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 shiny and his waistcoat more bright than either had ever appeared before. The family were just going to tea, and were so glad to see him. 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. Jemima was &quot;cleaning herself&quot; up-stairs: so Mr. Samuel Wilkins sat down, and talked domestic economy with Mrs. Ivins, whilst the two youngest Miss Ivins&#039;s poked bits of lighted brown paper between the bars, under the kettle, to make the water boil for tea. &quot;I vos thinkin&#039;&quot; said Mr. Samuel Wilkins, during a pause in the conversation, &quot;I vos a thinkin&#039; of takin&#039; J’mima to the Eagle to-night.&quot; &quot;O my!&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Ivins. &quot;Lor! how nice!&quot; said the youngest Miss Ivins. &quot;Well; I declare!&quot; added the youngest Miss Ivins but one. &quot;Tell J’mima to put on her white muslin, Tilly,&quot; screamed Mrs. Ivins, with motherly anxiety; and down came J’mima herself soon afterwards in a white muslin gown, carefully hook-and-eyed, and little red shawl plentifully pinned, and white straw bonnet trimmed with red ribbons, and a small necklace and large pair of bracelets, and Denmark satin shoes, and open-work stockings, white cotton gloves on her fingers, and a cambric pocket-handkerchief carefully folded up in her hand—all quite genteel and ladylike. And away went Miss Jemima 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. They had no sooner turned into the Pancras-road, than who should Miss Jemima Ivins stumble upon by the most fortunate accident in the world, but a young lady as she knew, with her young man, and—it is so strange how things do turn out sometimes—they were actually going to the Eagle too. So Mr. Samuel Wilkins was introduced to Miss Jemima Ivins’s friend’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’s friend’s young man would 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. 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 &#039;till it was just the proper time to go to the Eagle; and then they resumed their journey, and walked on very fast, for fear they should lose the beginning of the concert in the Rotunda.<br /> <br /> &quot;How ev’nly!&quot; said Miss J’mima Ivins and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend both at once, when they had passed the gate, and were fairly inside the gardens. There were the walks beautifully gravelled and planted; and the refreshment boxes painted and ornamented like so many snuff-boxes, and the variegated lamps shedding their rich light upon the company’s heads, and the place for dancing ready chalked for the company’s feet, and a Moorish band playing at one end of the gardens, and an opposition military band playing away at the other. 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’mima Ivins, inspired by the novelty, or the shrub, or both, observed— &quot;one of dazzlin excitement.&quot; As to the concert room, never was anything half so splendid. There was an orchestra for the singers, all paint, gilding, and plate glass; and such an organ! Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man whispered it had cost &quot;four hundred pound,&quot; which Mr. Samuel Wilkins said was &quot;not dear neither&quot;—an opinion in which the ladies perfectly coincided. The audience were seated on elevated benches round the room, and crowded into every part of it, and every body was eating and drinking as comfortably as possible. Just before the concert commenced, Mr. Samuel Wilkins ordered two glasses of rum-and-water &quot;warm with,&quot; and two slices of lemon, for himself and the other young man, together with &quot;a pint o’ sherry wine for the ladies, and some sweet carraway-seed biscuits;&quot; and they would have been quite comfortable and happy, only one gentleman with large whiskers would stare at Miss J’mima Ivins, and another gentleman in a plaid waistcoat would wink at Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend; on which Miss Jemima Ivins’s friend’s young man exhibited symptoms of boiling over, and began to mutter about &quot;people’s imperence&quot; and &quot;swells out o’ luck,&quot; and to intimate in oblique terms a vague intention of knocking somebody’s head off, which he was only prevented from announcing more emphatically by both Miss J’mima Ivins and her friend, threatening to faint away on the spot if he said another word. The concert commenced—overture on the organ. &quot;How solemn!&quot; exclaimed Miss J’mima Ivins, glancing, perhaps unconsciously, at the gentleman with the whiskers. 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 very hard;—breathing vengeance perhaps, but said nothing. &quot;The Soldier tired,&quot; Miss somebody, in white satin. &quot;Ancore!&quot; cried Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend. &quot;Ancore!&#039; shouted the gentleman in the plaid waistcoat immediately, hammering the table with a stout bottle. Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man eyed the man behind the waistcoat from head to foot, and cast a look of interrogative contempt towards Mr. Samuel Wilkins. Comic song, accompanied on the organ. Miss J’mima Ivins was convulsed with laughter—so was the man with the whiskers. Everything the ladies did, the plaid waistcoat and whiskers did, by way of expressing a unity of sentiment and congeniality of soul; and Miss J’mima Ivins, and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend grew lively and talkative, as Mr. George Wilkins and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man grew morose, and surly in inverse proportion.<br /> <br /> 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; 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 on Miss J’mima Ivins and friend. The concert and vaudeville concluded—they promenaded the gardens. The waistcoat and whiskers did the same, and made divers remarks complimentary to the ancles of Miss J’mima Ivins and friend, in an audible tone. At length, not satisfied with these numerous atrocities, they actually came up, and asked Miss J’mima Ivins and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend to dance, without taking no more notice of Mr. Samuel Wilkins and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man, than if they was nobody! &quot;What do you mean by that, scoundrel?&quot; exclaimed Mr. Samuel Wilkins, grasping the gilt-knobbed dress cane firmly in his right hand. &quot;What’s the devil&#039;s the matter with you, you little humbug?&quot; replied the whiskers. &quot;How dare you insult me and my friend?&quot; inquired the friend’s young man. &quot;You and your friend be damned,&quot; responded the waistcoat. &quot;Take that!&quot; exclaimed Mr. Samuel Wilkins. 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. &quot;Give it him,&quot; said the waistcoat. &quot;Luller-li-e-te,&quot; shouted the whiskers. &quot;Horficer!&quot; screamed the ladies. It was too late. Miss J’mima Ivins’s beau and the friend’s young man, lay gasping on the gravel, and the waistcoat and whiskers were seen no more. Miss J’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—wrongfully suspected—oh, that they should ever have lived to see the day, &amp;c.; 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 in a state of insensibility, compounded of shrub, sherry, and excitement.18351004https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._2_Miss_Evans_and_The_Eagle/1835-10-04_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No2_Miss_Evans_and_The_Eagle.pdf
66https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/66'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 3, The Dancing Academy'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (11 October 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351011/001/0001" class="waffle-rich-text-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351011/001/0001</a>.<span></span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-10-11">1835-10-11</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-10-11_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No3_The_Dancing_AcademyDickens, Charles. 'Scenes and Characters, No. 3, The Dancing Academy' (11 October 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-10-04_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No2_Miss_Evans_and_The_Eagle">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-10-11_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No3_The_Dancing_Academy</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-10-11_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No3_The_Dancing_Academy.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Scenes and Characters, No. 3, The Dancing Academy.' <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (11 October 1835).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>Of all the dancing academies that ever were established, there never was one more popular in its immediate vicinity than Signor Billsmethi’s, of the &quot;King’s Theatre.&quot; It wasn&#039;t in Spring Gardens, or Newman-street, or Berner&#039;s-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, it rather approximated to the eastern portion of London, being situated in the populous and improving neighbourhood of Gray’s-inn-lane. &quot;It wasn&#039;t a dear dancing academy—four and sixpence a quarter is decidedly cheap upon the whole. It was very select, the number of pupils being strictly limited to seventy-five; and a quarter’s payment in advance being rigidly exacted. There was public tuition and private tuition—an assembly-room and a parlour. Signor Billsmethi’s family were always thrown in with the parlour, and included in parlour price; that is to say, a private pupil had Signor Billsmethi’s parlour to dance in, and Signor Billsmethi’s family to dance with; and when he had been sufficiently broken in, in the parlour, he began to run in couples in the Assembly-room. 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’s Theatre intended opening for the season with a Grand Ball. Now, Mr. Augustus Cooper was in the oil and colour line—just of age, with a little money, a little business, and a little mother, who having managed her husband and his business in his lifetime, took to managing her son and his 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’s over the way, three years younger than him, had been flaring away like winkin’—going to the theatre—supping at harmonic meetings—eating oysters by the barrel, drinking stout by the gallon—even stopping out all night, and coming home as cool in the morning as if nothing had happened. 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 blowed, in the event of his not being instantly provided with a street door key. 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’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. So he stopped the unstamped advertisement—an animated sandwich, composed of a boy between two boards—and having procured a very small card, with the Signor’s address indented thereon, walked straight at once to the Signor’s house—and very fast he walked too, for fear the list should be filled up, and the five and seventy completed, before he got there. The Signor was at home, and what was still more gratifying, he was an Englishman! Such a nice man—so polite; really so much more than one has any right to expect from a perfect stranger! The list wasn&#039;t 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’t select, wouldn’t take her. &quot;And very much delighted I am, Mr. Cooper,&quot; said Signor Billsmethi, &quot;that I did not take her. I assure you, Mr. Cooper,—I don’t say it to flatter you, for I know you’re above it;—that I consider myself extremely fortunate in having a gentleman of your manners and appearance, Sir.&quot; &quot;I am very glad of it too, Sir,&quot; said Augustus Cooper. &quot;And I hope we shall be better acquainted, Sir,&quot; said Signor Billsmethi. &quot;And I’m sure I hope we shall too, Sir,&quot; responded Augustus Cooper; and 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 legs. &quot;Don’t run away my dear,&quot; said Signor Billsmethi;&quot; for the young lady didn’t know Mr. Cooper was there when she ran in, and was going to run out again in her modesty, all in confusion-like. &quot;Don’t run away, my dear,&quot; said Signor Billsmethi, &quot;this is Mr. Cooper. Mr. Cooper, of Fetter-lane. Mr. Cooper, my daughter, Sir, Miss Billsmethi, Sir, who, I hope, will have the pleasure of dancing many a quadrille, reel, minuet, gavotte, country dance, fandango, double hornpipe, and farinagholkajingo with you, Sir. She dances them all, Sir; and so shall you, Sir, before you’re a quarter older,&quot; Sir &amp;amp; Signor Bellsmethi slapped Mr. Augustus Cooper on the back, as if he had known him a dozen years, so friendly; 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’d wish to see, upon which the young lady exclaimed, &quot;Lor, Pa!&quot; and blushed as red as Mr. Cooper himself—you might have thought they were both standing under a red lamp at a chemist’s shop; and before Mr. Cooper went away it was settled that he should join the family circle that very night—taking &#039;em just as they were: no ceremony, nor nonsense of that kind—and learn his positions, in order that he might lose no time, and be able to come out at the forthcoming ball. Well, Mr. Augustus Cooper went away to one of the cheap shoemakers’ shops in Holborn, where gentlemen’s dress-pumps are seven and sixpence, and men’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’s. There were four other private pupils in the parlour, two ladies and two gentlemen. Such nice people! Not a bit of pride about &#039;em. One of: he 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. 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—none of your slipping and sliding about, but regular warm work; flying into corners, and diving among chairs, and shooting out at the door, something like dancing. 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. 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, &quot;strike ’em wulgar if they’d stand that;&quot; and they were just going to quarrel who should pay for it, when Mr. Augustus Cooper said he would, if they’d have the kindness to allow him—and they had the kindness to allow him; and Master Billsmethi brought the beer in a can, and the rum in a quart pot; they had a regular night of it; and Miss Billsmethi squeezed Mr. Augustus Cooper’s hand under the table; and Mr. Augustus Cooper returned the squeeze, and returned home too, at something to six o’clock in the morning, when he was put to bed by main force by the apprentice, after repeatedly expressing an uncontroullable desire to pitch his revered parent out of the second-floor window, and to throttle the apprentice with his own neck-handkerchief. 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. Mr. Augustus Cooper had ordered a new coat for the occasion—a two-pound-tenner from Turnstile. 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. It was a night! Everything was admirably arranged. 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 pot-boy was laid on for the occasion. In short nothing could exceed the arrangements, except the company. Such ladies! Such pink silk stockings! Such artificial flowers! Such a number of cabs! 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. Signor Billsmethi in black tights, with a large blue bow in his button-hole, introduced the ladies to such of the gentlemen as were strangers; and the ladies talked away - and laughed they did—it was delightful to see &#039;em. As to the shawl-dance, it was the most exciting thing that ever was beheld. Such a whisking, and rustling, and fanning, and getting ladies into a tangle with artificial flowers, &amp;amp; then disentangling &#039;em again; and as to Mr. Augustus Cooper’s share in the quadrille, he got through it admirably; 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, apparently without any definite object; but, generally speaking, they managed to shove him through the figure, till he turned up in the right place. 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 &quot;stood&quot; 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. 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 &quot;creeter,&quot; 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, and some indistinct reference to a &quot;fancy man,&quot; which reference Mr. Augustus Cooper, being then and there in a state of considerable bewilderment, expressed his entire concurrence in. 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. Mr. Augustus Cooper, not being remarkable for quickness of apprehension, was at a loss to understand what all this meant, till 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 &quot;wanted anything for himself,&quot; he deemed it prudent to make a precipitate retreat. And the upshot of the matter was, that a lawyer’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: 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.18351011https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._3_The_Dancing_Academy/1835-10-11_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No3_The_Dancing_Academy.pdf
67https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/67'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 4, Making a Night of It'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (18 October 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,<br /></em><a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351018/001/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351018/001/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-10-18">1835-10-18</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-10-18_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No4_Making_a_Night_of_ItDickens, Charles. 'Scenes and Characters, No. 4, Making a Night of It' (18 October 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-10-18_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No4_Making_a_Night_of_It">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-10-18_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No4_Making_a_Night_of_It</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-10-18_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No4_Making_a_Night_of_It.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 4, Making a Night of It.' Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (18 October 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>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. Many points in their character have now obsolete. Damons are rather hard to find, in these days of imprisonment for debt (except for 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. If the actions of these heroes, however, can find no parallel in modern times, their friendship can. We have Damon and Pythias on the one hand—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. 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. 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’s company very night. They were knit together by the closest ties of intimacy and friendship; or, as Mr. Thomas Potter touchingly observed, they were &quot;thick-and-thin pals, and nothing but it.&quot; There was a spice of romance in Mr. Smithers’s disposition—a ray of poetry—a gleam of misery;—a sort of consciousness of he didn’t exactly know what coming across him, he didn’t precisely know why—which stood out in fine relief against the off hand, dashing, &quot;come up to the scratch&quot; kind of manner, which distinguished Mr. Potter in an eminent degree. The peculiarity of their respective dispositions, extended itself to their individual costume. 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—peculiarities which Mr. Potter wholly eschewed: for it was his ambition to do something in the celebrated &quot;kiddy&quot; 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’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, and divers other places of public resort. Mr. Potter and Mr. Smithers had mutually agreed that, on the receipt of their quarter’s salary, they would jointly and in company &quot;spend the evening&quot;—an evident misnomer—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 &quot;make a night of it&quot;—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. The quarter-day arrived at last—we say at last, because quarter-days are as eccentric as comets, moving wonderfully quick when you&#039;ve a good deal to pay, and marvellously slow when you have a little to receive: and 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. 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 very mildest Havannahs, which the waiter did. Mr. Thomas Potter mixed his grog, and lit his cigar; Mr. Robert Smithers did the same; and then Mr. Thomas Potter jocularly proposed as the first toast, &quot;the abolition of all offices whatsomever&quot; (not sinecures, but counting-houses), which was immediately drank by Mr. Robert Smithers, with enthusiastic applause; and then they went on talking politics, puffing cigars, and sipping whiskey and water, until the &quot;goes&quot;—most appropriately so called—were both gone, which Mr. Robert Smithers forthwith 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. As to Mr. Thomas Potter, he would keep laughing out loud, and volunteering inarticulate declarations that he was &quot;all right,&quot; 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, he walked slowly out to look for the comet, 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, he laid his head on his arm, and went to sleep also; and when he awoke again, Mr. Robert Smithers woke 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 hadn&#039;t been for the whiskey and cigars, there was no knowing what harm they mightn’t have done ’em. So they took some coffee, and after paying the bill, twelve and two-pence the dinner, and the odd ten-pence for the waiter, thirteen shillings, started out on their expedition to manufacture a night. It was just half-past eight, so they thought they couldn’t do better than go half-price to the slips at the City Theatre, which they did, accordingly. 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. Such was the quiet demeanour of the unassuming Smithers, and such were the happy effects of Scotch whiskey and Havannahs on that interesting person; but Mr. Thomas Potter, whose great aim it was to be considered as a &quot;knowing card,&quot; a &quot;fast-goer,&quot; and so forth, conducted himself in a very different manner, and commenced going very fast indeed—rather too fast at last for the patience of the audience to keep pace with. On his first entry he contented himself by earnestly calling upon the gentlemen in the gallery to &quot;flare up,&quot; accompanying the demand with another request expressive of his wish that they would instantaneously &quot;form a union,&quot; both which requisitions were responded to in the manner most in vogue on such occasions. &quot;Give that dog a bone,&quot; cried one gentleman in his shirt sleeves. &quot;Vere have you been having half a pint of intermediate?&quot; cried a second. &quot;Tailor!&quot; screamed a third. &quot;Barber’s clerk!&quot; shouted a fourth. &quot;Throw him o-ver,&quot; roared a fifth, while numerous voices concurred in desiring Mr. Thomas Potter to return to the arms of his maternal parent, or in common parlance to &quot;go home to his mother.&quot; 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 most melodramatically. The overture—to which these various sounds had been an ad libitum accompaniment—concluded: the second piece began, and Mr. Thomas Potter emboldened by impunity, proceeded to behave in a most unprecedented and outrageous manner. 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 woke Mr. Robert Smithers, who hearing his companion making a noise, and having a very indistinct notion of 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. It was too much. &quot;Turn &#039;em out,&quot; was the general cry. A noise as if shuffling of feet, and men being knocked up with violence against wainscoting, was heard: a hurried dialogue of &quot;come out&quot;—&quot;I won’t&quot;—&quot;You shall&quot;—&quot;I shan’t&quot;—&quot;Give me your card Sir&quot;—&quot;Punch his head,&quot; and so forth succeeded; 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. 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 &#039;til 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. Mr. Thomas Potter, however, was valorous and peremptory. They had come out to make a night of it; and a night must be made. 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, &amp;amp; a plentiful sprinkling of hackney-coachmen &amp;amp; cab-drivers, all drinking &amp;amp; talking together; &amp;amp; Mr. Thomas Potter and Mr. Robert Smithers drank small glasses of brandy, and large glasses of soda, till they began to have a very confused idea either of things in general or 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. Then, as standard novelists expressively inform us—&quot;all was a blank,&quot; and in the morning the blank was filled up with the words &quot;Station-house,&quot; 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. 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, &amp;amp; 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’ worth of oaths at the rate of five shillings apiece, terrified whole streets-full of his Majesty’s liege subjects with awful shrieks, and alarms of fire, destroyed the uniforms of five policemen, and committed various other atrocities too numerous to recapitulate; and the Magistrates after an appropriate reprimand of considerable length, fined Mr. Thomas Potter and Mr. Thomas Smithers five shillings each for being, what the law vulgarly terms &quot;drunk,&quot; with the trifling addition of thirty-four pounds for seventeen assaults, at forty shillings a-head, with leave to speak to the prosecutors. The prosecutors were spoken to; and Messrs. Potter and Smithers lived on credit for a quarter as best they could; and although the prosecutors expressed their readiness to be assaulted twice a week on the same terms, they have never since been detected &quot;making a night of it.&quot;18351018https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._4_Making_a_Night_of_It/1835-10-18_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No4_Making_a_Night_of_It.pdf
68https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/68'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 5, Love and Oysters'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (25 October 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351025/001/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351025/001/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-10-25">1835-10-25</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-10-25_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No5_Love_and_OystersDickens, Charles. 'Scenes and Characters, No. 5, Love and Oysters' (25 October 1835). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-10-25_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No5_Love_and_Oysters">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-10-25_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No5_Love_and_Oysters</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-10-25_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No5_Love_and_Oysters.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 5, Love and Oysters.' <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (25 October 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>If we had to make a classification of society, there are a particular kind of men whom we should immediately set down under the head of &quot;Old Boys;&quot; and a column of most extensive dimensions the old boys would require. To what precise causes the rapid advance of old boy population is to be traced, we are unable to determine; 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 are at this moment alarmingly on the increase. 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—the gay old boys, and the steady old boys; the gay old boys, are punchy old men in the disguise of young ones, who frequent the Quadrant and Regent-street in the day-time, and the theatres (especially theatres under lady management) at night, assuming all the foppishness and levity of boys, without the excuse of youth or inexperience: 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. There was once a fine collection of old boys to be seen round the circular table at Offley’s every night, between the hours of half-past eight and half-past eleven. We have lost sight of them for some time, but there are still two splendid specimens in full blossom at the Rainbow, who always sit in the box nearest the fire-place, and smoke immense long cherry-stick pipes, which go under the table, with the bowls resting upon the floor. Grand old boys these are—fat, red-faced, white-headed old fellows, always there—one on one side the table, and the other opposite—puffing and drinking away like regular good ones, and never a bit the worse for it— everybody knows &#039;em, and it is supposed by some people that they&#039;re both immortal. Mr. John Dounce was an old boy of the latter class (we don’t mean immortal, but steady)—a retired glove and brace-maker, a widower, resident with three daughters—all grown up, and all unmarried—in Cursitor-street, Chancery-lane. He was a short, round, large-faced, tubbish sort of a 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. Regular as clock-work—breakfast at nine—dress &amp;amp; tittivate a little—down to the Sir Somebody’s Head—glass of ale and the paper—come back again and take the daughters out for a walk—dinner at three—glass of grog and a pipe—nap—tea—little walk—Sir Somebody’s Head again—capital house;—delightful evenings! There were Mr. Harris, the law-stationer, and Mr. Jennings, the robe-maker (two jolly young fellows like himself), and Jones, the barrister’s clerk—a rum fellow that Jones—capital company—full of anecdote; 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. Sometimes Jones would propose a half-price visit to Drury Lane or Covent Garden, to see two acts of a five-act play, &amp;amp; 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 &quot;rush&quot; 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,—then, Mr. Dounce perfectly well remembered getting a holiday from business, and going to the pit doors at eleven o’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—by God! Between the acts Mr. Dounce, and Mr. Harris, and Mr. Jennings used to stand up, and look round the house, and Jones—knowing fellow that Jones—knew every body—pointed ou 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 neck-handkerchief, would inspect the aforesaid Lady So-and-So through an immense glass, and remark, either, that she was a &quot;fine woman—very fine woman, indeed,&quot; or that &quot;there might be a little more of her —Eh, Jones? just as the case might happen to be. 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—wicked dog that Jones—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 three laughed, &#039;till the tears ran out of their eyes. 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— hoaxing scamp, that Jones—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 &#039;em, acknowledging, however, that the time had been when he might 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. And after Mr. Harris and Mr. Jennings had preferred their claims to the character of having been sad dogs too, they separated harmoniously, &amp;amp; trotted home. The decrees of Fate, and the means by which they are brought about, are mysterious and inscrutable. 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—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. Mr. John Dounce was returning one night from the Sir Somebody’s Head, to his residence in Cursitor-street—not tipsy, but rather excited, for it was Mr. Jennings’s birth-day, 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—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. 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—splendid creature, charming face, and lovely figure. It is difficult to say whether Mr. John Dounce’s red countenance, illuminated as it was by the flickering gas-light in the window before which he paused, excited the lady’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; 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. The sad-dog sort of feeling came strongly upon John Dounce: he lingered —the lady in blue made no sign. He coughed—still she came not. He entered the shop—&quot;Can you open me an oyster, my dear?&quot; said Mr. John Dounce. &quot;Dare say I can, Sir,&quot; replied the lady in blue, with enchanting playfulness. And Mr. John Dounce eat one oyster, and then looked at the young lady, and then eat another, and then squeezed the young lady’s hand as she was opening the third, and so forth, until he had devoured a dozen of those at eight-pence in less than no time. &quot;Can you open me half a dozen more, my dear?&quot; inquired Mr. John Dounce. &quot;I’ll see what I can do for you, Sir,&quot; replied the young lady in blue, even more bewitchingly than before; and Mr. John Dounce eat half-a-dozen more of those at eight-pence and felt his gallantry increasing every minute. &quot;You couldn’t manage to get me a glass of brandy and water, my dear, I suppose?&quot; said Mr. John Dounce, when he had finished the oysters, in a tone which clearly implied his supposition that she could. &quot;I’ll see, Sir,&quot; 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-places 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’ grog—hot, strong, sweet, and plenty of it. 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, taken conjointly with the hot brandy and water and the oysters, 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—she couldn’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—at least she turned away her head, and said Mr. John Dounce had made her blush, so of course she did blush—and Mr. John Dounce was a long time drinking the brandy and water; and the young lady said &quot;Ha&#039; done, Sir,&quot; very often; and at last John Dounce went home to bed, and dreamt of his first wife, and his second wife, and the young lady, and partridges, and oysters, and brandy and water, and disinterested attachments. 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. 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’s dream. 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); &quot;went on&quot; 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. As to his ancient friends, the other old boys, at the Sir Somebody’s Head, he dropped off from them by gradual degrees; for, even when he did go there, Jones—vulgar fellow that Jones—persisted in asking &quot;when it was to be?&quot; and &quot;whether he was to have any gloves?&quot; together with other inquiries of an equally offensive nature, at which not only Harris laughed, but Jennings too; so he cut the two altogether, and attached himself solely to the blue young lady at the smart oyster-shop. Now comes the moral of the story—for it has a moral after all. The last mentioned young lady, having derived sufficient profit and emolument from John Dounce’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 wouldn’t have him at no price; and John Dounce, having lost his old friends, alienated his relations, and rendered himself ridiculous to every body, 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 lives now, a hen-pecked husband, a melancholy monument of antiquated misery, and a living warning to all uxorious old boys.18351025https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._5_Love_and_Oysters/1835-10-25_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No5_Love_and_Oysters.pdf
87https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/87'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 6, Some Account of an Omnibus Cad'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (1 November 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351101/001/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351101/001/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-11-01">1835-11-01</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-11-01_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No6_Some_Account_of_an_Omnibus_CadDickens, Charles. 'Scenes and Characters, No. 6, Some Account of an Omnibus Cad' (1 November 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-11-01_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No6_Some_Account_of_an_Omnibus_Cad">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-11-01_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No6_Some_Account_of_an_Omnibus_Cad</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-11-01_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No6_Some_Account_of_an_Omnibus_Cad.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 6, Some Account of an Omnibus Cad.'&nbsp;<em>Bell's Life in London</em> (1 November 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>Mr. William Barker was born;—but why need we recount where Mr. William Barker was born, or when? Why scrutinize the entries in personal ledgers, why penetrate into the Luxinian mysteries of lying-in in hospitals? Mr. William Barker was born, or he had never been. There was a father— there is a son. There was a cause—there is an effect. 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. Can there be a more satisfactory, or more strictly parliamentary course? Impossible. We at once avoid a similar inability to record at what precise period, or by what particular process, this gentleman&#039;s patronymic, of William Barker, became corrupted into &quot;Bill Boorker.&quot; Mr. Barker has required a high standing, and no inconsiderable reputation among the members of that profession to which he has more peculiarly devoted his energies; and to them he is generally known, either by the familiar appellation of &quot;Bill Boorker,&quot; or the flattering designation of &quot;Aggerawatin Bill&quot;—the latter being a playful and expressive sobriquet, illustrative of Mr. Barker&#039;s great talent in &quot;aggerawatin&quot; and rendering wild such subjects of her Majesty as are conveyed from place to place, through the instrumentality of omnibuses. Of the early life of Mr. Barker little is known, and even that little is involved in considerable doubt and obscurity. 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. 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&#039;s disposition - his feverish attachment to change and variety nothing could repress; his native daring no punishment could subdue. If Mr. Barker can be fairly said to have had any weakness in his earlier years, it was an amiable one—Love; Love in its most comprehensive form—a love of ladies, liquids, and pocket-handkerchiefs. It was no selfish feeling; it was not confined to his own possessions, which but too many men regard with exclusive complacency. No: it was a nobler love—a general principle; it extended itself with equal force to the property of other people. There is something very affecting in this: it is still more affecting to know, that such philanthropy is but imperfectly rewarded. Bow street, Newgate, and Millbank, are a poor return for general benevolence, evincing itself in an irrepressible love of all created objects. Mr. Barker felt it so—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—a peaceful pursuit, in which a term of seven years glided almost imperceptibly away. Whether, at the expiration of the period we have just mentioned, the British Government required Mr. Barker&#039;s presence here, or did not require his residence abroad, we have no distinct means of ascertaining. 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. Seated, in this capacity, on a couple of tubs near the kerb-stone, with a brass plate and number suspended round his neck by a massive chain, and his ancles 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, and the results of which we shall proceed very briefly to lay before our readers. 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. 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. He saw, too, the necessity of adopting the persuits of 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 six-pence a head, or, to adopt his own figurative expression in all its native beauty, &quot;till they was rig&#039;larly done over, and forked out the stumpy.&quot; An opportunity for realising his fondest anticipations soon presented itself. 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. Mr. Barker secretly and cautiously inquired in the proper quarters. The report was correct—the &quot;Royal William&quot; was to make his first journey on the following Monday. It was a crack affair altogether. An enterprising young cabman, of established reputation as a dashing whip—for he had compromised with the parents of three scrunched children, and just &quot;worked out&quot; his fine for knocking down an old lady—was the driver; and the spirited proprietor, knowing Mr. Barker&#039;s qualifications, appointed him to the vacant office of cad on the very first application. The buss began to run, and Mr. Barker entered into a new suit of clothes, and on a new sphere of action. To recapitulate all the improvements introduced by this extraordinary man into the omnibus system - gradually, indeed, but surely—would occupy a far greater space than we are enabled to devote to this imperfect memoir. To him is universally assigned the original suggestion of the practice which afterwards became so general—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. He has opponents of course; for what man in public life has not? 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 three 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. Mr. Barker was the identical cad who nobly distinguished himself, sometime since by keeping a tradesman on the step—the omnibus going at full speed all the time—till he had thrashed him to his entire satisfaction, and finally throwing him away when he had quite done with him. Mr. Barker it ought 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. We say it ought to have been Mr. Barker, because the action was not a common one, and could have emanated from no ordinary mind. We regret being compelled to state that it was not he—would, for the family credit, that we could add it was his brother! It is in the exercise of the nicer details of his profession, that Mr. Barker&#039;s knowledge of human nature is beautifully displayed. He can tell at a glance where a passenger wants to go to, and shouts the name of the place accordingly, without the slightest reference to the real destination of the buss; he knows exactly the sort of old lady that will be too much flurried by the process of pushing in, and pulling out of the caravan, to discover where she has been set down until too late; has an intuitive perception of what is passing in a passenger&#039;s mind when he inwardly resolves to &quot;pull that cad up to-morrow morning;&quot; &amp;amp; never fails to make himself agreeable to female servants whom, if he can place next the door, he talks to all the way. Human judgment is never infallible, and it has occasionally happened that Mr. Barker has experimentalised with the timidity or forbearance of the wrong sort of person, in which case a summons to a Police-office, has been the consequence, and a committal the finish. It is not for trifles such as these, however, to subdue a spirit like that which swells beneath the waistcoat of this heroic man. You may confine the body between four stone walls, or between four brick walls and a stone coping, which is much the same in effect—he cares not—you may cramp his body by confinement, or to prevent his body&#039;s getting the cramp, you may exercise his legs upon the mill—he defies your tyranny: he appeals from your oppressive enactments to the Paddington committee: and flies back to his profession with an ardour which persecution and involuntary abstinence have in no wise diminished. Like many other great men, Mr. Barker is a rigid predestinarian, or to advert once again to his own pointed and eloquent form of speech, he resons thus:—&quot;If I am to get into trouble for this here consarn, I may as vell get into trouble for somethink as for nothink.&quot;—and acting upon this logical mode of reasoning, he sacrifices at the altar of philosophy any little scruples he might otherwise entertain, and gets into trouble with great ease and coolness getting out of it as well as he can; and losing no opportunity of getting into it again. Such are a few traits in the character—such are a few incidents in the chequered life—of this remarkable man. Would that we could have conscientientiously entitled this hasty sketch a full account of his amiable existence up to the moment at which we are writing. We cannot do so. With &quot;Some Account of an Omnibus Cad&quot; we must be contented, and we hope our readers may be so too.18351101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._6_Some_Account_of_an_Omnibus_Cad/1835-11-01_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No6_Some_Account_of_an_Omnibus_Cad.pdf
101https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/101'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 7, The Vocal Dressmaker'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (22 November 1835).<span><br /></span>Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351122/001/0001" class="waffle-rich-text-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351122/001/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-11-22">1835-11-22</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-11-22_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No7_The_Vocal_DressmakerDickens, Charles. 'Scenes and Characters, No. 7, The Vocal Dressmaker' (22 November 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-11-22_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No.7_The_Vocal_Dressmaker">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-11-22_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No7_The_Vocal_Dressmaker.</a><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-11-22_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No7_The_Vocal_Dressmaker.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 7, The Vocal Dressmaker.' <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (22 November 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>Miss Amelia Martin was pale, tallish, thin, and two-and-thirty—what ill-natured people would call plain, and police reports interesting. She was a milliner and dressmaker, living on her business, and not above it. If you had been a young lady in service, and wanted Miss Martin, as a great many young ladies in service did, you&#039;d 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 &quot;Miss Martin; millinery and dressmaking in all its branches;&quot; you’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. If Miss Martin know&#039;d the young lady as called, or if the young lady as called had been recommended by any other young lady as Miss Martin knew, Miss Martin would forthwith show her up-stairs into the two-pair front, and chat she would—so kind, and so comfortable—it really wasn’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 sleeve, 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 the virtuous indignation with which she reflected on the tyranny of &quot;Missis,&quot; who wouldn’t allow a young girl to wear a short sleeve of an ar&#039;ternoon—no, nor nothing smart, not even a pair of ear-rings, let alone hiding people’s heads of hair under them frightful caps; at the termination of which complaint, Miss Amelia Martin would distantly suggest certain dark suspicions that some people were jealous on account of their own daughters, and was obliged to keep their servants’ charms under, for fear they should get married first, which was no uncommon circumstance—leastways she had known two or three young ladies in service as had married a great deal better than their missises, and they was 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 her; but she needn’t hold her head quite so high neither, for, after all, he was only a clerk; and, after expressing a 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 &quot;place,&quot; and the other to her room on the second floor front. 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 dress-making or millinery. A friend of Miss Martin’s who had long been keeping company with an ornamental painter and decorator’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. 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. It was a charming party; Somers-town the locality, and a front parlour the apartment. The ornamental painter and decorator’s journeyman had taken a house—no lodgings or vulgarity of that kind, but a house—four beautiful rooms and a delightful little wash-house at the end of the passage— 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 wash-house and see how the pudding and boiled pork were getting on in the copper, &amp;amp; then pop back into the parlour again as snug and comfortable as possible. And such a parlour as it was too! beautiful Kidderminster carpet–six bran new caned bottomed stained chairs—a pink shell, and three wine glasses on each sideboard—a farmer’s girl and a farmer’s boy on the mantel-piece: one tumbling over a stile and the other spitting himself on the handle of a pitch-fork—long white dimity curtains in the window—and, in short, every thing on the most genteel scale imaginable. Then, the dinner—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. As to the company! Miss Amelia Martin herself declared on a subsequent occasion, that much as she had heard of the ornamental painters&#039; journeyman’s connexion, she never could have supposed it was half so genteel. There was his father, such a funny old gentleman—and his mother, such a dear old lady—and his sister, such a charming girl—and his brother, such a manly-looking young man—with such a eye! But even all these were as nothing when compared with his musical friends, Mr. &amp;amp; Mrs. Jennings Rodolph, from White Conduit, with whom the ornamental painter’s journeyman had been fortunate enough to contract an intimacy, while engaged in decorating the concert-room of that noble institution. To hear them sing separately was divine, but when they went through the tragic duet of &quot;Red Ruffian, retire!&quot; it was, as Miss Martin afterwards remarked, &quot;thrilling;&quot; and why (as Mr. Jennings Rodolph observed) - why were they not engaged at one of the patent theatres? If he was to be told that their voices were not powerful enough to fill the house, his only reply was, that he&#039;d back himself for any amount to fill Russell-square—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’t bring the subject before Parliament; and they all agreed that it ”ud serve ’em quite right, and it was very proper that such people should be made an example of;&quot; and Mr. Jennings Rodolph said he’d think of it. 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—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 constant allusions to some young gentleman of the name of Hen-e-ry, with an occasional reference to madness, and broken hearts. Mr. Jennings Rodolph frequently interrupted the progress of the song, by ejaculating &quot;beautiful;&quot;—&quot;charming!&quot;— &quot;brilliant!&quot;—&quot;oh! splendid,&quot; &amp;amp;c. and at its close the admiration of himself and his lady knew no bounds. &quot;Did you ever hear so sweet a voice, my dear?&quot; inquired Mr. Jennings Rodolph of Mrs. Jennings Rodolph. &quot;Never; indeed I never did, love;&quot; replied Mrs. Jennings Rodolph. &quot;Don’t you think Miss Martin with a little cultivation would be very like Signora Marra Boni, my dear?&quot; asked Mr. Jennings Rodolph. &quot;Just exactly the very thing that struck me, my love,&quot; answered Mrs. Jennings Rodolph; and thus the time passed away; first one sang, and then another; 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; his song had properly seven verses, but as he couldn’t recollect more than the first one, he sang that over seven times, apparently very much to his own personal gratification. And then all the company sang the national anthem with national independence—each for himself, without reference to the other—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 &quot;come out&quot; without delay. Now, &quot;coming out,&quot; 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. And so Miss Amelia Martin shortly discovered. It is a singular fact (there being ladies in the case) that Miss Amelia Martin’s principal foible was vanity, and the leading characteristic of Mrs. Jennings Rodolph an attachment to dress. 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. Half suppressed murmurs disturbed the calm dignity of the White Conduit orchestra at the commencement of the season. It was the appearance of Mrs. Jennings Rodolph in full dress that occasioned them. Miss Martin studied incessantly—the practising was the consequence. Mrs. Jennings Rodolph taught gratuitously now and then—the dresses were the result. Weeks passed away; the White Conduit season had begun, had progressed, and was more than half over. The dress-making business had fallen off from neglect, and its profits had dwindled away almost imperceptibly. A benefit-night approached; Mr. Jennings Rodolph yielded to the earnest solicitations of Miss Amelia Martin, and introduced her personally to the &quot;comic gentleman&quot; whose benefit it was. The comic gentleman was all smiles and blandness—he had composed a duet, expressly for the occasion, and Miss Martin should sing it with him. The night arrived; there was an immense room—ninety-seven goes of gin, thirty-two small glasses of brandy and water, five-and-twenty bottled ales, and forty-one neguses; and the ornamental painters&#039; journeyman with his wife, and a select circle of acquaintance were seated at one of the side-tables near the orchestra. The concert began. Song-sentimental–by a light-haired young gentleman in a blue coat, and bright basket buttons [applause]. Another song, doubtful, by another gentleman in another blue coat, and more bright basket buttons - increased applause. Duet, Mr. Jennings Rodolph and Mrs. Jennings Rodolph, &quot;Red Ruffian, retire!&quot;— [great applause.] Solo Miss Julia Montague (positively on this occasion only)—&quot;I am a Friar&quot;—[enthusiasm.] Original duet, comic—Mr. H. Taplin (the comic gentleman) and Miss Martin— &quot;The Time of Day&quot;—&quot;Brayvo!—Brayvo!&quot; cried the ornamental painter’s journeyman’s party, as Miss Martin was gracefully led in by the comic gentleman. &quot;Go to work Harry,&quot; cried the comic gentleman’s personal friends. &quot;Tap-tap-tap,&quot; went the leader’s bow on the music-desk. 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—&quot;‘Sing out&quot;—shouted one gentleman in a white great coat. &quot;Don’t be afraid to put the steam on, old gal,&quot; exclaimed another. &quot;S-s-s-s-s-s&quot;—went the five-and-twenty bottled ales. &quot;Shame, shame!&quot; remonstrated the ornamental painter’s journeyman’s party— &quot;S-s-s&quot; went the bottled ales again, accompanied by all the gins and a majority of the brandies.—&quot;Turn them geese out,&quot; cried the ornamental painters’ journeyman’s party, with great indignation. &quot;Sing out,&quot; whispered Mr. Jennings Rodolph.—&quot;So I do,&quot; responded Miss Amelia Martin. &quot;Sing louder,&quot; said Mrs. Jennings Rodolph. &quot;I can’t,&quot; replied Miss Amelia Martin—&quot;Off, off, off,&quot; cried the rest of the audience. &quot;Bray-vo!&quot; shouted the painter’s party. It wouldn’t do—Miss Amelia Martin left the orchestra, with much less ceremony than she had entered it, and as she couldn’t sing out, never came out. 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’s good humour been restored, nor the dresses made for and presented to, Mrs. Jennings Rodolph, nor the vocal abilities which Mr. Jennings Rodolph once staked his professional reputation she possessed.18351122https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._7_The_Vocal_Dressmaker/1835-11-22_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No.7_The_Vocal_Dressmaker.pdf
102https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/102'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 8, The Prisoners' Van'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (29 November 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351129/001/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351129/001/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-11-29">1835-11-29</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-11-29_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No8_The_Prisoners_VanDickens, Charles. '<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 8, The Prisoners' Van (29 November 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-11-29_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No8_The_Prisoners_Van">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-11-29_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No8_The_Prisoners_Van</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-11-29_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No8_The_Prisoners_Van.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 8, The Prisoners' Van.' <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (29 November 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>We have a most extraordinary partiality for lounging about the streets. Whenever we have an hour or two to spare, there is nothing we enjoy more than a little amateur vagrancy—walking up one street and down another, and staring into shop windows, and gazing about us as if, instead of being on intimate terms with every shop and house in Holburn, the Strand, Fleet-street, and Cheapside, the whole were an unknown region to our wondering mind. We revel in a crowd of any kind—a street &quot;row&quot; is our delight—even a woman in a fit is by no means to be despised, especially in a fourth-rate street, where all the female inhabitants run out of their houses, and discharge large jugs of cold water over the patient, as if she were dying of spontaneous combustion, and wanted putting out. Then a drunken man—what can be more charming than a regular drunken man, who sits in a door-way for half an hour, holding a dialogue with the crowd, of which his portion is generally limited to repeated inquiries of &quot;I say—I&#039;m all right, an&#039;t I?&quot; and then suddenly gets up, without any ostensible cause or inducement, and runs down the street with tremendous swiftness for a hundred yards or so, when he falls into another door-way, where the first feeble words he imperfectly articulates to the policeman who lifts him up are &quot;Let&#039;s av—drop—somethin&#039; to drink?&quot;—we say again, can anything be more charming than this sort of thing? And what, we ask, can be expected but popular discontent, when Temperance Societies interfere with the amusements of the people? There is one kind of street quarrel which is of very common occurrence, but infinitely amusing—we mean where a little crowd has collected round three or four angry disputants, and no one single person, not even among the parties principally concerned, appears to have a very distinct notion of what it&#039;s all about. The place is—Long-Acre, say, or Saint Martin&#039;s-lane—time, half-past eleven at night. Some twenty people have collected round a bow-legged, under-sized young gentleman, in a brown coat and bright buttons, who has upon his arm a small young woman in a straw bonnet, with one shawl on, and another folded up over her arm. Opposed to the under-sized pair is a tall young fellow, in a brownish white hat, and flash attire; and you arrive in time to hear some such dialogue as the following:—&quot;Who said anythin&#039; to you?&quot; (in a tone of great contempt, from the long gentleman, turning round with his hands in his pockets). &quot;Vy you did, Sir&quot; (from the small individual, in a towering passion). &quot;Oh! do come away, George&quot; (from the young lady, accompanied with a tug at the coat-tail, and a whimper). &quot;Never mind him, he an&#039;t worth your notice.&quot; &quot;Ah! take him home&quot;—sneers the tall gentleman as they turn away—&quot;and tell his mother to take care on him, and not let him out arter dark, fear he should catch a cold in his ed. Go on.&quot; Here the small young man breaks from the small young woman, and stepping up close to the adverse party, valourously ejaculates in an under-tone, &quot;Now, what have you got to say.&quot; &quot;Niver mind,&quot; replies the long gentleman with considerable brevity. &quot;What do you mean by insulting this &#039;ere young &#039;ooman, Sir?&quot; enquires the short man. &quot;Who insulted the young &#039;ooman,&quot; replies the long one. &quot;Vy you did, Sir,&quot; responds the short one, waxing specially wroth—&quot;You shoved again her, Sir.&quot; &quot;You&#039;re a liar,&quot; growls the long gentleman fiercely; and hereupon the short gentleman dashes his hat on the ground with a reckless disregard of expense, jerks off his coat, doubles his fists, works his arms about like a labourer warming himself; darts backwards and forwards on the pavement with the motion of an automaton, and exclaims between his set teeth—&quot;Come on, I an&#039;t afeard on you—come on,&quot;—and the long gentleman might come on, and the fight might come off, only the young lady rushed upon the small man, forces his hat over his eyes, and the tails of his coat round his neck, and screams like a peacock, till a policeman arrives. After great squabbling, considerably persuasion, and some threatening, the short man consents to go one way, and the long man another; and the answer of all the bystanders who had seen the whole, to the urgent inquiry from a new comer up, &quot;Do you know what&#039;s the matter, Sir?&quot; invariably is—&quot;No, Sir, I really can&#039;t make out.&quot; 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, and we turned up the street accordingly. 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—all evidently waiting in expectation of some arrival. We waited too a few minutes, but nothing occurred: so we turned round to an unshaved sallow-looking cobbler who was standing next us, with his hands under the bib of his apron, and put the usual question of &quot;What’s the matter?&quot; The cobbler eyed us from head to foot, with superlative contempt, and laconically replied &quot;Nuffin.&quot; 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, &quot;What are all these people waiting here for?&quot;— &quot;His Majesty’s carriage,&quot; replied the cobbler. This was still more extraordinary. We couldn&#039;t imagine what earthly business his Majesty’s carriage could have at the Public Office, Bow-street, and we were beginning to ruminate on the possibility of the Duke of Cumberland being brought up on a warrant for assaulting the Princess Victoria, when a general exclamation from all the boys in the crowd of &quot;Here’s the wan!&quot; caused us to raise our head and look up the street. The covered vehicle, in which prisoners are conveyed from the police offices to the different prisons, was coming along at full speed, and it then occurred to us for the first time that his Majesty’s carriage was merely another name for the prisoners’ van, conferred upon it not only by reason of the superior gentility of the term, but because the aforesaid van is maintained at his Majesty’s expence, 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 &quot;his Majesty’s Gaols.&quot; The van drew up at the office door: the people thronged round the steps, just leaving a little alley for the prisoners to pass through. Our friend the cobbler and the other stragglers crossed over, and we followed their example. The driver, and another man who had been seated by his side in front of the vehicle, dismounted, and were admitted into the office. The office door was closed after them, and the crowd were on the tip-toe of expectation. After a few minutes delay, the door again opened, and the two first prisoners appeared. They were a couple of girls, of whom the elder could not be more than sixteen, and the younger of whom had certainly not attained her fourteenth year. 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’s features as legibly as if a red-hot iron had seared them. 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. The younger girl was weeping bitterly—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. &quot;How long are you for, Emily?&quot; screamed a red-faced woman in the crowd. &quot;Six weeks, and labour,&quot; replied the elder girl, with a flaunting laugh; &quot;and that’s better than the Stone Jug any how; the mill’s a d—d sight better than the Sessions; and here’s Bella a-going too for the first time. Hold up your head, you chicken,&quot; she continued, boisterously tearing the other girl’s handkerchief away; &quot;Hold up your head, and show ’em your face. I an’t jealous, but I’m blessed if I an’t game!&quot;— &quot;That’s right, old gal,&quot; 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.—&quot;Right!&quot; replied the girl; &quot;ah, to be sure; what’s the odds, so long as you&#039;re happy.&quot;—&quot;Come, in with you,&quot; interrupted the driver.— &quot;Don’t you be in a hurry, Coachman,&quot; replied the girl; &quot;and recollect I want to be set down in Cold-Bath Fields—large house with a high garden wall in front; you can’t mistake it. Hallo, Belle, where are you going to—you’ll pull my precious arm off?&quot; 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. &quot;Come down, and let’s show you the way.&quot; 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. These two girls had been thrown upon London streets, their vices and debauchery, by a sordid and rapacious mother. What the younger girl was then the elder had been once; and what the elder then was, she must soon become. A melancholy prospect, but how surely to be realised; a tragic drama, but how often acted! Turn to the prisons and police-offices of London—nay, look into the very streets themselves. These things pass before our eyes, day after day, and hour after hour—they have become such matters of course, that they are utterly disregarded. 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. Step by step how many wretched females, within the sphere of every man’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! There were other prisoners—boys of ten, as hardened in vice as men of fifty—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.—Our curiosity, however, was satisfied. The first group had left an impression on our mind we would gladly have avoided, and would willingly have effaced. The crowd dispersed—the vehicle rolled away with its load of guilt and misfortune, and we saw no more of the Prisoner&#039;s Van.18351129https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._8_The_Prisoners_Van/1835-11-29_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No8_The_Prisoners_Van.pdf
103https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/103'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 9, The Parlour'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (13 December 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive</em>, <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351213/001/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351213/001/0001</a>. <em>Source is faded and illegible in places.</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-12-13">1835-12-13</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-12-13_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No9_The_ParlourDickens, Charles. '<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 9, The Parlour' (13 December 1835). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-12-13_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No9_The_Parlour">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-12-13_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No9_The_Parlour</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-12-13_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No9_The_Parlour.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 9, The Parlour.' <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (13 December 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>A snug parlour in winter, with a sofa on one side the blazing fire, an easy chair on the other, and a table in the centre, bearing a liquor-stand, glasses, and cigars, the whole seen to the greatest advantage by the soft light of a French lamp, which falls delicately on the curtains you have carefully drown to exclude the wind, and enable you to eye your damask with great complacency—a snug parlour under such circumstances is a temporary Elysium, and well deserves to be lauded by an abler pen than ours. A pair of parlours &quot;genteelly furnished&quot; for a single gentleman, with a French bedstead for one in the back parlour, and cane-bottomed chairs for six in the front—all for twelve shilllings a week and attendance included, have their charms also. A breakfast parlour&#039;s no bad thing, when you&#039;re spending a week with a pleasant family in the country; and an hour or two may be passed very agreeably in a dining parlour in town. But though each and every of the parlours we have just enumerated has its own peculiar merits and attractions, to no one among them are we about to make any further allusion. The question then very naturally arises, what kind of parlour do we mean?—and that question we will resolve at once. We had been lounging, the other evening, down Oxford-strewet, Holburn, Cheapside, Coleman-street, Finsbury-square, and so on, with the intention of returning by Petonville and the New-road, when we began to feel rather thirsty, and disposed to rest for five or ten minutes; so we turned back to a quiet decent public house, which we remembered to have passed but a moment before (near the City-road), for the purpose of solacing ourselves with a glass of ale. 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—a snug little room, with a cheerful fire, protected by a large screen, from behind which the young lady emerged, on our representing our inclincation for a glass of ale. &quot;Won&#039;t you walk into the parlour, Sir?&quot; said the young lady in seductie tones. &quot;You&#039;d better walk into the parlour, Sir,&quot; said the little old landlord, throwing his chair back, and looking round one side of the screen, to survey our appearance. &quot;You&#039;d much better step into the parlour, Sir,&quot; said the little old lady, popping her head out at the other side of the screen. And on our looking slightly round, as if in ignorance of the locality so much recommended, the little old landlord bustled out at the small door of the small bar, and forthwith ushured us into the parlour itself. It was an ancient dark-looking room, with a sanded floor and high mantel-piece, over which was an old coloured print of some naval engagement, representing two men-of-war banding away at each other most vigorously, with another vessel or two oblowing up in the distance, and an interesting foreground of broken masts and blue legs sticking out of the water. Depending from the ceiling, in the centre of the room, were a gas-light and bell-pull, and on each side were three or four long narrow tables, behind which was a thickly planted row of those slippy shiny looking wooden chairs peculiar to places of this description. The monstrous appearance of the sanded boards was relieved by an occasional spittoon, and a triangular pile of these useful articles adored the two upper corners of the apartment. At the further 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 face to which something besides water and exercise had communicated a rather inflamed appearance. He was smoking a cigar, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and had that confident, orucular air, which marked him as the leading politician, general authority, and universal anecdote relator of the place. He had evidently just delivered himself of something veay weighty, for the remainder of the company were puffing away 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. On his right sat an elderly man, with a white head and broad-brimmed brown hat, and 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.—&quot;Very extraordinary!&quot; said the light haired man, after a pause of five minutes; a murmur of assent ran through the company. &quot;Not at all extraordinary—not at all,&quot; said the red faced man, awakening suddenly from his reverie; and turning upon the light-haired man, the moment he had spoken. &quot;Why should it be extraordinary?—why is it extraordinary?—Prove it to be extraordinary.&quot; &quot;Oh, if you come to that—&quot; said the light-haired man. &quot;Come to that!&quot; ejaculated the man with the red face; &quot;but we must come to that. We stand in these times upon a calm elevation of intellectual attainment, and not in the dark recess of mental deprivation. Proof is what I require—proof, and not assertions in these stirring times. Every gen’lem’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—I forget the name of it.&quot; “Mr. Snobee, (said Mr. Wilson) is a fit and proper person to represent the borough in Parliament.” “Prove it,” says I. “He is a friend to Reform,” says Mr. Wilson. “Prove it,” says I. “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,” says Mr. Wilson. “Prove it,” says I. “His acts prove it,” says he. “Prove them,” says I. &quot;And he could not prove them (said the red-faced man, looking round triumphantly) &quot;and the borough didn’t have him; and if you carried this principle to the full extent, you’d have no debt, no pensions, no sinecures, no negroes, no nothing; 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. This is my argument—this always has been my argument—and if I was a Member of the House of Commons to-morrow, I’d make ’em shake in their shoes with it &quot;—and the red-faced man hit the table very hard with his clenched fist, by way of adding weight to the declaration, and then smoked away like a brewery. &quot;Well!&quot; said the sharp-nosed man, in a very slow and soft voice, addressing the company in general, &quot;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’s, or who is such improving company.&quot; &quot;Improving company! (said Mr. Rogers, for that was the name of the red-faced man). Damme, you may say I&#039;m improving company, for I’ve improved you all to some purpose; though as to my conversation being as my friend Mr. Ellis here describes it, that&#039;s not for me to say anything about; 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’t believe there was one man in it who knew he was a slave, and now you all know it, and writhe under it. Inscribe that upon my tomb, and I&#039;m satisfied.&quot; &quot;Why, as to inscribing it on your tea-chest,&quot; said a little dirty green-grocer, with a rather dirty face, &quot;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 gammon, you’d better keep it in the family, ’cos I, for one, don’t like to be called them names night after night.&quot; &quot;You are a slave,&quot; said the red-faced man, &quot;and the most pitiable of all slaves.&quot;Wery hard if I am,&quot; interrupted the green-grocer, &quot;for I got no good out of the twenty millions, anyhow.&quot; &quot;A willing slave,&quot; ejaculated the red-faced man, getting more red with eloquence, and contradiction, &quot;resigning the dearest birth-right of your children, neglecting the sacred call of Liberty, who standing imploringly before you, appeals to the warmest feelings of your heart, and points to your helpless infants but in vain.&quot; &quot;Prove it,&quot; said the green-grocer. &quot;Prove it,&quot; ejaculated the man with the red face. &quot;Bending beneath the yoke of an insolent and factious oligarchy: bowed down before the domination of cruel laws, groaning beneath tyranny and oppression on every hand, at every side, and in every corner. Prove it!&quot; And the red-faced man sneered melo-dramatically, and buried his indignation in a quart pot. &quot;Very true, Mr. Rogers, very true,&quot; said a stout broker in a large waistcoat. &quot;That&#039;s the pint, Sir.&quot; &quot;Ah to be sure,&quot; acquiesced divers other members of the company. &quot;You&#039;d better let him alone, Tommy,&quot; said the broker, by way of advice to the little green-grocer. &quot;He can tell wot’s o’clock by an eight-day, without looking at the minute-hand, he can. Try it on, on some other suit, you won&#039;t score nothing here, old feller.&quot; &quot;What is a man,&quot; said the red-faced specimen of the species, jerking his hat from its peg on the wall—&quot;what is an Englishman? Is he to be trampled upon by every oppressor? is he to be knocked down at any body’s bidding?&quot; (&quot;Decidedly not,&quot; from the broker). &quot;What is freedom?—Not a standing army.—What is a standing army? Not freedom.—What is general happiness? Not universal misery. Liberty is not the window tax, nor the Lords the people.&quot; And the red-faced man gradually bursting into a radiating sentence, in which the words &quot;oppression,&quot; tyranny,&quot; &quot;violence,&quot; &quot;misrule,&quot; &quot;dastardly Whigs,&quot; &quot;sanguinary Tories,&quot; &quot;Mr. Roebuck,&quot; &quot;depreciation of the currency,&quot; and &quot;voluntary principle,&quot; were most conspicuous, and finally left the room with an indignant bounce. &quot;Wonderful man!&quot; said he of the sharp nose. &quot;Splendid speaker!&quot; added the broker. &quot;Great power!&quot; said everybody but the green-grocer. &quot;Great ass,&quot; thought we—&quot;a very common character, and in no degree exaggerated. Empty-headed bullies, who by their ignorance and presumption bring into contempt whatever cause they are connected with: equally mischievous in any assembly from the highest to the lowest, and disgusting in all. There is a red-faced man in every &#039;parlour.&#039;&quot;18351213https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._9_The_Parlour/1835-12-13_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No9_The_Parlour.pdf
44https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/44'<em>Sketches of London,</em> No. V, The House'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (7 March 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350307/019/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350307/019/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-03-07">1835-03-07</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-03-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoV_The_HouseDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. V, The House' (7 March 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-03-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoV_The_House">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-03-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoV_The_House</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-03-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoV_The_House.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. V, The House.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (7 March 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>We hope our readers will not be alarmed at the rather ominous title we have chosen for our fifth sketch. We assure them that we are not about to become political, neither have we the slightest intention of being more prosy than usual—if we can help it. It has occurred to us that a slight sketch of the general aspect of &quot;the House&quot; 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—have attended it quite often enough for our purpose, and a great deal too often for our own personal peace and comfort—we have determined to accept the description. Dismissing from our minds, therefore, all that feeling of awe which vague ideas of breaches of privilege, Sergeants at Arms, heavy denunciations, and still heavier feeds, are calculated to awaken, we enter at once, into the building, and upon our subject. Half-past four o&#039;clock, and at five the mover of the Address will be &quot;on his legs,&quot; as the newspaper announce sometimes by way of novelty, as if speakers were occasionally in the habit of standing on their heads. What a scene of bustle and excitement! The members are pouring in one after the other in shoals. The few spectators who can obtain standing-room in the passages scrutinize them as they pass with the utmost interest, and the man who can identify a member occasionally becomes a person of great importance. Every now and then you hear earnest whispers of &quot;That&#039;s Sir John Thompson.&quot; &quot;Which? him with the gilt order round his neck?&quot; &quot;No, no; that&#039;s one of the messengers—that other with the yellow gloves, is Sir John Thomson.&quot; &quot;Here&#039;s Mr. Smith.&quot; &quot;Lor! Yes, how dy&#039;e do, sir?—(He is our new member)—How do you do, sir?&quot; 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, rushes 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 &quot;fellow townsman.&quot; The arrivals increase in number, and the heat and noise increase in very unpleasant proportion. 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. You see that stout man with the hoarse voice, in the blue coat, queer crowned, broad brimmed hat, white corderoy 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. That&#039;s the great conservator of the peace of Westminster. 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. 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&#039;ve been here. &quot;Will they divide to-night, do you think, Mr.—?&quot; timidly inquires a little thin man in the crowd, hoping to conciliate the man of office. &quot;How can you ask such questions, sir?&quot; replies the functionary, in an incredibly loud key, and pettishly grasping the thick stick he carries in his right hand. &quot;Pray do not, sir, I beg of you; pray do not, sir.&quot; Here the little man looks remarkably out of his element, and the uninitiated part of the throng are in positive convulsions of laughter. Just as this moment, some unfortunate individual appears, with a very smirking air, at the bottom of the long passage. He has managed to elude the vigilance of the special constable down stairs, and is evidently congratulating himself on having made his way so far. &quot;Go back sir—you must not come here!&quot; shouts the hoarse one, with tremendous emphasis of voice and gesture, the moment the offender catches his eye. The stranger pauses. &quot;Do you hear, sir—will you go back?&quot; continues the official dignitary, gently pushing the intruder some dozen yards. &quot;Come, don&#039;t push me,&quot; replies the stranger, turning angrily round. &quot;I will, sir;&quot; &quot;You won&#039;t, sir;&quot; &quot;Go out, sir:&quot; &quot;Take your hands off me, sir;&quot; &quot;Go out of the passage, sir.&quot; &quot;You&#039;re a Jack-in-office, sir.&quot; &quot;A what?&quot; ejaculates he of the boots. &quot;A Jack-in-office, sir, and a very insolent fellow,&quot; reiterates the stranger, now completely in a passion. &quot;Pray do not force me to put you out, sir,&quot; retorts the other— &quot;pray do not—my instructions are to keep this passage clear—it&#039;s the Speaker&#039;s orders, sir.&quot; &quot;D—n the Speaker, sir,&quot; shouts the intruder. &quot;Here, Wilson!—Collins!&quot; gasps the officer, actually paralysed at this insulting expression, which in his mind is all but high treason; &quot;take this man out— take him out, I say! How dare you, sir?&quot; &amp;amp;c., 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 his supernumeraries. &quot;Make way, gentlemen, —pray make way for the Members, I beg of you;&quot; shouts the zealous officer, turning back, and preceding a whole string of the liberal and independent. You see this ferocious-looking personage, with a complexion almost as sallow as his linen, and whose large black mustaches would give him the appearance of a figure in a hair-dresser&#039;s window, if his countenance possessed one ray of the intelligence communicated to those waxen caricatures of the human face divine. He is a militia-man, with a brain slightly damaged, and (quite unintentionally) the most amusing person in the House. 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&#039;s head in a cheap Dutch clock? He never appears without that bundle of dirty papers which he carries under his left arm—they are generally supposed to be the miscellaneous estimates for 1804, or some equally important documents. You must often have seen him in the box-lobbies of the theatres during the vacation. He is very punctual in his attendance at the house, and his self-satisfied &quot;He-ar-He-ar,&quot; is not unfrequently the signal for a general titter. This is the man who once actually sent a messenger up to the Strangers&#039; Gallery in the old House of Commons to inquire the name of a gentleman who was using an eye-glass, in order that he (the Militia-man) might complain to the Speaker that the individual in question was quizzing him! On another occasion he repaired to Bellamy&#039;s kitchen—a refreshment room where persons who are not members are admitted on sufferance, as it were—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 insolence, he indulged in the exquisite pleasantry and gentlemanly facetiousness of sitting with his booted leg on the table at which they were supping! Poor creature! he is generally harmless, and his absurdities are amusing enough. 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. It is tolerably full already, and little groups of Members are congregated together here, discussing the interesting topic of the day. That smart looking fellow in the black coat with velvet facing and cuffs, who wears his D&#039;Orsay hat so rakishly, is &quot;Honest Tom,&quot; a metropolitan representative; and the large man in the cloak with the white lining—not the man by the pillar; the other with the light hair hanging over his coat collar behind—is his colleague. That quiet gentlemanly-looking man in the blue surtout, grey 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. 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. The elderly man with the bald head and thin face, who is leaning against the wall perusing the leading articles of the soi-disant &quot;Leading Journal,&quot; is the identical &quot;old country gentleman&quot; who has lived for two-thirds of his whole existence exactly one minute and a quarter&#039;s walk from Black-friars&#039;-bridge. The old hard-featured man who is standing near him, is really a good specimen of that class of men—now nearly extinct. He is also a county member, and has been from time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary. 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 white handkerchief tied in a great bow with straggling ends sticking out beyond his shirt frill. It is a costume one seldom sees now-a-days, and when the few who wear it have died off, it will be extinct too. 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-clock except on regular field days, of which everybody was apprized before-hand. 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. He is of opinion that &quot;That young Macaulay&quot; was a regular imposter; he allows that Lord Stanley may do something one of these days, but he&#039;s too young Sir—too young. 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 new brought in; how the Speakers 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. 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&#039;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. 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. He is not a member; he is only an &quot;hereditary bondsman,&quot; or, in other words, an Irish correspondent of an Irish newspaper, who had just procured his forty-second frank from a member whom he never saw in his life before. There he goes again—another! Bless the man, he has got his hat and pockets full already. We&#039;ll try our fortune at the Strangers&#039; Gallery, though the nature of the debate encourages very little hope of success. What on earth are you about? Holding up your order as if it were a talisman at whose command the wicket would fly open? Nonsense. Just preserve the order for an autograph, if its worth keeping at all, and make your appearance at the door with your thumb and fore-finger expressively inserted in your waistcoat-pocket. This tall stout man in black is the door-keeper. &quot;Any room?&quot; &quot;Not an inch—two or three dozen gentlemen waiting downstairs on the chance of somebody&#039;s going out.&quot; Pull out your purse—&quot;Are you quite sure there&#039;s no room?&quot;—I&#039;ll go and look,&quot; replies the door-keeper, with a wishful glance at your purse, &quot;but I&#039;m afraid there&#039;s not.&quot; He returns, and with real feeling, assures you that it&#039;s morally impossible to get near the gallery. It&#039;s no use waiting. When you are refused admission into the Stranger&#039;s Gallery at the House of Commons, under such circumstances, you may return home thoroughly satisfied that the place must be re-markably full indeed. Retracing our steps through the long passage, descending the stairs, and crossing Palace-yard, we halt at a small temporary door-way adjoining the King&#039;s entrance to the House of Lords. We will endeavour to smuggle you into the Reporters&#039; gallery, from whence you may peep into the House for one instant, but not longer, for its against orders our being there at all. Take care of the stairs, they are none of the best: through this little wicket—there. 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. You heard the &quot;hear, hear,&quot; which occasioned that laugh; it proceaded from our warlike friend in the mustachios; he is sitting on the back seat against the wall, behind the Member who is speaking, looking as ferocious and intellectual as usual. Take one look round you, and retire; 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 of them talking, laughing, lounging, coughin, o-ing, questioning, or groaning; presenting a conglomeration of noise and confusion to be met with in no other place in existence. There are a few more portraits—some in the body of the house—others in one of the galleries—which we should like to lay before our readers. We have exhausted our space, and most therefore reserve them for our next sketch, which will be entitled &quot;Bellamy&#039;s.&quot;18350307https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._V_The_House/1835-03-07_Sketches_of_London_No.V_The_House.pdf
55https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/55'<em>Sketches of London,</em> No. XVI, Our Parish' (III) Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (14 July 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350714/012/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350714/012/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-07-14">1835-07-14</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-07-14_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishIIIDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XVI, Our Parish' (III) (14 July 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-07-14_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishIII">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-07-14_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishIII</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-07-14_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishIII.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Sketches of London No. XVI, Our Parish' (III). <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (14 July 1835).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>An event has recently occurred in our parish which for the moment completely absorbs every other consideration, and throws even the Miss Willises entirely into the shade. We have had an election—an election for beadle: a contest of paramount interest has just terminated; a parochial convulsion has taken place. It has been succeeded by a glorious triumph, which the country—or at least the parish—its no great matter which—will long remember. The supporters of the old beadle system have been defeated in their strong-hold, and the advocates of the great new beadle principles have achieved a proud victory. 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. Watching rates, lighting rates, paving rates, sewer&#039;s rates, church rates, poor&#039;s rates—all sorts of rates, have been in their turn 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. The leader of the official party - the steady advocate of the churchwardens and the unflinching supporter of the overseers—is an old gentleman who lives in our row. He owns some half-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. 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&#039;s affairs with. 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. His views are rather confined than extensive; his principles more narrow than liberal. 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 verbatim reports of vestry meetings. He wouldn&#039;t appear egotistical for the world; but at the same time he must say, that there are speeches—that celebrated speech of his own on the emoluments of the Sexton, and the duties of the office, for instance—which might be communicated to the public, greatly to their improvement and advantage. His great opponent in public life is Captain Purday, the old naval officer of half-pay, to whom we introduced our readers a sketch or two back. 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. 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. 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 &quot;a copy of the recipe by which the paupers&#039; soup was prepared, together with any documents relating thereto.&quot; 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. 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. 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. So the motion was dropped, and everybody looked extremely important, and seemed quite satisfied with the meritorious nature of the whole proceeding. This was the state of affairs in our parish a week or two since, when Simmons, the beadle, suddenly died. 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. 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. 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. &quot;Bung for Beadle. Five small children!&quot; &quot;Hopkins for Beadle. Seven small children!!&quot; &quot;Timkins for Beadle. Nine small children!!!&quot; 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. Timkins’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. &quot;Spruggins for Beadle. Ten small children (two of them twins) and a wife!!!&quot; 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. 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. The other candidates, Bung alone excepted, resigned in despair; the day of election was fixed; and the canvas proceeded with briskness and perseverance on both sides. The members of the vestry could not be supposed to escape the contagious excitement inseparable from the occasion. The majority of the lady inhabitants of the parish declared at once for Spruggins, and the quondam 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 whole; still it was an old practice, and he saw no reason why an old practice should be departed from. This was enough for the Captain. 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’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. The day of election arrived; it was no longer an individual struggle but a party contest between the ins and outs; 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—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. 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. The appearance of the churchwardens and overseers, and the ex-churchwardens and ex-overseers, with Spruggins in the rear, excited general attention. 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. His opponent appeared in a cast-off coat of the Captain’s - a blue coat with bright buttons, white trousers, and that description of shoes familiarly known by the appellation of &quot;high-lows.&quot; There was a serenity in the open countenance of Bung—a kind of moral dignity in his confident air—an &quot;I wish you may get it&quot; sort of expression in his eye—which infused animation into his supporters, and evidently dispirited his opponents. The ex-churchwarden rose to propose Thomas Spruggins for beadle. He had known him long; he had had his eye upon him closely for years; he had watched him with twofold vigilance for months. [A parishioner here suggested that this might be termed &quot;taking a double sight;&quot; but the observation was drowned in loud cries of &quot;order!&quot;]. 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. A man with a larger family he had never known [cheers]. The parish required a man who could be depended on [hear! from the Spruggins side, answered by ironical cheers from the Bung party]. Such a man he now proposed [&quot;No,&quot; &quot;yes&quot;]. He would not allude to individuals [the ex-churchwarden continued in the celebrated negative style adopted by great speakers]. 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. No! He wished to have everything comfortable and pleasant; and therefore, he would say—nothing about him [cheers]. The Captain replied in a similar parliamentary style. He would not say he was astonished at the speech they had just heard; he would not say he was disgusted [cheers]; 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 work-house, ground the paupers, diluted the beer, slack-baked the bread, boned the meat, heightened the work, and lowered the soup [tremendous cheers]. He would not ask what such men deserved [a voice, &quot;Nothing a day, and find themselves!&quot;]. He would not say that one burst of general indignation should drive them from the parish they polluted with their presence [&quot;Give it him!&quot;]. He would not allude to the unfortunate man who had been proposed—he would not say, as the Vestry’s tool, but as Beadle. He would not advert to that individual’s family; he would not say that nine children, twins, and a wife, were very bad examples for pauper imitation [loud cheers]. He would not advert in detail to the qualifications of Bung. 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. [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]. It had been objected to Bung that he had only five children [&quot;Hear, hear!&quot; from the opposition]. 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 data, about which there could be no mistake. Bung was 35 years of age. Spruggins—of whom he wished to speak with all possible respect—was 50. Was it not more than possible—was it not very probable—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]? 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. 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. The Captain engaged two hackney coaches and a cab for Bung’s people—the cab for the drunken voters, and the two coaches for the old ladies, the greater portion of whom, owing to the Captain’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; the opposite party wholly neglected these precautions, and the consequence was, that a great many ladies who were walking leisurely up to the church—for it was a very hot day—to vote for Spruggins, were artfully decoyed into the coaches, and voted for Bung. The Captain’s arguments, too, had produced considerable effect: the attempted influence of the vestry produced a greater. A threat of exclusive dealing was clearly established against the vestry-clerk—a case of heartless and profligate atrocity. It appeared that the delinquent had been in the habit of purchasing six penn’orth of muffins weekly from an old woman who rents a small house in our 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’s appetite for muffins in future depended entirely on her vote on the beadleship. This was sufficient; the stream had been turning previously, and the impulse thus administered directed its final course. The Bung party ordered one shillingsworth of muffins weekly for the remainder of the old woman’s natural life; the parishioners were loud in their exclamations; and the fate of Spruggins was sealed. 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’s right arm and the girl in her left—even Mrs. Spruggins herself failed to be an object of sympathy any longer. The majority attained by Bung on the gross poll was four hundred and twenty-eight, and the cause of the parishioners triumphed. (To be continued.)18350714https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XVI_Our_Parish_[III]/1835-07-14_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No._XVI_Our_Parish_III.pdf
40https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/40'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. I, Hackney-Coach Stands'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle </em>(31 January 1835).Dickens, Charles <em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350131/036/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350131/036/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-01-31">1835-01-31</a><em>British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-01-31_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoI_Hackney_Coach_StandsDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. I, Hackney-Coach Stands' (31 January 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-01-31_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoI_Hackney_Coach_Stands">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-01-31_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoI_Hackney_Coach_Stands</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-01-31_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoI_Hackney_Coach_Stands.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. I, Hackney-Coach Stands.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (31 January 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>We commence our &quot;London Sketches&quot; with this subject, because we maintain that hackney-coach stands—properly so called—belong solely to the metropolis. 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, &quot;and other large towns&quot; (as the Parliamentary phrase goes), have their hackney-coach stands. 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. Take a regular, ponderous, ricketty, 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 resembled it—unless, indeed, it were another hackney-coach of the same date. 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. These are innovations, and, like other mis-called improvements, awful signs of the restlessness of the public mind, and the little respect paid to our time-honoured institutions. Why should hackney-coaches be clean?—our ancestors found them dirty, and left them so. Why should we, with a feverish wish to &quot;keep moving,&quot; desire to roll along at the rate of six miles an hour, while they were content to rumble over the stones at four? These are solemn considerations. 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. Then why have they been swamped by cabs and omnibuses? —or why should people be allowed to ride quickly for eight-pence a mile, after Parliament had come to the solemn decision that they should pay a shilling a mile for riding slowly? We pause for a reply;—and, having no chance of getting one, begin a fresh paragraph. Our acquaintance with hackney-coach stands is of long standing. We are a walking book of fares, feeling ourselves half bound, as it were, to be always in the right on contested points. 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. We take great interest in hackney-coaches; but we seldom drive, having a knack of turning ourselves over when we attempt to do so. We are as great friends to horses— hackney-coach and otherwise—as the renowned Mr. Martin, of costermonger notoriety, and yet we never ride. 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. Leaving these fleeter means of getting over the ground, or of depositing one&#039;s-self upon it, to those who like them, by hackney-coach stands we take our stand. 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—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 axle-tree is red, and the majority of the wheels are green. The box is partially covered by an old great-coat, with a multiplicity of capes, and some extraordinary-looking cloths; 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. 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. 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 &quot;double shuffle&quot; in front of the pump, to keep his feet warm. The smart servant-girl, with the pink ribbons, at No. 5, opposite, suddenly opens the street-door, and four small children forthwith rush out, and scream &quot;coach!&quot; with all their might and main. 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 bottom of his voice—for its a deep bass growl. 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 extasies of delight. What a commotion! The old lady, who has been stopping there for the last month, is going back to the country. Out comes box after box, and one side of the vehicle is filled with luggage in no time; the children get into everybody’s way, and the youngest, who has upset himself in his attempts to carry an umbrella, is borne off wounded, and kicking. The youngsters disappear, and a short pause ensues, during which the old lady is no doubt kissing them all round in the back-parlour. 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. A cloak is handed in, and a little basket, which we could almost swear contains a small black bottle and a paper of sandwiches. Up go the steps—bang goes the door—&quot;Golden-cross, Charing-cross, Tom,&quot; says the waterman—&quot;Good bye, Grandma,&quot; 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 smart servant, not ill-pleased to have such an opportunity of displaying her attractions. She brings him back, and, after casting two or three gracious glances across the way, which are either intended for us or the pot-boy (we are not quite certain which), shuts the door—and the hackney-coach stand is again at a stand still. We have been frequently amused with the intense delight with which &quot;a servant of all work,&quot; 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. 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. It was a wedding-party, and emerged from one of the inferior streets near Fitzroy-square. 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 waistcoats, white trousers, and Berlin gloves to match. They stopped at the corner of the street, and called a coach with an air of indescribable dignity. 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’s slate. A shilling a mile!—the ride was worth five, at least, to them. What an interesting book a hackney-coach might produce, if it could carry as much in its head as it does in its body. The auto-biography of a broken-down hackney-coach would surely be as amusing as the autobiography of a broken-down hacknied dramatist; and it might tell as much of its travels with the pole, as others have of their expeditions to it. How many stories might be related of the different people it had conveyed on matters of business or profit—pleasure or pain! And how many melancholy tales of the same people at different periods! The country-girl—the showy, over-dressed woman—the drunken prostitute! The raw apprentice—the dissipated spendthrift—the thief! Talk of cabs! Cabs are all very well in cases of expedition; when it’s a matter of neck or nothing— life or death—your temporary home or your long one. But, besides a cab’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. A hackney-cab has always been a hackney-cab from his first entry into public 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—a stand!18350131https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._I_Hackney-Coach_Stands/1835-01-31_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No.1__Hackney_Coach_Stands.pdf
41https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/41'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. II, Gin Shops'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (7 February 1835).Dickens, Charles <em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350207/028/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350207/028/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-02-07">1835-02-07</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-02-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoII_Gin_ShopsDickens, Charles. "Sketches of London, No. II." <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (7 February 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-02-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoII_Gin_Shops">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-02-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoII_Gin_Shops</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-02-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoII_Gin_Shops.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. II, Gin Shops.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (7 February 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>It is a very 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. The great distinction between the animals and the the trades is, that the former run mad with a certain degree of propriety - they are very regular in their irregularities. You know the period at which the emergency will arise, and provide against it accordingly. If an elephant run mad you are all ready for him - kill or cure - pills or bullets - calomel in conserve of roses, or lead in a musket barrel. 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 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. 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; moreover, the contagion is general, and the quickness with which it diffuses itself almost incredible. We will cite two or three cases in illustration of our meaning. Six or eight years ago, the epidemic began to display itself among the linen-drapers and haberdashers. The primary symptoms were, an inordinate love of plate glass, and a passion for gas-lights and gilding. The disease gradually progressed, and at last attained a fearful height. Quiet, dusty old shops, in different parts of town, were pilled 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 Bankrupt were as competent to decide such cases as the Commissioners of Lunacy, and that a little confinement, and gentle examination did wonders. The disease abated; it died away; and a year or two of comparative tranquility ensued. Suddenly it burst out again among 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; then the hoslers were infected and began to pill down their shop-fronts with frantic recklessness. The mania again died away, and the public began to congratulate themselves upon its entire disappearance when it burst forth with tenfold violence among the publicans and keepers of &quot;wine vaults;&quot; from that moment it has spread among them with unprecedented rapidity, exhibiting a concatenation of all the previous symptoms; and onward it has rushed to every part of town, knocking down all the old public houses, and depositing splendid mansions, stone balustrades, rose-wood fittings, immense lamps, and illuminated clocks at the corner of every street. 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 most amusing. A handsome plate of ground glass in one door directs you &quot;To the Counting-House,&quot; another to the &quot;Bottle Department,&quot; a third to the &quot;Wholesale Department,&quot; a fourth to &quot;The Wine Promenade,&quot; and so fourth, until we are in daily expectation of meeting with a &quot;Brandy Bell,&quot; or a &quot;Whiskey Entrance.&quot; 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 &quot;The cream of the valley,&quot; &quot;The out and out,&quot; &quot;The no mistake,&quot; &quot;The good for mixing,&quot; &quot;The real knock-me-down,&quot; &quot;The celebrated butter gin,&quot; &quot;The regular flare up,&quot; and a dozen other equally inviting and wholesome liqueurs. 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. The gin shops in and near Drury-lane, Holborn, St. Giles&#039;, Covent-garden, and Clare-market, are the handsomest in London - there is more of filth and squalid misery near those great thoroughfares than in any part of this mighty city. 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 &quot;Rookery.&quot; 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. 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; fruit and &quot;sweet-stuff&quot; manufacturers in the cellars, barbers and red-herring vendors in the front parlors, 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 &quot;musician&quot; in the front kitchen, and a charwoman and five hungry children in the back one - filth everywhere - a gutter before the houses and a drain behind them - clothes drying at the windows, slops emptying from the ditto; girls of 14 or 15, with matted hair, walking about bare-footed, and in old 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 about, scolding, drinking, smoking, squabbling, fighting, and swearing. You turn the corner. What a change! All is light and brilliancy. 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. The interior is even gayer than the exterior. 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 &quot;Old Tom, 549;&quot; &quot;Young Tom, 360;&quot; &quot;Samson, 1421.&quot; Behind the bar is a lofty and spacious saloon, full of the same enticing vessels, with a gallery running round it, equally well furnished. 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. Behind it, are two showily-dressed damsels with large necklaces, dispensing the spirits and &quot;compounds.&quot; 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 display his sandy whiskers to the best advantage. Look at the groups of customers and observe the different air with which they call for what they want, as they are more or less struck by the grandeur of the establishment. 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; and receive their half-quarters of gin and peppermint with considerable deference, prefacing a request for &quot;one of them soft biscuits,&quot; with a &quot;Just be good enough, ma&#039;am,&quot; &amp;c. They are quite astonished at the impudent air of the young fellow in the 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 &quot;kervorten and a three-out glass,&quot; just as if the place were his own. &quot;Gin for you, sir?&quot; 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. &quot;For me, Mary, my dear,&quot; replies the gentleman in brown. &quot;My name an&#039;t Mary as it happens,&quot; says the young girl in a most insinuating manner as she delivers the change. &quot;Vell, if it an&#039;t, it ought to be,&quot; responds the irresistible one; &quot;all the Marys as ever I see was handsome gals.&quot; 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 &quot;this gentleman pays,&quot; calls for &quot;a glass of port wine and a bit of sugar,&quot; the drinking which, and sipping another, accompanied by sundry whisperings to her companion, and no small quantity of giggling, occupies a considering time. Observe the group on the other side: those two old men who came in &quot;just to have a drain,&quot; finished their third quartern a few seconds ago; they have made themselves crying drunk, and the fat, comfortable-looking elderly women, who had &quot;a glass of rum-srub&quot; 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 &quot;grief never mended no broken bones, and as good people&#039;s wery scarce, what I says is, make the most on&#039;em, and that&#039;s all about it;&quot; a sentiment which appears to afford unlimited satisfaction to those who have nothing to pay. 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 - cold wretched-looking creatures, in the last stage of emaciation and disease. 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 infallible expedient of knocking him down and jumping on him afterwards. Out rush the man in the fur cap, and the potboy; 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; in come the police; and the rest is a confused mixture of arms, legs, staves, torn coats, shouting, and struggling. 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. 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. 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. Gin-drinking is a great vice in England, but poverty is a greater; and until you can cure it, 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 just furnish a morsel of bread for each, gin-shops will increase in number and splendour. If Temperance Societies could suggest an antidote against hunger and distress, or establish dispensaries for the gratuitous distribution of bottles of Lethe water, gin-palaces would be numbered among the things that were. Until then, we almost despair of their decrease.18350207https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._II_Gin_Shops/1835-02-07_Sketches_of_London_No.2_Gin_Shops.pdf
42https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/42'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. III, Early Coaches'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle </em>(19 February 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive, </em><a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0001315/18350219/008/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0001315/18350219/008/0001</a><em>.&nbsp;</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-02-19">1835-02-19</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-02-19_Sketches_of_London_NoIII_Early_CoachesDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. III, Early Coaches' (19 February 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-02-19_Sketches_of_London_NoIII_Early_Coaches">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-02-19_Sketches_of_London_NoIII_Early_Coaches</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-02-19_Sketches_of_London_NoIII_Early_Coaches.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. III, Early Coaches.' <em>The Evening Chronicle </em>(19 February 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>We have often wondered how many months&#039; 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. Breaking a man alive upon the wheel would be nothing to breaking his rest, his peace, his heart—everything but his fast—between four and five; 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. 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. Who has not experienced the miseries inevitably consequent upon a summons to undertake a hasty journey? You receive an intimation from your place of business—wherever that may be, or whatever you may be—that it will be necessary to leave town without delay. You and your family are forthwith thrown into a state of tremendous excitement; an express is immediately dispatched to the washer-woman’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. Here a painful consciousness of your own unimportance first rushes on your mind—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. 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. Some half-dozen people are &quot;booking&quot; 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 Atlas&#039;s, 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’ names in the books with a coolness which is inexpressibly provoking; and the villain whistles—actually whistles—while a man asks him what the fare is outside, all the way to Holyhead!— In frosty weather, too! They are clearly an isolated race, evidently possessing no sympathies or feelings in common with the rest of mankind. Your turn comes at last, and having paid the fare, you tremblingly inquire—&quot;What time will it be necessary for me to be here in the morning?&quot;—&quot;Six o’clock,&quot; replies the whistler, carelessly pitching the sovereign you have just parted with, into a wooden bowl on the desk. &quot;Rather before than arter,&quot; 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. You turn into the street, ruminating, as you bend your steps homewards, on the extent to which men become hardened in cruelty by custom. If there be one thing in existence more miserable than another, it most unquestionably is the being compelled to rise by candle-light. If you ever doubted the fact, you are painfully convinced of your error, on the morning of your departure. You left strict orders, over night, 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. At last, completely exhausted, you fall gradually into a refreshing sleep—your thoughts grow confused—the stage-coaches, which have been &quot;going off&quot; before your eyes all night, become less and less distinct, until they go off altogether&quot; one moment you are driving with all the skill and smartness of an experienced whip—the next you are exhibiting à la Ducrow, on the off-leader: anon you are closely muffled up, inside, and have just recognised in the person of the guard, an old school-fellow, whose funeral, even in your dream, you remember to have attended eighteen years ago. 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. You are apprenticed to a trunk-maker; how, or why, or when, or wherefore, you don’t take the trouble to inquire; but there you are, pasting the lining in the lid of a portmanteau. Confound that other apprentice in the back shop, how he is hammering! —rap, rap, rap—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. Rap, rap, rap, again—he’s talking now—what’s that he said? Five o’clock! You make a violent exertion, and start up in bed as if you were rehearsing the tent scene in Richard. The vision is at once dispelled; the trunk-maker’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 pannels of the door. You proceed to dress yourself with all possible dispatch. 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. You soon complete your toilette, 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 awake any of the family; and after pausing in the 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’s supper), you undo the chain and bolts of the street door, and find yourself fairly in the street. A thaw, by all that&#039;s miserable! 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—the very coachmen have gone home in despair. 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. The water is &quot;coming in&quot; 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’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 &quot;don’t sleep in the house,&quot; and an&#039;t allowed much sleep out of it, can’t wake their masters by thundering at the shop-door, and cry with the cold—the compound of ice, snow, and water on the pavement, is a couple of inches thick—nobody ventures to walk fast to keep himself warm, and nobody could succeed in keeping himself warm if he did. 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. 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. You arrive at the office, and look wistfully up the yard for the Birmingham High-flyer, which, for aught you can see, may have flown away altogether; for no preparations appear to be on foot for the departure of any vehicle in the shape of a coach. You wander into the booking-office, which, with the gas-lights and blazing fire, looks quite comfortable by contrast—that is to say, if any place can look comfortable at half-past five on a winter’s morning. There stands the identical book-keeper in the same position as if he had not moved since you saw him yesterday. 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 &quot;The Tap&quot;—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,—when the kettle boils; an event which occurs exactly two minutes and a half before the time fixed for the starting of the coach. The first stroke of six peals from St. Martin’s church steeple just as you take the first sip of the boiling liquid. 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. 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. 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 &quot;Times, gen’lm’n, Times,&quot; &quot;Here’s Chron—Chron—Chron,&quot; &quot;Herald, ma’am,&quot; &quot;Highly interesting murder, gen’lm’n,&quot; &quot;Curious case o’ breach o’ promise, ladies,&quot; &amp;amp;.c &amp;amp;c. 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 chrystallized rats 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’s pipes. &quot;Take off the cloths, Bob,&quot; 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’t see them both at the same time. &quot;Now, gen’lm’n,&quot; cries the guard, with the way-bill in his hand. &quot;Five minutes behind time already!&quot; Up jump the passengers—the two young men smoking like lime-kilns, and the old gentleman grumbling audibly. The thin young woman is got upon the roof by dint of a great deal of pulling, and pushing, and helping, and trouble, which she repays by expressing her solemn conviction that she&#039;ll never be able to get down again. &quot;All right,&quot; 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. &quot;Let ’em go, Harry, give &#039;em their heads,&quot; cries the coachman—and off we start as briskly as if the morning were &quot;all right,&quot; 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 article.18350219https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._III_Early_Coaches/1835-02-19_Sketches_of_London_No.III_Early_Coaches.pdf
43https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/43'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. IV, The Parish'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (28 February 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350228/029/0004" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350228/029/0004</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-02-28">1835-02-28</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-02-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoIV_The_ParishDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. IV, The Parish' (28 February 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-02-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoIV_The_Parish">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-02-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoIV_The_Parish</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-02-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoIV_The_Parish.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. IV, The Parish.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (28 February 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>How much is conveyed is those two short words—the parish; 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! 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 enough for the present, and can take no heed of the future; 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—the parish. His goods are distrained; his very bed is taken from under him; his children are crying with cold and hunger, and his wife is both figurative and literally speaking in the straw. What can he do? To whom is he to apply for relief? To private charity? To benevolent individuals? Certainly not; hasn&#039;t he —the parish?  There&#039;s the parish vestry, the parish infirmary, the parish surgeon, the parish officers, the parish beadle. Excellent institutions, and gentle, kind-hearted men. The woman dies—she is buried by the parish. The children have no protector—they are taken care of by the parish. The man first neglects, and afterwards cannot obtain, work—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.<br /> <br /> The parish beadle is one of the most, perhaps the most, important member of the local administration. He is not so well off as the churchwardens, certainly, nor is he as learned as the vestry clerk, nor does he order things quite so much his own way as either of them. 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. The beadle of our parish is a splendid fellow. Its 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 &quot;we&quot; (the beadle and the other gentlemen) came to the determination of doing. A miserable looking woman is called into the board-room, and represents a case of extreme destitution, affecting herself—a widow, with six small children. &quot;Where do you live?&quot; inquires one of the overseers. &quot;I rents a two-pair back, gentlemen, at Mrs. Brown&#039;s, Number 3, Little King William’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&quot;—&quot;Well, well,&quot; interrupts the overseer, taking a note of the address, &quot;I’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—Simmons, go to this woman’s the first thing to-morrow morning, will you?&quot; Simmons bows assent, and ushers the woman out. Her previous admiration of &quot;the board&quot; (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—if that be possible—the marks of respect shown by the assembled crowd to that solemn functionary. As to taking out a summons, its quite a hopeless case if Simmons attends it on behalf of the parish. 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’s head footman (who happened to be present) afterwards told an intimate friend confidentially was almost equal to one of Mr. Hobler’s! 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. 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 curtain&#039;d 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.  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. Observe the generalship of the beadle.  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.  The artifice succeeds. 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.<br /> <br /> Such are a few traits of the importance and gravity of a parish beadle—a gravity which has never been disturbed in any case that has come under our observation, except indeed where the services of that particularly useful machine, a parish fire-engine, are required: then indeed all is bustle.  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—we do not exaggerate—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. No attention being paid to these manual applications, and the turncock 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 &quot;pulls up&quot; the unfortunate householder next day, for the amount of his legal reward. We never saw a parish engine at a regular fire but once.  It came up in gallant style—three miles and a half an hour, at least; there was a capital supply of water, and it was first on the spot. Bang went the pumps—the people cheered—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.<br /> <br /> The personages next in importance to the beadle, are the master of the workhouse and the parish schoolmaster. 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. 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. 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.<br /> <br /> The master of the workhouse is not, in our parish-nor is he usually in any other - 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. 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’s clerk, or else the master of a national school—whatever he was, it is clear his present position is a change for the better. 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. 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.  He is a sort of Emperor Nicholas on a small scale, with this difference—that he never seeks to extend his power beyond the limits of his own workhouse. 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. Our schoolmaster is just the very reverse of this amiable official. 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. A rich old relation who had brought him up, and openly announced his intention of providing for him, left him 10,000l. in his will—and reversed it in his codicil. Thus unexpectedly reduced to the necessity of providing for himself he procured a situation in a public office. 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. He speculated and lost. He speculated again and won—but never got his money. His talents were great; his disposition, easy, generous and liberal. His friends profited by the one, and abused the other. 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. He had children whom he loved, and a wife on whom he doted; The former turned their backs on him; the latter died broken-hearted. He went with the stream—it had ever been his failing, and he had not courage sufficient to bear up against so many shocks—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. It was at this period that he applied for parochial relief. 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. He is an old man now. 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—all have forgotten him. Time and misfortune have mercifully been permitted to impair his memory, and use has habituated him to his present condition. 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. 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.<br /> <br /> It was our original intention to have sketched, in a few words more, such fragments of the little history of some other of our parishioners as have happened to come under our observation. Our space, however, is limited; and, as an editor&#039;s mandate is a wholesome check upon an author&#039;s garrulity, we have no wish to occupy more than the space usually assigned to us. It is generally allowed that parochial affairs possess little beyond local interest. But, should we be induced to imagine that the favour of our readers disposes them to make an exception of the present case, we shall vary our future numbers, by seeking materials for another sketch in &quot;our parish.&quot;18350228https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._IV_The_Parish/1835-02-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No.4_The_Parish.pdf
48https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/48'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. IX, Greenwich Fair'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (16 April 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350416/020/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350416/020/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-04-16">1835-04-16</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-04-16_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoIX_Greenwich_FairDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. IX, Greenwich Fair' (16 April 1835).<em> Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-16_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoIX_Greenwich_Fair">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-16_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoIX_Greenwich_Fair</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-04-16_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoIX_Greenwich_Fair.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. IX, Greenwich Fair.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (16 April 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a>If the Parks be &quot;the lungs of London,&quot; we wonder what Greenwich fair is—a periodical breaking out, we suppose:—a sort of spring-rash—a three days&#039; 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. In our earlier days, we were a constant frequenter of Greenwich fair for years. We have proceeded to, and returned from it, in almost every description of vehicle. 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 no the top of a hackney-coach at something past four o-clock in the morning, with a rather confused idea of our own name, or place of residence. 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 remember enough of Greenwich Fair, and those who resort to it, to make a sketch of at this seasonable period. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> The road to Greenwich during the whole of Easter Monday presents a scene of animated bustle, which cannot fail to amuse the most indifferent observer. <br /> Cabs, hackney-coaches, &quot;shay&quot; carts, coal-waggons, stages, omnibuses, sociables, gigs, donkey-chaises—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 vollies—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’t go on, and wheels will come off—ladies in &quot;carawans&quot; 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—apprentices grow sentimental, and straw-bonnet makers kind; 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. Pedestrians linger in groups at the road-side, unable to resist the allurements of the stout proprietress of the &quot;Jack-in-the-box—three shys a penny,&quot; 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, &quot;Here’s the sort o’ game to make you laugh seven years arter you’re dead, and turn ev’ry air on your ed grey vith delight! Three thimbles and vun little pea—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 damn the expense: all fair and above board: them as don’t play can’t vin, and luck attend the ryal sportsman. Bet any gen’lm’n any sum of money, from arf-a-crown up to a suverin, as he doesn’t name the thimble as kivers the pea.’ Here some greenhorn whispers his friend that he distinctly saw the pea roll under the middle thimble —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. The &quot;plant&quot; 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’s all &quot;the fortin of war: this time I vin, next time you vin: niver mind the loss of two bob and a bender! do it up in a small parcel and break out in a fresh place. Here’s the sort o’ game,’ &amp;c.—and the eloquent harangue with such variations as the speaker’s exuberant fancy suggests, is again repeated to the gaping crowd, reinforced by the accession of several new comers.<br /> <br /> The chief place of resort in the day-time, 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. &quot;Kiss in the ring,&quot; and &quot;Threading my Grandmother’s Needle,&quot; too, are sports which receive their full share of patronage. 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 &quot;Oh! Ha’ done, then, George—Oh, do tickle him for me, Mary —Well, I never!&quot; and similar Lucretian ejaculations. Little old men and women, with a small basket under one arm, and a wine-glass without a foot, in the other hand, tender &quot;a drop o’ the right sort&quot; 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.<br /> <br /> 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 eat mince pies with his thumb, but the man of Colosseum notoriety) to discover. 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 &quot;telling fortunes&quot; and prophesying husbands which it requires no extraordinary observation to describe, for the originals are before her. 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 gipsey liberally; and the gipsey 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. But it grows dark: the crowd has gradually dispersed, and only a few stragglers are left behind. The light in the direction of the church shows that the fair is illuminated; and the distant noise proves it to be filling fast. 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 moon light, 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.<br /> <br /> Five minutes’ walking brings you to the fair; a scene calculated to awaken very different feelings from those inspired by the place you have just left. The entrance is occupied on either side by the venders 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 &quot;Do, dear&quot;—&quot;There’s a love&quot;— &quot;Don’t be cross, now,&quot; &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. Occasionally, you pass a deal table, on which are exposed pen’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 (wilks, we think they are called), floating in a somewhat bilious looking green liquid. 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. 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. This immense booth, with the large stage in front, so brightly illuminated with variegated lamps, and pots of burning fat, is &quot;Richardson’s,&quot; where you have a melo-drama (with three murders and a ghost), a pantomime, a comic song, an overture, and some incidental music, all done in five and twenty minutes. The company are now promenading outside in all the dignity of wigs, spangles, red-ochre, and whitning. 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! 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. 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&#039;s grand and solemn. Then, the ladies—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’s waists, or leaning for support on one of those majestic men! Their spangled muslin dresses and blue satin shoes and sandals (a leetle 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.<br /> <br /> &quot;Just a-going to begin! Pray come for’erd, come for’erd,&quot; exclaims the man in the countryman’s dress, for the seventieth time, and people force their way up the steps in crowds. 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 &quot;swell&quot; in the pantomime, foot it to perfection. &quot;All in to begin&quot; shouts the manager, when no more people can be induced to &quot;come for’erd,&quot; and away rush the leading members of the company to do the dreadful in the first piece. A change of performance takes place every day during the fair, but the story of the tragedy is always pretty much the same. 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’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—a good one and a bad one—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. 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, and goes on in the most shocking manner, throwing the young lady about as if she was nobody, and calling the rightful heir &quot;Ar-recreant—ar-wretch!&quot; in a very loud voice, which answers the double purpose of displaying his passion, and preventing the sound being deadened by the saw-dust. 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, &quot;Oft in the stilly night.&quot; This is no other than the ghost of the rightful heir’s father, who was killed by the wrongful heir’s father; at sight of which the wrongful heir becomes apoplectic, and is literally &quot;struck all of a heap,&quot; the stage not being large enough to admit of his falling down at full length. 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’s killed a good many people in his time, but he’s very sorry for it, and won’t do so any more—a promise which he immediately redeems by dying off hand without any nonsense about it. 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—for no one else can; and the ghost (who can’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.<br /> <br /> The exhibitions next in popularity to these itinerant theatres are the travelling menageries, or, to speak more intelligibly, the &quot;Wild-beast shows,&quot; where a military band in beef-eater’s costume, with leopard-skin caps, play incessantly; and where large highly-coloured representations of tigers tearing men’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. 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—something in this way, &quot;Here, here, here; the lion, the lion (tap), exactly as he is represented on the canvass outside (three taps); no waiting, remember; no deception. The fe-ro-cious lion (tap, tap) who bit off the gentleman’s head last Cambervel vos a twelvemonth, and has killed on the awerage three keepers a-year ever since he arrived at matuority. No extra charge on this account recollect; the price of admission is only sixpence.&quot; This address never fails to produce a considerable sensation, and sixpences flow into the treasury with wonderful rapidity. The dwarfs are also objects of great curiosity: and as a dwarf, a giantess, a living skeleton, a wild Indian, &quot;a young lady of singular beauty, with perfectly white hair and pink eyes,&quot; and two or three other natural curiosities, are usually exhibited together for the small charge of a penny, they attract very numerous audiences. 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 bed-chambers. 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 &quot;come for’erd&quot; with great alacrity. 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’s every-day costume. The grandest and most numerously-frequented booth in the whole fair, however, is &quot;The Crown and Anchor&quot;—a temporary ball-room—we forget how many hundred feet long, the price of admission to which is one shilling. 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. There is a raised orchestra, and the place is boarded all the way down in patches, just wide enough for a country dance. There is no master of the ceremonies in this artificial Eden—all is primitive, unreserved, and unstudied. 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’s hats, and the gentlemen promenading &quot;the gay and festive scene&quot; in the ladies’ bonnets, or with the more expensive ornaments of false noses; and low-crowned, tinder-box looking hats: playing children’s drums, and accompanied by ladies on the penny trumpet. The noise of these various instruments, the orchestra, the shouting, the &quot;scratchers,&quot; and the dancing, is perfectly bewildering. The dancing, itself, beggars description —every figure lasts about an hour, and the ladies bounce about with a degree of spirit which is quite indescribable. As to the gentlemen, they stamp their feet against the ground, every time &quot;hands four round&quot; 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, or half undressed, and can move no longer. The same scene is repeated again and again (slightly varied by an occasional &quot;row&quot;) until a late hour at night: and a great many clerks and ’prentices find themselves next morning with aching heads, empty pockets, damaged hats, and a very imperfect recollection of how it was they didn&#039;t get home.<br /> <br /> Our present sketch has encroached considerably on a second column. Fortunately, perhaps, for our readers, we have even now omitted many points we had originally intended to notice. As we purpose continuing our series until it reaches something under its two hundredth number, however, we shall watch an opportunity of including them under some other head. 18350416https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._IX_Greenwich_Fair/1835-04-16_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No.IX_Greenwich_Fair.pdf
45https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/45'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. VI, London Recreations'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (17 March 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350317/033/0003" class="waffle-rich-text-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350317/033/0003</a>. <em>Source is faded and illegible in places.</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-03-17">1835-03-17</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1835-03-17_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVI_London_RecreationsDickens, Charles. '<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. VI, London Recreations' (17 March 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-03-17_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVI_London_Recreations">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-03-17_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVI_London_Recreations</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-03-17_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVI_London_Recreations.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. VI, London Recreations.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (17 March 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>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. The inclination may, and no doubt does, exist to a great extent among the small gentility—the would-be aristocrats—of the middle classes. Tradesmen and clerks, with Court Journal-reading families, and circulating-library-subscribing daughters, get up tavern assemblies in humble imitation of Almack’s, and promenade the dingy &quot;large room&quot; 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. Aspiring young ladies, who read flaming accounts of some &quot;fancy fair in high life,&quot; 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’s great room, or Johnson’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! With the exception of these classes of society, however, and a few other weak and insignificant persons, we do not think the contemptible attempt at imitation, to which we have alluded, prevails in any great degree. The different character of the recreations of different classes, has often afforded us amusement in our walks and musings; and we have chosen it for the subject of our present sketch, in the hope that it may possess some amusement for our readers. If the regular City man, who leaves Lloyd’s at five o’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. He never does anything to it with his own hands; but he takes a 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 fellows, who are holding parasols over them - of course only to keep the sun off, while the younger children, with the under nursery-maid, are strolling listlessly about in the shade. Beyond these occasions, his delight in his garden appears to arise more from the consciousness of possession than actual enjoyment of it. 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 the 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. This is to impress you - who are a young friend of the family - 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. There is another and a very different class of men, whose recreation is their garden. An individual of this class, resides some short distance from town - 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. He and his wife - who is as clean and compact a little body as himself - have occupied the same house ever since he retired from business twenty years ago. They have no family. They once had a son, who died at about five years old. The child’s portrait hangs over the mantel-piece in the best sitting-room, and a little cart he used to draw about is carefully preserved as a relic. 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. He has always something to do in it, and you will see him digging, and sweeping, and cutting, and messing about, with manifest delight. 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. 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. 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. She takes a great pride in the garden too, and when one of the four fruit-trees produces a rather 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. On a summer’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 summer-house, 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 - 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. These are their only recreations, and they require no more. They have within themselves the materials of comfort and content; and the only anxiety of each is to die before the other. This is no ideal sketch; there used to be many old people of this description; their numbers may have diminished, and may decrease still more. Whether the course female education has taken of late days - 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. Let us turn, now, to another portion of the London population, whose recreations present about as strong a contrast as can well be conceived - we mean the Sunday pleasurers; and let us beg our readers to imagine themselves stationed by our side in some well-known rural &quot;Tea-gardens.&quot; 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. What a dust and noise! Men and women - boys and girls - sweethearts and married people - babies in arms, and children in chaises - pipes and shrimps - cigars and perriwinkles - tea and tobacco. 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, &quot;cutting it uncommon fat!&quot;) - 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 - 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 &quot;srimps&quot; and &quot;winkles,&quot; with an equal disregard of their own bodily health and subsequent comfort - boys, with great silk hats just balanced on the top of their heads, smoking cigars, and trying to look as if they liked &#039;em - gentlemen in pink shirts and blue waistcoats, occasionally upsetting either themselves, or somebody else, with their own canes - and children of every age and size in incredible numbers, from the boy of one in a straw hat and lace cockade, to the girl of twelve in a little scanty spencer, with a beaver bonnet and green veil. 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. Those two motherly-looking women in the smart pelisses, who are chatting so confidentially, inserting a &quot;ma’am&quot; 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 - that diminutive specimen of mortality in the three-cornered pink satin hat with black feathers. The two men in the blue coats and drab trousers, who are walking up and down, smoking their pipes, are their husbands. The party in the opposite box are a pretty fair specimen of the generality of the visitors. These are the father and mother, and old grandmother, a young man and woman, and an individual addressed by the euphonious title of &quot;Uncle Bill,&quot; who is evidently the wit of the party. They have some half dozen children with them, but it is scarcely necessary to notice the fact, for it&#039;s a matter of course here. Every woman in &quot;the gardens&quot; who has been married for any length of time, must have had twins on two or three occasions; it&#039;s impossible to account for the extent of juvenile population in any other way. Observe the inexpressible delight of the old grandmother at Uncle Bill’s splendid joke of &quot;tea for four: bread and butter for forty;&quot; and the loud explosion of mirth which follows his wafering a paper &quot;pigtail&quot; on the waiter’s collar. The young man is evidently &quot;keeping company&quot; with Uncle Bill’s niece: and Uncle Bill’s hints - such as &quot;Don’t forget me at the dinner, you know.&quot; &quot;I shall look out for the cake, Sally.&quot; &quot;I’ll be godfather to your first—wager it’s a boy&quot; and so forth, are equally embarrassing to the young people and delightful to the elder ones. As to the old grandmother, she&#039;s in perfect ecstacies, and does nothing but laugh herself into fits of coughing, until they have finished the &quot;gin-and-water warm with,&quot; of which Uncle Bill ordered &quot;glasses round&quot; after tea, &quot;jist to keep the night air out, and do it up comfortable and riglar arter sitch a day, which certainly was &#039;rayther warm,&#039; as the child said when it fell into the fire.&quot; It&#039;s getting dark, and the people begin to move: 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 - the mothers begin to wish they were at home again - sweethearts grow more sentimental than ever, as the time for parting arrives - the gardens look mournful enough by the light of the two lanterns which hang against the trees for the convenience of smokers - 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. There are many other classes who regularly pursue the same round of reaction. The better description of clerks form rowing clubs, and dress themselves like sailors at fancy balls; others resort to the billiard table. Some people think the greatest enjoyment of existence is to stew in an unwholesome vault for a whole night, drinking bad spirits and hearing worse singing; and others go half-price to the theatre regularly every evening. A certain class of donkeys think the chief happiness of human existence is to knock at doors and run away again; and there are other men whose only recreation is leaning against the posts at street-corners, and not moving at all. Whatever be the class, or whatever the recreation, so long as it does not render a man absurd himself, or offensive to others, we hope it will never be interfered with, either by a misdirected feeling of propriety on the one hand, or detestable cant on the other. (Footnote): On consideration, we postpone for a week or two the sketch we announced in our last. We have various reasons for doing so, among which the inevitable sameness of the subject is not the least.18350317https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._VI_London_Recreations/1835-03-17_Sketches_of_London_No._VI_London_Recreations.pdf
46https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/46'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. VII, Public Dinners'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (7 April 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350407/010/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350407/010/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-04-07">1835-04-07</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-04-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVII_Public_DinnersDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. VII, Public Dinners' (7 April 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVII_Public_Dinners">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVII_Public_Dinners</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-04-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVII_Public_Dinners.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. VII, Public Dinners.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (7 April 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>All public dinners in London—from the Lord Mayor&#039;s annual banquet at Guildhall, to the chimney-sweepers&#039; &quot;hanniversary&quot; at White Conduit-house; from the Goldsmiths&#039; to the Butchers&#039;; from the Sheriffs&#039; to the Licensed Victuallers—are amusing scenes. Of all entertainments of this description, however, we think the annual dinner of some public charity is the most amusing. At a Company&#039;s dinner the people are nearly all alike—regular old stagers who make it a matter of business, and a thing not to be laughed at; at a political dinner everybody is disagreeable and inclined to speechify—much the same thing, by the bye; but at a charity dinner you see people of all sorts, kinds, and descriptions: the wine may not be remarkably special, to be sure, and we have heard some hard-hearted monsters grumble at the collection; but we really think the amusement to be derived from the occasion sufficient to counterbalance even these disadvantages. Let us suppose you are induced to attend a dinner of this description—&quot;Indigent Orphans&#039; Friends&#039; Benevolent Institution,&quot; we think it is. The name of the charity is a line or two longer, but you have forgotten the rest. 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—no doubt that you may do the thing in style —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&#039;, round which crowded people are assembled to witness the entrance of the indigent orphans&#039; friends. 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 &quot;wocalist.&quot; The first thing that strikes you on your entrance is the astonishing importance of the committee. 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. 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 the very least. You are immediately undeceived by the waiter—&quot;Up stairs, if you please, sir; this is the committee room.&quot; 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. 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 four 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. Being fortunate enough to find a plate without anybody’s card in it, you wisely seat yourself at once, and have a little leisure to look about you. 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; the musicians are scraping and grating and screwing tremendously—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’s card but their own. You turn round to take a look at the table behind you, and—not being in the habit of attending public dinners—are somewhat struck by the appearance of the party on which your eye rests. One of its principal members appears to be a little man, with a long and rather inflamed face, and grey hair brushed bolt upright in front; he wears a wisp of black silk round his neck, without any stiffener, as an apology for a neck-kerchief, and is addressed by his companions by the familiar appellation of—&quot;Fitz.&quot; Near him is a stout man in a white neck-kerchief and buff waistcoat; with shiny dark hair, cut very short in front, and a great, round, healthy-looking face, on which he studiously preserves a half sentimental simper. 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. 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. 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 &quot;band&quot; 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. 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. As to the dinner itself—the mere dinner—it goes off much the same everywhere. Tureens of soup are emptied with awful rapidity—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’t have no wish to learn—the knives and forks form a pleasing accompaniment to Auber’s music, and Auber’s music would form a pleasing accompaniment to the dinner, if you could hear anything besides the violoncello—the substantials disappear—moulds of jelly vanish like lightning—hearty eaters wipe their foreheads, and appear rather overcome by their recent exertions— people who have looked very cross hitherto, become remarkably bland, and ask you to take wine in the most friendly manner possible—old gentlemen direct your attention to the ladies’ gallery, and take great pains to impress you with the fact that the charity is always peculiarly favoured in this respect—every one appears disposed to become talkative—and the hum of conversation is loud and general. &quot;Pray, silence, gentlemen, if you please, for Non nobis,&quot; shouts the toast-master with stentorian lungs—a toast-master’s shirt-front, waistcoat, and neck-kerchief, by-the-bye, always exhibit three distinct shades of cloudy-white.—&quot;Pray, silence, gentlemen, for Non nobis.&quot; The singers, whom you discover to be no other than the very party that excited your curiosity at first, after &quot;pitching&quot; their voices immediately begin too tooing most dismally, on which the regular old stagers burst into occasional cries of—&quot;Sh Sh-waiters! Silence— waiters.&quot; &quot;Stand still, waiters—keep back, waiters.&quot; and other exorcisms, delivered in a tone of indignant remonstrance. The grace is soon concluded, and the company resume their seats. The uninitiated portion of the guests applaud Non nobis 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 &quot;Hush, hush,&quot; 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 &quot;Encore!&quot; most vociferously. The moment the noise ceases, up starts the toast-master:—&quot;Gentlemen, charge your glasses, if you please.&quot; Decanters having been handed about, and glasses filled, the toast-master proceeds, in a regular, ascending scale:—&quot;Gentlemen—air—you—all charged? Pray—silence —gentlemen—for—the cha-i-r.&quot; 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, &quot;constitutional sovereign of these realms,&quot; at which elderly gentlemen exclaim &quot;Bravo!&quot; and hammer the table tremendously with their knife-handles. &quot;Under any circumstances, it would give him the greatest pride, it would give him the greatest pleasure—he might almost say, it would afford him satisfaction [cheers] to propose that toast. What must be his feelings, then, when he has the gratification of announcing, that he has received her Majesty’s commands to apply to the Treasurer of her Majesty’s Household, for her Majesty’s annual donation of 25l. in aid of the funds of this charity.&quot; 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 &quot;God save the King&quot; is sung by the &quot;professional gentlemen;&quot; the unprofessional Gentlemen joining in the chorus, and giving the national anthem an effect which the newspapers, with great justice, describe as &quot;perfectly electrical.&quot; The other &quot;loyal and patriotic&quot; toasts having been drunk with all due enthusiasm, a comic song having been sung by the man with the small neckerchief, and a sentimental ditto by the second of the party, we come to the most important toast of the evening—&quot;Prosperity to the Charity.&quot; Here again we are compelled to adopt newspaper phraseology, and express our regret at being &quot;precluded from giving even the substance of the Noble Lord’s observations.&quot; 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’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. Exeunt children, and re-enter stewards, each with a blue plate in his hand. 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. 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. &quot;Mr. Smith, one guinea; Mr. Tompkins one guinea— Mr. Wilson one guinea—Mr. Hickson one guinea—Mr. Nixon, one guinea—Mr. Charles Nixon one guinea—[hear, hear!]—Mr. James Nixon one guinea —Mr. Thomas Nixon, one pound one [tremendous applause]. Lord Fitz Winkle, the chairman of the day, in addition to an annual donation of fifteen pounds—thirty guineas [prolonged knocking; several gentlemen knock the stems off their wine-glasses in the vehemence of their approbation]. Lady Fitz Winkle, in addition to an annual donation of ten pound—twenty pound&quot; [protracted knocking and shouts of &quot;Bravo!&quot;]. 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. The secretary, in returning thanks, observes that he knows no more excellent individual than the chairman—except the senior officer of the charity, whose health he begs to propose. The senior officer, in returning thanks, observes that he knows no more worthy man than the secretary—except Mr. Walker, the auditor, whose health he begs to propose. Mr. Walker, in returning thanks, discovers some other estimable individual, to whom alone the senior officer is inferior—and so they go on toasting and lauding and thanking: the only other toast of importance being &quot;The Lady Patronesses now present,&quot; on which all the gentlemen turn their faces towards the ladies’ gallery, shouting tremendously; and little priggish men, who have imbibed more wine than usual, kiss their hands and exhibit distressing contortions of visage, supposed to be intended for ogling. We have protracted our dinner to so great a length, that we have hardly time to add one word by way of grace. 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. (Footnote) The sketch entitled &quot;Bellamy&#039;s,&quot; which we announced as a continuation of &quot;The House,&quot; shall form the next number of our series.18350407https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._VII_Public_Dinners/1835-04-07_Sketches_of_London_No.VII_Public_Dinners.pdf
47https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/47'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. VIII, Bellamy's'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (11 April 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive, </em><a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350411/031/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350411/031/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-04-11">1835-04-11</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-04-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVIII_BellamysDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. VIII, Bellamy's' (11 April 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVIII_Bellamys">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVIII_Bellamys</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-04-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVIII_Bellamys.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. VIII, Bellamy's.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (11 April 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>In redemptions of the promise which we appended to the last number of our series, we now propose to introduce our readers to Bellamy&#039;s kitchen, or in other words, to the refreshment room, common to both houses of Parliament, where Ministerialists and Oppositionists, Whigs and Tories, Radicals and Destructives, Peers and Reporters, 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 from whence they are summoned by whippers-in, when the House is on the point of dividing; either to give their &quot;conscientious votes&quot; 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 shorts of &quot;Divide,&quot; occasionally varied with a little howling, barking and crowing, or other ebullitions of senatorial pleasantry. <br /> <br /> 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, neither of these is the kitchen, although they are both devoted to the same purpose; the kitchen is further on to your left, up these half-dozen stairs. 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. Nicholas (we do not mind mentioning the old fellow&#039;s name, for if Nicholas isn&#039;t a public man, who is?—and public men&#039;s names are public property). Nicholas is the butler of Bellamy&#039;s, and had held the same place, dressed exactly in the same mannor, and said precisely the same things ever since the oldest of its present visitors can remember. An excellent servant Nicholas is—an unrivaled compounder of salad-dressing—an admirable preparer of soda-water and lemon—a special mixer of cold grog and punch, and, above all, an unequalled judge of cheese. 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 judgement on this important point. We needn&#039;t tell you all this however, for if you have an atom of observation, one glance at his sleek knowing-looking head and face—his prim, white neck-kerchief, 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, and his comfortable-looking form encased in a well-brushed suit of black—would give you a better idea of his real character than a column of our poor description could convey. Nicholas is rather out of his element now; he can&#039;t see the kitchen as he used to do in the old house; there, one window of his glass-case used to open into the room, and many a time, long after day-break on a summer&#039;s morning, have we amused ourself in drawing the cautious old man out by asking deferential questions about Sheridan, and Percival, and Castlereagh, and Heaven knows who beside, which he would answer with manifest delight, always inserting a &quot;Mister&quot; before every name. Nicholas, like all men of his age and standing, has a great idea of the degeneracy of the times. 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. What was our astonishment to discover, shortly after the meeting of the first reformed Parliament, that he was a most inveterate and decided Tory! &#039;Twas very odd: some men change their opinions from necessity, other from expediency, others from inspiration; but that Nicholas should undergo any change in that respect, was an event we had never contemplated, and should have considered impossible. His strong opinion against the clause which empowered the metropolitan districts to return Members to Parliament, too, was perfectly unaccountable. We discovered the secret at last; the metropolitan Members always dined at home. The Rascals! As for giving additional Members to Ireland, it was even worse—decidedly unconstitutional. Why, sir, an Irish Member would go up there, and eat more dinner than three English Members put together. He took no wine; drank table beer by the half-gallon; and went home to Manchester-buildings, or Milbank-street, for his whiskey and water, and what was the consequence? Why the concern lost—actually lost by their patronage. A queer old fellow is Nicholas, and as completely a part of the building as the house itself. 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 resolution intention of falling with the floor. He must have been got out by force. However, he was got out— here he is again, looking, as he always does, as if he had been in a band box ever since last session. 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. <br /> <br /> The two persons who are seated at the table in the corner, at the further 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. He has gone up to the other house since then: the greater part of his boon companions have shared Yorick&#039;s fate, and his visits to Bellamy&#039;s are comparatively few. If he really be eating his supper now, at what hour can he possibly have dined? 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. Was there ever such a perfect personification of Falstaff? Mark the air with which he gloats over this 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. 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 gourmond; and whether he is not exactly the man whom you would pitch upon as having been tho partner of Sheridan&#039;s Parliamentary carouses, the volunteer driver of the hackney coach that took him home, and the Involuntary upsetter of the whole party? 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 bantum sort of voice to its highest pitch, invokes damnation upon his own eyes or somebody else&#039;s at the commencement of every sentence he utters. &quot;The Captain,&quot; as they call him, is a very old frequenter of Bellamy&#039;s; much addicted to stopping &quot;after the house is up&quot; (an inexpiable crime in Jane&#039;s eyes), and a complete walking reservoir of spirits and water. The old Peer—or rather, the old man; for his peerage is of recent date—has a huge tumbler of hot-punch brought him. The other damns and drinks, and drinks and damns and smokes—Members arrive every moment in a great bustle to report that &quot;The Chancellor of the Exchequer&#039;s up,&quot; 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 &quot;Di-vi-sion&quot; is heard in the passage. This is enough; away rush the members pell-mell; 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 we are left alone with the Leviathan of Rump-steaks. <br /> <br /> We are sensible that we owe some apology to many of our readers for selecting for the second time, a subject involving allusions which they may not understand. If this be the case, we hope they will not object to our having written on these occasions for those who are more particularly connected with, or interested in, the scenes we have attempts to sketch, on our assurance that it always has been, and always will be, our object to sketch people and places which all our readers, in common with ourselves, have had opportunities of observing.18350411https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._VIII_Bellamy_s/1835-04-11_Sketches_of_London_No.VIII_Bellamys.pdf
49https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/49'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. X, Thoughts About People'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (23 April 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350423/016/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350423/016/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-04-23">1835-04-23</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-04-23_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoX_Thoughts_About_PeopleDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. X, Thoughts About People.' (23 April 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-23_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoX_Thoughts_About_People">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-23_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoX_Thoughts_About_People</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-04-23_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoX_Thoughts_About_People.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. X, Thoughts About People.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (23 April 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>&#039;Tis strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man may live and die in London. He awakens no sympathy in the breast of any single person; his existence is a matter of interest to no one save himself, and he cannot be said to be forgotten when he dies, for no one remembered him when he was alive. There really are a very numerous class of people in this great metropolis who seem not to possess a single friend, and whom nobody appears to care for. Urged by imperative necessity in the first instance, they have resorted to London in search of employment and the means of subsistence. 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 with startling reality 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. These men, however, happily for themselves, have long since forgotten such thoughts, 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. We were seated in the enclosure of St. James’s Park the other day, when our attention was attracted by a man whom we immediately set down in our own mind as one of this class. He was a tall thin pale person in a black coat, scanty grey trowsers, little pinched-up gaiters, and brown beaver gloves. He had an umbrella in his hand—not for use, for the day was fine; but evidently because he always carried one to the office in the morning; and 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 walks to the office every morning from the back settlements of Islington. It was Monday—Easter Monday; he had escaped for four-and-twenty hours from the thraldom of the desk, and was walking here for exercise and amusement—perhaps for the first time in his life. We were inclined to think he had never had a holiday before, and that even now he didn&#039;t exactly know what to do with himself. 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;—altogether there was something in his 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. 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. There he sits till five o’clock, 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; working the day through as regularly as the dial over the mantel-piece, whose loud ticking is almost as monotonous as his own existence. 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. The waiter recites the bill of fare in a rather confidential manner—for he&#039;s a regular customer— and after inquiring, &quot;What’s in the best cut?&quot; and &quot;what was up last,&quot; he orders a small plate of roast beef with greens, and half a pint of porter. He has a small plate to-day because greens are a penny more than potatoes, and he had &quot;two heads&quot; yesterday, with the additional enormity of &quot;a cheese&quot; the day before. This important point being settled, he hangs up his hat—he took it off the moment he sat down—and bespeaks the paper after the next gentleman. If he can get it while he&#039;s at dinner he appears to eat it with much greater zest; balancing it against the water-bottle, and eating a bit of beef, and reading a line or two, alternately. 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&#039;s not Foreign Post night, he again sallies forth in about half an hour. 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’s little boy, whom he occasionally rewards with a penny for solving problems in simple addition. Sometimes there&#039;s a letter or two to take up to his employer’s in Bernard-street, Russell-square, and then the wealthy man of business hearing his voice, calls out from the dining-parlour, &quot;Come in, Mr. Smith,&quot;—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. Poor harmless creatures these men are; contented, but not happy; broken-spirited and humbled, they may feel no pain, but they never know pleasure. 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. 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—generally the former, the excellent reason being that they are rich and their relations poor—grow suspicious of everybody, and do the misanthropical in chambers, taking great delight in thinking themselves unhappy, and making everybody they come near miserable. You may see such men as these any where; 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. An old fellow of this kind will have his chambers splendidly furnished, collecting books, and plate, and pictures about him in profusion; not so much for his own gratification as to annoy those who have the desire, but not the means, to compete with him. He belongs to two or three Clubs, and is envied, and flattered, and hated by the members of them all. Sometimes he will be appealed to by a poor relation—a married nephew perhaps—for some little assistance and relief, 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 exhortation with a complacent review of his own conduct, and a delicate allusion to parochial relief. He dies, some day after dinner of apoplexy, having bequeathed his property to a Bible 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. 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. They are no longer an organized body, bound down by solemn compact to terrify his Majesty’s subjects whenever it pleased them to take offence in their heads, and staves in their hands. 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. They are still, however, a peculiar class, and not the less pleasant for being inoffensive. Can any one fail to have noticed them in the streets on Sunday? And were there ever such beautiful attempts at the grand and magnificent as they display in their own proper persons! We walked down the Strand a Sunday or two ago, behind a little group; and they furnished food for our amusement the whole way. They had come out of some part of the city; it was between three and four o’clock in the afternoon, and they were on their way to the Park. There were four of them, all arm-in-arm, white kid gloves like so many bridegrooms, light oh-no-we-never-mention-&#039;ems, of unprecedented patterns, and coats for which the English language has as yet no name—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. 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 sort of paralytic swagger irresistibly ludicrous. One of the party had got a watch about the size and shape of a Ribstone pippin, jammed into his waistcoat-pocket, which he carefully compared with the clocks at St. Clement’s and the New Church, the illuminated clock at The Chronicle office, the ditto ditto at Exeter Change, St. Martin’s Church clock, and the Horse Guards; and when they at last arrived in St. James’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, in our mind, levelled all distinctions between Brookes’s and Snooks’s, Crockford’s and Bagnigge Wells. It may be urged that if London apprentices continue to pursue these freaks, they will no longer be the distinct class which we shall attempt to show they now are, by tracing them through the different scenes we propose sketch. We feel the whole force of the objection; and we see no reason why the same gentleman of enlarged and comprehensive views who proposes to Parliament a measure for preserving the amusements of the upper classes of society, and abolishing those of the lower, may not with equal wisdom preserve the former more completely, and mark the distinction between the two more effectively, by bringing in a Bill &quot;to limit to certain members of the hereditary peerages of this country and their families, the privilege of making fools of themselves as often as egregiously as to them shall seem meet.&quot; Precedent is a great thing in these cases, and Heaven knows he will have precedent enough to plead. There are so many classes of people in London, each one so different from the other, and each so peculiar in itself, that we find it time to bring our paper to a close before we have well brought our subject to a beginning. We are, therefore, induced to hope that we may calculate upon the permission of our readers to think about people again at some future time.18350423https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._X_Thoughts_About_People/1835-04-23_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No.X_Thoughts_About_People.pdf
50https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/50'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XI, Astley's'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (9 May 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350509/014/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350509/014/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-05-09">1835-05-09</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-05-09_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXI_AstleysDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XI, Astley's' (09 May 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-05-09_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXI_Astleys">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-05-09_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXI_Astleys</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-05-09_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXI_Astleys.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. XI, Astley's.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (9 May 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>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. We almost fancy we see the pen’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 nine-pence 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. 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’s. It was not a &quot;Royal Amphitheatre&quot; in those days; nor had Ducrow arisen to shed the light of classic taste and portable gas over the saw-dust of the circus; but the whole character of the place was the same—the pieces were the same—the clown’s jokes were the same— the riding-masters were equally grand—the comic performers equally witty—the tragedians equally hoarse—and the &quot;highly-trained chargers&quot; equally spirited. Astley’s has altered for the better—we have changed for the worse. 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. We like to watch a regular Astley’s party in the Easter or midsummer holidays—Pa and Ma, and nine or ten children, varying from five foot six to two foot eleven; from fourteen years of age to four. 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 beau ideal of a group of Astley’s visitors. First of all, there came three little boys and a little girl, who in pursuance of Pa’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. Then came three more little boys, dressed like the first, in blue jackets and trousers, with a lay-down shirt-collar; 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—a process which occasioned a considerable display of little pink legs —then came Ma and Pa, and then the eldest son, a boy of about fourteen years old, who was evidently trying to look as if he didn&#039;t belong to the family. 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 couldn&#039;t see, so the governess was stuck behind the pillar, and the boy lifted into her place; then Pa drilled the boys, and directed the stowing away of their pocket handkerchiefs; and Ma having just nodded and winked to the governess to pull the girls’ frocks a little more off their shoulders, stood up to review the little troop—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 other end of the seat; and 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’s eye with a look expressive of her high admiration of the whole family. Then two of the little boys who had been discussing the point whether Astley’s was more than twice as large as Drury-Lane, agreed to refer it to &quot;George&quot; for his decision; at which &quot;George,&quot; 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 &quot;George began to think himself quite a man now,&quot; whereupon both Pa and Ma laughed too; and George (who carried a dress cane and was cultivating whiskers) muttered that &quot;William always was encouraged in his impertinence;&quot; and assumed a look of profound contempt, which lasted the whole evening. The play began, and the interest of the little boys knew no bounds; Pa was clearly interested too, although he very unsuccessfully endeavoured to look as if he wasn’t. 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’s eye, put her handkerchief to her mouth, and appeared, as in duty bound, to be in convulsions of laughter also. 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’s flirtation the whole evening with a small coquette of twelve years old, who looked like a model of her Mama 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’s squire kissed the princess’s confidential chambermaid. 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’s dignity, he stood up in the box, and applauded as loudly as any of them. 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 to grand to take and interest in the children, and too insignificant to be taken notice of by any body else, occupied himself, from time to time in rubbing the place where the whiskers ought to be, and was completely alone in his glory. We defy any one who has been to Astley’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—we mean the scenes in the circle. For ourselves, 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 saw-dust 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’s shrill shout of &quot;Here we are!&quot; just for old acquaintance sake. We can&#039;t even 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. We don&#039;t mean any 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. He is—but why should we attempt to describe that of which no description can convey an adequate idea? 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. 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, &quot;Now, sir, if you please, inquire for Miss Woolford, sir,&quot; can never be forgotten. Again, the graceful air with which he introduces Miss Woolford into the arena, and after assisting her on 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. 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): &quot;I say, sir!&quot;—&quot;Well, sir.&quot; (it’s always conducted in the politest manner.) &quot;Did you ever happen to hear I was in the army, sir?&quot;—&quot;No, sir.&quot;— &quot;Oh, yes, sir—I can go through my exercise, sir.&quot;— &quot;Indeed, sir!&quot;—&quot;Shall I do it now, sir?&quot;—&quot;If you please, sir, come, Sir—make haste&quot; (a cut with the long whip, and &quot;Ha’ done now—I don’t like it, from the clown). 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 &quot;what Miss Woolford’s stopping for?&quot; On which, to the inexpressible mirth of the gallery, he exclaims, &quot;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’am?&quot; On the lady’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—&quot;He, he, oh! I say sir, Miss Woolford knows me; she smiled at me.&quot; 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. 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. Did any of our readers ever notice the class of people, who hang about the stage doors of our minor theatres in the day time? 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. They always seem to think they are exhibiting; the lamps are ever before them. That young fellow in the faded brown coat, and very full light green trowsers, 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. Look at the dirty white berlin gloves, and the cheap silk handkerchief stuck in the bosom of his seedy coat. 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 trowsers, 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’s mansion in the country, with the 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! 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. He is the man who does the heavy business, such as prosy fathers, virtuous servants, curates, landlords, and so forth. By-the-bye, talking of fathers, we should very much like to see some piece in which all the dramatis personae were orphans. 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 &quot;It is now nineteen years, my dear child, since your blessed mother (here the old villain’s voice faulters) confided you to my charge. You were then an infant,&quot; &amp;amp;c., &amp;amp;c. 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, &quot;Ah! what do I see! This bracelet! That smile! These documents! Those eyes! Can I believe my senses? It must be!—Yes—it is—it is—my child!&quot; &quot;My father!&quot; exclaims the child, and they fall into each other’s arms, and look over each other’s shoulders; and the audience give three rounds of applause. To return from this digression; we were about to say that these are the sort of people whom you see talking, and attitudinizing outside the stage-doors of our minor theatres. At Astley’s they are always more numerous than at any other place; 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. 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. 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. We can hardly believe it now. 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 &quot;dirty swell,&quot; the comic singer with the public-house chairman, or the leading tragedian with drunkenness and distress, but the other men are mysterious beings, never seen out of the ring, never beheld but in the costume of gods and sylphs. With the exception of Ducrow, who can scarcely be classed among them—who ever knew a rider at Astley’s, or saw him, but on horseback? Can our friend in the military uniform ever appear in threadbare attire, or descend to the comparatively un-wadded costume of every-day life? Impossible! We cannot—we will not—believe it. It is to us matter of positive wonder and astonishment that the infectious disease commonly known by the name of &quot;stage-struck,&quot; has never been eradicated, unless people really believe that the privilege of wearing velvet and feathers for an hour or two at night, is sufficient compensation for a life of wretchedness and misery. It is stranger still, that that denizens of attorneys&#039; offices, merchants&#039; counting-houses, haberdashers&#039; shops, and coal sheds, should squander their own resources to enrich some wily vagabond by paying—actually paying, and dearly too—to make unmitigated and unqualified asses of themselves at a Private Theatre. Private theatres, so far as we know, are peculiar to London; they flourish just now, for we have half a dozen at our fingers&#039; ends. We will take an early opportunity of introducing our readers to the Managers of one or two, and of sketching the interior of a Private Theatre, both before the curtain and behind it.18350509https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XI_Astley_s/1835-05-09_Sketches_of_London_No.XI_Astleys.pdf
51https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/51'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XII, Our Parish' (I)Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (19 May 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350519/021/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350519/021/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-05-19">1835-05-19</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-05-19_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXII_Our_ParishIDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XII, Our Parish (I)' (19 May 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Acessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-05-19_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXII_Our_ParishI">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-05-19_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXII_Our_ParishI</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-05-19_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXII_Our_ParishI.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. XII, Our Parish' (I). <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (19 May 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>In a former number of our series we attempted a sketch of two or three of the worthies who hold office in our parish; and we wound up by observing that we should seek materials for another paper in that little kingdom. The promise escape our attention until a few days ago; but we now hasten to redeem it with a due sense of contrition for our negligence in not having done so before. We commenced the article to which we have referred with the beadle of our parish, deeply feeling the importance and dignity of his station. We will begin the present paper with the clergyman.—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. Never were so many young ladies seen in our parish-church on Sunday before; and never had the little round angel&#039;s faces on Mr. Tomkins&#039;s monument in the side aisle, beheld such devotion on earth as they all exhibited. He was about five-and-twenty when he first came to astonish the parishioners, parted his hair on the centre of his forehead in the form of a Saxon 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. Innumerable were the calls made by prudent mamas on our new curate; and innumerable the invitations with which he was assailed, and which to do him justice he readily accepted. If his manner in the pulpit had created an impression in his favour, the sensation was increased tenfold by his appearance in private circles. Pews in the immediate vicinity of the pulpit or reading desk rose in value: sittings in the centre circle 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&#039;, 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! He began to preach extempore sermons, and even grave papas caught the infection; he got out of bed at half-past twelve o&#039;clock one winter&#039;s night to half-baptize a washerwoman&#039;s child in a slop-basin; and the gratitude of the parishioners knew no bounds—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. 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—the parish were charmed. He got up a subscription for her—the woman&#039;s fortune was made. He spoke for one hour and twenty-five minutes an anti-Slavery meeting at the Goat in Boots—the enthusiasm was at its height. 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. 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. A splendid silver ink-stand was made, and engraved with an appropriate inscription; the Curate was invited to a public breakfast, at the before-mentioned Goat in Boots: the ink-stand 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 —the very waiters were melted. One would have supposed that by this time the theme of universal admiration was lifted to the very pinnacle of popularity. No such thing. The curate began to cough—four fits of coughing one morning between the Litany and the Epistle; and five in the afternoon service. Here was a discovery—the curate was consumptive. How interestingly melancholy! If the young ladies were energetic before, their sympathy and solicitude now knew no bounds. Such a man as the curate—such a dear—such a perfect love—to be consumptive! It was too much. 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 at the height, indeed, in the very zenith of his popularity. About this period, a change came over the spirit of the parish. A very quiet, respectable dozing old gentleman, who had officiated in one chapel of ease for twelve years previously, died one fine morning, without having given any notice whatever of his intention. This circumstance gave rise to counter-sensation the first; and the arrival of his successor occasioned counter-sensation the second. 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. Crowds of our female parishioners flocked to hear him at first, because he was so odd-looking, so expressive, then because he preached so well; and at last, because they really thought that, after all, there was something about him which it was quite impossible to describe. As to the curate, he was all very well; but certainly, after all, there was no denying that—that—in short the curate wasn&#039;t a novelty, and the other clergyman was. The inconstancy of public opinion is proverbial: the congregation migrated one by one; the curate coughed till he was black in the face—it was in vain. He respired with difficulty—it was equally ineffectual in awakening sympathy. Seats are once again to be had in any part of our parish church, and our chapel-of-ease is going to be enlarged, as it is crowded to suffocation every Sunday! The best known and most respected among our parishioners is an old lady, who resided in our parish long before our name was entered. Our parish is a sub-urban one, and the old lady lives in a neat row of houses in the most airy and pleasant part of it. 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 she old gentleman was living. The little front parlour, which is the old lady&#039;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&#039; waxes, an operation which is regularly commenced every other morning at half-past nine o&#039;clock—and the little nic nacs are always arranged in precisely the same manner. 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&#039;s possession for many years. Here the old lady sits with her spectacles on, busily engaged in needle-work—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. 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 &quot;Sarah,&quot; who is just as neat and methodical as her mistress, regularly reads two or three chapters in the parlour aloud. 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 she child looks forward as the greatest treat of its existence. 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 and double knock to prevent the possibility of her Missis&#039;s catching cold by having to wait at the door. 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 service, and the Pope Joan board; and the visitors are received in the drawing room in great state. She has but few relations, and they are scattered about in different parts of the country, and she seldom sees them. She has a son in India, whom she always describes to you as a fine, handsome fellow—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&#039;s always been one of her greatest trials, and that indeed he once almost broke her hear; but it pleased God to enable her to get the better of it, and she&#039;d prefer your never mentioning the subject to her again. 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. Her name always heads the list of any benevolent subscriptions, and her&#039;s are always the most liberal donations to the Winter Coal and Soup Distribution Society. 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. 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 curtsy until the pew opener has ushered the old lady unto her accustomed seat, dropped a respectful curtsy, 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. Thus, with the annual variation of a trip to some quiet place on the sea coast, passes the old lady&#039;s life. 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. She looks forward to its termination with calmness, and without apprehension. She has every thing to hope and nothing to fear. A very different personage, but one who has rendered himself very conspicuous in our parish, is one of the old lady&#039;s next door neighbours. He is an old naval officer on half pay; and his bluff and unceremonious behaviour disturbs the old lady&#039;s domestic economy, not a little. In the first place he will smoke cigars in the front court; and when he wants something to drink with them—which is by no means an uncommon circumstance—he lifts up the old lady&#039;s knocker with his walking-stick, and demands to have a glass of table ale handed over the rails. In addition to this cool proceeding he is a bit of a Jack of all trades, or to use his own words, &quot;A regular Robinson Crusoe,&quot; and nothing delights him better than to experimentalize on the old lady&#039;s property. One morning he got up early and planted three or four roots of full-blown marygolds 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. Another time he took to pieces the eight-day clock on the front landing, under pretence of cleaning the wors, 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. Then he took to breeding silk-worms, which he would 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. The consequence was, that one morning a very stout silk-worm was discovered in the act of walking up stairs—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. The old lady went to the sea-side in despair, and during her absence he completely effected the name from her brass door-plate in his attempts to polish it with aqua fortis. But all this is nothing to his seditious conduct in public life. 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-gathered call for his money till he won&#039;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. 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. He is a cheritable, open-handed 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 handy-work when its all over as anybody else.We have attained our usual limits, and must conclude our paper. We are not sufficiently acquainted with the details of the recent alteration in the Poor-laws, to know whether we have a legal settlement anywhere or not; but we hope our readers will not object, when subjects are scarce, and we distressed, to our deriving assistance from the parochial funds. We are perfectly willing to work for their amusement; but we openly avow our determination, on some future occasions, to throw ourselves again upon—&quot;Our Parish.&quot;18350519https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XII_Our_Parish_[I]/1835-05-19_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No.XII_Our_Parish_I.pdf
52https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/52'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIII, The River'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (6 June 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive</em>, <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350606/021/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350606/021/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-06-06">1835-06-06</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-06-06_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIII_The_RiverDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XIII, The River' (6 June 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-06_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIII_The_River">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-06_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIII_The_River</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-06-06_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIII_The_River.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. XIII, The River.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (6 June 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>&quot;Are you fond of the water?&quot; is a question very frequently asked in hot summer weather by amphibious-looking young men. &quot;Very,&quot; is the general reply. &quot;An’t you?&quot;—&quot;Hardly ever off it,&quot; is the response, accompanied by sundry adjectives expressive of the speaker’s heartfelt admiration of that element. 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. Who ever heard of a successful water-party?—or to put the question in a still more intelligible form, who ever saw one? 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 reasonably be crowded into the space of some eight or nine hours. Something has always gone wrong. 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’s life all the way, or the gentlemen who volunteered to row have been &quot;out of practice,&quot; 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 &quot;sitters&quot; in the boat, in a very humiliating manner. We grant that the banks of the Thames are very beautiful at Richmond and Twickenham, and other distant places, often sought though seldom reached; but from the &quot;Red-us&quot; back to Blackfriar&#039;s-bridge, the scene is wonderfully changed. The Penitentiary is a noble building no doubt, and the sportive youths who &quot;go in&quot; at that particular part of the river on a summer’s evening, may be all very well in perspective, but where 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 dittoes cough slightly, and look at the water, you certainly feel rather awkward— especially if you happen to have been attempting the most distant approach to sentimentality for an hour or two previously. 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. What can be more amusing than Searle’s yard on a fine Sunday morning. It’s a Richmond tide, and some dozen boats are preparing for the reception of the parties who have engaged them. Two or three fellows in great rough trowsers and Guernsey shirts, are getting them ready by easy stages; now coming down the yard with a pair of sculls and a cushion—then having a chat with the &quot;jack,&quot; who, like all his tribe, seems to be wholly incapable of doing anything but lounging about—then going back again, and returning with a rudder-line and a stretcher—then solacing themselves with another chat—and then wondering, with their hands in their capacious pockets, &quot;where them gentlemen’s got to as ordered the six.&quot; One of these, the head man, with the legs of his trowsers carefully tucked up at the bottom, to admit the water, we presume—for it is an element in which he is infinitely more at home than on land—is quite a character, and shares with the defunct oyster-swallower the celebrated name of &quot;Dando.&quot; Watch him, as taking a few minutes 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. Look at his magnificent though reddish whiskers, and mark the somewhat native humour with which he &quot;chaffs&quot; the boys and prentices, or cunningly gammons the gemmen into the gift of a glass of gin, of which we verily believe he swallows enough in a day to float a &quot;six oar&quot; without producing the slightest effect upon his scull. But the party has now arrived, and Dando relieved from his state of uncertainty starts up into activity. 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 Tully&#039;s lounge, 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. This is the most amusing time to observe a regular Cockney water-party. There has evidently been up to this period no inconsiderable degree of boasting on everybody’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’s taking an oar is perfectly delightful. At length, after a great deal of changing and fidgetting, 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’s crew are seated. &quot;Shove her off!&quot; cries the cockswain, who looks about as easy and comfortable as if he were steering in the Bay of Biscay. 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. &quot;Back wa’a&#039;ter, Sir,&quot; shouts Dando, &quot;Back wa’a&#039;ter, you, Sir, aft;&quot; 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. &quot;Back water, you Sir, aft; pull round, you Sir, for’ad, can’t you?&quot; shouts Dando, in a phrenzy of excitement. &quot;Pull round, Tom, can’t you?&quot; re-echoes one of the party. &quot;Tom an’t for’ad,&quot; replies another. &quot;Yes, he is,&quot; 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. &quot;That’s right—now pull all on you!&quot; shouts Dando again, adding, in an under tone, to somebody by him, &quot;Blowed if hever I see sitch a set of muffs!&quot; and away jogs the boat in a zig-zag 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. A well-contested rowing-match on the Thames, is a very lively and interesting scene. 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 protégés 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. Two o’clock strikes, and everybody looks anxiously in the direction of the bridge through which the candidates for the prize will come—half-past two, and the general attention which has been preserved so long begins to flag when suddenly a gun is heard, and the noise of distant hurra’ing along each bank of the river—every head is bent forward—the noise draws nearer and nearer—the boats which have been waiting at the bridge start briskly up the river—a well-manned galley shoots through the arch, the sitters cheering on the boats behind them, which are not yet visible —&quot;Here they are,&quot; is the general cry—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—four other boats follow close astern, there are not two boats’ length between them—the shouting is tremendous, and the interest intense. &quot;Go on, Pink&quot;—&quot;Give it her, Red&quot;—&quot;Sulliwin for ever&quot;—&quot;Brayvo! George&quot;—&quot;Now, Tom, now—now—now—why don’t your partner stretch out?&quot;—&quot;Two pots to a pint on yellow,&quot; &amp;amp;c., &amp;amp;c. 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. One of the most amusing places we know is the steam wharf of the London-bridge, or St. Katherine’s Dock Company, on a Saturday morning, 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. Coaches are every moment setting down at the entrance to the wharf, and the stare of bewildered astonishment with which the &quot;fares&quot; 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. 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. &quot;Gravesend?&quot; 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. &quot;Gravesend.&quot; &quot;Pass on, if you please, Sir,&quot; replies the attendant—&quot;other boat, Sir,&quot; whereupon 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. No luggage, however, bearing the most remote resemblance to his 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—a little thin man, who entirely concurs with him (the stout father) in thinking that it’s high time something was done with these steam companies, and that as the Corporation Bill don&#039;t do it, something else must; for really people’s property is not to be sacrificed in this way; and that if the luggage isn’t restored without delay, he will take care it shall be put in the papers, for the public&#039;s not to be the victim of these great monopolies; on which the officer in his turn replies, that that company ever since it has been St. Kat’rine’s Dock Company, has protected life and property; that if it had been the London Bridge Wharf Company, indeed he shouldn’t have wondered, seeing that the morality of that company (they being the opposition) can’t be answered for, by no one; but as it is he’s convinced there must be some mistake, and he wouldn’t mind making a solemn oath afore a magistrate that the gentleman’ll find his luggage afore he gets to Margate. Here the stout father thinking he is making a capital point replies that as it happens he an&#039;t going to Margate at all, and that &quot;Passenger to Gravesend&quot; 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 reach just in time to discover that their luggage is there, and that their comfortable seats are not. 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: 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. 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. 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. 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—partly as an expression of satisfaction with his previous exertions, and partly to induce him to play &quot;Dumbledumbdeary,&quot; for &quot;Alick&quot; to dance to; which being done, Alick, who is a damp earthy-looking child, in red worsted socks, takes certain small jumps upon the deck, to the unspeakable satisfaction of his family circle. 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’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’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 centered in one object alone—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. 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—and a copious one too—Steam— &quot;Wonderful thing steam, Sir.&quot; &quot;Ah! (a deep-drawn sigh) it is indeed, Sir&quot;—&quot;great power, Sir.&quot;— &quot;Immense—immense;&quot;—&quot;Great deal done by steam, Sir.&quot;—&quot;Ah (another sigh at the immensity of the subject, and a knowing shake of the head)! you may say that, Sir.&quot; &quot;Still in its infancy, they say Sir,&quot; and other novel remarks of this kind, are generally the commencement of a conversation which is prolonged until the conclusion of the trip—not a long one on the water; nor we hope no paper either. If the trip should have appeared tedious, our good humour returns the moment we reach the pier; and if our description should have unfortunately done so too, we hope our readers will forget it the instant they leave—The River.18350606https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XIII_The_River/1835-06-06_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_The_River.pdf
53https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/53'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIV, Our Parish' (II)Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (18 June 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350618/019/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350618/019/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-06-18">1835-06-18</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-06-18_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishIIDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XVI, Our Parish (II)' (18 June 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-18_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishII">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-18_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishII</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-06-18_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishII.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. XIV, Our Parish' (II). <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (18 June 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>The row of houses in which our friends the old lady and her troublesome neighbour reside, contains, we think, within its circumscribed limits, a greater number of characters than all the rest of our parish put together. When we say that we live in the row ourselves, we have not the slightest intention to insinuate that we can lay claim to any particular characteristics. We merely mention the fact, in order that the statement may have the authority of our own personal observation and experience; and we present our readers occasionally with a slight sketch of the materials we have collected from this source, in the hope that an attempted delineation of character now and then will vary the numerous scenes we undertook to describe when we entitled these papers, &quot;Sketches of London.&quot; There is a family who live very near the old lady— two doors removed on the left-hand side—to which we must beg to introduce our readers without further delay. The four Miss Willises settled in our parish thirteen years ago: it is a melancholy reflection that the old adage, &quot;time and tide wait for no man,&quot; 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; 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. Well, the Miss Willises took a lease of the house; it was fresh painted and papers 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 in, 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 &quot;Missises;&quot; 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. At last the Miss Willises moved in; and then the &quot;calling&quot; began. The house was the perfection of neatness—so were the four Miss Willises. Everything was formal, stiff, and cold—so were the four Miss Willises. Not a single chair of the whole set was ever seen out of its place—not a single Miss Willis was ever seen out of her&#039;s. There they always sat, in the same places, doing precisely the same things at the same hour. The eldest Miss Willis used to knit, the second to draw, the two others to play duets on the piano. They seemed to have no separate existence, but to have made up their minds just to winter through life together. They were three long graces in drapery, with the addition—like a school-dinner—of another long grace afterwards—the three fates with another sister—the Siamese twins multiplied by two. The eldest Miss Willis grew bilious—the four Miss Willises became bilious immediately—The eldest Miss Willis grew ill-tempered and religious—The four Miss Willises were ill-tempered and religious directly. Whatever the eldest did the others did, and whatever anybody else did they all disapproved of; and thus they vegetated—living in Polar harmony among themselves; and as they sometimes went out, or saw company &quot;in a quiet-way&quot; at home, occasionally icing the neighbours. Three years passed over in this way, when an unlooked-for and extraordinary phenomenon occurred. The Miss Willises showed symptoms of summer, the frost gradually broke up; a complete thaw took place. Was it possible! one of the four Miss Willises was going to be married! 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 beside) were received—that the four Miss Willises were courted in due form by the said Mr. Robinson—that the neighbours were perfectly frantic 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 Miss Willis—&quot;We are going to marry Mr. Robinson.&quot; It was very extraordinary; they were so completely identified, the one with the other, that the curiosity of the whole row—even of the old lady herself—was roused almost beyond endurance. The subject was discussed at every little card table and tea-drinking; the old gentleman of silk-worm notoriety didn&#039;t 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. They hoped it might all end well;—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 quite old enough to judge for themselves, and to be sure people ought to know their own business best, and so forth. At last, one fine morning, at a quarter before eight o&#039;clock, A.M., two glass coaches drove up to the Miss Willises&#039; door, at which Mr. Robinson had arrived in a cab ten minutes before, dressed in a light blue coat and a double milled kersey pantaloons, white neck-kerchief, 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. 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 taste of female servants in general. The intelligence spread rapidly from house to house; 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. The Miss Willises&#039; door opened; the door of the first glass coach did the same; two gentlemen, and a pair of ladies to correspond—friends of the family no doubt; up went the steps, bang went the door; off went the first glass coach, and up came the second. The street door opened again; the excitement of the whole row increased - Mr. Robinson and the eldest Miss Willis. &quot;I thought so,&quot; said the lady at No. 19, &quot;I always said it was Miss Willis!&quot; &quot;Well I never!&quot; ejaculated the young lady at No. 18, to the young lady at No. 17—&quot;Did you ever, dear!&quot; responded the young lady at No. 17, to the young lady at No. 18. &quot;It&#039;s too ridiculous!&quot; exclaimed a spinster of an uncertain age, at No. 16, joining in the conversation. But who shall pourtray the astonishment of Gordon-place when Mr. Robinson handed in all 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. Who shall depict the perplexity of the clergy-man when all the Miss Willises knelt down at the communion table, and repeated the responses incidental to the marriage service in an audible voice?—or who shall describe the confusion which prevailed, when—even after the difficulties thus occasioned had been adjusted—all the Miss Willises went into hysterics at the conclusion of the ceremony until the sacred edifice resounded with their united wailings! 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 would ever have discovered the real Mrs. Robinson but for a circumstance of the most gratifying description. Coming events cast their shadows before, and events like that at which we hint with becoming delicacy and diffidence, will happen occasionally in the best regulated families—indeed the best regulated are usually supposed to be the most subject to such occurrences. 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—the youngest Miss Willis that was—got on; and servants might be seen running up the steps about nine or ten o&#039;clock every morning, with &quot;Missis&#039;s compliments, and wishes to know how Mrs. Robinson finds herself this morning?&quot; And the answer always was, &quot;Mrs. Robinson&#039;s compliments, and she&#039;s in very good spirits, and doesn&#039;t find herself any worse.&quot; 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. The parlour wasn&#039;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. Then we fanced that Mr. Dawson, the surgeon, &amp;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&#039;s door at half-past two o&#039;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 purpose of other; and when we got up in the morning we saw the knocker was tied up in an old white kid glove, and we, in our innocence (we are in a state of bachelorship), wondered what on earth it all meant, until we heard the eldest Miss Willis, in propriá persona, say with great dignity, in answer to the next inquiry, &quot;My compliments and Mrs. Robinson&#039;s doing as well as can be expected, and the little girl thrives wonderfully.&quot; 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. Official parish registers of marriages, births, christenings, and deaths, are not generally considered to possess any amusement or much interest, except for those who are personally connected with some individual record contained within their musty leaves. Our parish register will have, at least, three advantages—it will be easy of access, it will be faithfully entered up from time to time, and it will at least be penned with a humble desire to amuse those who may consult it. As we dare not occupy any greater space at this busy period, we have only to add that we must defer any further account of the four Miss Willises until another opportunity; that we propose in future publishing a parochial sketch alternately with one coming more immediately under our first heading; and that from this time forward we shall make no further apology for an abrupt conclusion to an article under the title of &quot;Our Parish,&quot; than is contained in the words &quot;To be continued.&quot;18350618https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XIV_Our_Parish_[II]/1835-06-18_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No._XVI_Our_Parish_II.pdf
58https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/58'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIX, Private Theatres'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (11 August 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350811/016/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350811/016/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-08-11">1835-08-11</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-08-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIX_Private_TheatresDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XIX, Private Theatres' (11 August 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-08-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIX_Private_Theatres">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-08-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIX_Private_Theatres</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-08-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIX_Private_Theatres.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Sketches of London, No. XIX, Private Theatres.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (11 August 1835).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>&quot;RICHARD THE THIRD. DUKE OF GLO’STER 2l. EARL OF RICHMOND, 1l. DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, 15s. CATESBY, 12s. TRESSEL, 10s. 6d. LORD STANLEY, 5s. LORD MAYOR OF LONDON, 2s. 6d.&quot; Such are the written placards wafered up in the gentlemen’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 idiotic donkies who are prevailed upon to pay for permission to exhibit their lamentable ignorance and boobyism on the stage of a private theatre. This they do, in proportion to the scope afforded by the character for the display of their imbecility. For instance, the Duke of Glo’ster&#039;s well worth two pounds, because he has it all to himself, must wear a real sword, and what is better still, must draw it several times in the course of the piece. The soliloquies alone are well worth fifteen shillings; then ther&#039;s the stabbing King Henry—decidedly cheap at three and sixpence; that’s eighteen and sixpence; bullying the coffin-bearers—say eighteen pence, though it’s worth much more—that’s a pound. Then the love scene with Lady Anne, and the bustle of the fourth act can’t be dear at ten shillings more—that’s only one pound ten, including the &quot;off with his head!&quot;—which is sure to bring down the applause, and it is very easy to do—&quot;Orf with is ed&quot; (very quick and loud, then slow and sneeringly)—&quot;So much for Bu-u-u-uckingham!;&quot; lay the emphasis on the &quot;uck;&quot; get yourself gradually into a corner, and work with your right hand while your’e saying it, as if you were feeling your way; and its sure to do. 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. One—two— three—four—over; then, one—two—three—four— under; then thrust; then dodge and slide about; then fall down on one knee; then get up again and stagger. You may keep on doing this, as long as it seems to take—say ten minutes—and then fall down (backwards, if you can manage it without hurting yourself), and die game. Nothing like it for producing an effect. They always do it at Astley’s and Sadler’s Wells, and if they don’t know how to do this sort of thing, who in the world does? A small child or a female in white increases the interest of a combat materially—indeed we don&#039;t think a regular legitimate terrific broad-sword 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. The principal patrons of private theatres are dirty boys; low copying-clerks, in attornies’ 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’ money for their own; and a choice miscellany of idle vagabonds. The proprietor of a private theatre may be an ex-scene painter, a low coffee-house keeper, a disappointed eighth-rate actor, a Chancery officer, a retired smuggler, or uncertificated bankrupt. The theatre itself may be in Catherine-street, Strand, the purlieus of the city, the neighbourhood of Gray’s-inn-lane, or the vicinity of Sadler’s-wells; or it may, perhaps, form the chief nuisance of some shabby street, on the Surrey side of Waterloo bridge. The lady performers pay nothing for their characters, and it is needless to add, are usually selected from one class of society; and 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. All the minor theatres in London, especially the lowest, constitute the centre of a little stage-struck neighbourhood. 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 15 to 21 years of age, who throw back their coats, and turn up their wristbands, after the portraits of Count D’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 The Unknown Bandit of the Invisible Cavern is in rehearsal; how Mister Palmer is to play The Unknown Bandit; how Charley Scarton is to take the part of an English sailor, and fight a broad-sword 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. These are your amateurs—these are the Richards, Shylocks, Beverleys, and Othellos—the Young Dorntons, Rovers, Captain Absolutes, and Charles Surfaces—of a private theatre. See them at the neighbouring public-house or the theatrical coffee-shop! Why, they&#039;re 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. If one of them does but know an Astley’s supernumerary he is a happy fellow. Look at that youth. You must have remarked the mingled air of envy and admiration with which his companions will regard him as he converses familiarly with the mouldy-looking man in a fancy neck-kerchief, whose partially corked eyebrows, and half rouged face, testify to the fact of his having just left the stage or the circle. Observe the indignation with which the man of mouldy appearance points to a newspaper of the day, and the perplexed air with which, after upsetting his half pint of coffee over that dirty scrap of paper, and then wiping it with his still dirtier pocket-handkerchief, his amateur friend attempts to scrawl a note, apparently to the editor. Poor creature! his visions of orthography are of the wildest; and he tortures pot-hooks into forms as distorted and unnatural as those into which his mouldy companion&#039;s unfortunate frame was twisted, when he first took lessons in the art of tumbling! 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 cognomens, which are not the least amusing part of the play-bill of a private theatre. Belville, Melville, Treville, Berkeley, Randolph, Byron, St. Clair, and so forth, are among the humblest; and the less-imposing titles of Jenkins, Walker, Thompson, Huggins, Barker, Solomons, &amp;amp;c., are completely laid aside. There is something imposing in this, and it&#039;s an excellent apology for shabbiness into the bargain. A shrunken, faded coat, a decayed hat, a patched and soiled pair of trowsers—nay even a very dirty shirt (and none of these appearances are very uncommon among the members of the corps dramatique), may be worn for the purpose of disguise, and to prevent the remotest chance of recognition. 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. As to the ladies (God bless &#039;em) they&#039;re quite above any formal absurdities, the mere circumstance of your being behind the scenes is a sufficient introduction to their society—for of course they know that none but strictly respectable persons would be admitted into that close fellowship with them, which acting engenders. They place implicit reliance on the manager, no doubt; and, as to the manager, he is all affability when he knows you well,—or, in other words, when he has pocketed your money once, and entertains confident hopes of doing so again. A quarter before eight—There&#039;ll be a full house to-night—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’clock (the hour fixed for the commencement of the performances) and have just begun the sixth. There&#039;ll be plenty of it though when it does begin, for there is enough in the bill to last six hours at least. 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. His line is genteel comedy—his father’s coal and tatur. He does Alfred Highflyer in the last piece, and very well he’ll do it—at the price. The party of gentlemen in the opposite box, to whom he has just nodded, are friends and supporters of Mr. Beverley (otherwise Loggins), the Macbeth of the night. You observe their attempts to appear easy and gentlemanly; each member of the party, with his feet cocked up on the cushion in front of the box? They let &#039;em do these things here upon the same humane principle which permits poor people’s children to knock double knocks at the door of an empty house—because they can’t do it anywhere else. The two stout men in the centre box, with an opera-glass ostentatiously placed before them, are friends of the proprietor&#039;s—opulent country managers, as he confidentially informs every individual among the crew behind the curtain— opulent country managers looking out for recruirts, a representation which Mr. Nathan the dresser, who is in the manager’s interest, and has just arrived with the costumes, offers to confirm upon oath if required—corroborative evidence, however, is quite unnecessary, for the gulls believe it at once. 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 &quot;the profession.&quot; Patomime is to be her line, and she&#039;s coming out to-night, in a hornpipe after the tragedy. The short thin man beside Mr. St. Julien, whose white face is deeply seared with the small-pox, and whose dirty shirt front is inlaid with open work, and embossed with coral studs like Lady Bird&#039;s, is the low comedian and comic singer of the establishment. The remainder of the audience—a tolerably numerous one by this time—are a motley group of dupes and blackguards. 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 feasure in the audience part of the house. As these preparations, however, announce the speedy commencement of the play, let us take a peep &quot;behind,&quot; previous to the ringing-up. 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 places, does not conduce in any great degree to their comfortable appearance. Don’t fall over this plate basket—it’s one of the &quot;properties&quot;—the cauldron for the witches’ 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. 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 the trap door of the stage above. You will observe that the ceiling is ornamented with the beams that support the boards, and tastefully hung with cob-webs. 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. That snuff-shop-looking figure in front of the glass is Banquo, and the young lady with the liberal display of legs, who is kindly painting his face with a hare’s foot, is dressed for Fleance. The large woman who is consulting the stage directions in Cumberland’s edition of Macbeth, is the Lady Macbeth of the night—she is always selected to play the part, because she&#039;s tall and stout, and looks a little like Mrs. Siddons—at a considerable distance. That stupid-looking milksop with light hair and bow legs—a kind of man whom you can warrant town-made—is fresh caught; he plays Malcolm to-night, just to accustom himself to an audience. He&#039;ll get on by degrees; he&#039;ll play Othello in a month, and in a month more will very probably be apprehended on a charge of embezzlement. The black-eyed female with whom he is talking so earnestly, is dressed for the &quot;gentlewoman.&quot; It&#039;s her first appearance, too—in that character. The boy of fourteen, who is having his eyebrows smeared with soap and whitening, is Duncan, King of Scotland; and the two dirty men with the corked countenances, in very old green tunics and dirty drab boots, are the &quot;army.&quot; &quot;Look sharp below there, gents,&quot; exclaims the dresser, a red-headed and red-whiskered Jew, calling through the trap, &quot;they’re a-going to ring up. The flute says he’ll be blowed if he plays any more, and they’re getting precious noisy in front.&quot; 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. &quot;Now,&quot; cries the manager, consulting the written list which hangs behind the first P. S, wing, &quot;Scene 1, open country—lamps down—thunder and lightning—all ready, White?&quot; [this is addressed to one of the army]. &quot;All ready&quot;—&quot;Very well, scene 2 - front chamber; is the front chamber down?&quot; &quot;Yes.&quot; &quot;Very well—Jones.&quot;—[To the other army who is up in the flies:] &quot;Hallo! Wind up the open country when we ring up.&quot; &quot;I’ll take care,&quot; growls the elevated army.—&quot;Scene 3, back perspective with practical bridge. Bridge ready, White? Got the tressels there?&quot; &quot;All right,&quot; responds the functionary. &quot;Very well. Clear the stage,&quot; adds 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. &quot;Places, places, now then witches—Duncan—Malcolm—bloody officer—where’s that bloody officer?&quot;—&quot;Here!&quot; replies the officer, who has been rose-pinking for the character. &quot;Get ready, then; now, White, ring the second music bell.&quot; 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 whole audience can see them. The bell rings, and the orchestra, in acknowledgment of the call, play three distinct chords. The bell rings again, the tragedy (!) opens, and our description closes.18350811https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XIX_Private_Theatres/1835-08-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No._XIX_Private_Theatres.pdf
54https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/54'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XV, The Pawnbroker's Shop'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (30 June 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350630/023/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350630/023/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-06-20">1835-06-20</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-06-30_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXV_The_Pawnbrokers_ShopDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XV, The Pawnbroker's Shop' (30 June 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-30_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXV_The_Pawnbrokers_Shop">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-30_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXV_The_Pawnbrokers_Shop</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-06-30_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXV_The_Pawnbrokers_Shop.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. XV, The Pawnbroker's Shop.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (30 June 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>Of all the numerous receptacles for misery and distress with which the streets of London unhappily abound, there are, perhaps, none which present such striking scenes of vice and poverty as the pawnbrokers&#039; shops. The very nature and description of these places prevents their being but little known, except to the unfortunate beings whose profligacy or misfortune drives them to seek the temporary relief they offer: 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 at all events nothing to disgust even the most fastidious reader.<br /> <br /> There are some pawnbrokers&#039; shops of a very superior description. There are grades in pawning as in everything else; and distinctions must be observed even in poverty. The aristocratic Spanish cloak, and the plebeian calico shirt—the silver fork and the flat-iron—the muslin cravat and the Belcher neck-kerchief, would assort but ill together; so the better sort of pawnbroker calls himself a silversmith, and decorates his shop with handsome trinkets and expensive jewellery, while the more humble money-lender boldly advertises his calling, and invites observation. It is with pawnbrokers&#039; shops of the latter class that we have to do. We have selected one for our purpose, and will endeavour to describe it.<br /> <br /> The pawnbroker&#039;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. 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 the 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. 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 originally laid on, are, at this remote period, questions which may be asked, but cannot be answered. Tradition states that the transparency on the front door, which displays at night three red balls on a blue ground, once bore also, inscribed in graceful waves, the words &quot;Money advanced on plate, jewels, wearing apparel, and every description of property,&quot; but a few illegible hieroglyphics are all that now remain to attest the fact. 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. 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 chess-men, 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&#039;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. An extensive collection of planes, chisels, saws, and other carpenters&#039; tools, which have been pledged, and never redeemed, form the foreground of the picture; while the large frames, full of ticketted bundles which are dimly seen through the dirty casement up stairs—the squalid neighbourhood—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—the noisy men loitering under the archway at the corner of the court, or about the gin-shop next door, and their wives patiently standing on the curb-stone, with large baskets of cheap vegetables slung round them for sale, are its immediate auxiliaries.<br /> <br /> <br /> If the outside of the pawnbroker&#039;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 a very increased degree. 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 render them indifferent to the observations of their companions in poverty. 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. 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—a consummation which depends considerably on the temper of the aforesaid gentleman for the time being. 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 &quot;that last bottle of soda-water last night&quot;—and &quot;how regularly round my hat he felt himself when the young ooman gave &#039;em in charge,&quot; would appear to refer to the consequences of some stolen joviality of the preceding evening. The customers generally, however, seem rather 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 - &quot;Now, Mr. Henry, do make haste, there&#039;s a good soul, for my two grand-children&#039;s a locked up at home, and I&#039;m afeer&#039;d o&#039; the fire.&quot; 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.—&quot;You&#039;re in a hurry, Mrs. Tatham, this ev&#039;nin&#039;—an&#039;t you?&quot; is the only notice he deigns to take after the lapse of five minutes or so. &quot;Yes, I am indeed, Mr. Henry; now do serve me next, there&#039;s a good creetur; I wouldn&#039;t worry you, only it&#039;s all along o&#039; them botherin&#039; children.&quot; &quot;Well what have you got here&quot; - inquires the shopman, unpinning the bundle—&quot;The old concern, I suppose—pair o&#039; stays and a petticut. You must look up something else, old ooman; I can&#039;t lend you any thing more upon them, they&#039;re completely worn out by this time, if it&#039;s only by putting in and taking out again, three times a week.&quot;—&quot;Oh! you are a rum &#039;un, you are,&quot; replies the old woman laughing extremely as in duty bound—&quot;I wish I&#039;d got the gift of the gab like you, see if I&#039;d be up the spout so often then? No, no; it ain&#039;t the petticut, it&#039;s a child&#039;s frock and a beautiful silk ankecher as belongs to my husband; he gave four shillin&#039; for it the wery same blessed day as he broke his arm.&quot;—&quot;What do you want upon these?&quot; inquires Mr. Henry, slightly glancing at the articles, which in all probability are old acquaintances. &quot;What do you want upon these?&quot;—&quot;Eighteenpence.&quot; —&quot;Lend you ninepence.&quot; &quot;Oh, make it a shillin&#039;— there&#039;s a dear! do now.&quot; &quot;Not another farden.&quot; &quot;Well, I suppose I must take it.&quot; 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. The choice falls upon 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. He was enjoying a little relaxation from his sedentary pursuits a quarter of an hour ago, in kicking his wife up the court. He has come to redeem some tools:—probably to enable him to complete a job, on account of which he has already received some money, if his inflamed countenance and drunken stagger may be taken as evidence of the fact. 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—an uneasy perch from which he has fallen at intervals, generally alighting on the toes of the person in his immediate vicinity. In the present case, the unfortunate little wretch has received a cuff which sends him reeling to the door, and the donor of the blow is immediately the object of general indignation. &quot;What do you strike the boy for, you brute?&quot; exclaims a slip-shod woman, with two flat-irons in a little basket. &quot;Do you think he&#039;s your wife you willin?&quot; &quot;Go and hang yourself,&quot; 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. &quot;Go and hang yourself; and wait there till I come and cut you down.&quot;—&quot;Cut you down,&quot; rejoins the woman, &quot;I wish I had the cutting of you up, you wagabond! (loud).—oh! you precious wagabond! (rather louder).—where&#039;s your wife, you willin (louder still; women of this class are always sympathetic, and work themselves into a tremendous passion in no time)? Your poor dear wife as you uses worser nor a dog—strike a wo-man—you a man! (very shrill); I wish I had you—I&#039;d murder you, I would, if I died for it!&quot; &quot;Now be civil,&quot; retorts the man fiercely. &quot;Be civil, you wiper!&quot; ejaculates the woman contemptuously. &quot;An&#039;t it shocking,&quot; 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&#039;s bolted in. &quot;Ain&#039;t it shocking, ma&#039;am? (&quot;Dreadful!&quot; says the old woman in a parenthesis, not exactly knowing what the question refers to.); he&#039;s got a wife, ma&#039;am, as takes in mangling, and is as &#039;dustrious and hard working a young ooman as can be, (very fast) as lives in the back parlour of our &#039;ous, which my husband and me lives in the front one (with great rapidity)—and we hears him a beaten&#039; on her sometimes when he comes home drunk, the whole night through, and not only a beaten&#039; her, but beaten his own child too, to make her more miserable—ugh, you beast!—and she, poor creetur won&#039;t swear the peace agin him, nor do nothin&#039;, because she likes the wretch arter all—worse luck!&quot; Here as the woman has completely run herself out of breath, the pawnbroker himself, who has just appeared behind the counter in a grey dressing-gown, embraces the favourable opportunity of putting in a word:—&quot;Now I won&#039;t have none of this sort of thing on my premises,&quot; he interposes with an air of authority. &quot;Mrs. Mackin, keep yourself to yourself, or I&#039;m damned if you get four pence for a flat iron here; and, Jinkins you leave your ticket here till you&#039;re sober, and send your wife for them two planes, for I won&#039;t have you in my shop at no price; so make yourself scarce, before I make you scarcer.&quot; 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—light enough, God knows—of the thin, sickly child she carries in her arms, turns his cowardly rage in a safer direction. &quot;Come home, dear,&quot; cries the miserable creature, in an imploring tone; &quot;Do come home, there&#039;s a good fellow, and go to bed.&quot; &quot;Go home yourself,&quot; rejoins the furious ruffian, accompanying an epithet we cannot repeat, with a kick we will not describe. &quot;Do come home quietly,&quot; repeats the wife, bursting into tears. &quot;Go home yourself,&quot; retorts the husband again, enforcing his argument by the application we have before hinted at. The poor creature flies out of the shop with the impetus thus administered; and her &quot;natural protector&quot; 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.<br /> <br /> The scene of which we have just attempted a slight description, is scarcely concluded, when a couple of the private boxes are occupied by persons who present so striking a contrast to each other, that we cannot resist the temptation of noticing them in our sketch as briefly as possible. In the last one 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 shopmen. It is not their first visit to a pawnbroker&#039;s shop, for they answer without a moment&#039;s hesitation the usual questions, put in a rather respectful manner, and in a much lower tone than usual, of &quot;What name shall I say?&quot; &quot;Your own property, of course?&quot; &quot;Where do you live, ma&#039;am?&quot; &quot;Housekeeper or lodger?&quot; 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 elderly 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. They are a small gold chain and a &quot;Forget me not&quot; ring: the girl&#039;s property, for they are both too small for the mother; given her in better times—prized perhaps once for the giver&#039;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; the coldness of old friends—the stern refusal of some and the still more galling compassion of others—appears to  obliterate the consciousness of self humiliation which the bare idea of their present situation would once have aroused. In the next is a young female, whose attire, miserably poor but extremely gaudy, wretchedly cold but scrupulously fine, too plainly bespeaks her station in life. 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. 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&#039;s mind some slumbering recollection, and to have changed for an instant her whole demeanour. 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 an agony of tears. 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. There has been another spectator, in the person of a woman in the common shop; the lowest of the low; dirty, unbonnetted, flaunting, and slovenly. Her curiosity was at first attracted by the little she could see of the group; then her attention; 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.<br /> <br /> Who shall say how soon these women may change places? The last has but two more stages—the hospital and the grave! 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? One is already tracing her footsteps with frightful rapidity. How soon may the other follow her example! How many have done the same!<br /> <br /> Such are a few of the sights and scenes of a Pawnbroker&#039;s Shop. We could extend this sketch much further; but we fear the subject would present few—very few—attractions. We will, therefore, only apologise for having dwelt upon it so long.18350630https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XV_The_Pawnbroker_s_Shop/1835-06-30_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No._XV_The_Pawnbrokers_Shop.pdf
56https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/56'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XVII, The Streets - Morning'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (21 July 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0001315/18350721/013/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0001315/18350721/013/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-07-21">1835-07-21</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-07-21_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVII_The_Streets_MorningDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XVII, The Streets - Morning' (21 July 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-07-21_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVII_The_Streets_Morning">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-07-21_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVII_The_Streets_Morning</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-07-21_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVII_The_Streets_Morning.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Sketches of London, No. XVII, The Streets - Morning.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (21 July 1835).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>The appearance presented by the streets of London an hour before sun-rise on a summer’s morning, is most striking even to the few whose unfortunate pursuits of pleasure, or scarcely less unfortunate pursuits of business, make them well acquainted with the scene. There is an air of cold, solitary desolation about the noiseless streets we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and the quiet closely shut buildings which throughout the day are swarming with life and bustle, that is very impressive. The last drunken man who shall find his way home before sunlight has just staggered heavily along, occasionally 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 corner, to dream of food and warmth: 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. The coach-stands in the larger thoroughfares are deserted; the night houses are closed; the chosen promenades of profligate misery are empty. An occasional policeman may 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—bounding first on the water-butt, then on the dust-hole, and then alighting on the flag-stones —as if he were conscious that his character depended on his gallantries of the preceding night escaping public observation. 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 rush-light through the window-blind denotes the chamber of watching or sickness. With these few exceptions, the streets present no signs of life, nor the houses of habitation. 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. 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. 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. 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. Here and there a bricklayer’s labourer, with the day’s dinner tied up in a handkerchief, walks briskly to his work, and occasionally a little knot of three or four school-boys 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 house maid may happen to awake. 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’s cart with its consumptive donkey. The pavement is already strewed with decayed cabbage leaves, broken haybands, and all the indescribable litter of a vegetable market and the numerous noises are almost as multifarious. Men shouting, carts backing, horses neighing, boys fighting, basket-women talking, piemen expatiating on the excellence of their pastry, donkeys braying, and a hundred other sounds form a compound discordant enough to a Londoner’s ears, and remarkably disagreeable to those of country gentlemen, who are sleeping at the Hummums for the first time. Another hour passes away, and the day begins in good earnest. The servant of all work, who, under the plea of sleeping very soundly, has utterly disregarded &quot;Missises ringing&quot; 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’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 ranges; when the fire is lit 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’s young man over the way is by an equally extraordinary chance taking down his master’s shutters. The inevitable consequence is, that she just steps milk-jug in hand as far as next door just to say &quot;good morning&quot; to Betsy Clark, and that Mr. Todd’s young man just steps over the way just to say &quot;good morning&quot; to both of ’em; and as the aforesaid Mr. Todd’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’s missis, who always will be a followin’ her about, didn’t give an angry tap at her bed-room window, on which Mr. Todd’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’s young man, who, being fond of mails, but more fond of females, takes a short look at the coach and a long look at the girls, much to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. 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. 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, God knows why, that it&#039;s quite impossible any man can mount a coach without requiring at least sixpenn&#039;orth of oranges, a pen-knife, a pocket-book, a last year’s annual, a pencil-case, a piece of sponge, and a small series of caricatures. 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 diurnal 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 Wonder, or the Tally-Ho, or the Nimrod, or some other fast coach, till it&#039;s 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 &quot;down in the country,&quot; where he went to school: the miseries of thin 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 school-boy associations. Cabs, with trunks and band-boxes between the drivers’ 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—the former wondering how people can prefer &quot;them wild-beast cariwans of omnibuses to a riglar cab with a fast trotter,&quot; and the latter admiring how people can trust their necks into one of &quot;them crazy cabs, when they can have a ’spectable ackney cotche with a pair of orses as von’t run away with no vun;&quot;—a consolation unquestionably founded in fact, seeing that a hackney-coach horse never was known to run at all, &quot;except,&quot; as the smart cabman in front of the rank observes, &quot;except one, and he run back’ards!&quot; The shops are now completely opened, and apprentices and shopmen are busily engaged in cleaning and decking the windows for the day. The bakers’ shops in town are filled with servants and children waiting for the drawing of the first batch of rolls—an operation which was performed a full hour ago in the suburbs; for the early clerk population of Somers and Camdon Towns, Islington and Pentonville, are fast pouring into the City, or directing their steps towards Chancery-lane and the inns of court. 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. 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. As to stopping to shake hands, or to take the friend’s arm, they seem to think that it is not included in their salary, and they have no right to do it. 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 trowsers of last Sunday plentifully besmeared with dust and ink. It evidently requires a considerable mental struggle to avoid investing part of the day’s dinner-money in the purchase of the stale tarts so temptingly exposed in dusty tins at the pastry-cooks’ 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’ and stay-makers’ apprentices they meet. Poor girls! The hardest worked, the worst paid; and too often the worst used, class of the community. Eleven o’clock, and a new set of people fill the streets. The goods in the shop-windows are invitingly arranged: the shopmen in their white neck-kerchiefs and spruce coats, look as if they couldn’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 &quot;beats&quot; in the suburbs: clerks are at their offices, and gigs, cabs, omnibuses, and saddle-horses are conveying their masters to the same destination. 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.18350721https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XVII_The_Streets_-_Morning/1835-07-21_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London,_No._XVII_The_Streets_Morning.pdf
57https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/57'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XVIII, Our Parish' (IV)Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (28 July 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0001315/18350728/018/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0001315/18350728/018/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-07-28">1835-07-28</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-07-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVIII_Our_ParishIVDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XVIII, Our Parish' (IV) (28 July 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-07-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVIII_Our_ParishIV">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-07-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVIII_Our_ParishIV</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-07-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVIII_Our_ParishIV.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Sketches of London, No. XVIII, Our Parish' (IV). <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (28 July 1835).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>The excitement of the election for Beadle having subsided, and our parish being again restored to a state of comparative tranquility, we are enabled to continue our sketches of individual parishioners who take no share in our party contests, or in the turmoil and bustle of public life. 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. The life of this gentleman has been one of a very chequered description: he has undergone transitions—not from grave to gay, for he never was grave—not from lively to severe, for severity forms no part of his disposition; his fluctuations have been between poverty in the extreme &amp;amp; poverty modified, or, to use his own emphatic languages, between nothing to eat and just half enough. He is not as he forcibly remarks, &quot;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:&quot; neither is he one of those, whose spirit has been broken beyond redemption by misfortune and want. 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 every where: 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. 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. Chance threw the man in our way a short time since. 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 sympathizing with, but to all appearance of understanding feelings, to which they themselves are entire strangers. 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. As are are induced to think on reflection that they will tell better, in nearly his own words, than with any attempted embellishments of our&#039;s, we will at once entitle them <br /> MR. BUNG&#039;S NARRATIVE. &quot;It&#039;s very true, as you say Sir,&quot; Mr. Bung commenced, &quot;that a broker&#039;s man&#039;s is not a life to envied; and in course you know as well as I do, though you don&#039;t say it, that people hate and scout &#039;em, because they&#039;re the Ministers of wretchedness, like, to poor people. But what could I do Sir? 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&#039;s goods would relieve my distress and that of my family, it can&#039;t be expected but what I&#039;d take the job and go through with it. 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, and if there is any thing wrong in being the agent in such matters—not the principal mind you—I&#039;m sure the business, to a beginning like I was, at all events carries its own punishment along with it. I wished again and again that the people would only blow me up, or pitch into me—that I wouldn&#039;t have minded: it&#039;s all in my way: but it&#039;s the being shut up by yourself in one room for three days, without so much as an old newspaper to look at, or any thing to see out o&#039; the winder but the roofs and chimnies at the back of the house, or any thing 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 &quot;the man&quot; should over-hear them, or perhaps the occasional opening of the door, as a child peeps in to look at you, and then runs half frightened away.—It&#039;s all this that makes you feel sneaking somehow, and ashamed of yourself; and then if it&#039;s winter time they just give you fire enough to make you think you&#039;d like more, and bring in your grub as if they wish it u&#039;d choke you—as I dare say they do, for the matter of that, most heartily. If they&#039;re very civil, they make you up a bed in the room at night; and if they don&#039;t, your master sends one in for you; but there you are, without being washed or shaved all the time, shunned by every body 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, &quot;I hope you don&#039;t;&quot; or, in the evening, to inquire whether you wouldn&#039;t rather have a candle, after you&#039;ve been sitting in the dark half the night. 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&#039; men, who are regularly trained to it, never think at all. I have heard some on &#039;em say, indeed, that they don&#039;t know how! &quot;I put in a good many distresses in my time (continued Mr. Bung), and in course I wasn&#039;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 sorts of things in time, that at last they come scarcely to feel them at all. I remember the very first place I was put in possession of was a gentleman&#039;s house in this parish here, that every body would suppose couldn&#039;t help having money if he tried. I went with old Fixem, my old master, &#039;bout half-arter eight in the morning, rang the area-bell, servant in livery opened the door; &#039;Governor at home?&#039;—&#039;Yes, he is,&#039; says the man; &#039;but he&#039;s a breakfasting just now&#039;—&#039;Never mind,&#039; says Fixem, &#039;just you tell him there&#039;s a gentleman here as wants to speak to him partickler.&quot; So the servant he opens his eyes, and stares about him all ways—looking for the gentleman, as it struck me; for I don&#039;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. Hows&#039;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—&#039;Please Sir, here&#039;s a man as wants to speak to you&#039;—looks in at the door as familiar and pleasant as may be. &#039;Who the devil are you: and how dare you walk into a gentleman&#039;s house without leave?&#039;—says the master, as fierce as a bull in fits—&#039;My name,&#039; says Fixem, winking at the master to send the servant away, and putting the warrant into his hands folded up like a note, &#039;My name&#039;s Smith,&#039; says he,&#039; and I called from Johnson&#039;s about that business of Thompson&#039;s.&#039;—&#039;Oh,&#039; says the other, quite down upon him directly, &#039;How is Thompson?&#039; says he.—&#039;Pray sit down, Mr. Smith: John—leave the room.&#039;— Out went the servant, and the gentleman and Fixem looked at one another till they couldn&#039;t look any longer, and then they varied the amusement by looking at me, who had been standing on the mat all this time.—&#039;Hundred and fifty pounds, I see,&#039; said the gentleman at last.—&#039;Hundred and fifty pound,&#039; said Fixem &#039;besides cost of levy, sheriff&#039;s poundage, and all other incidental expenses.&#039; &#039;Um,&#039; says the gentleman, &#039;I shan&#039;t be able to settle this before to-morrow afternoon.&#039;—&#039;Very sorry; but I shall be obliged to leave my man here till then,&#039; replies Fixem, pretending to look very miserably over it. &#039;That&#039;s very unfortunate,&#039; said the gentleman, &#039;for I&#039;ve got a large party here to-night; and I&#039;m ruined if those fellows of mine get an inkling of the matter.—Just step here, Mr. Smith,&#039; says he, after a short pause; so Fixem walks with him up to the window, and after a good deal o&#039; whispering, and a little chinking of suverins, and looking at me, he comes back and says &#039;Bung: you&#039;re a handy fellow, and very honest I know. This gentleman wants an assistant to clean the plate and wait at table today; and if you&#039;re not particularly engaged,&#039; says old Fixem, grinning like mad, and shoving a couple of suverins into my hand, &#039;he&#039;ll be very glad to avail himself of your services.&#039; 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 in my hand says, &#039;Here, my man,&#039; says he, &#039;run and get me a coach, will you?&#039; 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 every thing) came running down stairs as if he was in great anxiety. &#039;Bung,&#039; says he, pretending to be in a con-suming passion, &#039;Sir,&#039; says I. &#039;Why the devil an&#039;t you looking after that plate?&#039; says he. &#039;I was just going to send him or a coach for me,&#039; says the other gentleman. &#039;And I was just a going to say,&#039; says I,—&#039;Any body else, my dear fellow,&#039; interrupts the master of the house, pushing me down the passage to get me out of the way—&#039;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. Bung, damn you, go and count those forks in the breakfast-parlour instantly.&#039; You may be sure I went laughing pretty hearty when I found it was all right. 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.&quot; &quot;But this is the bright side of the picture, sir, after all,&quot; resumed Mr. Bung, laying aside the knowing look and flash air with which he had repeated the previous anecdote—&quot;and I&#039;m sorry to say it&#039;s the side one sees very—very seldom in comparison with the dark one. The civility which money will purchase is rarely extended to those who have none; and there&#039;s a consolation even in being able to patch up one difficulty to make way for another, to which very poor people are strangers. I was once put into a house down George&#039;s-yard—that little dirty court at the back of the gas-works; and I never shall forget the misery of them people, dear me. It was a distress for half a year&#039;s rent—two pound ten I think. There were only two rooms in the house, 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—which on average was about four times every quarter of an hour—they blowed up quite frightful: for their things had been seized too, and included in the inventory. There was a little piece of inclosed dust in front of the house, with a cinder path leading up to the door, and an open rain-water butt on one side. A dirty striped curtain on a very slack strong hung in the window, and a little triangular bit of broken looking-glass rested on the sill inside. I suppose it was meant for the people&#039;s use, but their appearance was so wretched and so miserable, that I&#039;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. There was two or three chairs, that might have been worth, in their best days, from eight-pence 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. There was an old sack, by way of rug, before the fire-place, and four or five children were grovelling about among the sand on the floor. The execution was only put in to get &#039;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. In one of the chairs by the side of the place where the fire ought to have been, was an old &#039;ooman—the ugliest and dirtiest I ever see—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. On the other side sat the mother with an infant in her arms which cried &#039;till it cried itself to sleep, and when it woke, cried &#039;till it cried itself off again. The old &#039;ooman&#039;s voice I never heard; she seemed completely stupified; and as to the mother&#039;s, it would have been better if she had been so too; for misery changed her to a devil; 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&#039;d have shuddered as much as I did. There they remained all the time: the children eat a morsel of bread once or twice, and I gave &#039;em best part of the dinners my missis brought me; but the women eat nothing: they never even laid down on the bedstead, nor was the room swept or cleaned all the time. The neighbours were all too poor themselves to take any notice of &#039;em; but what I could make out from the abuse of the woman up-stairs, it seemed the husband had been transported a few weeks before. 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 got &#039;em taken to the workhouse. They sent the sick couch for the old &#039;ooman; and Simmons took the children away at night. The old &#039;ooman went into the infirmary, and very soon died. The children are all in the house to this day, and very comfortable they are in comparison; as to the mother, there was no taming her at all. 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 every body as come near her, she burst a blood vessel one mornin&#039;, 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. &quot;Now this was bad enough,&quot; resumed Mr. Bung, taking a half-step towards the door, as if to intimate that he had nearly concluded. &quot;This was bad enough, but there was a sort of quiet misery—if you understand what I mean by that, Sir—about a lady at one house I was put into, as touched me a good deal more. It doesn&#039;t matter where it was exactly; indeed, I&#039;d rather not say; but it was the same sort o&#039;job. I went with Fixem in the usual way—there was a year&#039;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 was shown into, which was very clean, but very scantily furnished, much like the children themselves. &#039;Bung,&#039; says Fixem to me in a low voice when we were left alone for a minute, &#039;I know something about this here family, and my opinion is, it&#039;s no go.&#039; &#039;Do you think they can&#039;t settle?&#039; says I, quite anxiously: for I liked the looks of them children. 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. 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. &#039;What is the matter, gentlemen,&#039; says she, in a surprisin&#039; steady voice. &#039;Is this an execution?&#039; &#039;It is, Mum,&#039; says Fixem. The lady looked at him as steady as ever; she didn&#039;t seem to have understood him. &#039;It is, Mum,&#039; says Fixem again, &#039;this is my warrant of distress, Mum&#039; says he, handing it over as polite as if it was a newspaper which had been bespoke arter the next gentleman. The lady&#039;s lip trembled as she took the printed paper. She cast her eye over it, and old Fixem began to explain the form, but I saw she wasn&#039;t reading it, plain enough, poor thing. &#039;Oh, my God!&#039; says she, suddenly a-bursting out crying, letting the warrant fall, and hiding her fact in her hands. &#039;Oh, my God! what will become of us?&#039; The noise she made brought in a young lady of about nineteen or twenty, who, I suppose, had been a-listening at the door: she&#039;d got a little boy in her arms; she sat him down in the lady&#039;s l ap, 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. &#039;Now, dear Ma,&#039; says the young lady, &#039;you know how much you have borne. For all our sakes: for Pa&#039;s sake,&#039; says the lady, &#039;don&#039;t give way to this!&#039; &#039;No, no, I won&#039;t!&#039; says the lady, gathering herself up hastily and drying her eyes; &#039;I am very foolish, but I&#039;m better now—much better.&#039; 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&#039;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. When we came down stairs again, she hesitated a minute or two, and at last says, &#039;Gentleman,&#039; says she, &#039;I am afraid I have done wrong, and perhaps it may bring you into trouble. I secreted just now,&#039; she says, &#039;the only trinket I have left in the world— here it is.&#039; So she lays down on the table a little miniature mounted in gold. &#039;It&#039;s a miniature,&#039; she says, &#039;of my poor dear father! 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. Take it away, sir,&#039; she says, &#039;it&#039;s a face that never turned from me in sickness or distress, and I can hardly bear to turn from it now, when, God knows, I suffer both in no ordinary degree.&#039;—I couldn&#039;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 &#039;Mini&#039; - I had just written, and left the miniature on the table. &quot;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 &#039;em) to have seen in time. I saw, sir, that his wife was wasting away beneath cares of which she never complained, and griefs she never told. I saw that she was dying before his eyes: I knew that an exertion from him might have saved her; but he never made it. I don&#039;t blame him: I don&#039;t think he could rouse himself. She had for so long anticipated all his wishes, and acted for him, that he was a lost man when left to himself. 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. 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. The money was raised, and the execution was paid out. The whole family crowded into the room where I was when the money arrived. The father was quiet happy as the inconvenience was removed—I dare say he didn&#039;t know how—the children looks 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; but if ever I saw death in a woman&#039;s face, I saw it in her&#039;s, that night. &quot;I was right, sir,&quot; concluded Mr. Bung, hurriedly passing his coat-sleeve over his face. &quot;The family grew more prosperous, and good fortune arrived. But it was too late. Those children are motherless now, and their father would give up all that he has since gained—house, home, goods, money; all that he has, or ever can have to restore the wife he has lost. (To be continued.)18350728https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XVIII_Our_Parish_[IV]/1835-07-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No._XVIII_Our_Parish_IV.pdf
59https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/59'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XX, Our Parish' (V)Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (20 August 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350820/022/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350820/022/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-08-20">1835-08-20</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-08-20_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXX_Our_ParishVDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XX, Our Parish' (V) (20 August 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-08-20_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXX_Our_ParishV">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-08-20_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXX_Our_ParishV</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-08-20_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXX_Our_ParishV.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Sketches of London, No. XX, Our Parish' (V). <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (20 August 1835).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>Our Parish is very prolific in ladies’ charitable societies. In winter, when wet feet are common and colds not scarce, we have the ladies’ soup distribution society, the ladies’ coal distribution society, and the ladies’ blanket distribution society; in summer, when stone fruits flourish and stomach-aches prevail, we have the ladies’ dispensary, and the ladies’ sick visitation committee; and all the year round we have the ladies’ child’s examination society, the ladies’ bible and prayer-book circulation society, and the ladies’ child-bed linen monthly loan society. The two latter are decidedly the most important; whether they are productive of more benefit than the rest 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. We should be disposed to say, on the first blush of the matter, that the bible and prayer-book society is not so popular as the child-bed 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’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. 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. 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. 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. The opportunity was not long wanting. 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. Sobs were heard to issue from the three Miss Browns’ 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; 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 a lapse of five minutes with white pocket handkerchiefs to their eyes, as if they had been attending a funeral in the churchyard adjoining. If any doubt had for a moment existed, as to whom the allusion was intended to apply, it was at once removed. 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. 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. Maiden aunts triumphed: mammas were reduced to the lowest depths of despair; &amp;amp; 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. Mrs. Johnson Parker, the mother of seven extremely fine girls—all unmarried—hastily reported to several other mamma&#039;s 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. Was this to be borne in a civilized country? Could such things be tolerated in a christian land? Never! A Ladies’ 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. The three Miss Browns and their party saw the approaching danger, and endeavoured to avert it by ridicule and sarcasm. Neither the old men nor the old women could read their books now they had got em, said the three Miss Browns. Never mind; they could learn, replied Mrs. Johnson Parker. The children couldn’t read either, suggested the three Miss Browns. No matter; they could be taught, retorted Mrs. Johnson Parker. A balance of parties took place. The Miss Browns publicly examined—popular feeling inclined to the child’s examination society. The Miss Johnson Parkers&#039; publicly distributed—a re-action took place in favour of the prayer-book distribution. A feather would have turned the scale, and a feather did turn it. A missionary returned from the West Indies; he was to be presented to the Dissenters’ Distribution Society on his marriage with a wealthy widow. Overtures were made to the Dissenters by the Johnson Parkers. Their object was the same, and why not have a joint meeting of the two societies? The proposition was accepted. The meeting was duly heralded by public announcement, and the room was crowded to suffocation. The missionary appeared on the platform; he was hailed with enthusiasm. He repeated a dialogue he had heard between two negroes behind a hedge, on the subject of distribution societies; he approbation was tumultuous. He gave an imitation of the two negroes in broken English; the roof was rent with applause. From that period we date (with one trifling exception) a daily increase in the popularity of the Distribution Society—an increase of popularity which the feeble and impotent opposition of the examination party has only tended to augment. Now, the great points about the Child-bed Linen Monthly Loan Society are, that it is less dependent on the fluctuations of public opinion than either the distribution or the child’s examination, and that come what may, there is never any lack of objects on which to exercise its benevolence. 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. The consequence is, that the Monthly Loan Society flourishes, and invests its members with a most enviable amount of bustling patronage. 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. 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. The regular committee is composed exclusively of married ladies, but a vast number of young unmarried ladies of from 18 to 25 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. 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 &quot;caudle,&quot; to its patients. And here again the services of the honorary members are called into requisition, and most cheerfully conceded. Deputations of twos or threes are sent out to visit the patients, and on these occasions there is such a tasting of caudle 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. In rivalry of these two institutions, and as a last expiring effort to acquire parochial popularity, the child’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. 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. 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 re-hearsed and re-hearsed until all the children had the totals by heart; and the preparations altogether were on the most laborious and most comprehensive scale. The morning arrived, the children were yellow-soaped, and flannelled, and towelled, &#039;til their faces shone again; every pupil’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. The doors were thrown open and the Miss Browns and Co. were discovered in plain white muslin dresses and caps of the same —the child’s examination uniform. The room filled; the greetings of the company were loud and cordial; the distributionists trembled, for their popularity was at stake. The eldest boy fell forward, and delivered a propitiatory address from behind his collar. It was from the pen of Mr. Henry Brown; the applause was universal, and the Johnson Parkers were aghast. The examination proceeded with success, and terminated in triumph. The Child’s Examination Society gained a momentary victory, and the Johnson Parkers retreated in despair. A secret council of the distributionists was held that night—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. What could be done? Another meeting! alas! who was to attend it? The Missionary would not do twice; and the slaves were emancipated. A bold step must be taken; the parish must be astonished in some way or other; but no one was able to suggest what the step should be. At length a very old lady was heard to mumble in indistinct tones, &quot;Exeter Hall.&quot; A sudden light broke in upon the meeting. It was unanimously resolved that a deputation of old ladies should wait upon Mr. Somebody O&#039;Something, a celebrated Catholic renegade and Protestant bigot, imploring his assistance, and the favour of a speech; and that the deputation should also wait on two or three other imbecile old women, not resident in the parish, and entreat their attendance. The application was successful; the meeting was held; the Irishman came: he talked of green isles - other shores—vast Atlantic—bosom of the deep—Christian charity—blood and extermination—mercy in hearts—arms in hands—altars and homes—household gods—wiped his eyes, blew his nose, and quoted Latin. The effect was tremendous—the Latin was a decided hit. Nobody knew exactly what it was about, but everybody knew it must be affecting, because even the orator was overcome. The popularity of the Distribution Society among the ladies of our parish is unprecedented; and the Child’s Examination is fast going to decay. [To be continued].18350820https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XX_Our_Parish_[V]/1835-08-20_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_Our_Parish_No.XX.pdf
223https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/223'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. I, Omnibuses'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle </em>(26 September 1834), p.3.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18340926/016/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18340926/016/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=18340926">18340926</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-09-26-Street_Sketches_No1_OmnibusesDickens, Charles. '<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. I, Omnibuses' (26 September 1834). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-09-26-Street_Sketches_No1_Omnibuses">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-09-26-Street_Sketches_No1_Omnibuses</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>It is very generally allowed that public conveyances afford an extensive field for amusement and observation. Of all the public conveyances that have been constructed since the days of the Ark—we think that is the earliest on record—to the present time, commend us to an omnibus. 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—there is no change, no variety. Besides, after the first twelve hours or so people get cross and sleepy, and after you have seen a man in his nightcap you lose all respect for him—at least that it is the case with us. Then on smooth roads people frequently get prosy, and tell long stories, and even those who don&#039;t talk may have very unpleasant predilections. 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. This was decidedly unpleasant. 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. This is perhaps even worse than rum and water in a close atmosphere. Then there is the whole train of evils consequent on a change of the coachman; and the misery of the discovery—which the guard is sure to make the moment you begin to doze—that he wants a brown-paper parcel, which he distinctly remembers to have deposited under the seat on which you are reposing. 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. 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. Now you meet with none of these afflictions in an omnibus: sameness there can never be; 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. We believe there is no instance upon record of a man&#039;s having gone to sleep in one of these vehicles. 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. 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. 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. We will back the machine in which we make our daily peregrination from the top of Oxford-street to the City, against any &quot;bus&quot; 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. 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. He is no sooner emancipated, however, than he resumes the duties of his profession with unabated ardour. His principal distinction is his activity. His great boast is, &quot;that he can chuck an old gen&#039;lm&#039;n into the bus, shut him in, and rattle off, afore he knows where it&#039;s a-going to&quot;—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. We are not aware that it has ever been precisely ascertained, how many passengers our omnibus will contain. The impression on the cad&#039;s mind evidently is, that it is amply sufficient for the accommodation of any number of persons that can be enticed into it. &quot;Any room?&quot; cries a very hot pedestrian. &quot;Plenty o&#039; room, sir,&quot; replies the conductor, gradually opening the door, and not disclosing the real state of the case till the wretched man is on the steps. &quot;Where?&quot; inquires the entrapped individual, with an attempt to back out again. &quot;Either side, sir,&quot; rejoins the cad, shoving him in, and slamming the door. &quot;All right, Bill.&quot; Retreat is impossible; the new comer rolls about, till he falls down somewhere, and there he stops. As we get into the city, a little before ten, four or five of our party are regular passengers. 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—the increasing rapidity of cabs, and the disregard of moral obligations evinced by omnibus men. 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. 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. 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. 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. &quot;Now, what are you stopping for?&quot; says the little man every morning, the moment there is the slightest indication of pulling up at the corner of Regent-street, when some such dialogue as the following takes place between him and the cad:—&quot;What are you stopping for?&quot; Here the cad whistles, and affects not to hear the question. &quot;I say [a poke], what are you stopping for?&quot; &quot;For passengers, sir. Ba—nk.—Ty.&quot; &quot;I know you&#039;re stopping for passengers; but you&#039;ve no business to do so. Why are you stopping?&quot; &quot;Vy, sir, it&#039;s rayther a difficult question. I think it is because we prefer stopping here to going on.&quot; &quot;Now mind,&quot; exclaims the little old man with great vehemence, &quot;I&#039;ll pull you up to-morrow; I&#039;ve often threatened to do it; now I will.&quot; &quot;Thankee, sir,&quot; replies the cad, touching his hat with a mock expression of gratitude;—&quot;werry much obliged to you indeed, sir.&quot; Here the young men in the omnibus laugh very heartily, and the old gentleman gets very red in the face, and seems highly exasperated. 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&#039;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. A second omnibus now comes up, and stops immediately behind us. 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—he has been spirited away by the opposition. Hereupon the driver of the opposition taunts our people with his having &quot;regularly done &#039;em out of that old swell,&quot; and the voice of the &quot;old swell&quot; is heard, vainly protesting against this unlawful detention. 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&#039;t get him say they ought to have had him, and the cads of the respective vehicles abuse one another accordingly. As we arrive in the vicinity of Lincoln&#039;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. It is rather remarkable, that the people already in an omnibus always look at new comers, as if they entertained some undefined idea that they have no business to come in at all. We are quite persuaded the little old man has some notion of this kind—that he considers their entry as a sort of negative impertinence. 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. 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 Shoo-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 derived for ourselves.18340926https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Street_Sketches_No._I_Omnibuses/1834-09-26-Street_Sketches_No1_Omnibuses.pdf
221https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/221'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. II, Shops, and Their Tenants'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle </em>(10 October 1834), p.3.Dickens, Charles.<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18341010/017/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18341010/017/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-10-10">1834-10-10</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-10-10-Street_Sketches_No2_Shops_and_Their_TenantsDickens, Charles. '<em>Street Sketches</em>, No.II, Shops, and Their Tenants' (10 October 1834). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-10-10-Street_Sketches_No2_Shops_and_Their_Tenants">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-10-10-Street_Sketches_No2_Shops_and_Their_Tenants</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>What inexhaustible food for speculation do the streets of London afford! 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’s Church-yard, and back into the bargain, without deriving some amusement—we had almost said instruction—from his perambulation. And yet there are such beings: we meet them every day. 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; these men linger listlessly past, looking as happy and animated as a policeman on duty; 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. 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. 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’s apprentice within two miles round. One of our principal amusements is to watch the gradual progress—the rise or fall—of particular shops. We have formed an intimate acquaintance with several, in different parts of town, and are perfectly acquainted with their whole history. We could name off-hand, twenty at least, which we are quite sure have paid no taxes for the last six years. They are never inhabited for more than two months consecutively, and we verily believe have witnessed every retail trade in the directory. 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. It is on the Surrey side of the water—a little distance beyond the Marsh-gate. 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. 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. The chief pastime of the children in the vicinity had been to assemble in a body on the steps, and 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. Numerous complaints were made, and several small basins of water discharged over the offenders, but without effect; 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. We deserted our friend for a few weeks. What was our surprize, on our return, to find no trace of its existence! 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 &quot;an extensive stock of linen-drapery and haberdashery.&quot; It opened in due course; there was the name of the proprietor &quot;and co.&quot; in gilt letters, almost too dazzling to look at. Such ribbons and shawls! and two such elegant young men behind the counter, each in a clean collar and white neck-cloth, like the lover in a farce. 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 &quot;co.&quot; We saw all this with sorrow; we felt a fatal presentiment that the shop was doomed—and so it was. Its decay was gradual, but sure. 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 neck-kerchief, and the proprietor took to drinking. The shop became dirty, broken panes of glass remained unmended, and the stock disappeared piecemeal. At last the Company’s man came to cut off the water, and then the linen-draper cut off himself, leaving the landlord his compliments and the key. The next occupant was a fancy stationer; 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. We wished the man well, but we trembled for his success. He was a widower evidently, and had employment elsewhere; for he passed us every morning on his road to the city. The business was carried on by his eldest daughter. Poor girl! she needed no assistance. 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. 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 unmodest love of self-display, rather than drive them to a last dreadful resource, which it would shock the delicate feelings of these charitable ladies to hear named. But we are forgetting the shop. Well, we continued to watch it; and every day showed too clearly, the increasing poverty of its inmates. 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. Quarter-day arrived; 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. As we passed one morning, the broker’s men were removing the little furniture there was in the house, and a newly posted bill informed us it was again &quot;To Let.&quot; What became of the last tenant we never could learn, we believe the girl is past all suffering, and beyond all sorrow. God help her! We hope she is. We were somewhat curious to ascertain what would be the next stage—for that the place had no chance of succeeding now, was perfectly clear. The bill was soon taken down, and some alterations were being made in the interior of the shop, we were in a fever of expectation; we exhausted conjecture—we imagined all possible trades, none of which were perfectly reconcilable with our idea of the gradual decay of the tenement. It opened, and we wondered why we had not guessed at the real state of the case before. The shop—not a large one at the best of times, had been converted into two, one was a bonnet-shape maker’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. The tobacconist remained in possession longer than any tenant within our recollection. 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. He sold as many cigars as he could, and smoked the rest. 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. From this period the two little dens have undergone innumerable changes; the tobacconist was succeeded by a theatrical hair-dresser, who ornamented the window with a great variety of &quot;characters,&quot; and terrific combats. The bonnet-shape maker gave place to a green-grocer, and the histrionic barber was succeeded in his turn by a tailor. 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; it has been progressing by almost imperceptible degrees. The occupiers of the shops have gradually given up room after room, until they have only reserved the little parlour for themselves. First there appeared a brass-plate on the private door with &quot;Ladies School&quot; legibly engraved thereon; shortly afterwards we observed a second brass-plate; then a bell, and then another bell. 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. We were wrong. When we last passed it, a &quot;dairy&quot; 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.18341010https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Street_Sketches_No._II_Shops_and_Their_Tenants/1834-10-10-Street_Sketches_No2_Shops_and_Their_Tenants.pdf
222https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/222'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. IV, Shabby-genteel People'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle </em>(5 November 1834), p.3.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18341105/012/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18341105/012/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-11-05">1834-11-05</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-11-05-Street_Sketches_No4_Shabby-Genteel_PeopleDickens, Charles. '<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. IV, Shabby-genteel People' (5 November 1834). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-11-05-Street_Sketches_No4_Shabby-Genteel_People">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-11-05-Street_Sketches_No4_Shabby-Genteel_People</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>There are certain descriptions of people who, oddly enough, appear to appertain exclusively to the metropolis. 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. 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—that class which is so aptly and expressively designated as &quot;shabby-genteel.&quot; 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—this shabby-gentility—is as purely local as the statue at Charing-cross, or the pump at Aldgate. 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. A very poor man, &quot;who has seen better days,&quot; as the phrase goes, is a strange compound of dirty slovenliness and wretched attempts at a kind of faded smartness. We will endeavour to explain our conception of the term which forms the title of this paper. 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 trowsers plentifully besprinkled with grease spots, the trousers made very full over the boot, and ornamented with two cords down the outside of each leg—wearing also what has been a brown coat with bright buttons, and a hat very much pinched up at the sides, cocked over his right eye—don’t pity him; he is not shabby-genteel. The &quot;harmonic meetings&quot; 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. But, if you see hurrying along a bye street, keeping as close as he can to the area railings, a man of about 50 or 50, clad in an old rusty suit of threadbare black cloth, which shines with constant wear, as if it had been bees-waxed, the trowsers tightly strapped down, partly for the look of the thing, and partly to keep his old shoes from slipping off at the heels; if you observe, too, that his yellowish-white neck-kerchief is carefully pinned down, and his waistcoat as 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. A glance at that depressed face, and timorous air of conscious poverty, will make your heart ache—always supposing that you are neither a philosopher, nor a political economist. We were once haunted by a shabby-genteel man; he was bodily present to our senses all day, and he was in our mind’s eye all night. The man of whom 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. 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—two old dogs-eared folios, in mouldy worm-eaten covers, which had once been smart. 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. 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. About two o’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. He knew too well it was his dinner. When we first saw this poor object, we thought it quite impossible that his attire could ever become worse. We even went so far as to speculate on the possibility of his shortly appearing in a decent second-hand suit. We knew nothing about the matter; he grew more and more shabby genteel every day. 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 on the other side. He looked somewhat better at the beginning of the week than at the conclusion, because the neck-kerchief, though yellow, was not quite so dingy; and in the midst of all this wretchedness he never appeared without gloves and straps. He remained in this state for a week or two; 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. 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. We were wondering whether he had hung himself or thrown himself off a bridge—whether he really was dead, or had only been arrested—when our conjectures were suddenly set at rest by the entry of the man himself. 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. It was very odd; 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. The hat, too—nobody could mistake the shape of that hat, with its high crown, gradually increasing in circumference towards the top. Long service had imparted to it a reddish-brown tint, but now it was as black as the coat. The truth flashed suddenly upon us—they had been &quot;revived.&quot; &#039;Tis a deceitful liquid that black and blue reviver; we have watched its effects on many a shabby-genteel man. 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. It elevates their spirits for a week, only to depress them, if possible, below their original level. It was so in this case; the transient dignity of the unhappy man decreased in exact proportion as the &quot;reviver&quot; wore off. The knees of the unmentionables, and the elbows of the coat, and the seams generally, soon began to get alarmingly white; the hat was once more deposited under the table, and its owner crept into his seat as quietly as ever. There was a week of incessant small rain and mist. At its expiration the &quot;reviver&quot; had entirely vanished, and the shabby-genteel man never afterwards attempted to effect any improvement in his outward appearance. It would be difficult to name any particular part of town as the principal resort of shabby-genteel men. We have met a great many persons of this description in the neighbourhood of the Inns of Court. They may be met with in Holborn, between eight and ten any morning; and whoever has the curiosity to enter the Insolvent Debtors’ Court, will observe, both among spectators and practitioners, a great variety of them. We never went on ‘Change, by any chance, without seeing some shabby-genteel men, and we have often wondered what earthly business they can have there. They will sit there for hours, leaning on great, dropsical, mildewed umbrellas, or eating Abernethy biscuits; nobody speaks to them, nor they to any one. On consideration, we remember to have occasionally seen two shabby-genteel men conversing together on ‘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. 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. 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. A shabby-genteel man may have no occupation at all, or he may be a corn agent, or a coal agent, or a wine agent, or a collector of debts, or a broker’s assistant, or a broken-down attorney. He may be a clerk of the lowest description, or a contributor to the press of the same grade. Whether our readers have noticed these men in their walks as often as we have, we know not; this we know—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. Such objects, with few exceptions, are &quot;shabby-genteel people.&quot;18341105https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Street_Sketches_No._IV_Shabby-genteel_People/1834-11-05-Street_Sketches_No4_Shabby-Genteel_People.pdf
160https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/160'<em>Street Sketches</em>. No. III. The Old Bailey'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle</em> (23 October 1834), p. 3.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18341023/013/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18341023/013/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-10-23">1834-10-23</a><em>The British Newspaper Archive.</em> Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-10-23-Street_Sketches_No3_The_Old_BaileyDickens, Charles. '<em>Street Sketches</em>. No. III. The Old Bailey' (23 October 1834). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-10-23-Street_Sketches_No3_The_Old_Bailey">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-10-23-Street_Sketches_No3_The_Old_Bailey</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>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. How dreadful its rough, heavy walls, and low massive doors, appeared to us—the latter looking as if they were made for the express purpose of letting people in, and never letting them out again. Then the fetters over the debtors’ door, which we used to think were a bonâ fide set of irons, just hung up there, for convenience sake, ready to be taken down at a moment’s notice, and rivetted on the limbs of some refractory felon! We used to wonder 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. 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 &quot;Mr. Ketch;&quot; for we never imagined that the distinguished functionary could by possibility live anywhere else. The days of these childish dreams have passed away, and with them, many other boyish ideas of a gayer nature. But we still retain so much of our original feeling, that to this hour we never pass the building without something like a shudder. 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? 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 &quot;sporting&quot; jacket, on his back, and an immense key in his left hand. 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. We have a great respect for Mrs. Fry, but she certainly ought to have written more romances than Mrs. Radcliffe. We were walking leisurely down the Old Bailey, a few weeks ago, when, just as we passed this identical gate, it was opened by the officiating turnkey. We turned quickly round, as a matter of course, and saw two persons descending the steps. We could not help stopping, and observing them. They were an elderly woman, of decent appearance, though evidently poor, and a boy of about fourteen or fifteen. The woman was crying bitterly; she carried a small bundle in her hand, and the boy followed at a short distance behind her; their little history was obvious. The boy was her son, to whose early comfort she had perhaps sacrificed her own; for whose sake she had borne misery without repining, and poverty without a murmur; 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. He had formed dissolute connexions; idleness had led to crime; and he had been committed to take his trial for some petty theft. He had been long in prison, and, after receiving some trifling additional punishments, had been ordered to be discharged that morning. 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. We cannot forget the boy; he descended the steps with a dogged look, shaking his head with an air of bravado, and obstinate determination. They walked a few paces, and paused. The woman put her hand upon his shoulder in an agony of entreaty; the boy sullenly raised his head as if in refusal; it was a brilliant morning, and every object looked fresh and happy in the broad, gay sun-light; he gazed around him for a few moments, bewildered with the brightness of the scene—it was long since he had beheld anything save the gloomy walls of a prison. The contrast was powerful; perhaps the wretchedness of his mother made some impression on the boy’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—he burst into tears; and covering his face with one hand, and hurriedly placing the other in his mother’s, they walked away together. Curiosity has occasionally led us into both Courts at the Old Bailey. 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. There is a great deal of form, but no compassion; considerable interest, but no sympathy. Take the Old Court for example. There sit the Judges, with whose great dignity everybody is acquainted, and of whom therefore we need say no more. Then, there is the Lord Mayor in the centre, looking as cool as a Lord Mayor can look, with an immense bouquet before him, and habited in all the splendour of his office. We can never help thinking that a full-dressed Lord Mayor looks like a South Sea Idol, on which grateful devotees have hung a variety of georgeous ornaments without the slightest regard to the general effect of the whole. 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. Look upon the whole group in the body of the Court—some wholly engrossed in the morning papers, others carelessly conversing in low whispers, and others, again, quietly dozing away an hour—and you can scarcely believe that the result of the trial is a matter of life or death to one wretched being present. 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. 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. 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 one slight ray of hope. They turn round to consult; you can almost hear the man’s heart beat, as he bites the stalk of rosemary, with a desperate effort to appear composed. They resume their places; a dead silence prevails as the foreman delivers in the verdict—&quot;Guilty!&quot; An appalling shriek bursts from a female in the gallery; the prisoner casts one bitter look of agony at the quarter from whence the noise proceeded, and is immediately hurried from the dock by the gaoler. The clerk directs one of the officers of the court to &quot;take the woman out,&quot; and fresh business is proceeded with as if nothing had occurred. 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. A boy of thirteen is tried, say for picking the pocket of some subject of his Majesty, and the offence is about as clearly proved as an offence can be. He is called upon for his defence, and contents himself with a little declamation about the jurymen and his country—asserts that all the witnesses have committed perjury, and hints that the police force generally have entered into a conspiracy &quot;again&quot; him. However probable this statement may be, it fails to convince the Court, and some such scene as the following then takes place:— Court: Have you any witnesses to speak to your character, boy?—Boy: Yes, my Lord; fifteen gen’lm’n is a vaten outside, and vos a vaten all day yesterday, vich they told me the night afore my trial vos a comin’ on. Court. Inquire for these witnesses.—Here, a stout beadle runs out, and vociferates for the witnesses at the very top of his voice; you hear his cry grow fainter and fainter as he descends the steps into the court-yard below. After an absence of five minutes he returns very warm, and hoarse, and informs the Court of what it was perfectly well aware of before—namely, that there are no such witnesses in attendance. Hereupon the boy sets up the most awful howling ever heard within or without the walls of a court; 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. The jury at once find him &quot;guilty,&quot; and his endeavours to squeeze out a tear or two are redoubled. 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. This the urchin resolutely denies in some such terms as—&quot;S’elp me, gen’lm’n, I never vos in trouble afore—indeed, my Lord, I never vos. It’s all a howen to my having a twin brother, vich has wrongfully taken to prigging, and vich is so exactly like me, that no vun ever knows the difference atween us.&quot; This representation, like the defence, fails in producing the desired effect, and the boy is sentenced, perhaps, to seven years’ transportation. Finding it impossible to excite compassion, he gives vent to his feelings in an indignant cry of &quot;Flare up, old big vig!&quot; and as he declines to take the trouble of walking from the dock, is forthwith carried out by two men, congratulating himself on having succeeded in giving everybody as much trouble as possible.18341023https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Street_Sketches._No._III._The_Old_Bailey/1834-10-23-The_Old_Bailey.pdf
170https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/170'A Child's Dream of a Star'Published in <em>Household Words,</em> Vol. I, No. 2, 6 April 1850, pp. 25-26Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-25.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-25.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1850-04-06">1850-04-06</a><span>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a><span>. A</span><span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1850-04-06-A_Childs_Dream_StarDickens, Charles. 'A Child's Dream of a Star' (6 April 1850). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1850-04-06-A_Childs_Dream_Star">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1850-04-06-A_Childs_Dream_Star</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>There was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of GOD who made the lovely world. They used to say to one another, sometimes, Supposing all the children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky, be sorry? They believed they would be sorry. For, said they, the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hill-sides are the children of the water; and the smallest bright specks, playing at hide and seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to see their playmates, the children of men, no more. There was one clear shining star that used to come out in the sky before the rest, near the church spire, above the graves. It was larger and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and every night they watched for it, standing hand in hand at a window. Whoever saw it first, cried out, &quot;I see the star!&quot; And often they cried out both together, knowing so well when it would rise, and where. So they grew to be such friends with it, that, before lying down in their beds, they always looked out once again, to bid it good night; and when they were turning round to sleep, they used to say, &quot;God bless the star!&quot; But while she was still very young, oh very very young, the sister drooped, and came to be so weak that she could no longer stand in the window at night; and then the child looked sadly out by himself, and when he saw the star, turned round and said to the patient pale face on the bed, &quot;I see the star!&quot; and then a smile would come upon the face, and a little weak voice used to say, &quot;God bless my brother and the star!&quot; And so the time came, all too soon! when the child looked out alone, and when there was no face on the bed; and when there was a little grave among the graves, not there before; and when the star made long rays down towards him, as he saw it through his tears. Now, these rays were so bright, and they seemed to make such a shining way from earth to Heaven, that when the child went to his solitary bed, he dreamed about the star; and dreamed that, lying where he was, he saw a train of people taken up that sparkling road by angels. And the star, opening, showed him a great world of light, where many more such angels waited to receive them. All these angels, who were waiting, turned their beaming eyes upon the people who were carried up into the star; and some came out from the long rows in which they stood, and fell upon the people&#039;s necks, and kissed them tenderly, and went away with them down avenues of light, and were so happy in their company, that lying in his bed he wept for joy. But, there were many angels who did not go with them, and among them one he knew. The patient face that once had lain upon the bed was gloried and radiant, but his heart found out his sister among all the host. His sister&#039;s angel lingered near the entrance of the star, and said to the leader among those who had brought the people thither: &quot;Is my brother come?&quot; And he said &quot;No.&quot; She was turning hopefully away, when the child stretched out his arms, and cried &quot;O, sister, I am here! Take me!&quot; and then she turned her beaming eyes upon him, and it was night; and the star was shining into the room, making long rays down towards him as he saw it through his tears. From that hour forth, the child looked out upon the star as on the Home he was to go to, when his time should come; and he thought that he did not belong to the earth alone, but to the star too, because of his sister&#039;s angel gone before. There was a baby born to be a brother to the child; and while he was so little that he never yet had spoken word, he stretched his tiny form out on his bed, and died. Again the child dreamed of the opened star, and of the company of angels, and the train of people, and the rows of angels with their beaming eyes all turned upon those people&#039;s faces. Said his sister&#039;s angel to the leader: &quot;Is my brother come?&quot; And he said &quot;Not that one, but another.&quot; As the child beheld his brother&#039;s angel in her arms, he cried, &quot;O, sister, I am here! Take me! &quot;And she turned and smiled upon him, and the star was shining. He grew to be a young man, and was busy at his books, when an old servant came to him, and said: &quot;Thy mother is no more. I bring her blessing on her darling son!&quot; Again at night he saw the star, and all that former company. Said his sister&#039;s angel to the leader: &quot;Is my brother come?&quot; And he said, &quot;Thy mother!&quot; A mighty cry of joy went forth through all the star, because the mother was re-united to her two children. And he stretched out his arms and cried, &quot;O, mother, sister, and brother, I am here! Take me!&quot; And they answered him &quot;Not yet,&quot; and the star was shining. He grew to be a man, whose hair was turning grey, and he was sitting in his chair by the reside, heavy with grief, and with his face bedewed with tears, when the star opened once again. Said his sister&#039;s angel to the leader, &quot;Is my brother come?&quot; And he said, &quot;Nay, but his maiden daughter.&quot; And the man who had been the child saw his daughter, newly lost to him, a celestial creature among those three, and he said &quot;My daughter&#039;s head is on my sister&#039;s bosom, and her arm is round my mother&#039;s neck, and at her feet there is the baby of old time, and I can bear the parting from her, GOD be praised!&quot; And the star was shining. Thus the child came to be an old man, and his once smooth face was wrinkled, and his steps were slow and feeble, and his back was bent. And one night as he lay upon his bed, his children standing round, he cried, as he had cried so long ago: &quot;I see the star!&quot; They whispered one another &quot;He is dying.&quot; And he said, &quot;I am. My age is falling from me like a garment, and I move towards the star as a child. And O, my Father, now I thank thee that it has so often opened, to receive those dear ones who await me!&quot; And the star was shining; and it shines upon his grave.18500406https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/A_Child_s_Dream_of_a_Star/1850-04-06-A_Childs_Dream_Star.pdf
39https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/39'A Dinner at Poplar Walk'Published in <em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres, </em><span>December 1833, pp. 617-624.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>Internet Archive,</em> <a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_monthly-magazine_1833-12_16_96/page/616/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/sim_monthly-magazine_1833-12_16_96/page/616/mode/2up</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1833-12">1833-12</a><p><em>Internet Archive,</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://archive.org/about.terms.php">https://archive.org/about.terms.php</a>. Access to the Archive's Collections is granted for scholarship and research purposes only.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1833-12-A_Dinner_at_Poplar_Walk"Mr. Minns and His Cousin." <em>Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People. </em>Illustrated by George Cruikshank. John Macrone, 1836, pp. 296-306, <em>Hathi Trust, </em><a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011591435" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011591435</a>.Dickens, Charles. 'A Dinner at Poplar Walk' (December 1833). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1833-12-A_Dinner_at_Poplar_Walk">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1833-12-A_Dinner_at_Poplar_Walk</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1833-12_The_Monthly_Magazine_A_Dinner_at_Poplar_Walk.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'A Dinner at Poplar Walk.' <em>The Monthly Magazine</em> (December 1833).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>Mr. Augustus Minns was a bachelor of about forty as he said—of about eight and forty as his friends said. He was always exceedingly clean, precise, and tidy, perhaps somewhat priggish, and the most &quot;retiring man in the world.&quot; 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. He was a clerk in Somerset House, or, as he said, he held &quot;a responsible situation under Government.&quot; He had a good and increasing salary, in addition to some 10,000l. 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. He had but two particular horrors in the world, and those were dogs and children. His prejudice arose from no unamiability of disposition, but that the habits of the animals were continually at variance with his love of order, which might be said to be equally as powerful as his love of life. Mr. Augustus Minns had no relation in or near London, with the exception of his cousin, Mr. Octavius Bagshaw, to whose son, whom he had never seen (for he disliked the father), he had consented to become godfather by proxy. Mr. Bagshaw having realised a moderate fortune by exercising &quot;the trade or calling&quot; 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 Bagshaw. 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. Bagshaw at last made up his mind, that it should not be his fault if he and his cousin were not in future more intimate. &quot;I’ll break the ice, my love,&quot; said Mr. Bagshaw, 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,—&quot;by asking Minns down to dine with us, on Sunday.&quot; &quot;Then pray, Bagshaw, write to your cousin at once,’ replied his spouse; &quot;who knows, if we could only get him down here, but that he might take a fancy to our Alexander, and leave him his property?—Alick, my dear, take your legs off the rail of the chair.&quot; &quot;Very true,&quot; said Mr. Bagshaw, musing, &quot;very true indeed, my love.&quot; 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 the Times, which he always read from the title to the printer’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 hand a particularly small card, on which was engraved in immense letters, &quot;Mr. Octavius Bagshaw, AMELIA COTTAGE (Mrs. B.’s name was Amelia), Poplar Walk, Stamford Hill.&quot; &quot;Bagshaw!&quot; ejaculated Minns, &quot;what the deuce can bring that vulgar man here?—Say I’m asleep—say I’ve broken my leg—any thing.&quot; &quot;But, please, sir, the gentleman’s coming up,&quot; 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. &quot;Hem! show the gentleman in,&quot; said he in a state of desperation.—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. The cause of the pattering on the stairs was but too plain.—If it be possible for a man to entertain feeling of the most deep-rooted and unconquerable aversion to any one thing, Minns entertained this feeling towards an animal of the canine species. This, by the way, was hinted before. &quot;My dear fellow, how are you?&quot; said Mr. Bagshaw, as he entered. (He always spoke at the top of his voice, and always said the same thing half-a-dozen times.)—&quot;How are you, my hearty?&quot; &quot;How do you do, Mr. Bagshaw?—pray take a chair!&quot; politely stammered the discomfited Minns. &quot;Thank you, thank you. Well, how are you, eh?&quot; &quot;Uncommonly well, thank you,&quot; 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, which, in the ordinary course of things, it was natural to suppose he would eat with the buttered side next the carpet. &quot;Ah, you rogue!&quot; said Bagshaw to his dog.—&quot;You see, Minns, he’s like me, always at home: eh, my boy!—Egad, I’m precious hot and hungry! I’ve walked all the way from Stamford Hill, this morning.&quot; &quot;Have you breakfasted?&quot; ejaculated Minns. &quot;Oh, no!&quot; returned Bagshaw. &quot;oh no! Came to town to breakfast with you; so, ring the bell, my dear fellow, will you? and let’s have another cup and saucer, and the cold ham.—Make myself at home, you see!&quot; he continued, dusting his boots with a table-napkin.&quot;‘Ha!—ha!—ha!—’Pon my life, I’m hungry!&quot; Minns rang the bell, and tried to smile, but looked as merry as a farthing rushlight in a fog. &quot;I decidedly never was so hot in my life,&quot; continued Octavius, wiping his forehead;—&quot;Well, but how are you, Minns? ‘Pon my soul, you wear capitally!&quot; &quot;Humph! &#039;dye think so?&quot; &quot;’Pon my life, I do!&quot; &quot;Mrs. B. and—what’s his name—quite well?&quot; &quot;Alick—my son, you mean. Never better—never better. But such a place as we’ve got at Poplar Walk! you know. It certainly is a most capital place—beautiful! I&#039;ll trouble you for another cup of tea. Let&#039;s see—what was I saying? Oh! I know. Such a beautiful place! When I first saw it, by Jove! it looked so knowing, with the front garden like, and the green railings, and the brass knocker, and all that—I really thought it was a cut above me.&quot; &quot;Don’t you think you’d like the ham better,&quot; interrupted Minns, &quot;if you cut it the other way?&quot; as 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. &quot;No, thank ye,&quot; returned Bagshaw, with the most barbarous indifference to crime; &quot;I prefer it this way—it eats short. But, I say, Minns, when will you come down and see us? You&#039;ll be delighted with the place; I know you will. Amelia and I were talking about you the other night, and Amelia said—another lump of sugar, please: thank ye—she said, &quot;Don’t you think you could contrive, my dear, to say to Mr. Minns, in a friendly way—Come down, Sir—damn the dog! He’s spoiling your curtains, Minns—Ha!—ha!—ha!&quot; Minns leaped from his seat as though he had received the discharge from a galvanic battery. &quot;Come out, Sir!—go out, hoo!&quot; 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. 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 of the door, until they resembled the interior of a backgammon-board. &quot;A good dog for the country that!&quot; coolly observed Bagshaw to the distracted Minns—&quot;he’s not much used to confinement, though. But now, Minns, when will you come down? I’ll take no denial, positively. Let’s see—to-day’s Thursday;—will you come on Sunday? We dine at five. Don’t say no—do.&quot; After a great deal of pressing, Mr. Augustus Minns, driven to despair, and finding that if the dog, remained in the house much longer, he, Mr. Augustus Minns, might just as well lodge in the Zoological Gardens, accepted the invitation, and promised to be at Poplar Walk on the ensuing Sunday, at a quarter before five, to the minute. &quot;Now mind the direction,&quot; said Bagshaw: &quot;the coach goes from the Flower-pot, in Bishopsgate-street, every half hour. When the coach stops at the Swan, you’ll see, immediately opposite you, a white house—&quot; &quot;Which is your house—I understand,&quot; said Minns, wishing to cut short the story and the visit at the same time. &quot;No, no, that’s not mine; that’s Grogus’s, the great ironmonger’s. I was going to say, you turn down by the side of the white house till you can’t go another step further—mind that; and then you turn to your right, by some stables—well; close to you, you’ll see a wall with &#039;BEWARE OF THE DOG&#039; written on it in large letters—[Minns shuddered]—go along by the side of that wall for about a quarter of a mile, and anybody will show you which is my place.&quot; &quot;Very well—thank ye—good bye.&quot; &quot;Be punctual.&quot; &quot;Certainly: good morning.&quot; &quot;I say, Minns, you’ve got a card?&quot; &quot;Yes, I have; thank ye.&quot; And Mr. Octavius Bagshaw departed, leaving his cousin looking forward to his visit on the following Sunday with the feelings of a pennyless poet to the weekly visit of his Scotch landlady. Sunday arrived; the sky was bright and clear; crowds of clean, decently-dressed people were hurrying along the streets, intent on their different schemes of pleasure for the day; and every thing, and every body, looked cheerful and happy but Mr. Augustus Minns. The day was fine, but the heat was considerable; and by the time 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. By the most extraordinary good fortune, however, a coach was waiting at the Flower Pot, into which Mr. Augustus Minn&#039;s got, on the solemn assurance of the cad that the coach would start in three minutes—that being the time the coach was allowed to wait by &quot;act of Parliament.&quot; A quarter of an hour elapsed, and there were no signs of moving. Minns looked at his watch for the sixth time. &quot;Coachman, are you going or not?&quot; bawled Mr. Minns (with his head and half his body out of the coach window). &quot;Di-rectly, Sir,&quot; said the coachman, with his hands in his pockets, looking as much unlike a man in a hurry as possible.—&quot;Bill, take them cloths off.&quot; 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. &quot;Coachman! If you don’t go this moment, I shall get out,&quot; said Mr. Minns, rendered desperate by the lateness of the hour, and the impossibility of being in Poplar Walk at the appointed time. &quot;Going this minute, Sir,&quot; was the reply;—and, accordingly, the coach trundled on for a couple of hundred yards, and then stopped again. Minns doubled himself up into a corner of the coach, and abandoned himself to fate. &quot;Tell your missis to make haste, my dear—&#039;cause here&#039;s a gentleman inside vich is in a desperate hurry.&quot; In about five minutes more missis appeared, with a child and two band-boxes, and then they set off. &quot;Be quiet, love!&quot; said the mother—who saw the agony of Minns, as the child rubbed its shoes on his new drab trowsers—&quot;be quiet, dear! Here, play with this parasol—don&#039;t kick the gentleman.&quot; The interesting infant, however, with its agreeable plaything, contrived to tax Mr. Minns&#039;s ingenuity, in the &quot;art of self-defence,&quot; during the ride; and amidst these infantile assaults, and the mother&#039;s apologies, the distracted gentleman arrived at the Swan, when, on referring to his watch, to his great dismay he discovered that it was a quarter past five. The white house, the stables, the &quot;Beware of the Dog,&quot;—every landmark was passed, with a rapidity not unusual to a gentleman of a certain age when too late for dinner. 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 &quot;a garden&quot; 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. The taste of Mr. or Mrs. Bagshaw 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. 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 &quot;The Hall,&quot; ushered him into a front drawing-room, commanding a very extensive view of the backs of the neighbouring houses. The usual ceremony of introduction, and so forth, over, Mr. Minns took his seat: not a little agitated at feeling that he was the last comer, and, somehow or other, the Lion of a dozen people, sitting together in a small drawing-room, getting rid of that most tedious of all time, the time preceding dinner. &quot;Well, Brogson,&quot; said Bagshaw, 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 Minns’ general appearance, by looking at him over the top of the leaves—&quot;well, Brogson, what do ministers mean to do? Will they go out, or what?’ &quot;Oh—why—really, you know, I’m the last person in the world to ask for news. Your cousin, from his situation, is the most likely person to answer the question.&quot; 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’s Ministers. 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. Bagshaw caused a general rise. The ceremony of introduction being over, dinner was announced, and down stairs the party proceeded accordingly: Mr. Minns escorting Mrs. Bagshaw as far as the drawing-room door, but being prevented, by the narrowness of the stair-case, from extending his gallantry any further. The dinner passed off as such dinners usually do. Ever and anon, amidst the clatter of knives and forks, and the hum of conversation, Mr. Bagshaw’s voice might be heard asking a friend to take wine, and assuring him he was glad to see him; and a good deal of by-play took place between Mrs. Bagshaw and the servants respecting the removal of the dishes, during which her countenance assumed the variations of a weather-glass, sometimes &quot;stormy&quot; and occasionally &quot;set fair.&quot; Upon the dessert and wine being placed on the table, the servant, in compliance with a significant look from Mrs. Bagshaw, brought down &quot;Master Alexander,&quot; habited in a sky-blue suit with silver buttons, and with hair of nearly the same colour as the metal. After sundry praises from his mother, and various admonitions as to his behaviour from his pa, he was introduced to his godfather. &quot;Well, my little fellow—you are a fine boy, an’t you?&quot; said Minns, as happy as a tom-tit upon bird-lime. &quot;Yes.&quot; &quot;How old are you?&quot; &quot;Eight, next We’nsday. How old are you?&quot; &quot;Alexander,&quot; interrupted his mother, &quot;how dare you ask Mr. Minns how old he is!&quot; &quot;He asked me how old I was,&quot; said the precocious darling, to whom Minns had, from that moment, internally resolved he never would bequeath one shilling. 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,—&quot;Alick, what part of speech is be?&quot; &quot;A verb.&quot; &quot;That’s a good boy,&quot; said Mrs. Bagshaw, with all a mother’s pride. &quot;Now, you know what a verb is?&quot; &quot;A verb is a word which signifies to be, to do, or to suffer; as, I am—I rule—I am ruled. Give me an apple, Ma.&quot; &quot;I’ll give you an apple,&quot; replied the story-teller, who was clearly one of those bores who are commonly called &#039;friends of the family,&#039; &quot;if you’ll tell me what is the meaning of, be.&quot; &quot;Be?&quot; said the prodigy, after a little hesitation—&quot;an insect that gathers honey.&quot; &quot;No, dear,&quot; frowned Mrs. B—; &quot;B double E is the substantive.&quot; &quot;I don’t think he knows much yet about common substantives,&quot; said the smirking gentleman, who thought this an admirable opportunity for letting off a joke: &quot;It’s clear he’s not very well acquainted with proper names. He! he! he!&quot; &quot;Gentlemen,&quot; called out Mr. Bagshaw, from the end of the table, in a stentorian voice, and with a very important air, &quot;will you have the goodness to charge your glasses? I have a toast to propose.&quot; &quot;Hear! hear!&quot; cried the gentlemen, passing the decanters. After they had made the round of the table, Mr. Bagshaw proceeded—&quot;Gentlemen; there is an individual present—&quot; &quot;Hear! hear!&quot; said the little man with the red whiskers. &quot;Pray be quiet, Jones,&quot; remonstrated Bagshaw, sotto voce. &quot;I say, gentlemen, there is an individual present,&quot; resumed the host, &quot;in whose society, I am sure, we must take great delight—and—and—the conversation of that individual must have afforded to every individual present the utmost pleasure.&quot;— [&quot;Thank Heaven he does not mean me!&quot; thought Minns, conscious that his diffidence and exclusiveness had prevented his saying above a dozen words since he entered the house.]— &quot;Gentlemen, I am but a humble individual myself, and I perhaps ought to apologize for allowing any individual feelings of friendship and affection for the person I allude to, to induce me to venture to rise, to propose the health of that person—a person that, I am sure—that is to say, a person whose virtues must endear him to those who know him—and those who have not the pleasure of knowing him, cannot dislike him.&quot; &quot;Hear! hear!&quot; said the company, in a tone of encouragement and approval. &quot;Gentlemen,&quot; continued Bagshaw, &quot;my cousin is a man who—who is a relation of my own.&quot; (Hear! hear!) Minns groaned audibly—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. (Loud cries of hear!)—Gentlemen: I feel that I have already trespassed on your attention for too long a time. With every feeling of—of—with every sentiment of—of—&quot; &quot;Gratification&quot;—suggested the friend of the family. &quot;—Of gratification, I beg to propose the health of Mr. Minns.&quot; &quot;Standing, gentlemen!&quot; shouted the indefatigable little man with the whiskers—&quot;and with the honours. Take your time from me, if you please. Hip! hip! hip!—Za!—Hip! hip! hip!—Za!—Hip hip!—Za—a—a!&quot; 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. After as long a pause as decency would admit, with a face as red as a flamingo, he rose; but, as the newspapers sometimes say in their reports of the debates, &quot;we regret that we are quite unable to give even the substance of the honourable gentleman’s observations.&quot; The words &quot;present company—honour—present occasion,&quot; and &quot;great happiness&quot;—heard occasionally, and repeated at intervals, with a countenance expressive of the utmost misery, convinced the company that he was making an excellent speech; and, accordingly, on his resuming his seat, they cried &quot;Bravo!&quot; and manifested tumultuous applause. Jones, who had been long watching his opportunity, then darted up. &quot;Bagshaw,&quot; said he, will you allow me to propose a toast?&quot; &quot;Certainly,&quot; replied Bagshaw, adding in an under tone to Minns right across the table—&quot;Devilish sharp fellow that: you’ll be very much pleased with his speech. He talks equally well on any subject.&quot; Minns bowed, and Mr. Jones proceeded: &quot;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—for why should I deny it?—felt the overwhelming nature of the task I have undertaken, and my own utter incapability to do justice to the subject. If such have been my feelings, however, on former occasions, what must they be now—now—under the extraordinary circumstances in which I am placed. (Hear! hear!)—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. On one occasion, when that truly great and illustrious man, Sheridan was—&quot; &quot;Please, Sir,&quot; said the boy, entering hastily, and addressing Bagshaw, &quot;as it&#039;s a very wet ev&#039;ning, the nine o&#039;clock stage has come round to know, whether any one&#039;s going to town. There&#039;s room for one inside.&quot; Minns, who had some time meditated suicide, now, with a courage heretofore unknown, started up to secure the chance of escape. Many were the expressions of surprise, and numerous the entreaties to stay, when Minns persisted in his determination to accept the offer of the vacant inside place. It was useless to press him further; so, after detaining the coach for the purpose of looking for his umbrella, and then making the pleasant discovery that he had left it in the other coach coming don, Minns was informed by the parsley-and-butter coated boy that the coachman &quot;couldn&#039;t wait no longer; but if the gentleman would make haste, he might catch him at the Swan.&quot; Minns muttered, for the first time in his life, a diabolical ejaculation. It was of no use that fresh entreaties poured upon him. Quite as effective was the appeal of Master Alick, who, after dabbling half-an-hour in raspberry jam and custard, and fixing the print of his paws on Minns&#039; trowsers, cried out—&quot;Do stop, godpa&#039;—I like you—Ma&#039; says I am to coax you to leave me all your money!&quot;—Had Minns been stung by an electric eel, he could not have made a more hysteric spring through the door-way; nor did he relax his speed until, arriving at the Swan, he saw the coach drive off—full inside and out. It was half-past three in the morning ere Mr. Augustus Minns knocked faintly at No. 11, Tavistock Street, Covent Garden. He had footed it every step of the way from Poplar Walk:—he had not a dry thread about him, and his boots were like pump-suckers. Never from that day could Mr. Minns endure the name of Bagshaw or Poplar Walk. It was to him as the writing on the wall was to Belshazzar. Mr. Minns has removed from Tavistock Street. His residence is at present a secret, as he is determined not to risk another assault from his cousin and his pink-eyed poodle.18331201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/A_Dinner_at_Poplar_Walk/1833-12-A_Dinner_At_Poplar_Walk.pdf
165https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/165'A Little Talk about Spring and the Sweeps'<span>Published in&nbsp;</span><em>The Library of Fiction,</em><span>&nbsp;vol. 1. London: Chapman and Hall, 1836, pp. 113-119.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>Internet Archive,</em> <a href="https://archive.org/details/libraryoffiction01dick/page/112/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/libraryoffiction01dick/page/112/mode/2up</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+Robert+Seymour">Illustrated by Robert Seymour</a><p><em>Internet Archive,</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://archive.org/about.terms.php">https://archive.org/about.terms.php</a>. Access to the Archive's Collections is granted for scholarship and research purposes only.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1836-A_Little_Talk_about_Spring_SweepsDickens, Charles. 'A Little Talk About Spring and the Sweeps'. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-A_Little_Talk_about_Spring_Sweeps">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-A_Little_Talk_about_Spring_Sweeps</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Book">Book</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Library+of+Fiction%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Library of Fiction</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>&quot;Now ladies, up in the sky-parlour: only once a year, if you please.&quot; YOUNG LADY WITH BRASS LADLE. &quot;Sweep-sweep-sue-e-ep.&quot; ILLEGAL WATCHWORD. The first of May! There is a merry freshness in the sound, calling to our minds a thousand thoughts of all that is pleasant and beautiful in nature, in her sweetest and most delightful form. What man is there, over whose mind a bright spring morning does not exercise a magic influence? 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—where the butterfly fluttered far more gaily than he ever sees him now in all his ramblings—where the sky seemed bluer, and the sun shone more brightly—where the air blew more freshly over greener grass, and sweeter smelling flowers—where every thing wore a richer and more brilliant hue than it is ever dressed in now! Such are the deep feelings of childhood, and such are the impressions which every lovely object stamps upon its heart. The hardy traveller wanders through the maze of thick and pathless woods, where the sun’s rays never shone, and heaven’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. 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— magic scenes indeed; for the fairy thoughts of infancy dressed them in colours brighter than the rainbow, and almost as fleeting: colours which are the reflection only of the sparkling sunbeams of childhood, and can never be called into existence, in the dark and cloudy days of after-life! In former times, spring brought with it not only such associations as these, connected with the past, but sports and games for the present—merry dances round rustic pillars, adorned with emblems of the season, and reared in honour of its coming. Where are they now! 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. Think of the immorality, too! What would your sabbath enthusiasts say, to an aristocratic ring encircling the Duke of York’s column in Carlton-terrace—a grand poussette of the middle classes, round Alderman Waithman’s monument in Fleet-street—or a general hands-four-round of ten-pound householders, at the foot of the Obelisk in St. George’s-fields? Alas! romance can make no head against the riot act; and pastoral simplicity is not understood by the police. Well; many years ago we began to get 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—a fall certainly; because, though sweeps are very good fellows in their way, and moreover very useful in a civilized community, they are not exactly the sort of people to give the tone to the little elegances of society. The sweeps, however, got the dancing to themselves, and they kept it up, and handed it down. 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. A mystery hung over the sweeps in those days. 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. Stories were related of a young gentleman 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 mamma&#039;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’clock, to roast beef, plum-pudding, porter, and sixpence. 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. No one, except the masters, thought of ill-treating a sweep, because no one knew who he might be, or what nobleman’s or gentleman’s son he might turn out. 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. 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—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, &quot;that he believed he’d been born in the vurkis, but he’d never know’d his father.&quot; We felt certain, from that time forth, that he would one day be owned by a lord at least: 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. 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. Now 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 did console ourselves with it, for many years. But, even this wicked source of comfort received a shock, from which it has never recovered—a shock, which was in reality its death-blow. We could not disguise from ourselves the fact, that whole families of sweeps were regularly born of sweeps, in the rural districts of Somers&#039; Town and Camden Town—that the eldest son succeeded to the father’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. 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. 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 choose 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. We turned a deaf ear to these rumours at first, but slowly and surely they stole upon us. Month after month, week after week, nay, day after day, at last, did we meet with accounts of similar applications. The veil was removed, all mystery was at an end, chimney-sweeping&amp;nbsp; became a favourite and chosen pursuit: there is no longer any occasion to steal boys, for boys flock in crowds to bind themselves. 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. 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; 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 &quot;green,&quot; with no &quot;My Lord&quot; to act as master of the ceremonies, and no &quot;My Lady&quot; to preside over the exchequer. Even in companies where there was a green it was an absolute nothing—a mere sprout; and the instrumental accompaniments rarely extended beyond the shovels and a set of Pan pipes, better known to the many, as a &quot;mouth organ.&quot; These were signs of the times, portentous omens of a coming change: and what was the result which they shadowed forth? Why, the master sweeps, influenced by a restless spirit of innovation, actually interposed their authority, in opposition to the dancing, and substituted a dinner—an anniversary dinner at White Conduit House—where clean faces appeared in lieu of black ones smeared with rose pink; and knee cords and tops, superseded nankeen drawers and rosetted shoes. 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 as beyond the reach of praise. But how stands the real fact? 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 manner following: &quot;That now he’d cotcht the cheerman’s hi, he vished he might be jolly vell blessed, if he worn’t a goin’ to have his innins, vich he vould say these here obserwashuns—that how some mischeevus coves as know’d nuffin about the con-sarn, had tried to sit people agin the mas’r swips, and take the shine out o’ their bis’nes, and the bread out o’ the traps o’ their preshus kids, by a makin’ o’ this here remark, as chimblies could be as vel svept by ‘cheenery as by boys, and that the makin’ use o’ boys for that there purpuss vos barbareous; vereas he ’ad been a chummy—he begged the cheerman’s pard&#039;n for usin’ such a wulgar hexpression—more nor thirty year, he might say he’d been born in a chimbley, and he know’d uncommon vel as ‘cheenery vos vus nor o’ no use: and as to ker-hewelty to the boys, every body in the chimbley line know’d as vel as he did, that they liked the climbin’ better nor nuffin as vos.&quot; From this day, we date the total fall of the last lingering remnant of May-day dancing, among the élite of the profession: and from this period we commence a new era in that portion of our spring associations, which relates to the 1st of May. We are aware that the unthinking part of the population will meet us here, with the assertion, that dancing on May-day still continues—that &quot;greens&quot; are annually seen to roll along the streets—that sportive 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. Granted. 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. We positively deny that the sweeps have act or part in these proceedings. We distinctly charge the dustmen with throwing what they ought to clear away, into the eyes of the public. We accuse scavengers, brick-makers, and gentlemen who devote their energies to the costermongering line, with obtaining money once a-year, under false pretences. We cling with peculiar fondness to the customs 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 not sweeps. The size of them alone is sufficient to repudiate the idea. 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 now-a-days, would be a tight fit in a kitchen flue, to say nothing of the parlour. This is strong presumptive evidence, but we have positive proof—the evidence of our own senses, and here is our testimony:— Upon the morning of the second of this present month of May, 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; and 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 Maiden-lane, 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, and sifters of cinders: and through this 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. When we say a &quot;shed,&quot; 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. 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. 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 maternal parent had disposed of her mangle, we determined to await the issue in silence. 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! The first person who appeared was &quot;my lord,&quot; 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 bouquet 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. A murmur of applause ran through the crowd (which was chiefly composed of his 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. Her ladyship was attired in pink crape over bed-furniture, with a low body and short sleeves. 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. 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 &quot;the tin.&quot; The other characters were a young gentleman in girl’s clothes and a widow’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,—and last, though not least, the Green, animated by no less a personage than our identical friend in the tarpaulin suit. The man hammered away at the drum, the flageolet squeaked, the shovels rattled, the Green 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 Green, 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 Green, and finally drew her arm through his, and called upon the boys to shout, which they did lustily—for this was the dancing. We passed the same group accidentally in the evening. We never saw a green so drunk, a lord so quarrelsome (except in the house of peers after dinner), a pair of clowns so melancholy, a lady so muddy, or a party so miserable. How has May-day decayed! thought we. How many merry sports, such as dancing round the Maypole, have fallen into desuetude! And, apparently trifling as their loss may appear, with how many profligate and vicious customs have they been replaced! How much of cheerfulness and simplicity of character have they carried away with them; and how much of degradation and discontent have they left behind!18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/A_Little_Talk_about_Spring_and_the_Sweeps/1836-A_little_Talk_about_Spring_Sweeps.pdf
155https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/155'Full Report of the First Meeting of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything'Published in <em>Bentley's Miscellany</em> vol.2 (October 1837), pp. 397-413. Edited by Charles Dickens.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust, </em><a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081673711&amp;view=1up&amp;seq=7&amp;skin=2021">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081673711&amp;view=1up&amp;seq=7&amp;skin=2021</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1837-10">1837-10</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1837-10-Full_Report_First_Meeting_Mudfog_AssoDickens, Charles. 'Full Report of the First Meeting of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything'. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1837-10-Full_Report_First_Meeting_Mudfog_Asso">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1837-10-Full_Report_First_Meeting_Mudfog_Asso</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBentley%27s+Miscellany%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bentley's Miscellany</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>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 immortalised us, himself, Mudfog, and the association, all at one and the same time. 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. 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. Be it so. 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. We give our correspondent&#039;s letters in the order in which they reached us. 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. &quot;Mudfog, Monday night, seven o&#039;clock. &quot;We are in a state of great excitement here. Nothing is spoken of, but the approaching meeting of the association. 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. It is confidently rumoured that Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy have engaged three beds and a sitting-room at the Pig and Tinder-box. I give you the rumour as it has reached me; but I cannot, as yet, vouch for its accuracy. The moment I have been enabled to obtain any certain information upon this interesting point, you may depend upon receiving it.&#039; &quot;Half-past seven. &quot;I have just returned from a personal interview with the landlord of the Pig and Tinder-box. 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,—a girl of artless manners, and interesting appearance. 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. 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. The excitement still continues. A boy fell through the window of the pastrycook&#039;s shop at the corner of the High-street about half an hour ago, which has occasioned much confusion. The general impression is, that it was an accident. Pray heaven it may prove so!&#039; &quot;Tuesday, noon. &quot;At an early hour this morning the bells of all the churches struck seven o&#039;clock; the effect of which, in the present lively state of the town, was extremely singular. 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. You may conceive the anxiety with which we are all looking forward to the arrival of the four o&#039;clock coach this afternoon. &quot;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. A barrel-organ is playing opposite my window, and groups of people, offering fish and vegetables for sale, parade the streets. With these exceptions everything is quiet, and I trust will continue so.&quot; &quot;Five o&#039;clock. &quot;It is now ascertained beyond all doubt that Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy will not repair to the Pig and Tinder-box, but have actually engaged apartments at the Original Pig. This intelligence is exclusive; and I leave you and your readers to draw their own inferences from it. 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. The professor is a man who should be above all such petty feelings. 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. 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. &quot;Mr. Slug, so celebrated for his statistical researches, arrived this afternoon by the four o&#039;clock stage. His complexion is a dark purple, and he has a habit of sighing constantly. He looked extremely well, and appeared in high health and spirits. Mr. Woodensconce also came down in the same conveyance. The distinguished gentleman was fast asleep on his arrival, and I am informed by the guard that he had been so, the whole way. 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! &quot;The influx of visitors increases every moment. 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. 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. 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.&quot; &quot;Twenty minutes past six. &quot;I have just heard that the boy who fell through the pastrycook&#039;s window last night, has died of the fright. 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. The inquest, it is said, will be held to-morrow.&quot; &quot;Three-quarters part seven. &quot;Professors Muff and Nogo have just driven up to the hotel door; they at once ordered dinner with great condescension. 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. Immediately on their arrival they sent for the head-waiter, and privately requested him to purchase a live dog,—as cheap a one as he could meet with,—and to send him up after dinner, with a pie-board, a knife and fork, and a clean plate. 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.&quot; &quot;Half-past eight. &quot;The animal has been procured. He is a pug-dog, of rather intelligent appearance, in good condition, and with very short legs. He has been tied to a curtain-peg in a dark room, and is howling dreadfully.&quot; &quot;Ten minutes to nine. &quot;The dog has just been rung for. 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. 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. 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. 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.&quot; &quot;Nine o&#039;clock. &quot;The dog&#039;s tail and ears have been sent down stairs to be washed; from which circumstance we infer that the animal is no more. His forelegs have been delivered to the boots to be brushed, which strengthens the supposition.&quot; &quot;Half after ten. &quot;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. It appears that the pug-dog mentioned in my last was surreptitiously obtained,⁠—stolen, in fact,⁠—by some person attached to the stable department, from an unmarried lady resident in this town. 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,⁠—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. 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 protegé. 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. Her shrieks still reverberate in my ears! 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. 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. The unfortunate lady remains at the Pig and Tinder-box, and up to this time is reported in a very precarious state. &quot;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.&#039; &quot;Twelve o&#039;clock. &quot;I take the last opportunity before sealing my parcel to inform you that the boy who fell through the pastrycook&#039;s window is not dead, as was universally believed, but alive and well. The report appears to have had its origin in his mysterious disappearance. 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—a sufficient number of members not having been obtained at first⁠—he had patiently waited until the list was completed. This fortunate discovery has in some degree restored our gaiety and cheerfulness. It is proposed to get up a subscription for him without delay. &quot;Everybody is nervously anxious to see what to-morrow will bring forth. If any one should arrive in the course of the night, I have left strict directions to be called immediately. I should have sat up, indeed, but the agitating events of this day have been too much for me. &quot;No news yet of either of the Professors Snore, Doze, or Wheezy. It is very strange!&quot; &quot;Wednesday afternoon. &quot;All is now over; and, upon one point at least, I am at length enabled to set the minds of your readers at rest. The three professors arrived at ten minutes after two o&#039;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. Professor Wheezy may reconcile this very extraordinary conduct with his 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. 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. Upon this head, rumour is silent; I have my speculations, but forbear to give utterance to them just now.&quot; &quot;Four o&#039;clock. &quot;The town is filling fast; eighteenpence has been offered for a bed, and refused. 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. 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. The incarceration of this gentleman is greatly to be regretted, as his absence will preclude any discussion on the subject. &quot;The bills are being taken down in all directions, and lodgings are being secured on almost any terms. I have heard of fifteen shillings a week for two rooms, exclusive of coals and attendance, but I can scarcely believe it. The excitement is dreadful. 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. The vigour and promptness of these measures cannot be too highly extolled. &quot;Intelligence has just been brought me, that an elderly female, in a state of inebriety, has declared in the open street her intention to &#039;do&#039; for Mr. Slug. 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&#039;s animosity. 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 &#039;Stick-in-the-mud!&#039; 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.&quot; &quot;Half-past ten. &quot;The disturbance, I am happy to inform you, has been completely quelled, and the ringleader taken into custody. She had a pail of cold water thrown over her, previous to being locked up, and expresses great contrition and uneasiness. 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. I shall send you a full report of to-morrow&#039;s proceedings by the night coach.&#039; &quot;Eleven o&#039;clock. &quot;I open my letter to say that nothing whatever has occurred since I folded it up.&quot; &quot;Thursday. &quot;The sun rose this morning at the usual hour. 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. This is the more extraordinary, as the sky was perfectly cloudless, and the atmosphere peculiarly fine. At half-past nine o&#039;clock the general committee assembled, with the last year&#039;s president in the chair. 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. The various committees and sections having been appointed, and the more formal business transacted, the great proceedings of the meeting commenced at eleven o&#039;clock precisely. I had the happiness of occupying a most eligible position at that time, in &quot;SECTION A.⁠—ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. &quot;GREAT ROOM, PIG AND TINDER-BOX. &quot;PRESIDENT—PROFESSOR SNORE. VICE-PRESIDENTS⁠—PROFESSORS DOZE AND WHEEZY. &quot;The scene at this moment was particularly striking. 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 coup-d&#039;oeil which no eye-witness will readily forget. 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. 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. &quot;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, &#039;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.&#039; &quot;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 &#039;The Industrious Fleas.&#039; 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. 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. 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,⁠—mere sporting characters⁠—and two were actually engaged in the cold-blooded and barbarous occupation of duelling; a pursuit from which humanity recoiled with horror and disgust. 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. 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. 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. With this view, he proposed that liberal premiums should be offered for the three best designs for a general almshouse; from which⁠—as insect architecture was well known to be in a very advanced and perfect state⁠—we might possibly derive many valuable hints for the improvement of our metropolitan universities, national galleries, and other public edifices. &quot;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. This appeared to him, the only difficulty. &quot;THE AUTHOR submitted that this difficulty was easily overcome, or rather that there was no difficulty at all in the case. Obviously the course to be pursued, if Her Majesty&#039;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. 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. &quot;The President and several members of the section highly complimented the author of the paper last read, on his most ingenious and important treatise. It was determined that the subject should be recommended to the immediate consideration of the council. &quot;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. 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. 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. &quot;THE PRESIDENT congratulated the public on the grand gala 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. &quot;A Member wished to know how many thousand additional lamps the royal property would be illuminated with, on the night after the descent. &quot;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. &quot;The Member expressed himself much gratified with this announcement. &quot;MR. BLUNDERUM delighted the section with a most interesting and valuable paper &#039;on the last moments of the learned pig,&#039; which produced a very strong impression on the assembly, the account being compiled from the personal recollections of his favourite attendant. The account stated in the most emphatic terms that the animal&#039;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. 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. 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. A melancholy instance of a presentiment entertained by the animal of his approaching dissolution, was recorded. 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. In precisely four-and-twenty hours from that time he had ceased to exist! &quot;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. &quot;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. From these gestures it was understood that he wished the attendant to keep the cards, which he had ever since done. He had not expressed any wish relative to his watch, which had accordingly been pawned by the same individual. &quot;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. &quot;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. &quot;THE PRESIDENT begged pardon. He had considered the pig-faced lady a public character. 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? &quot;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. &quot;SECTION B.⁠—ANATOMY AND MEDICINE. &quot;COACH-HOUSE, PIG AND TINDER-BOX. &quot;PRESIDENT⁠—DR. TOORELL. VICE-PRESIDENTS⁠—PROFESSORS MUFF AND NOGO. &quot;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. He had been called in to visit the patient on the 1st of April, 1837. He was then labouring under symptoms peculiarly alarming to any medical man. 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. He was in the constant habit of eating three meals per diem, 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. He laughed constantly, and in so hearty a manner that it was terrible to hear him. By dint of powerful medicine, low diet, and bleeding, the symptoms in the course of three days perceptibly decreased. 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. 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. At the present moment he was restored so far as to walk about, with the slight assistance of a crutch and a boy. 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. &quot;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? &quot;DR. KUTANKUMAGEN replied in the affirmative. &quot;DR. W. R. FEE.—And you found that he bled freely during the whole course of the disorder? &quot;DR. KUTANKUMAGEN.⁠—Oh dear, yes; most freely. &quot;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. Dr. Kutankumagen rejoined, certainly not. &quot;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. It was a curious fact that a medical student of dissipated habits, being present at the post mortem 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. 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. &quot;THE PRESIDENT wished to know what became of the original key after the lapse of years. Mr. Knight Bell replied that the gentleman was always much accustomed to punch, and it was supposed the acid had gradually devoured it. &quot;DR. NEESHAWTS and several of the members were of opinion that the key must have lain very cold and heavy upon the gentleman&#039;s stomach. &quot;MR. KNIGHT BELL believed it did at first. 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. &quot;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. 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. 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. This man was a hard drinker. He (Professor Muff) had dispersed three drops of rum through a bucket of water, and requested the man to drink the whole. What was the result? 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. &quot;THE PRESIDENT wished to know whether an infinitesimal dose of soda-water would have recovered them? Professor Muff replied that the twenty-fifth part of a tea-spoonful, properly administered to each patient would have sobered him immediately. The President remarked that this was a most important discovery, and he hoped the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen would patronise it immediately. &quot;A Member begged to be informed whether it would be possible to administer⁠—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. &quot;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—in workhouses; the addition of the fifteenth part of a grain of pudding twice a week would render it a high diet. &quot;PROFESSOR NOGO called the attention of the section to a very extraordinary case of animal magnetism. 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. 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. &quot;SECTION C.⁠—STATISTICS. &quot;HAY-LOFT, ORIGINAL PIG. &quot;PRESIDENT⁠—MR. WOODENSCONCE. VICE-PRESIDENTS⁠—MR. LEDBRAIN AND MR. TIMBERED. &quot;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. He found that, within a circle of three miles from the Elephant and Castle, the following were the names and numbers of children&#039;s books principally in circulation:⁠— &quot;Jack the Giant-killer ... 7,943 Ditto and Bean-stalk.. 8,621 Ditto and Eleven Brothers...2,845 Ditto and Jill...1,998 Total..21,407 &quot;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. The ignorance that prevailed, was lamentable. One child, on being asked whether he would rather be Saint George of England or a respectable tallow-chandler, instantly replied, &#039;Taint George of Ingling.&#039; 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. Not one child among the number interrogated had ever heard of Mungo Park,⁠—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&#039;s Park. 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. &quot;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 up a hill to fetch a pail of water, which was a laborious and useful occupation,⁠—supposing the family linen was being washed, for instance. &quot;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 &quot;&#039;For laughing at Jack&#039;s disaster;&#039; besides, the whole work had this one great fault, it was not true. &quot;THE PRESIDENT complimented the honourable member on the excellent distinction he had drawn. 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. &quot;MR. SLUG then stated some curious calculations respecting the dogs&#039;-meat barrows of London. 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. The average number of skewers delivered daily with the provender, by each dogs&#039;-meat cart or barrow was thirty-six. 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. 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 dust-holes of London; which, if collected and warehoused, would in ten years&#039; 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&#039;s navy, to be called &#039;The Royal Skewer,&#039; and to become under that name the terror of all the enemies of this island. &quot;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. From this calculation it would appear,⁠—not taking wooden or cork legs into the account, but allowing two legs to every person,⁠—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. &quot;SECTION D.⁠—MECHANICAL SCIENCE. &quot;COACH-HOUSE, ORIGINAL PIG. &quot;PRESIDENT—MR. CARTER. VICE-PRESIDENTS—MR. TRUCK AND MR. WAGHORN. &quot;PROFESSOR QUEERSPECK exhibited an elegant model of a portable railway, neatly mounted in a green case, for the waistcoat pocket. 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. &quot;THE PRESIDENT was desirous of knowing whether it was necessary to have a level surface on which the gentleman was to run. &quot;PROFESSOR QUEERSPECK explained that City gentlemen would run in trains, being handcuffed together to prevent confusion or unpleasantness. For instance, trains would start every morning at eight, nine, and ten o&#039;clock, from Camden Town, Islington, Camberwell, Hackney, and various other places in which City gentlemen are accustomed to reside. 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. 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. &quot;MR. JOBBA produced a forcing-machine on a novel plan, for bringing joint-stock railway shares prematurely to a premium. 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. 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. Mr. Jobba stated that the machine had been in constant requisition for some months past, and he had never once known it to fail. &quot;A Member expressed his opinion that it was extremely neat and pretty. He wished to know whether it was not liable to accidental derangement? Mr. Jobba said that the whole machine was undoubtedly liable to be blown up, but that was the only objection to it. &quot;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 bed-room window, and got into the escape without falling into the street. The Professor stated that the number of boys who had been rescued in the day-time by this machine from houses which were not on fire, was almost incredible. 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. &quot;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. &quot;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.&quot; ⁠— 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. 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. They are now before the world, and we leave them to read, to consider, and to profit. 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. 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. 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. We have only to add, that the committees are now broken up, and that Mudfog is once again restored to its accustomed tranquillity,⁠—that Professors and Members have had balls, and soirées, and suppers, and great mutual complimentations, and have at length dispersed to their several homes,⁠—whither all good wishes and joys attend them, until next year!18371001https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Full_Report_of_the_First_Meeting_of_the_Mudfog_Association_for_the_Advancement_of_Everything/1837-10-Full_Report_First_Meeting_Mudfog_Asso.pdf
156https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/156'Full Report of the Second Meeting of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything'Published in <em>Bentley's Miscellany </em>vol.4 (September 1838), pp. 209-227. Edited by Charles Dickens.Dickens, Charles<em>Google Books,</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Bentley_s_Miscellany/ZJhHAAAAYAAJ">https://www.google.com/books/edition/Bentley_s_Miscellany/ZJhHAAAAYAAJ</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1838-09">1838-09</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+George+Cruikshank">Illustrated by George Cruikshank</a><p>Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1838-09-Full_Report_Second_Meeting_Mudfog_AssoDickens, Charles. 'Full Report of the Second Meeting of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything'. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1838-09-Full_Report_Second_Meeting_Mudfog_Asso">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1838-09-Full_Report_Second_Meeting_Mudfog_Asso</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBentley%27s+Miscellany%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bentley's Miscellany</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>In October last, we did ourselves the immortal credit of recording, at an enormous expense, and by dint of exertions unparalleled 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. 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. 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,—gifted by nature with transcendent abilities, and furnished by us with a body of assistants scarcely inferior to himself,—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. We give this gentleman&#039;s correspondence entire, and in the order in which it reached our office. &quot;Saloon of Steamer, Thursday night, half-past eight. &quot;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. 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. 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. But of such materials is our imperfect nature composed! &quot;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. 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. I should infer from all I hear that he has got the steam up. &quot;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. Professor Woodensconce has taken the shelf above me, and Mr. Slug and Professor Grime the two shelves opposite. Their luggage has already arrived. On Mr. Slug&#039;s bed is a long tin tube of about three inches in diameter, carefully closed at both ends. What can this contain? Some powerful instrument of a new construction, doubtless.&quot; &quot;Ten minutes past nine. &quot;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. 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. 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. 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. &quot;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. I shall despatch them in small packets as opportunities arise.&quot; &quot;Half past nine. &quot;Some dark object has just appeared upon the wharf. I think it is a travelling carriage.&quot; &quot;A quarter to ten. &quot;No, it isn&#039;t.&quot; &quot;Half-past ten. &quot;The passengers are pouring in every instant. Four omnibuses full have just arrived upon the wharf, and all is bustle and activity. The noise and confusion are very great. Cloths are laid in the cabins, and the steward is placing blue plates-full of knobs of cheese at equal distances down the centre of the tables. 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. He is a young man of exceedingly prepossessing appearance,—either dirty or a mulatto, but I think the former. &quot;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. I trust and hope that he may reach it in safety; but the board he has to cross is narrow and slippery. Was that a splash? Gracious powers! &quot;I have just returned from the deck. The trunk is standing upon the extreme brink of the wharf, but the old gentleman is nowhere to be seen. The watchman is not sure whether he went down or not, but promises to drag for him the first thing to-morrow morning. May his humane efforts prove successful! &quot;Professor Nogo has this moment arrived with his nightcap on under his hat. He has ordered a glass of cold brandy and water, with a hard biscuit and a bason, and has gone straight to bed. What can this mean! &quot;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&#039;t get into it. 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. 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. &quot;As I anticipated, the knobs of cheese were provided for the passengers&#039; supper, and are now in course of consumption. Your readers will be surprised to hear that Professor Woodensconce has abstained from cheese for eight years, although he takes butter in considerable quantities. Professor Grime having lost several teeth, is unable, I observe, to eat his crusts without previously soaking them in his bottled porter. How interesting are these peculiarities!&quot; &quot;Half-past eleven. &quot;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. There has been some discussion whether the payment should be decided by the first toss or the best out of three. Eventually the latter course has been determined on. 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. I have backed that gentleman to the amount of eighteenpence.&quot; &quot;Twenty minutes to twelve. &quot;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. Bets are offered on any side to any amount, but there are no takers. &quot;Professor Woodensconce has just called &#039;woman;&#039; but the coin having lodged in a beam is a long time coming down again. The interest and suspense of this one moment are beyond anything that can be imagined.&quot; &quot;Twelve o&#039;clock. &#039;The mulled port is smoking on the table before me, and Professor Grime has won. 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 ought to have come off victorious. There is an exultation about Professor Grime incompatible, I fear, with true greatness.&#039; &quot;A quarter past twelve. &quot;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 &#039;head&#039; beforehand, with many other remarks of a similar nature. 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? 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? Professor Grime will do well to look to this.&quot; &quot;One o&#039;clock. &quot;I am writing in bed. 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. The scene is indescribably solemn. The rippling of the tide, the noise of the sailors&#039; feet over-head, 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. With these exceptions, all is profound silence. &quot;My curiosity has been within the last moment very much excited. 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. What rare mechanical combination can be contained in that mysterious case? It is evidently a profound secret to all.&#039; &quot;A quarter past one. &quot;The behaviour of Mr. Slug grows more and more mysterious. 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. He is clearly on the eve of some great experiment. Pray heaven that it be not a dangerous one; but the interests of science must be promoted, and I am prepared for the worst.&quot; &quot;Five minutes later. &quot;He has produced a large pair of scissors, and drawn a roll of some substance, not unlike parchment in appearance, from the tin case. The experiment is about to begin. I must strain my eyes to the utmost, in the attempt to follow its minutest operation.&quot; &quot;Twenty minutes before two. &quot;I have at length been enabled to ascertain that the tin tube contains a few yards of some celebrated plaster, recommended—as I discover on regarding the label attentively through my eye-glass—as a preservative against sea-sickness. Mr. Slug has cut it up into small portions, and is now sticking it over himself in every direction.&quot; &quot;Three o&#039;clock. &quot;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&#039; cabin, under the impression that we were sinking, and uttering loud cries for aid. I am assured that the scene which ensued baffles all description. There were one hundred and forty- seven ladies in their respective berths at the time. &quot;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&#039;s berth may be situated, the machinery always appears to be exactly under his pillow. He intends stating this very beautiful, though simple discovery, to the association.&quot; &quot;Half-past ten. &quot;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. You can scarcely conceive how exciting the jerking pulsation of the ship becomes. It is a matter of positive difficulty to get to sleep.&quot; &quot;Friday afternoon, six o&#039;clock. &quot;I regret to inform you that Mr. Slug&#039;s plaster has proved of no avail. He is in great agony, but has applied several large, additional pieces notwithstanding. How affecting is this extreme devotion to science and pursuit of knowledge under the most trying circumstances! &quot;We were extremely happy this morning, and the breakfast was one of the most animated description. Nothing unpleasant occurred until noon, with the exception of Doctor Foxey&#039;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. I fear the gravy soup for lunch was injudicious. We lost a great many passengers almost immediately afterwards.&quot; &quot;Half-past six. &quot;I am again in bed. Anything so heart-rending as Mr. Slug&#039;s sufferings it has never yet been my lot to witness.&quot; &quot;Seven o&#039;clock. &quot;A messenger has just come down for a clean pocket-handkerchief from Professor Woodensconce&#039;s bag, that unfortunate gentleman being quite unable to leave the deck, and imploring constantly to be thrown overboard. 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. Such is the triumph of mind over matter. &quot;Professor Grime is in bed, to all appearance quite well; but he will eat, and it is disagreeable to see him. Has this gentleman no sympathy with the sufferings of his fellow-creatures? If he has, on what principle can he call for mutton-chops—and smile?&quot; &quot;Black Boy and Stomach-ache, Oldcastle, Saturday noon. &quot;You will be happy to learn that I have at length arrived here in safety. The town is excessively crowded, and all the private lodgings and hotels are filled with savans of both sexes. The tremendous assemblage of intellect that one encounters in every street is in the last degree overwhelming. &quot;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. 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. Nothing can exceed the fresh appearance of the saw-dust with which the floors are sprinkled. The forms are of unplaned deal, and the general effect, as you can well imagine, is extremely beautiful.&#039; &quot;Half-past nine. &quot;The number and rapidity of the arrivals are quite bewildering. 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. The ten last-named gentlemen were wet through, and looked extremely intelligent.&quot; &quot;Sunday, two o&#039;clock, P.M. &#039;The Honourable and Reverend Mr. Long Eers, accompanied by Sir William Joltered, walked and drove this morning. They accomplished the former feat in boots, and the latter in a hired fly. This has naturally given rise to much discussion. &quot;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. 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.&quot; &quot;Half-past six. &quot;I engaged a donkey-chaise shortly after writing the above, and proceeded at a brisk trot in the direction of Sowster&#039;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&#039;s hat was blown off yesterday. 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. From this point I proceeded—passing the gas-works and tallow-melter&#039;s—to a lane which had been pointed out to me as the beadle&#039;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. &quot;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. He has also a very red nose, which he attributes to a habit of early rising—so red, indeed, that but for this explanation I should have supposed it to proceed from occasional inebriety. 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, &#039;Never wos sitch times!&#039; &quot;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. After a few moments&#039; reflection, the Professor, who, I am bound to say, behaved with the utmost politeness, openly avowed (I mark the passage in italics) that he had requested Sowster to attend on the Monday morning at the Boot-jack and Countenance, to keep off the boys; and that he had further desired that the under-beadle might be stationed, with the same object, at the Black Boy and Stomach-ache! &quot;Now I leave this unconstitutional proceeding to your comments and the consideration of your readers. 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. 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. 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. I have yet to learn that a beadle has power to stop up the Queen&#039;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—ay, be they Black Boys and Stomach-aches, or Boot-Jacks and Countenances, I care not.&quot; &quot;Nine o&#039;clock. &quot;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. I enclose it. The under-beadle has consented to write his life, but it is to be strictly anonymous. &quot;The accompanying likeness is of course from the life, and complete in every respect. Even if I had been totally ignorant of the man&#039;s real character, and it had been placed before me without remark, I should have shuddered involuntarily. There is an intense malignity of expression in the features, and a baleful ferocity of purpose in the ruffian&#039;s eye, which appals and sickens. His whole air is rampant with cruelty, nor is the stomach less characteristic of his demoniac propensities. &quot;Monday. &quot;The great day has at length arrived. I have neither eyes, nor ears, nor pens, nor ink, nor paper, for anything but the wonderful proceedings that have astounded my senses. Let me collect my energies and proceed to the account.&quot; SECTION A.—ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. FRONT PARLOUR, BLACK BOY AND STOMACH-ACHE. PRESIDENT—SIR WILLIAM JOLTERED. VICE-PRESIDENTS—MR. MUDDLE-BRANES AND MR. DRAWLEY. &quot;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. 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. One bear, indeed,—a brown and ragged animal,—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. He regretted to add that a similar, and no less lamentable change, had taken place with reference to monkeys. 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. 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. 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. &quot;THE PRESIDENT inquired by what means the honourable member proposed to attain this most desirable end? &quot;THE AUTHOR submitted that it could be most fully and satisfactorily accomplished, if Her Majesty&#039;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—say at least by three bears a week. 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. &quot;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. On the contrary, he believed that they had been the means of diffusing very incorrect and imperfect notions on the subject. 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. 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? &quot;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. &quot;PROFESSOR PUMPKINSKULL wished to take that opportunity of calling the attention of the section to a most important and serious point. The author of the treatise just read had alluded to the prevalent taste for bears&#039;-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. 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. He wished to know whether it were possible that a constant outward application of bears&#039;-grease by the young gentlemen about town had imperceptibly infused into those unhappy persons something of the nature and quality of the bear? 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. &quot;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. It was dreadful to reflect that our youth were so rapidly verging into a generation of bears. &quot;After a scene of scientific enthusiasm it was resolved that this important question should be immediately submitted to the consideration of the council. &quot;THE PRESIDENT wished to know whether any gentleman could inform the section what had become of the dancing-dogs? &quot;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. He was given to understand that since that period they had supported themselves by lying in wait for and robbing blind men&#039;s poodles. &quot;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. 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. &quot;THE PRESIDENT wished to know what botanical definition the honourable gentleman could afford of the curiosity? &quot;MR. FLUMMERY expressed his opinion that it was A DECIDED PLANT.&quot; SECTION B.--DISPLAY OF MODELS AND MECHANICAL SCIENCE. LARGE ROOM, BOOT-JACK AND COUNTENANCE. PRESIDENT—MR.MALLETT. VICE-PRESIDENTS—MESSRS. LEAVER AND SCROO. &quot;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. 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. &quot;After some slight delay, occasioned by the various members of the section buttoning their pockets, &quot;THE PRESIDENT narrowly inspected the invention, and declared that he had never seen a machine of more beautiful or exquisite construction. Would the inventor be good enough to inform the section whether he had taken any and what means for bringing it into general operation? &quot;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. 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. &quot;THE PRESIDENT hoped that no such fanciful objections would be allowed to stand in the way of such a great public improvement. &quot;MR. CRINKLES hoped so too; but he feared that if the gentlemen of the swell mob persevered in their objection, nothing could be done. &quot;PROFESSOR GRIME suggested, that surely, in that case, Her Majesty&#039;s Government might be prevailed upon to take it up. &quot;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. &quot;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. His only fear was that the machine might be worn out by constant working. &quot;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 &quot;Practical Suggestions on the necessity of providing some harmless and wholesome relaxation for the young noblemen of England.&quot; 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. 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. 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. 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. 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—for the full enjoyment of which feat live pedestrians would be procured from the workhouse at a very small charge per head. 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. In short, every facility of enjoyment would be afforded that the most gentlemanly person could possibly desire. 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. 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,—quite equal to life,—who would fine them in so many counters, with which they would be previously provided for the purpose. 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. 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. &quot;PROFESSOR NOGO wished to be informed what amount of automaton police force it was proposed to raise in the first instance. &quot;MR. COPPERNOSE replied, that it was proposed to begin with seven divisions of police of a score each, lettered from A to G inclusive. 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&#039;s notice. &quot;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. He feared that noblemen and gentlemen would perhaps require the excitement of thrashing living subjects. &quot;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. The great advantage would be, that a policeman&#039;s limbs might be all knocked off, and yet he would be in a condition to do duty next day. He might even give his evidence next morning with his head in his hand, and give it equally well. &quot;PROFESSOR MUFF. —Will you allow me to ask you, sir, of what materials it is intended that the magistrates&#039; heads shall be composed? &#039;MR. COPPERNOSE.—The magistrates will have wooden heads of course, and they will be made of the toughest and thickest materials that can possibly be obtained. &quot;PROFESSOR MUFF.—I am quite satisfied. This is a great invention. &quot;PROFESSOR NOGO.—I see but one objection to it. It appears to me that the magistrates ought to talk. &quot;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. &quot;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. On his return, &quot;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. It was, he said, a most valuable and useful invention, based strictly upon the principle of the human eye. &quot;THE PRESIDENT required some information upon this point. He had yet to learn that the human eye was remarkable for the peculiarities of which the honourable gentleman had spoken. &quot;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. He must know, too, with what quickness of perception most people could discover their neighbour&#039;s faults, and how very blind they were to their own. 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. &quot;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. &quot;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. &quot;MR. BLANK. —Nobody can, and that is the beauty of it. SECTION C.—ANATOMY AND MEDICINE. BAR-ROOM, BLACK BOY AND STOMACH-ACHE. PRESIDENT—DR. SOEMUP. VICT-PRESIDENTS—MESSRS. PESSELL AND MORTAIR. &quot;DR. GRUMMIDGE stated to the section a most interesting case of monomania, and described the course of treatment he had pursued with perfect success. 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&#039;s finances were by no means equal to the necessary outlay. Finding her wish ungratified, she fell sick, and the symptoms soon became so alarming, that he (Dr. Grummidge) was called in. 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. Finding that the patient&#039;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. The next day she was somewhat low, but decidedly better, and all appearances of irritation were removed. The next day she improved still further, and on the next again. 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&#039;s head should be immediately shaved to the very last curl. From that moment she began to mend, and in less than four-and-twenty hours was perfectly restored. She did not now betray the least emotion at the sight or mention of pearls or any other ornaments. She was cheerful and good-humoured, and a most beneficial change had been effected in her whole temperament and condition. &quot;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 Thom, recently shot at Canterbury, in the Homoœpathic system. The section would bear in mind that one of the Homoœpathic 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. Now, it was a remarkable circumstance—proved in the evidence—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 homoœpathic remedy, the section would observe,) placed upon his tongue, after death, would restore him. What was the obvious inference? 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. 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. 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. SECTION D.—STATISTICS. OUT-HOUSE, BLACK BOY AND STOMACH-ACHE. PRESIDENT—MR. SLUG. VICE-PRESIDENTS—MESSRS. NOAKES AND STYLES. &quot;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. 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. 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.) 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—of course as a mere matter of form. He argued from these data 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. SUPPLEMENTARY SECTION, E. UMBUGOLOGY AND DITCHWATERISICS. PRESIDENT—MR. GRUB. VICE PRESIDENTS—MESSRS. DULL AND DUMMY. &quot;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&#039;s cart at the corner of Newgate Market. 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. 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. The animal was lean, spavined, and tottering; and the author proposed to constitute it of the family of Fitfordogsmeataurious. 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. &quot;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. 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. 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. &quot;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. 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. &quot;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, &#039;that he&#039;d pound it as that &#039;ere &#039;spectable section had never seed a more gamerer cove nor he vos.&#039; &quot;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 developement of the organ of carveativeness. Sir Hookham Snivey was proceeding to combat this opinion, when Professor Ketch suddenly interrupted the proceedings by exclaiming, with great excitement of manner, &quot;Walker!&quot; &quot;THE PRESIDENT begged to call the learned gentleman to order. &quot;PROFESSOR KETCH.—&quot;Order be blowed! you&#039;ve got the wrong un, I tell you. It ain&#039;t no &#039;ed at all; it&#039;s a coker-nut as my brother-in-law has been a-carvin&#039; to hornament his new baked &#039;tatur-stall wots a-comin&#039; down &#039;ere vile the &#039;sociation&#039;s in the town. Hand over, vill you?&#039; &quot;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. A most interesting conversation ensued; but as there appeared some doubt ultimately whether the skull was Mr. Greenacre&#039;s, or a hospital patient&#039;s, or a pauper&#039;s, or a man&#039;s, or a woman&#039;s, or a monkey&#039;s, no particular result was obtained.&quot; &quot;I cannot,&quot; says our talented correspondent in conclusion, &quot;I cannot close my account of these gigantic researches and sublime and noble triumphs without repeating a bon mot of Professor Woodensconce&#039;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. 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—propitiatory sacrifices to learning—sent forth their savoury odours. &#039;Ah!&#039; said Professor Woodensconce, rubbing his hands, &#039;this is what we meet for; this is what inspires us; this is what keeps us together, and beckons us onward; this is the spread of science, and a glorious spread it is!&#039;&quot;18380901https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Full_Report_of_the_Second_Meeting_of_the_Mudfog_Association_for_the_Advancement_of_Everything/1838-09-Full_Report_Second_Meeting_Mudfog_Asso.pdf
132https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/132'Horatio Sparkins'Published in <em>The Monthly Magazine</em> (February 1834).Dickens, Charles<em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres.</em> February 1834, pp. 151-176, <em>Internet Archive,</em> <a href="https://archive.org/details/monthlymagazineo17lond/page/n9/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/monthlymagazineo17lond/page/n9/mode/2up</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-02">1834-02</a><em>Internet Archive,</em> <a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>. Access to the Archive’s Collections is granted for scholarship and research purposes only.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-02-Horatio_SparkinsDickens, Charles. "Horatio Sparkins." <em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres.</em> February 1834, pp. 151-176. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-02-Horatio_Sparkins">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-02-Horatio_Sparkins</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a>&quot;Indeed, my love, he paid Teresa very great attention on the last assembly night,&quot; 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;—&quot;very great attention; and, I say again, every possible encouragement ought to be given him. He positively must be asked down here to dine.&quot; &quot;Who must?&quot; inquired Mr. Malderton. &quot;Why, you know whom I mean, my dear—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. Young—dear me, what’s his name?—Marianne, what is his name?&quot; continued Mrs. Malderton, addressing her youngest daughter, who was engaged in netting a purse, and endeavouring to look sentimental. &quot;Mr. Horatio Sparkins, ma,&quot; replied Miss Marianne, with a Juliet-like sigh. &quot;Oh! yes, to be sure—Horatio Sparkins,&quot; said Mrs. Malderton. &quot;Decidedly the most gentleman-like young man I ever saw. I am sure in the beautifully-made coat he wore the other night, he looked like—like—&quot; &quot;Like Prince Leopold, ma—so noble, so full of sentiment!&quot; suggested Miss Marianne, in a tone of enthusiastic admiration. &quot;You should recollect, my dear,&quot; resumed Mrs. Malderton, &quot;that Teresa is now eight-and-twenty; and that it really is very important that something should be done.&quot; Miss Teresa Malderton was a little girl, rather fat, with vermilion cheeks: but good humoured, still disengaged, although, to do her justice, the misfortune arose from no lack of perseverance on her part. 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 Newington Butts; on Sunday, likewise, many &quot;dropped in&quot; from town. Miss Malderton was as well known as the lion on the top of Northumberland House, and had about as much chance of &quot;going off.&quot; &quot;I am quite sure you’d like him,&quot; continued Mrs. Malderton; &quot;he is so gentlemanly!&quot; &quot;So clever!&quot; said Miss Marianne. &quot;And has such a flow of language!&quot; added Miss Teresa. &quot;He has a great respect for you, my dear,&quot; said Mrs. Malderton to her husband, in a confident tone. Mr. Malderton coughed, and looked at the fire. &quot;Yes I’m sure he’s very much attached to pa’s society,&quot; said Miss Marianne. &quot;No doubt of it,&quot; echoed Miss Teresa. &quot;Indeed, he said as much to me in confidence,&quot; observed Mrs. Malderton. &quot;Well, well,&quot; returned Mr. Malderton, somewhat flattered; &quot;if I see him at the assembly to-morrow, perhaps I’ll ask him down here. I hope he knows we live at Oak Lodge, Camberwell, my dear?&quot; &quot;Of course—and that you keep a one-horse carriage.&quot; &quot;I’ll see about it,&quot; said Mr. Malderton, composing himself for a nap; &quot;I’ll see about it.&quot; Mr. Malderton was a man whose whole scope of ideas was limited to Lloyd’s, the Exchange, Broad-street, and the Bank. A few successful speculations had raised him from a situation of obscurity and comparative poverty, to a state of affluence. As it 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 superiors, and had a very becoming and decided horror of any thing which could by possibility be considered low. He was hospitable from ostentation, illiberal from ignorance, and prejudiced from conceit. Egotism and the love of display induced him to keep an excellent table: convenience, and a love of the good things of this life, ensured him plenty of guests. 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 &quot;sharp fellows.&quot; Probably he cherished this feeling out of compliment to his two sons, who gave their respected parent no uneasiness in that particular. 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. The appearance of Mr. Horatio Sparkins at the City assembly had excited no small degree of surprise and curiosity among its regular frequenters. Who could he be? He was evidently reserved, and apparently melancholy. Was he a clergyman?—He danced too well. A barrister?—he was not called. He used very fine words, and said a great deal. Could he be a distinguished foreigner come to England for the purpose of describing the country, its manners and customs; and frequenting City balls and public dinners, with the view of becoming acquainted with high life, polished etiquette, and English refinement?—No, he had not a foreign accent. Was he a surgeon, a contributor to the magazines, a writer of fashionable novels, or an artist?—No; to each and all of these surmises there existed some valid objection.—&quot;Then,’&quot;said every body, &quot;he must be somebody.&quot;—&quot;I should think he must be,&quot; reasoned Mr. Malderton, within himself, &quot;because he perceives our superiority and pays us so much attention.&quot; The night succeeding the conversation we have just recorded, was &quot;assembly night.&quot; The double-fly was ordered to be at the door of Oak-Lodge at nine o’clock precisely. 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. Mr. Frederick Malderton the eldest son, in full-dress costume, was the very beau ideal 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 though somewhat rash young gentleman, George Barnwell. Every member of the party had made up his or her mind to cultivate the acquaintance of Mr. Horatio Sparkins. 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; Mrs. Malderton would be all smiles and graces; Miss Marianne would request the favour of some verses for her album; Mr. Malderton would patronise the great unknown by asking him to dinner; Tom intended to ascertain the extent of his information on the interesting topics of snuff and cigars. Even Mr. Frederick Malderton himself, the family authority on all points of taste, dress, and fashionable arrangement - who had lodgings of his own at &quot;the west end,&quot; who had a free admission for Covent-Garden theatre, who always dressed according to the fashions of the month, 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,—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. 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. &quot;There he is, my dear,&quot; anxiously whispered Mrs. Malderton to Mr. Malderton. &quot;How like Lord Byron!&quot; murmured Miss Teresa. &quot;Or Montgomery!&quot; whispered Miss Marianne. &quot;Or the portraits of Captain Ross!&quot; suggested Tom. &quot;Tom—don’t be an ass!&quot; said his father, who checked him upon all occasions, probably with a view to prevent his becoming &quot;sharp&quot;—which, by-the-by, was very unnecessary. The elegant Sparkins attitudinized with admirable effect until the family had crossed the room. 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. &quot;Miss Malderton,&quot; said Horatio, after the ordinary salutations, and bowing very low, &quot;may I be permitted to presume to hope that you will allow me to have the pleasure—&quot; &quot;I don’t think I am engaged,&quot; said Miss Teresa, with a dreadful affectation of indifference—&quot;but, really—so many— —&quot; Horatio looked as handsomely miserable as a Hamlet sliding upon a bit of orange-peel. &quot;I shall be most happy,&quot; simpered the interesting Teresa, at last; and Horatio’s countenance brightened up like an old hat in a shower of rain. &quot;A very genteel young man, certainly!&quot; said the gratified Mr. Malderton, as the obsequious Sparkins and his partner joined the quadrille which was just forming. &quot;He has a remarkably good address,&quot; said Mr. Frederick. &quot;Yes, he is a prime fellow,&quot; interposed Tom; who always managed to put his foot in it—&quot;he talks just like an auctioneer.&quot; &quot;Tom!&quot; said his father, &quot;I think I desired you before not to be a fool.&quot;—Tom looked as happy as a cock on a drizzly morning. &quot;How delightful!&quot; said the interesting Horatio to his partner, as they promenaded the room at the conclusion of the set—&quot;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—of her 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.’ &quot;What feeling! what sentiment!&quot; thought Miss Teresa, as she leaned more heavily upon her companion’s arm. &quot;But enough—enough,&quot; resumed the elegant Sparkins, with a theatrical air. &quot;What have I said? what have I—I—to do with sentiments like these? Miss Malderton,&quot; here he stopped short—&quot;may I hope to be permitted to offer the humble tribute of—&quot; &quot;Really, Mr. Sparkins,&quot; returned the enraptured Teresa, blushing in the sweetest confusion, &quot;I must refer you to papa. I never can without his consent, venture to—to— —&quot; &quot;Surely he cannot object—&quot; &quot;Oh, yes. Indeed, indeed, you know him not,&quot; interrupted Miss Teresa—well knowing there was nothing to fear, but wishing to make the interview resemble a scene in some romantic novel. &quot;He cannot object to my offering you a glass of negus,&quot; returned the adorable Sparkins, with some surprise. &quot;Is that all!&quot; said the disappointed Teresa to herself. &quot;What a fuss about nothing!&quot; &quot;It will give me the greatest pleasure, sir, to see you to dinner at Oak Lodge, Camberwell, on Sunday next, at five o’clock, if you have no better engagement,&quot; said Mr. Malderton, at the conclusion of the evening, as he and his sons were standing in conversation with Mr. Horatio Sparkins. Horatio bowed his acknowledgments, and accepted the flattering invitation. &quot;I must confess,&quot; continued the manœuvering father, offering his snuff-box to his new acquaintance, &quot;that I don’t enjoy these assemblies half so much as the comfort—I had almost said the luxury—of Oak Lodge: they have no great charms for an elderly man.&quot; &quot;And after all, sir, what is man?&quot; said the metaphysical Sparkins—&quot;I say, what is man?&quot; &quot;Ah! very true,&quot; said Mr. Malderton—&quot;very true.&quot; &quot;We know that we live and breathe,&quot; continued Horatio; &quot;that we have wants and wishes, desires and appetites—&quot; &quot;Certainly,&quot; said Mr. Frederick Malderton, looking very profound. &quot;I say, we know that we exist,&quot; repeated Horatio, raising his voice, &quot;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. What more do we know?&quot; &quot;Nothing,&quot; replied Mr. Frederick—than whom no one was more capable of answering for himself in that particular. Tom was about to hazard something, but, fortunately for his reputation, he caught his father’s angry eye, and slunk off like a puppy convicted of petty larceny. &quot;Upon my word,&quot; said Mr. Malderton the elder, as they were returning home in the fly, &quot;that Mr. Sparkins is a wonderful young man. Such surprising knowledge! such extraordinary information! and such a splendid mode of expressing himself!&quot; &quot;I think he must be somebody in disguise,&quot; said Miss Marianne.—&quot;How charmingly romantic!&quot; &quot;He talks very loud and nicely,&quot; timidly observed Tom, &quot;but I don’t exactly understand what he means.&quot; &quot;I almost begin to despair of your understanding any thing, Tom,&quot; said his father, who, of course, had been much enlightened by Mr. Horatio Sparkins’ conversation. &quot;It strikes me, Tom,&quot; said Miss Teresa, &quot;that you have made yourself very ridiculous this evening.&quot; &quot;No doubt of it,&quot; cried every body—and the unfortunate Tom reduced himself into the least possible space. That night Mr. and Mrs. Malderton had a long conversation respecting their daughter’s prospects and future arrangements. 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 dreamt all night of disguised noblemen, large routs, ostrich plumes, bridal favours, and Horatio Sparkins. Various surmises were hazarded on the Sunday morning, as to the mode of conveyance which the anxiously-expected Horatio would adopt. Did he keep a gig?—was it possible he would come on horseback?—or would he patronize the stage? These, and various other conjectures of equal importance, engrossed the attention of Mrs. Malderton and her daughters during the whole morning. &quot;Upon my word, my dear, it’s a most annoying thing that that vulgar brother of yours should have invited himself to dine here to-day,&quot; said Mr. Malderton to his wife. &quot;On account of Mr. Sparkins’ coming down, I purposely abstained from asking any one but Flamwell. And then to think of your brother—a tradesman—it’s insufferable! I declare I wouldn’t have him mention his shop before our new guest—no, not for a thousand pounds. I wouldn’t care if he had the good sense to conceal the disgrace he is to the family; but he’s so fond of his horrible business, that he will let people know what he is.&quot; 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’t above his business: &quot;he’d made his money by it, and he didn’t care who know’d it.&quot; &quot;Ah! Flamwell, my dear fellow, how d’ye do?&quot; said Mr. Malderton, as a little spoffish man, with green spectacles, entered the room. &quot;You got my note?&quot; &quot;Yes, I did; and here I am in consequence.&quot; &quot;You don’t happen to know this Mr. Sparkins by name?—You know everybody?&quot; Mr. Flamwell was one of those gentlemen of remarkably extensive information whom one occasionally meets in society, who pretend to know every body, but who, of course, know nobody. At Malderton’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. 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. &quot;Why, no, I don’t know him by that name,&quot; returned Flamwell, in a low tone, and with an air of immense importance. &quot;I have no doubt I know him though. Is he tall?&quot; &quot;Middle-sized,&quot; said Miss Teresa. &quot;With black hair?&quot; inquired Flamwell, hazarding a bold guess. &quot;Yes,&quot; returned Miss Teresa, eagerly. &quot;Rather a snub nose?&quot; &quot;No,&quot; said the disappointed Teresa, &quot;he has a Roman nose.&quot; &quot;I said a Roman nose, didn’t I?&quot; inquired Flamwell. &quot;He’s an elegant young man?&quot; &quot;Oh, certainly.&quot; &quot;With remarkably prepossessing manners?&quot; &quot;Oh, yes!&quot; said all the family together. &quot;You must know him.&quot; &quot;Yes, I thought you knew him, if he was anybody,&quot; triumphantly exclaimed Mr. Malderton. &quot;Who d’ye think he is?&quot; &#039;Why, from your description,&quot; said Flamwell, ruminating, and sinking his voice, almost to a whisper, &#039;he bears a strong resemblance to the Honourable Augustus Fitz-Edward Fitz-John Fitz-Osborne. He’s a very talented young man, and rather eccentric. It’s extremely probable he may have changed his name for some temporary purpose.&quot; Teresa’s heart beat high. Could he be the Honourable Augustus Fitz-Edward Fitz-John Fitz-Osborne? What a name to be elegantly engraved over two glazed cards, tied together with a piece of white satin ribbon! &quot;The Honourable Mrs. Augustus Fitz-Edward Fitz-John Fitz-Osborne!&quot; The thought was transport. &quot;It’s five minutes to five,&quot; said Mr. Malderton, looking at his watch: &quot;I hope he’s not going to disappoint us.&quot; &quot;There he is!&quot; exclaimed Miss Teresa, as a loud double-knock was heard at the door. Every body endeavoured to look—as people when they particularly expect a visitor alway do—as if they were perfectly unsuspicious of the approach of any one. The room door opened—&quot;Mr. Barton!&quot; said the servant. &quot;Confound the man!&quot; murmured Malderton.—&quot;Ah! my dear sir, how d’ye do! Any news?&quot; &quot;Why no,&quot; returned the grocer, in his usual honest, bluff manner. &quot;No, none partickler. None that I am much aware of.—How d’ye do, gals and boys?—Mr. Flamwell, sir—glad to see you.&quot; &quot;Here’s Mr. Sparkins!&quot; said Tom, who had been looking out at the window, &quot;on such a black horse!&quot; —There was Horatio sure enough, on a large black horse, curvetting and prancing along like an Astley’s supernumerary. 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’s groom. The ceremony of introduction was gone through in all due form. 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, who tried in her turn to appear uncommonly lackadaisycal. &quot;Is he the Honourable Mr. Augustus—what’s-his-name?&quot; whispered Mrs. Malderton, to Flamwell, as he was escorting her to the dining-room. &quot;Why, no—at least not exactly,&quot; returned that great authority—&quot;not exactly.&quot; &quot;Who is he then?&quot; &quot;Hush!&quot; 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. It might be one of the ministers making himself acquainted with the views of the people. &quot;Mr. Sparkins,&quot; said the delighted Mrs. Malderton, &quot;pray divide the ladies. John, put a chair for the gentleman between Miss Teresa and Miss Marianne.&quot; 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. 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 &quot;much easier to be imagined than described.&quot; &quot;Have you seen your friend, Sir Thomas Noland, lately, Flamwell?&quot; inquired Mr. Malderton, casting a sidelong look at Horatio, to see what effect the mention of so great a man had upon him. &quot;Why, no—not very lately. I saw Lord Gubbleton the day before yesterday.&quot; &quot;I hope his lordship is very well?&quot; said Malderton, in a tone of the greatest interest. It is scarcely necessary to say that until that moment he was quite innocent of the existence of such a person. &quot;Why, yes; he was very well—very well indeed. He’s a devilish good fellow: I met him in the City, and had a long chat with him. Indeed, I’m rather intimate with him. I couldn’t stop to talk to him as long as I could wish though, because I was on my way to a banker’s, a very rich man, and a member of Parliament, with whom I am also rather, indeed I may say very, intimate.&quot; &quot;I know whom you mean,&quot; returned the host, consequentially, in reality knowing as much about the matter as Flamwell himself. &quot;He has a capital business.&quot; This was touching on a dangerous topic. &quot;Talking of business,&quot; interposed Mr. Barton, from the centre of the table. &quot;A gentleman whom you knew very well, Malderton, before you made that first lucky spec of your&#039;s, called at our shop the other day, and—&quot; &quot;Barton, may I trouble you for a potatoe?&quot; interrupted the wretched master of the house, hoping to nip the story in the bud. &quot;Certainly,&quot; returned the grocer, quite insensible of his brother-in-law’s object—&quot;and he said in a very plain manner—&quot; &quot;Flowery, if you please,&quot; interrupted Malderton again; dreading the termination of the anecdote, and fearing a repetition of the word &quot;shop.&quot; &quot;He said, says he,&quot; continued the culprit, after despatching the potatoe;—&quot;says he, how goes on your business? So I said, jokingly—you know my way—says I, I’m never above my business, and I hope my business will never be above me. Ha, ha, ha!&quot; &quot;Mr. Sparkins,&quot; said the host, vainly endeavouring to conceal his dismay, &quot;a glass of wine?&quot; &quot;With the utmost pleasure, sir.&quot; &quot;Happy to see you.&quot; &quot;Thank you.&quot; &quot;We were talking the other evening,&quot; 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’s stories; &quot;we were talking the other night about the nature of man. Your argument struck me very forcibly.&quot; &quot;And me,&quot; said Mr. Frederick. Horatio made a graceful inclination of the head. &quot;Pray, what is your opinion of women, Mr. Sparkins?&quot; inquired Mrs. Malderton. The young ladies simpered. &quot;Man,&quot; replied Horatio, &quot;man, whether he ranged the bright, gay, flowery plains of a second Eden, or the more sterile, barren, and I may say common-place regions, to which we are compelled to accustom ourselves in times such as these; man, I say, under any circumstances, or in any place—whether he were bending beneath the withering blasts of the frigid zone, or scorching under the rays of a vertical sun—man, without woman, would be—alone.&quot; &quot;I am very happy to find you entertain such honourable opinions, Mr. Sparkins,&quot; said Mrs. Malderton. &quot;And I,&quot; added Miss Teresa. Horatio looked his delight, and the young lady blushed like a full-blown peony. &quot;Now, it’s my opinion—&quot; said Mr. Barton.— &quot;I know what you’re going to say,&quot; interposed Malderton, determined not to give his relation another opportunity, &quot;and I don’t agree with you.&quot; &quot;What!&quot; inquired the astonished grocer. &quot;I am sorry to differ from you, Barton,&quot; said the host, in as positive a manner as if he really were contradicting a position which the other had laid down, &quot;but I cannot give my assent to what I consider a very monstrous proposition.&quot; &quot;But I meant to say—&quot; &quot;You never can convince me,&quot; said Malderton, with an air of obstinate determination. &quot;Never.&quot; &quot;And I,&quot; said Mr. Frederick, following up his father’s attack, &quot;cannot entirely agree in Mr. Sparkins’s argument.&quot; &quot;What!&quot; said Horatio, who became more metaphysical, and more argumentative, as he saw the female part of the family listening in wondering delight. &quot;What! is effect the consequence of cause? Is cause the precursor of effect?&quot; &quot;That’s the point,&quot; said Flamwell, in a tone of concurrence. &quot;To be sure,&quot; said Mr. Malderton. &quot;Because, if effect is the consequence of cause, and if cause does precede effect, I apprehend you are decidedly wrong,&quot; added Horatio. &quot;Decidedly,&quot; said the toad-eating Flamwell. &quot;At least, I apprehend that to be the just and logical deduction,&quot; said Sparkins, in a tone of interrogation. &quot;No doubt of it,&quot; chimed in Flamwell again. &quot;It settles the point.&quot; &quot;Well, perhaps it does,&quot; said Mr. Frederick; &quot;I didn’t see it before.&quot; &quot;I don’t exactly see it now,&quot; thought the grocer; &quot;but I suppose it’s all right.&quot; &quot;How wonderfully clever he is!&quot; whispered Mrs. Malderton to her daughters as they retired to the drawing-room. &quot;Oh! he’s quite a love,&quot; said both the young ladies together; &quot;he talks like a second Pelham. He must have seen a great deal of life.&quot; 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. Flamwell, who had made up his mind to find out who and what Mr. Horatio Sparkins really was, first broke silence. &quot;Excuse me, sir,&quot; said that distinguished personage. &quot;I presume you have studied for the bar; I thought of entering once, myself—indeed, I’m rather intimate with some of the highest ornaments of that distinguished profession. &quot;No—no!&quot; said Horatio, with a little hesitation, &quot;not exactly.&quot; &quot;But you have been much among the silk gowns, or I mistake?&quot; inquired Flamwell, deferentially. &quot;Nearly all my life,&quot; returned Sparkins. The question was thus pretty well settled in the mind of Mr. Flamwell.—He was a young gentleman &quot;about to be called.&quot; &quot;I shouldn’t like to be a barrister,&quot; said Tom, speaking for the first time, and looking round the table to find somebody who would notice the remark. No one made any reply. &quot;I shouldn’t like to wear a wig,&quot; said Tom, hazarding another observation. &quot;Tom, I beg you will not make yourself ridiculous,&quot; said his father. &quot;Pray listen, and improve yourself by the conversation you hear, and don’t be constantly making these absurd remarks.&quot; &quot;Very well, father,&quot; 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’clock P.M., and it was then eight. &quot;Well, Tom,&#039; observed his good-natured uncle, &quot;never mind; I think with you. I shouldn’t like to wear a wig. I’d rather wear an apron.&quot; Mr. Malderton coughed violently. Mr. Barton resumed—&quot;For if a man’s above his business—&quot; 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. &quot;Mr. Sparkins,&quot; said Flamwell, returning to the charge, &quot;do you happen to know Mr. Delafontaine, of Bedford-square?&quot; &quot;I have exchanged cards with him; since which, indeed, I have had an opportunity of serving him considerably,&quot; replied Horatio, slightly colouring; no doubt, at having been betrayed into making the acknowledgment. &quot;You are very lucky, if you have had an opportunity of obliging that great man,&quot; observed Flamwell, with an air of profound respect. &quot;I don’t know,&quot; whispered Flamwell to Mr. Malderton confidentially as they followed Horatio up to the drawing-room. &quot;It’s quite clear, however, that he belongs to the law, and that he is somebody of great importance, and very highly connected.&quot; &quot;No doubt, no doubt,&quot; returned his companion. The remainder of the evening passed away most delightfully. Mr. Malderton, relieved from his apprehensions by the circumstance of Mr. Barton’s falling into a profound sleep, was as affable and gracious as possible. Miss Teresa played &quot;The Falls of Paris,&quot; 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. 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’clock before Mr. Sparkins ordered the mourning-coach-looking steed to be brought out—an order which was only complied with on the distinct understanding that he was to repeat his visit on the following Sunday.&quot; &quot;But, perhaps, Mr. Sparkins will form one of our party to-morrow evening?’ suggested Mrs. M. &quot;Mr. Malderton intends taking the girls to see St. George and the Dragon&quot;—Mr. Sparkins bowed and promised to join the party in box 48 in the course of the evening. &quot;We will not tax you for the morning,&quot; said Miss Teresa, bewitchingly; &quot;for ma is going to take us to all sorts of places, shopping. But I know that gentlemen have a great horror of that employment.&quot; Mr. Sparkins bowed again, and declared he should be delighted, but business of importance occupied him in the morning. Flamwell looked at Malderton significantly.—&quot;It’s term time!&quot; he whispered. At twelve o’clock on the following morning the &quot;fly&quot; was at the door of Oak Lodge, to convey Mrs. Malderton and her daughters on their expedition for the day. They were to dine and dress for the play at a friend’s house, first driving thither with their bandboxes; thence they departed on their first errand to make some purchases at Messrs. Jones, Spruggins, and Smith’s, of Tottenham-court-road; after which to Redmayne, in Bond-street; and thence to innumerable places that no one ever heard of. 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. At length, the vehicle stopped before a dirty-looking ticketed linen-draper’s shop, with goods of all kinds, and labels of all sorts and sizes, in the window. There were dropsical figures of a seven with a little three-quarter in the corner; something like the acquatic animalculæ disclosed by the gas microscope &quot;perfectly invisible to the naked eye;&quot; three hundred and fifty thousand ladies’ boas, from one shilling and a penny halfpenny; real French kid shoes, at two and nine-pence per pair; green parasols, with handles like carving-forks, at an equally cheap rate; and &quot;every description of goods,&quot; as the proprietors said—and they must know best—&quot;fifty per cent. under cost price.&quot; &quot;Lor! ma&#039;, what a place you have brought us to!&quot; said Miss Teresa; &quot;what would Mr. Sparkins say if he could see us!&quot; &quot;Ah! what, indeed!&quot; said Miss Marianne, horrified at the idea. &quot;Pray be seated, ladies. What is the first article?&quot; inquired the obsequious master of the ceremonies of the establishment, who, in his large white neckcloth and formal tie, looked like a bad &quot;portrait of a gentleman&quot; in the Somerset-house exhibition. &quot;I want to see some silks,&quot; answered Mrs. Malderton. &quot;Directly, ma’am.—Mr. Smith! Where is Mr. Smith?&quot; &quot;Here, sir,&quot; cried a voice at the back of the shop. &quot;Pray make haste, Mr. Smith,&quot; said the M.C. &quot;You never are to be found when you’re wanted, sir.&quot; Mr. Smith thus enjoined to use all possible despatch, leaped over the counter with great agility, and placed himself before the newly-arrived customers. Mrs. Malderton uttered a faint scream; Miss Teresa, who had been stooping down to talk to her sister, raised her head and beheld—Horatio Sparkins! &quot;We will draw a veil,&quot; as novel-writers say, over the scene that ensued. The mysterious, philosophical, romantic, metaphysical Sparkins—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 dreamt, but had never expected to behold—was suddenly converted into Mr. Samuel Smith, the assistant at a &quot;cheap shop;&quot; the junior partner in a slippery firm of some three weeks’ existence. The dignified evanishment of the hero of Oak Lodge on this unexpected announcement could only be equalled by that of a furtive dog with a considerable kettle at his tail. All the hopes of the Maldertons were destined at once to melt away, like the lemon ices at a Company’s dinner; Almacks was still to them as distant as the North Pole&quot; and Miss Teresa had as much chance of a husband as Captain Ross had of the north-west passage. Years have elapsed since the occurrence of this dreadful morning. 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. Miss Teresa’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 low.18340201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Horatio_Sparkins/1834-02-Horatio_Sparkins.pdf
161https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/161'Hunted Down', Part IPublished in <em>The New York Ledger</em> vol. 14 (20 August <span>1859), p. 5.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>The New York Public Library Digital Collections,</em> <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-new-york-ledger?filters%5Bname%5D=Dickens%2C+Charles%2C+1812-1870&amp;keywords=#/?tab=navigation">https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-new-york-ledger?filters%5Bname%5D=Dickens%2C+Charles%2C+1812-1870&amp;keywords=#/?tab=navigation</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1859-08-20">1859-08-20</a>All images remain the physical property of NYPL and the intellectual property of the copyright holder, if applicable.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1859-08-20-Hunted_Down_Part1Dickens, Charles. 'Hunted Down', Part I (20 August 1859). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1859-08-20-Hunted_Down_Part1">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1859-08-20-Hunted_Down_Part1</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+New+York+Ledger%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The New York Ledger</em></a>I. Most of us see some romances in life. In my capacity as Chief-Manager of a Life Assurance Office, I think I have within the last thirty years seen more romances than the generality of men: however unpromising the opportunity may, at first sight, seem. As I have retired, and live at my ease, I possess the means that I used to want, of considering what I have seen, at leisure. My experiences have a more remarkable aspect, so reviewed, than they had when they were in progress. I have come home from the Play now, and can recal the scenes of the Drama upon which the curtain has fallen, free from the glare, bewilderment, and bustle of the Theatre. Let me recal one of these Romances of the real world. There is nothing truer than physiognomy, taken in connection with manner. The art of reading that book of which Eternal Wisdom obliges every human creature to present his or her own page with the individual character written on it, is a difficult one, perhaps, and is little studied. It may require some natural aptitude, and it must require (for everything does), some patience and some pains. That, these are not usually given to it—that, numbers of people accept a few stock commonplace expressions of face as the whole list of characteristics, and neither seek nor know the refinements that are truest—that You, for instance, give a great deal of time and attention to the reading of music, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Hebrew if you please, and do not qualify yourself to read the face of the master or mistress looking over your shoulder teaching it to you—I assume to be five hundred times more probable than improbable. Perhaps, a little self-sufficiency may be at the bottom of this; facial expression requires no study from you, you think; it comes by nature to you to know enough about it, and you are not to be taken in. I confess, for my part, that I have been taken in, over and over and over again. I have been taken in by acquaintances, and I have been taken in (of course) by friends; far oftener by friends than by any other class of persons. How came I to be so deceived? Had I quite mis-read their faces? No. Believe me, my first impression of those people, founded on face and manner alone, was invariably true. My mistake was, in suffering them to come nearer to me and explain themselves away. II. The partition which separated my own office from our general outer office in the City, was of thick plate-glass. I could see through it what passed in the outer office, without hearing a word. I had it put up, in place of a wall that had been there for years—ever since the house was built. It is no matter whether I did or did not make the change, in order that I might derive my first impression of strangers who came to us on business, from their faces alone, without being influenced by anything they said. Enough to mention that I turned my glass partition to that account, and that a Life Assurance Office is at all times exposed to be practiced upon by the most crafty and cruel of the human race. It was through my glass partition that I first saw the gentleman whose story I am going to tell. He had come in, without my observing it, and had put his hat and umbrella on the broad counter, and was bending over it to take some papers from one of the clerks. He was about forty or so, dark, exceedingly well dressed in black—being in mourning—and the hand he extended with a polite air, had a particularly well-fitting, black kid glove upon it. His hair, which was elaborately brushed and oiled, was parted straight up the middle; and he presented this parting to the clerk, exactly (to my thinking) as if he had said, in so many words: &quot;You must take me, if you please, my friend, just as I show myself. Come straight up here, follow the gravel path, keep off the grass, I allow no trespassing.&quot; I conceived a very great aversion to that man, the moment I thus saw him. He had asked for some of our printed forms, and the clerk was giving them to him and explaining them. An obliged and agreeable smile was on his face, and his eyes met those of the clerk with a sprightly look. (I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don’t trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance, any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.) I saw, in the corner of his eyelash, that he became aware of my looking at him. Immediately, he turned the parting in his hair toward the glass partition, as if he said to me with a sweet smile: &quot;Straight up here, if you please. Off the grass!&quot; In a few moments he had put on his hat and taken up his umbrella, and was gone. I beckoned the clerk into my room, and asked, &quot;Who was that?&quot; He had the gentleman’s card in his hand. &quot;Mr. Julius Slinkton, Middle Temple.&quot; &quot;A barrister, Mr. Adams?&quot; &quot;I think not, sir.&quot; &quot;I should have thought him a clergyman, but for his having no Reverend here,&quot; said I. &quot;Probably, from his appearance,&quot; Mr. Adams replied, &quot;he is reading for orders.&quot; I should mention that he wore a dainty white cravat, and dainty linen altogether. &quot;What did he want, Mr. Adams?&quot; &quot;Merely a form of proposal, sir, and form of reference.&quot; &quot;Recommended here? Did he say?&quot; &quot;Yes, he said he was recommended here by a friend of yours. He noticed you, but said that as he had not the pleasure of your personal acquaintance he would not trouble you.&quot; &quot;Did he know my name?&quot; &quot;Oh yes, sir! He said, &#039;There is Mr. Sampson, I see.&#039;&quot; &quot;A well-spoken gentleman, apparently?&quot; &quot;Remarkably so, sir.&quot; &quot;Insinuating manners, apparently?&quot; &quot;Very much so, indeed, sir.&quot; &quot;Hah!&quot; said I. &quot;I want nothing at present, Mr. Adams.&quot; Within a fortnight of that day, I went to dine with a friend of mine, a merchant, a man of taste who buys pictures and books; and the first man I saw among the company was Mr. Julius Slinkton. There he was, standing before the fire, with good large eyes and an open expression of face; but still (I thought) requiring everybody to come at him by the prepared way he offered, and by no other. I noticed him ask my friend to introduce him to Mr. Sampson, and my friend did so. Mr. Slinkton was very happy to see me. Not too happy; there was no over-doing of the matter; happy in a thoroughly well-bred, perfectly unmeaning, way. &quot;I thought you had met,&quot; our host observed. &quot;No,&quot; said Mr. Slinkton. &quot;I did look in at Mr. Sampson’s office, on your recommendation; but I really did not feel justified in troubling Mr. Sampson himself, on a point in the everyday routine of an ordinary clerk.&quot; I said I should have been glad to show him any attention on our friend’s introduction. &quot;I am sure of that,&quot; said he, &quot;and am much obliged. At another time, perhaps, I may be less delicate. Only, however, if I have real business; for I know, Mr. Sampson, how precious business time is, and what a vast number of impertinent people there are in the world.&quot; I acknowledged his consideration with a slight bow. &quot;You were thinking,&quot; said I, &quot;of effecting a policy on your life.&quot; &quot;Oh dear, no! I am afraid I am not so prudent as you pay me the compliment of supposing me to be, Mr. Sampson. I merely inquired for a friend. But, you know what friends are in such matters. Nothing may ever come of it. I have the greatest reluctance to trouble men of business with inquiries for friends, knowing the probabilities to be a thousand to one that the friends will never follow them up. People are so fickle, so selfish, so inconsiderate. Don’t you, in your business, find them so every day, Mr. Sampson?&quot; I was going to give a qualified answer; but he turned his smooth, white parting on me with its &quot;Straight up here, if you please!&quot; and I answered, &quot;Yes.&quot; &quot;I hear, Mr. Sampson,&quot; he resumed, presently, for our friend had a new cook, and dinner was not so punctual as usual, &quot;that your profession has recently suffered a great loss.&quot; &quot;In money?&quot; said I. He laughed at my ready association of loss with money, and replied, &quot;No, in talent and vigour.&quot; Not at once following out his allusion, I considered for a moment. &quot;Has it sustained a loss of that kind?&quot; said I. &quot;I was not aware of it.&quot; &quot;Understand me, Mr. Sampson. I don’t imagine that you have retired. It is not so bad as that. But Mr. Meltham—&quot; &quot;Oh, to be sure!&quot; said I. &quot;Yes! Mr. Meltham, the young actuary of the &#039;Inestimable.&#039;&quot; &quot;Just so,&quot; he returned in a consoling way. &quot;He is a great loss. He was at once the most profound, the most original, and the most energetic man I have ever known connected with Life Assurance.&quot; I spoke strongly; for I had a high esteem and admiration for Meltham, and my gentleman had indefinitely conveyed to me some suspicion that he wanted to sneer at him. He recalled me to my guard by presenting that trim pathway up his head, with its internal &#039;Not on the grass, if you please—the gravel.’&quot; &quot;You knew him, Mr. Slinkton?&quot; &quot;Only by reputation. To have known him as an acquaintance, or as a friend, is an honour I should have sought if he had remained in society, though I might never have had the good fortune to attain it, being a man of far inferior mark. He was scarcely above thirty, I suppose?&quot; &quot;About thirty.&quot; &quot;Ah!&quot; He sighed in his former consoling way. &quot;What creatures we are! To break up, Mr. Sampson, and become incapable of business at that time of life!—Any reason assigned for the melancholy fact?&quot; (&quot;Humph!&quot; thought I, as I looked at him. &quot;But I WON’T go up the track, and I WILL go on the grass.&quot;) &quot;What reason have you heard assigned, Mr. Slinkton?&quot; I asked, point blank. &quot;Most likely a false one. You know what Rumour is, Mr. Sampson. I never repeat what I hear; it is the only way of paring the nails and shaving the head of Rumour. But when you ask me what reason I have heard assigned for Mr. Meltham’s passing away from among men, it is another thing. I am not gratifying idle gossip then. I was told. Mr. Sampson, that Mr. Meltham had relinquished all his avocations and all his prospects, because he was, in fact, broken-hearted. A disappointed attachment I heard—though it hardly seems probable, in the case of a man so distinguished and so attractive.&quot; &quot;Attractions and distinctions are no armour against death,&quot; said I. &quot;Oh! she died? Pray pardon me. I did not hear that. That, indeed, makes it very, very sad. Poor Mr. Meltham! She died? Ah, dear me! Lamentable, lamentable!&quot; I still thought his pity was not quite genuine, and I still suspected an unaccountable sneer under all this, until he said, as we were parted, like the other knots of talkers, by the announcement of dinner: &quot;Mr. Sampson, you are surprised to see me so moved on behalf of a man whom I have never known. I am not so disinterested as you may suppose. I have suffered, and recently too, from death myself. I have lost one of two charming nieces, who were my constant companions. She died young—barely three-and-twenty—and even her remaining sister is far from strong. The world is a grave!&quot; He said this with deep feeling, and I felt reproached for the coldness of my manner. Coldness and distrust had been engendered in me, I knew, by my bad experiences; they were not natural to me; and I often thought how much I had lost in life, losing trustfulness, and how little I had gained, gaining hard caution. This state of mind being habitual to me, I troubled myself more about this conversation than I might have troubled myself about a greater matter. I listened to his talk at dinner, and observed how readily other men responded to it, and with what a graceful instinct he adapted his subjects to the knowledge and habits of those he talked with. As, in talking with me, he had easily started the subject I might be supposed to understand best, and to be the most interested in, so, in talking with others, he guided himself by the same rule. The company was of a varied character; but, he was not at fault, that I could discover, with any member of it. He knew just as much of each man’s pursuit as made him agreeable to that man in reference to it, and just as little as made it natural in him to seek modestly for information when the theme was broached. As he talked and talked—but really not too much, for the rest of us seemed to force it upon him—I became quite angry with myself. I took his face to pieces in my mind, like a watch, and examined it in detail. I could not say much against any of his features separately; I could say even less against them when they were put together. &quot;Then is it not monstrous,&quot; I asked myself, &quot;that because a man happens to part his hair straight up the middle of his head, I should permit myself to suspect, and even to detest him?&quot; (I may stop to remark that this was no proof of my sense. An observer of men who finds himself steadily repelled by some apparently trifling thing in a stranger, is right to give it great weight. It may be the clue to the whole mystery. A hair or two will show where a lion is hidden. A very little key will open a very heavy door.) I took my part in the conversation with him after a time, and we got on remarkably well. In the drawing-room I asked the host how long he had known Mr. Slinkton? He answered, not many months; he had met him at the house of a celebrated painter then present, who had known him well when he was travelling with his nieces in Italy for their health. His plans in life being broken by the death of one of them, he was reading, with the intention of going back to college as a matter of form, taking his degree, and going into orders. I could not but argue with myself that here was the true explanation of his interest in poor Meltham, and that I had been almost brutal in my distrust on that simple head. III. On the very next day but one, I was sitting behind my glass partition, as before, when he came into the outer office, as before. The moment I saw him again without hearing him, I hated him worse than ever. It was only for a moment that I had this opportunity; for he waved his tight fitting black glove the instant I looked at him, and came straight in. &quot;Mr. Sampson, good day! I presume, you see, upon your kind permission to intrude upon you. I don’t keep my word in being justified by business, for my business here—if I may so abuse the word—is of the slightest nature.&quot; I asked, was it anything I could assist him in? &quot;I thank you, no. I merely called to inquire outside, whether my dilatory friend had been so false to himself, as to be practical and sensible. But, of course, he has done nothing. I gave him your papers with my own hand, and he was hot upon the intention, but of course he has done nothing. Apart from the general human disinclination to do anything that ought to be done, I dare say there is a specialty about assuring one’s life? You find it like will-making. People are so superstitious, and take it for granted they will die soon afterwards.&quot; Up here, if you please. Straight up here, Mr. Sampson. Neither to the right nor to the left! I almost fancied I could hear him breathe the words, as he sat smiling at me, with that intolerable parting exactly opposite the bridge of my nose. &quot;There is such a feeling sometimes, no doubt,&quot; I replied; &quot;but I don’t think it obtains to any great extent.&quot; &quot;Well!&quot; said he, with a shrug and a smile, &quot;I wish some good angel would influence my friend in the right direction. I rashly promised his mother and sister in Norfolk, to see it done, and he promised them that he would do it. But I suppose he never will.&quot; He spoke for a minute or two on indifferent topics, and went away. [TO BE CONTINUED IN OUR NEXT.] *This is the first and only story that MR. DICKENS has ever written for an American publication. It is but a short one, and will be comlpeted in two or three numbers of the LEDGER. We expect to have the pleasure of giving our readers a much longer one by-and-by.18590820https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Hunted_Down_Part_I/1859-08-20-Hunted_Down_Part1.pdf
162https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/162'Hunted Down', Part IIPublished in <em>The New York Ledger</em> vol.14 (27 August 1859), p. 5.Dickens, Charles<em>The New York Public Library Digital Collections,</em> <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-new-york-ledger?filters%5Bname%5D=Dickens%2C+Charles%2C+1812-1870&amp;keywords=#/?tab=navigation">https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-new-york-ledger?filters%5Bname%5D=Dickens%2C+Charles%2C+1812-1870&amp;keywords=#/?tab=navigation</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1859-08-27">1859-08-27</a>All images remain the physical property of NYPL and the intellectual property of the copyright holder, if applicable.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1859-08-27-Hunted_Down_Part2Dickens, Charles. 'Hunted Down', Part II (27 August 1859). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1859-08-27-Hunted_Down_Part2">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1859-08-27-Hunted_Down_Part2</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+New+York+Ledger%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The New York Ledger</em></a>I had scarcely unlocked the drawers of my writing-table next morning when he re-appeared. I noticed that he came straight to the door in the glass partition, and did not pause a single moment outside. &quot;Can you spare me two minutes, my dear Mr. Sampson?&quot; &quot;By all means.&quot; &quot;Much obliged,&quot; laying his hat and umbrella on the table; &quot;I came early, not to interrupt you. The fact is, I am taken by surprise in reference to this proposal my friend has made.&quot; &quot;Has he made one?&quot; said I. &quot;Ye-es,&quot; he answered, deliberately looking at me; and then a bright idea seemed to strike him—&quot;or he only tells me he has. Perhaps that may be a new way of evading the matter. By Jupiter, I never thought of that!&quot; Mr. Adams was opening the morning’s letters in the outer office. &quot;What is the name, Mr. Slinkton?&quot; I asked. &quot;Beckwith.&quot; I looked out at the door and requested Mr. Adams, if there were a proposal in that name, to bring it in. He had already laid it out of his hand on the counter. It was easily selected from the rest, and he gave it me. Alfred Beckwith. Proposal to effect a Policy with us for two thousand pounds. Dated yesterday. &quot;From the Middle Temple, I see, Mr. Slinkton.&quot; &quot;Yes. He lives on the same staircase with me; his door is opposite. I never thought he would make me his reference though.&quot; &quot;It seems natural enough that he should.&quot; &quot;Quite so, Mr. Sampson; but I never thought of it. Let me see.&quot; He took the printed paper from his pocket. &quot;How am I to answer all these questions!&quot; &quot;According to the truth, of course,&quot; said I. &quot;Oh! of course,&quot; he answered, looking up from the paper with a smile; &quot;I meant they were so many. But you do right to be particular. It stands to reason that you must be particular. Will you allow me to use your pen and ink?&quot; &quot;Certainly.&quot; &quot;And your desk?&quot; &quot;Certainly.&quot; He had been hovering about between his hat and his umbrella, for a place to write on. He now sat down in my chair, at my blotting paper and inkstand, with the long walk up his head in accurate perspective before me, as I stood with my back to the fire. Before answering each question, he ran over it aloud, and discussed it. How long had he known Mr. Alfred Beckwith? That he had to calculate by years upon his fingers. What were his habits? No difficulty about them; temperate in the last degree, and took a little too much exercise, if anything. All the answers were satisfactory. When he had written them all, he looked them over, and finally signed them in a very pretty hand. He supposed he had now done with the business? I told him he was not likely to be troubled any further. Should he leave the papers there? If he pleased. Much obliged. Good morning! I had had one other visitor before him; not at the office, but at my own house. That visitor had come to my bedside when it was not yet daylight, and had been seen by no one else but by my faithful confidential servant. A second reference paper (for we required always two) was sent down into Norfolk, and was duly received back by post. This, likewise, was satisfactorily answered in every respect. Our forms were all complied with; we accepted the proposal, and the premium for one year was paid. IV. For six or seven months, I saw no more of Mr. Slinkton. He called once at my house, but I was not at home; and he once asked me to dine with him in the Temple, but I was engaged. His friend’s Assurance was effected in March. Late in September or early in October, I was down at Scarborough for a breath of sea air, where I met him on the beach. It was a hot evening; he came toward me with his hat in his hand; and there was the walk I had felt so strongly disinclined to take, in perfect order again, exactly in front of the bridge of my nose. He was not alone, but had a young lady on his arm. She was dressed in mourning, and I looked at her with great interest. She had the appearance of being extremely delicate, and her face was remarkably pale and melancholy; but she was very pretty. He introduced her as his niece, Miss Niner. &quot;Are you strolling, Mr. Sampson? Is it possible you can be idle?&quot; It was possible, and I was strolling. &quot;Shall we stroll together?&quot; &quot;With pleasure.&quot; The young lady walked between us, and we walked on the cool sea sand, in the direction of Filey. &quot;There have been wheels here,&quot; said Mr. Slinkton. &quot;And now I look again, the wheels of a hand-carriage! Margaret, my love, your shadow, without doubt!&quot; &quot;Miss Niner’s shadow?&quot; I repeated, looking down at it on the sand. &quot;Not that one,&quot; Mr. Slinkton returned, laughing. &quot;Margaret, my dear, tell Mr. Sampson.&quot; &quot;Indeed,&quot; said the young lady, turning to me, &quot;there is nothing to tell—except that I constantly see the same invalid old gentleman, at all times, wherever I go. I have mentioned it to my uncle, and he calls the gentleman my shadow.&quot; &quot;Does he live in Scarborough?&quot; I asked. &quot;He is staying here.&quot; &quot;Do you live in Scarborough?&quot; &quot;No, I am staying here. My uncle has placed me with a family here, for my health.&quot; &quot;And your shadow?&quot; said I, smiling. &quot;My shadow,&quot; she answered, smiling too, &quot;is—like myself—not very robust, I fear; for, I lose my shadow sometimes, as my shadow loses me at other times. We both seem liable to confinement to the house. I have not seen my shadow, for days and days; but it does oddly happen, occasionally, that wherever I go, for many days together, this gentleman goes. We have come together in the most unfrequented nooks on this shore.&quot; &quot;Is this he?&quot; said I, pointing before us. The wheels had swept down to the water’s edge, and described a great loop on the sand in turning. Bringing the loop back towards us, and spinning it out as it came, was a hand-carriage drawn by a man. &quot;Yes,&quot; said Miss Niner, &quot;this really is my shadow, uncle!&quot; As the carriage approached us and we approached the carriage, I saw within it an old man, whose head was sunk on his breast, and who was enveloped in a variety of wrappers. He was drawn by a very quiet but very keen-looking man, with iron-grey hair, who was slightly lame. They had passed us, when the carriage stopped, and the old gentleman within putting out his arm, called to me by my name. I went back, and was absent from Mr. Slinkton and his niece for about five minutes. When I rejoined them, Mr. Slinkton was the first to speak. Indeed, he said to me in a raised voice before I came up with him: &quot;It is well you have not been longer, or my niece might have died of curiosity to know who her shadow is, Mr. Sampson.&quot; &quot;An old East India Director,&quot; said I. &quot;An intimate friend of our friend’s at whose house I first had the pleasure of meeting you. A certain Major Banks. You have heard of him?&quot; &quot;Never.&quot; &quot;Very rich, Miss Niner; but very old, and very crippled. An amiable man, sensible—much interested in you. He has just been expatiating on the affection that he has observed to exist between you and your uncle.&quot; Mr. Slinkton was holding his hat again, and he passed his hand up the straight walk, as if he himself went up it serenely, after me. &quot;Mr. Sampson,&quot; he said, tenderly pressing his niece’s arm in his, &quot;our affection was always a strong one, for we have had but few near ties. We have still fewer now. We have associations to bring us together, that are not of this world, Margaret.&quot; &quot;Dear uncle!&quot; murmured the young lady, and turned her face aside to hide her tears. &quot;My niece and I have such remembrances and regrets in common, Mr. Sampson,&quot; he feelingly pursued, &quot;that it would be strange indeed if the relations between us were cold or indifferent. If I remember a conversation we once had together, you will understand the reference I make. Cheer up, dear Margaret. Don’t droop, don’t droop. My Margaret! I cannot bear to see you droop!&quot; The poor young lady was very much affected, but controlled herself. His feelings, too, were very acute. In a word, he found himself under such great need of a restorative, that he presently went away, to take a bath of sea water, leaving the young lady and me sitting by a point of rock, and probably presuming—but that you will say was a pardonable indulgence in a luxury—that she would praise him with all her heart. She did, poor thing. With all her confiding heart, she praised him to me, for his care of her dead sister, and for his untiring devotion in her last illness. The sister had wasted away very slowly, and wild and terrible fantasies had come over her toward the end, but he had never been impatient with her, or at a loss; had always been gentle, watchful, and self-possessed. The sister had known him, as she had known him, to be the best of men, the kindest of men, and yet a man of such admirable strength of character, as to be a very tower for the support of their weak natures while their poor lives endured. &quot;I shall leave him, Mr. Sampson, very soon,&quot; said they oung lady; &quot;I know my life is drawing to an end; and when I am gone, I hope he will marry and be happy. I am sure he has lived single so long, only for my sake, and for my poor, poor sister’s.&quot; The little hand-carriage had made another great loop on the damp sand, and was coming back again, gradually spinning out a slim figure of eight, half a mile long. &quot;Young lady,&quot; said I, looking around, laying my hand upon her arm, and speaking in a low voice, &quot;time presses. You hear the gentle murmur of that sea?&quot; She looked at me with the utmost wonder and alarm, saying, &quot;Yes!&quot; &quot;And you know what a voice is in it when the storm comes?&quot; &quot;Yes!&quot; &quot;You see how quiet and peaceful it lies before us, and you know what an awful sight of power without pity it might be, this very night?&quot; &quot;Yes!&quot; &quot;But if you had never heard or seen it, or heard of it, in its cruelty, could you believe that it beats every inanimate thing in its way to pieces, without mercy, and destroys life without remorse?&quot; &quot;You terrify me, sir, by these questions!&quot; &quot;To save you, young lady, to save you! For God’s sake, collect your strength and collect your firmness! If you were here alone, and hemmed in by the rising tide on the flow to fifty feet above your head, you could not be in greater danger than the danger you are now to be saved from.&quot; The figure on the sand was spun out, and straggled off into a crooked little jerk that ended at the cliff very near us. &quot;As I am, before Heaven and the Judge of all mankind, your friend, and your dead sister’s friend, I solemnly entreat you, Miss Niner, without one moment’s loss of time, to come to this gentleman with me!&quot; If the little carriage had been less near to us, I doubt if I could have got her away; but it was so near that we were there before she had recovered the hurry of being urged from the rock. I did not remain there with her, two minutes. Certainly within five, I had the inexpressible satisfaction of seeing her—from the point we had sat on, and to which I had returned—half supported and half carried up some rude steps notched in the cliff, by the figure of an active man. With that figure beside her, I knew she was safe anywhere. I sat alone on the rock, awaiting Mr. Slinkton’s return. The twilight was deepening and the shadows were heavy, when he came round the point, with his hat hanging at his button-hole, smoothing his wet hair with one of his hands, and picking out the old path with the other and a pocket-comb. &quot;My niece not here, Mr. Sampson?&quot; he said, looking about. &quot;Miss Niner seemed to feel a chill in the air after the sun was down, and has gone home.&quot; He looked surprised, as though she were not accustomed to do anything without him: even to originate so slight a proceeding. &quot;I persuaded Miss Niner,&quot; I explained. &quot;Ah!&quot; said he. &quot;She is easily persuaded—for her good. Thank you, Mr. Sampson; she is better within doors. The bathing-place was further than I thought, to say the truth.&quot; &quot;Miss Niner is very delicate,&quot; I observed. He shook his head, and drew a deep sigh. &quot;Very, very, very. You may recollect my saying so. The time that has since intervened has not strengthened her. The gloomy shadow that fell upon her sister so early in life seems, in my anxious eyes, to gather over her, ever darker, ever darker. Dear Margaret, dear Margaret! But we must hope.&quot; The hand-carriage was spinning away before us, at a most indecorous pace for an invalid vehicle, and was making most irregular curves upon the sand. Mr. Slinkton, noticing it after he had put his handkerchief to his eyes, said: &quot;If I may judge from appearances, your friend will be upset, Mr. Sampson.&quot; &quot;It looks probable, certainly,&quot; said I. &quot;The servant must be drunk.&quot; &quot;The servants of old gentlemen will get drunk sometimes,&quot; said I. &quot;The major draws very light, Mr. Sampson.&quot; &quot;The major does draw light,&quot; said I. By this time the carriage, much to my relief, was lost in the darkness. We walked on for a little, side by side over the sand, in silence. After a short while he said, in a voice still affected by the emotion that his niece’s state of health had awakened in him: &quot;Do you stay here long, Mr. Sampson?&quot; &quot;Why, no. I am going away to-night.&quot; &quot;So soon? But business always holds you in request. Men like Mr. Sampson are too important to others, to be spared to their own need of relaxation and enjoyment.&quot; &quot;I don’t know about that,&quot; said I. &quot;However, I am going back.&quot; &quot;To London?&quot; &quot;To London.&quot; &quot;I shall be there too, soon after you.&quot; I knew that as well as he did. But I did not tell him so. Any more than I told him what defensive weapon my right hand rested on in my pocket, as I walked by his side. Any more than I told him why I did not walk on the sea-side of him with the night closing in. We left the beach, and our ways diverged. We exchanged Good night, and had parted indeed, when he said, returninG: &quot;Mr. Sampson, may I ask? Poor Meltham, whom we spoke of—Dead yet?&quot; &quot;Not when I last heard of him; but too broken a man to live long, and hopelessly lost to his old calling.&quot; &quot;Dear, dear, dear!&quot; said he, with great feeling. &quot;Sad, sad, sad! The world is a grave!&quot; And so went his way. It was not his fault if the world were not a grave; but I did not call that observation after him, any more than I had mentioned those other things just now enumerated. He went his way, and I went mine with all expedition. This happened, as I have said, either at the end of September or beginning of October. The next time I saw him, and the last time, was late in November.18590827https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Hunted_Down_Part_II/1859-08-27-Hunted_Down_Part2.pdf
163https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/163'Hunted Down', Part IIIDickens, Charles<em>The New York Public Library Digital Collections,</em> <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-new-york-ledger?filters%5Bname%5D=Dickens%2C+Charles%2C+1812-1870&amp;keywords=#/?tab=navigation">https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-new-york-ledger?filters%5Bname%5D=Dickens%2C+Charles%2C+1812-1870&amp;keywords=#/?tab=navigation</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=09-03-1859">09-03-1859</a>All images remain the physical property of NYPL and the intellectual property of the copyright holder, if applicable.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1859-09-03-Hunted_Down_Part3<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Hunted Down', Part III (3 September 1859).&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1859-09-03-Hunted_Down_Part3">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1859-09-03-Hunted_Down_Part3</a></span><span>.&nbsp;</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+New+York+Ledger%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The New York Ledger</em></a>V. I had a very particular engagement to breakfast in the Temple. It was a bitter north-easterly morning, and the sleet and slush lay inches deep, in the streets. I could get no conveyance, and was soon wet to the knees; but I should have been true to that appointment though I had had to wade to it, up to my neck in the same impediments. The appointment took me to some chambers in the Temple. They were at the top of a lonely corner house overlooking the river. The name, MR. ALFRED BECKWITH was painted on the outer door. On the door opposite, on the same landing, the name MR. JULIUS SLINKTON. The doors of both sets of chambers stood open, so that anything said aloud in one set, could be heard in the other. I had never been in those chambers before. They were dismal, close, unwholesome, and oppressive; the furniture, originally good, and not yet old, was faded and dirty—the rooms were in great disorder; there was a strong prevailing smell of opium, brandy and tobacco; the grate and fire-irons were splashed all over, with unsightly blotches of rust; and on a sofa by the fire, in the room where breakfast had been prepared, lay the host, Mr. Beckwith, a man with all the appearances of the worst kind of drunkard, very far advanced upon his shameful way to death. &quot;Slinkton is not come yet,&quot; said this creature, staggering up when I went in; &quot;I’ll call him. Halloa! Julius Cæsar! Come and drink!&quot; As he hoarsely roared this out, he beat the poker and tongs together in a mad way, as if that were his usual manner of summoning his associate. The voice of Mr. Slinkton was heard through the clatter from the opposite side of the staircase, and he came in. He had not expected the pleasure of meeting me. I have seen several artful men brought to a stand, but I never saw a man so aghast as he was when his eyes rested on mine. &quot;Julius Cæsar,&quot; cried Beckwith, staggering between us, &quot;Mist’ Sampson! Mist’ Sampson, Julius Cæsar! Julius, Mist’ Sampson, is the friend of my soul. Julius keeps me plied with liquor, morning, noon, and night. Julius is a real benefactor. Julius threw the tea and coffee out of window when I used to have any. Julius empties all the water-jugs of their contents, and fills ’em with spirits. Julius winds me up and keeps me going.—Boil the brandy, Julius!&quot; There was a rusty and furred saucepan in the ashes,—the ashes looked like the accumulation of weeks—and Beckwith, rolling and staggering between us as if he were going to plunge headlong into the fire, got the saucepan out, and tried to force it into Slinkton’s hand. &quot;Boil the brandy, Julius Cæsar! Come! Do your usual office. Boil the brandy!&quot; He became so fierce in his gesticulations with the saucepan, that I expected to see him lay open Slinkton’s head with it. I therefore put out my hand to check him. He reeled back to the sofa, and sat there, panting, shaking, and red-eyed, in his rags of dressing-gown, looking at us both. I noticed then, that there was nothing to drink on the table but brandy, and nothing to eat but salted herrings, and a hot, sickly, highly peppered stew.&quot; &quot;At all events, Mr. Sampson,&quot; said Slinkton, offering me the smooth gravel path for the last time, &quot;I thank you for interfering between me and this unfortunate man’s violence. However you came here, Mr. Sampson, or with whatever motive you came here, at least I thank you for that.&quot; &quot;Boil the brandy,&quot; muttered Beckwith. Without gratifying his desire to know how I came there, I said, quietly: &quot;How is your niece, Mr. Slinkton?&quot; He looked hard at me, and I looked hard at him. &quot;I am sorry to say, Mr. Sampson, that my niece has proved treacherous and ungrateful to her best friend. She left me without a word of notice or explanation. She was misled, no doubt, by some designing rascal. Perhaps you may have heard of it.&quot; &quot;I did hear that she was misled by a designing rascal. In fact, I have proof of it.&quot; &quot;Are you sure of that?&quot; said he. &quot;Quite.&quot; &quot;Boil the brandy,&quot; muttered Beckwith. &quot;Company to breakfast, Julius Cæsar. Do your usual office—provide the usual breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper.—Boil the brandy!&quot; The eyes of Slinkton looked from him to me, and he said, after a moment’s consideration: &quot;Mr. Sampson, you are a man of the world, and so am I. I will be plain with you.&quot; &quot;Oh, no, you won’t,&quot; said I, shaking my head. &quot;I tell you, sir, I will be plain with you.&quot; &quot;And I tell you you will not,&quot; said I. &quot;I know all about you. You plain with any one? Nonsense, nonsense!&quot; &quot;I plainly tell you, Mr. Sampson,&quot; he went on, with a manner almost composed, &quot;that I understand your object. You want to save your funds, and escape from your liabilities; these are old tricks of trade with you Office-gentlemen. But you will not do it, sir; you will not succeed. You have not an easy adversary to play against, when you play against me. We shall have to inquire, in due time, when and how Mr. Beckwith fell into his present habits. With that remark, sir, I put this poor creature and his incoherent wanderings of speech, aside, and wish you a good morning and a better case next time.&quot; While he was saying this, Beckwith had filled a half pint glass with brandy. At this moment, he threw the brandy at his face, and threw the glass after it. Slinkton put his hands up, half blinded with the spirit, and cut with the glass across the forehead. At the sound of the breakage, a fourth person came into the room, closed the door, and stood at it; he was a very quiet but very keen-looking man, with iron-grey hair, and slightly lame. Slinkton pulled out his handkerchief, assuaged the pain in his smarting eyes, and dabbled the blood on his forehead. He was a long time about it, and I saw that, in the doing of it, a tremendous change came over him, occasioned by the change in Beckwith—who ceased to pant and tremble, sat upright, and never took his eyes off him. I never in my life saw a face in which abhorrence and determination were so forcibly painted, as in Beckwith’s then. &quot;Look at me, you villain,&quot; said Beckwith, &quot;and see me as I really am. I took these rooms, to make them a trap for you. I came into them as a drunkard, to bait the trap for you. You fell into the trap, and you will never leave it alive. On the morning when you last went to Mr. Sampson’s office, I had seen him first. Your plot has been known to both of us, all along, and you have been counterplotted all along. What? Having been cajoled into putting that prize of two thousand pounds in your power, I was to be done to death with brandy, and, brandy not proving quick enough, with something quicker? Have I never seen you, when you thought my senses gone, pouring from your little bottle into my glass? Why, you Murderer and Forger, alone here with you in the dead of night, as I have so often been, I have had my hand upon the trigger of a pistol, twenty times, to blow your brains out!&quot; This sudden starting up of the thing that he had supposed to be his imbecile victim into a determined man, with a settled resolution to hunt him down and be the death of him, mercilessly expressed from head to foot, was, in the first shock, too much for him. Without any figure of speech, he staggered under it. But, there is no greater mistake than to suppose that a man who is a calculating criminal, is, in any phase of his guilt, otherwise than true to himself and perfectly consistent with his whole character. Such a man commits murder, and murder is the natural culmination of his course; such a man has to outface murder, and will do it with hardihood and effrontery. It is a sort of fashion to express surprise that any notorious criminal, having such crime upon his conscience, can so brave it out. Do you think that if he had it on his conscience at all, or had a conscience to have it upon, he would ever have committed the crime? Perfectly consistent with himself, as I believe all such monsters to be, this Slinkton recovered himself, and showed a defiance that was sufficiently cold and quiet. He was white, he was haggard, he was changed; but, only as a sharper who had played for a great stake and had been outwitted and had lost the game. &quot;Listen to me, you villain,&quot; said Beckwith, &quot;and let every word you hear me say, be a stab in your wicked heart. When I took these rooms, to throw myself in your way and lead you on to the scheme that I knew my appearance and supposed character and habits would suggest to such a devil, how did I know that? Because you were no stranger to me. I knew you well. And I knew you to be the cruel wretch who, for so much money, had killed one innocent girl while she trusted him implicitly, and who was by inches, killing another.&quot; Slinkton took out a snuff-box, took a pinch of snuff, and laughed. &quot;But, see here,&quot; said Beckwith, never looking away, never raising his voice, never relaxing his face, never unclenching his hand. &quot;See what a dull wolf you have been, after all! The infatuated drunkard who never drank a fiftieth part of the liquor you plied him with, but poured it away, here, there, everywhere—almost before your eyes; who bought over the fellow you set to watch him and to ply him, by outbidding you in his bribe, before he had been at his work three days—with whom you have observed no caution, yet who was so bent on ridding the earth of you as a wild beast, that he would have defeated you if you had been ever so prudent—that drunkard whom you have, many a time, left on the floor of this room, and who has even let you go out of it, alive and undeceived, when you have turned him over with your foot—has, almost as often, on the same night, within an hour, within a few minutes, watched you awake, had his hand at your pillow when you were asleep, turned over your papers, taken samples from your bottles and packets of powder, changed their contents, rifled every secret of your life!&quot; He had had another pinch of snuff in his hand, but had gradually let it drop from between his fingers to the floor: where he now smoothed it out with his foot, looking down at it the while. &quot;That drunkard,&quot; said Beckwith, &quot;who had free access to your rooms at all times, that he might drink the strong drinks that you left in his way and be the sooner ended, holding no more terms with you than he would hold with a tiger, has had his master-key for all your locks, his test for all your poisons, his clue to your cipher writing. He can tell you, as well as you can tell him, how long it took to complete that deed, what doses there were, what intervals, what signs of gradual decay upon mind and body; what distempered fancies were produced, what observable changes, what physical pain. He can tell you, as well as you can tell him, that all this was recorded day by day, as a lesson of experience for future service. He can tell you, better than you can tell him, where that journal is at this moment.&quot; Slinkton stopped the action of his foot, and looked at Beckwith. &quot;No,&quot; said the latter, as if answering a question from him. &quot;Not in the drawer of the writing-desk that opens with a spring; it is not there, and it never will be there again.&quot; &quot;Then you are a thief!&quot; said Slinkton. Without any change whatever in the inflexible purpose which it was quite terrific even to me to contemplate, and from the power of which I had always felt convinced it was impossible for this wretch to escape, Beckwith returned: &quot;And I am your niece’s shadow, too.&quot; With an imprecation, Slinkton put his hand to his head, tore out some hair, and flung it to the ground. It was the end of the smooth walk; he destroyed it in the action, and it will soon be seen that his use for it was past. Beckwith went on: ‘Whenever you left here, I left here. Although I understood that you found it necessary to pause in the completion of that purpose, to avert suspicion, still I watched you close, with the poor confiding girl. When I had the diary, and could read it word by word—it was only about the night before your last visit to Scarborough—you remember the night? you slept with a small flat vial tied to your wrist—I sent to Mr. Sampson, who was kept out of view. This is Mr. Sampson’s trusty servant standing by the door. We three saved your niece among us.&quot; Slinkton looked at us all, took an uncertain step or two from the place where he had stood, returned to it, and glanced about him in a very curious way—as one of the meaner reptiles might, looking for a hole to hide in. I noticed at the same time, that a singular change took place in the figure of the man—as if it collapsed within his clothes, and they consequently became ill-shapen and ill-fitting. &quot;You shall know,&quot; said Beckwith, &quot;for I hope the knowledge will be bitter and terrible to you, why you have been pursued by one man, and why, when the whole interest that Mr. Sampson represents would have expended any money in hunting you down, you have been tracked to death at a single individual’s charge. I hear you have had the name of Meltham on your lips sometimes?&quot; I saw, in addition to those other changes, a sudden stoppage come upon his breathing. &quot;When you sent the sweet girl whom you murdered (you know with what artfully made-out surroundings and probabilities you sent her), to Meltham’s office, before taking her abroad to originate the transaction that doomed her to the grave, it fell to Meltham’s lot to see her and to speak with her. It did not fall to his lot to save her, though I know he would freely give his own life to have done it. He admired her;—I would say he loved her deeply, if I thought it possible that you could understand the word. When she was sacrificed, he was thoroughly assured of your guilt. Having lost her, he had but one object left in life, and that was to avenge her and destroy you.&quot; I saw the villain’s nostrils rise and fall, convulsively; but I saw no moving at his mouth. &quot;That man Meltham,&quot; Beckwith steadily pursued, &quot;was as absolutely certain that you could never elude him in this world, if he devoted himself to your destruction with his utmost fidelity and earnestness, and if he divided the sacred duty with no other duty in life, as he was certain that in achieving it he would be a poor instrument in the hands of Providence, and would do well before Heaven in striking you out from among living men. I am that man, and I thank GOD that I have done my work!&quot; If Slinkton had been running for his life from swift-footed savages, a dozen miles, he could not have shown more emphatic signs of being oppressed at heart and labouring for breath, than he showed now, when he looked at the pursuer who had so relentlessly hunted him down. &quot;You never saw me under my right name before; you see me under my right name now. You shall see me once again in the body, when you are tried for your life. You shall see me once again, in the spirit, when the cord is round your neck, and the crowd are crying against you!&quot; When Meltham had spoken these last words, the miscreant suddenly turned away his face, and seemed to strike his mouth with his open hand. At the same instant, the room was filled with a new and powerful odor, and, almost at the same instant, he broke into a crooked run, leap, start,—I have no name for the spasm,—and fell, with a dull weight that shook the heavy old doors and windows in their frames. That was the fitting end of him. When we saw that he was dead, we drew away from the room, and Meltham, giving me his hand, said, with a weary air: &quot;I have no more work on earth, my friend. But I shall see her again, elsewhere.&quot; It was in vain that I tried to rally him. He might have saved her, he said; he had not saved her, and he reproached himself; he had lost her, and he was broken-hearted. &quot;The purpose that sustained me is over, Sampson, and there is nothing now to hold me to life. I am not fit for life; I am weak and spiritless; I have no hope and no object; my day is done.&quot; In truth, I could hardly have believed that the broken man who then spoke to me was the man who had so strongly and so differently impressed me when his purpose was before him. I used such entreaties with him, as I could; but, he still said, and always said, in a patient, undemonstrative way—nothing could avail him—he was broken-hearted. He died early in the next spring. He was buried by the side of the poor young lady for whom he had cherished those tender and unhappy regrets; and he left all he had, to her sister. She lived to be a happy wife and mother; she married my sister’s son, who succeeded poor Meltham; she is living now, and her children ride about the garden on my walking-stick when I go to see her.18590903https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Hunted_Down_Part_III/1859-09-03-Hunted_Down_Part3.pdf
133https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/133'Mrs. Joseph Porter, "Over the Way"'Published in <em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres</em>,<span> February 1834, pp. 11-18.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>Internet Archive,<br /></em><a href="https://archive.org/details/monthlymagazineo17lond/page/n9/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/monthlymagazineo17lond/page/n9/mode/2up</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-02">1834-02</a><em>Internet Archive,</em><span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a><span>. Access to the Archive’s Collections is granted for scholarship and research purposes only.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-02-Mrs_Joseph_Porter_Over_The_Way<span>Dickens, Charles. "Mrs. Joseph Porter, 'Over the Way.'"&nbsp;</span><em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres.</em><span>&nbsp;February 1834, pp. 11-18.&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-02-Mrs_Joseph_Porter_Over_The_Way">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-02-Mrs_Joseph_Porter_Over_The_Way</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a>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’s interesting family as the day fixed for the representation of the Private Play, which had been &quot;many months in preparation,&quot; approached. The whole family was infected with the mania for Private Theatricals; the house, usually so clean and tidy, was, to use Mr. Gattleton’s expressive description &quot;regularly turned out o’ windows;&quot; the large dining-room, dismantled of it&#039;s furniture and ornaments, presented a strange jumble of flats, flies, wings, lamps, bridges, clouds, thunder and lightning, festoons and flowers, daggers and foil, and all the other messes which in theatrical slang are included under the comprehensive name of &quot;properties.&quot; The bedrooms were crowded with scenery, the kitchen was occupied by carpenters. 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 &quot;Othello&quot;—it having been determined that that tragedy should form the first portion of the evening’s entertainments. &quot;When we’re a leetle more perfect, I think it will go off admirably,&quot; said Mr. Sempronius, addressing his corps dramatique, at the conclusion of the hundred and fiftieth rehearsal. 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. - &quot;Evans,&quot; continued Mr. Gattleton, the younger, addressing a tall, thin, pale young gentleman, with extensive whiskers—&quot;Evans, upon my word, you play Roderigo beautifully.&quot; &quot;Beautifully,&quot; echoed the three Miss Gattletons; for Mr. Evans was pronounced by all his lady-friends to be &quot;quite a dear.&quot; He looked so interesting and had such lovely whiskers, to say nothing of his talent for writing verses in albums and playing the flute! The interesting Roderigo simpered and bowed. &quot;But I think,&quot; added the manager, &quot;you are hardly perfect in the—fall—in the fencing-scene, where you are—you understand?&quot; &quot;It’s very difficult,&quot; said Mr. Evans, thoughtfully; &quot;I’ve fallen about a good deal in our counting-house lately, for practice; only it hurts one so. Being obliged to fall backward you see, it bruises one’s head a good deal.&quot; &quot;But you must take care you don’t knock a wing down,&quot; said Mr. Gattleton, sen., who had been appointed prompter, and who took as much interest in the play as the youngest of the company. &quot;The stage is very narrow, you know.&quot; &quot;Oh! don’t be afraid,&quot; said Mr. Evans, with a very self-satisfied air; &quot;I shall fall with my head &#039;off,&#039; and then I can’t do any harm.&quot; &quot;But, egad!&quot; said the manager, rubbing his hands, &quot;we shall make a decided hit in &#039;Masaniello.&#039; Harfield sings that music admirably.&quot; Everybody echoed the sentiment. Mr. Harfield smiled, and looked foolish,—not an unusual thing with him—hummed &quot;Behold how brightly breaks the morning,&quot; and blushed as red as the fisherman’s night-cap he was trying on. &quot;Let’s see,&quot; resumed the manager, telling the number on his fingers, we shall have three dancing female peasants, besides Fenella, and four fishermen. Then there’s our man Tom, he can have a pair of ducks of mine, and a check-shirt of Bob’s, and a red night-cap, and he’ll do for another—that’s five. In the chorusses, of course, we can sing at the sides, and in the market-scene we can walk about in cloaks and things. 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. The effect will be electrical; it will look exactly as if there were an immense number of ’em: and in the eruption scene we must burn the red fire, and upset the tea-trays, and halloo and make all sorts of noises—and it’s sure to do.&quot; &quot;Sure! sure!&quot; cried all the performers unâ voce—and away hurried Mr. Sempronius Gattleton to wash the burnt cork off his face, and superintend the &quot;setting up&quot; of some of the amateur-painted and never-sufficiently-to-be-admired scenery. Mrs. Gattleton was a kind, good-tempered, vulgar old soul, exceedingly fond of her husband and children, and entertaining only three dislikes. In the first place, she had a natural antipathy to anybody else’s unmarried daughters; in the second, she was in bodily fear of anything in the shape of ridicule; and, lastly—almost a necessary consequence of this feeling—she regarded with feelings of the utmost horror, one &quot;Mrs. Joseph Porter over the way.&quot; 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 very much the same reason that a poor author, without a farthing in his pocket behaves with extraordinary civility to a twopenny postman. &quot;Never mind, Ma,&quot; said Miss Emma Porter, in colloquy with her respected relative, and trying to look unconcerned; &quot;if they had invited me, you know that neither you nor Pa would have allowed me to take part in such an exhibition.&quot; &quot;Just what I should have thought from your high sense of propriety,&quot; returned the mother. &quot;I am glad to see, Emma, you know how to designate the proceeding.&quot; Miss P., by-the-by, had only the week before made an &quot;exhibition&quot; of herself for four days, behind a counter at a fancy fair, to all and every of her Majesty’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. &quot;There!&quot; said Mrs. Porter, looking out of window; &quot;there are two rounds of beef and a ham going in—clearly for sandwiches; and Thomas, the pastry-cook, says, there have been twelve dozen tarts ordered, besides blancmange and jellies. Upon my word! think of the Miss Gattletons in fancy dresses, too!&quot; &quot;Oh, it’s too ridiculous,&quot; said Miss Porter, with a sort of hysterical chuckle. &quot;I’ll manage to put them a little out of conceit with the business, however,&quot; said Mrs. Porter; and out she went on her charitable errand. &quot;Well, my dear Mrs. Gattleton, &quot; 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; - &quot;well, my dear, people may say what they please; indeed we know they will, for some folks are so ill-natured. - Ah, my dear Miss Lucina, how d’ye do? - I was just telling your mama that I have heard it said, that—&quot; &quot;What?&quot; inquired the Desdemona. &quot;Mrs. Porter is alluding to the play, my dear,&quot; said Mrs. Gattleton; &quot;she was, I am sorry to say, just informing me that—&quot; &quot;Oh, now pray don’t mention it,: interrupted Mrs. Porter; &quot;it’s most absurd—quite as absurd as young what’s-his-name saying he wondered how Miss Caroline, with such a foot and ankle, could have the vanity to play Fenella.&quot; &quot;Highly impertinent, whoever said it,&quot; said Mrs. Gattleton, bridling up. &quot;Certainly, my dear,&quot; chimed in the delighted Mrs. Porter; &quot;most undoubtedly! Because, as I said, if Miss Caroline does play Fenella, it doesn’t follow, as a matter of course, that she should think she has a pretty foot; and then such puppies as these young men are; he had the impudence to say, that—’ 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’s brother, familiarly called in the family &quot;Uncle Tom,&quot; changed the course of conversation, and suggested to her mind an excellent plan of operation on the evening of the play. 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. He was one of the best-hearted men in existence; always in a good temper, and always talking. It was his boast that he wore top-boots on all occasions, and had never worn a black silk neck-kerchief; and it was his pride, that he remembered all the principal plays of Shakspeare from beginning to end—and so he did. 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 mis-quotation from &quot;The Swan of Avon&quot; without setting the unfortunate delinquent right. 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. &quot;Well, girls, well,&quot; said Uncle Tom, after the preparatory ceremony of kissing and how-d’ye-do-ing had been gone through—&quot;how d’ye get on? Know your parts, eh?—Lucina, my dear, act 2, scene 1—place, left-cue—&#039;Unknown fate,&#039;—What’s next, eh?—Go on—&#039;The heavens—&#039;&quot; &quot;Oh, yes,&quot; said Miss Lucina, &quot;I recollect - “ &#039;The heavens forbid But that our loves and comforts should increase Even as our days do grow!&#039;&quot; &quot;Make a pause here and there,&quot; said the old gentleman, who was a great critic. &#039;But that our loves and comforts should increase&#039;—emphasis on the last syllable, &#039;crease,&#039;—loud &#039;even,&#039;—one, two, three, four; then loud again, &#039;as our days do grow;&#039; emphasis on days. That’s the way, my dear; trust to your uncle for emphasis. Ah! Sem, my boy, how are you?&quot; &quot;Very well, thanky&#039;e, uncle,&quot; 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. &quot;Of course we see you on Thursday.&quot; &quot;Of course, of course, my dear boy.&quot; &quot;What a pity it is your nephew didn’t think of making you prompter, Mr. Balderstone,&quot; whispered Mrs. Joseph Porter; &quot;you would have been invaluable.&quot; &quot;Well, I flatter myself, I should have been tolerably up to the thing,&quot; responded Uncle Tom. &quot;I must bespeak sitting next you on the night,&quot; resumed Mrs. Porter; &quot;and then, if our dear young friends here, should be at all wrong, you will be able to enlighten me. I shall be so interested.&quot; &quot;I am sure I shall be most happy to give you any assistance in my power, mem.&quot; &quot;Mind, it’s a bargain.&quot; &quot;Certainly.&quot; &quot;I don’t know how it is,&quot; said Mrs. Gattleton to her daughters, as they were sitting round the fire in the evening, looking over their parts, &quot;but I really very much wish Mrs. Joseph Porter wasn’t coming on Thursday. I am sure she’s scheming something.&quot; &quot;She can’t make us ridiculous, however,&quot; observed Mr. Sempronius Gattleton, haughtily. The long-looked-for Thursday arrived in due course, and brought with it, as Mr. Gattleton, senior, philosophically observed, &quot;no disappointments, to speak of.&quot; True, it was yet a matter of doubt whether Cassio would be enabled to get into the dress which had been sent for him from the masquerade warehouse. It was equally uncertain whether the principal female singer would be sufficiently recovered from the influenza to make her appearance; Mr. Harfield, the Masaniello 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. What of that? the audience were all coming. Everybody knew his part; the dresses were covered with tinsel and spangles; the white plumes looked beautiful; Mr. Evans had practised falling, till he was bruised from head to foot and quite perfect; Iago was sure that, in the stabbing-scene, he should make &quot;a decided hit.&quot; A self-taught deaf gentleman, who had kindly offered to bring his flute, would be a most valuable addition to the orchestra; Miss Jenkins’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’ notice, to bring his violoncello, would, no doubt, manage extremely well. Seven o’clock came, and so did the audience; all the rank and fashion of Clapham and its vicinity was fast filling the theatre. There were the Smiths, the Stubbs&#039;s, the Halfpennys, the Gubbins&#039;s, 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’s escaping from something); 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. Ting, ting, ting! went the prompter’s bell at eight o’clock precisely, and dash went the orchestra into the overture to &quot;The Men of Prometheus.&quot; The pianoforte player hammered away with the most laudable perseverance; and the violoncello, which struck in at intervals, &quot;sounded very well, considering.&quot; The unfortunate individual, however, who had undertaken to play the flute accompaniment &quot;at sight,&quot; found, from fatal experience, the perfect truth of the old adage, &quot;out of sight, out of mind;&quot; 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. It is, however, but justice to Mr. Brown to say that he did this to admiration. 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 too-too’d away, quite unconscious that he was at all wrong, until apprised, by the applause of the audience, that the overture was concluded. A considerable bustle and shuffling of feet was then heard upon the stage, accompanied by whispers of &quot;Here’s a pretty go!—what’s to be done?&quot; &amp;c. 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 &quot;clear the stage, and ring up.&quot; Ting, ting, ting! went the bell again. Everybody sat down; the curtain shook; rose sufficiently high to display several pair of yellow boots paddling about; and there remained. Ting, ting, ting! went the bell again. The curtain was violently convulsed, but rose no higher; the audience tittered; Mrs. Porter looked at Uncle Tom, Uncle Tom looked at every body, rubbing his hands, and laughing with perfect rapture. 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 solus and decked for Othello. 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 - &quot;Ladies and Gentlemen, I assure you it is with sincere regret, that I regret to be compelled to inform you, that Iago who was to have played Mr. Wilson—I beg your pardon, Ladies and Gentlemen; but I am naturally somewhat agitated (applause)—I mean, Mr. Wilson, who was to have played Iago, is—that is, has been—or, in other words, Ladies and Gentlemen, the fact is, that I have just received a note, in which I am informed that Iago is unavoidably detained at the Post-office this evening. Under these circumstances, I trust—a—a—amateur performance—a—another gentleman undertaken to read the part—request indulgence for a short time—courtesy and kindness of a British audience.&quot; Overwhelming applause. Exit Mr. Sempronius Gattleton, and curtain falls. 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. It appeared by Mr. Sempronius’s subsequent explanation, that the delay would not have been so great, had it not so happened that when the substitute Iago had finished dressing, and just as the play was on the point of commencing, the original Iago unexpectedly arrived. 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. At last, the tragedy began in real earnest. It went off well enough, until the third scene of the first act, in which Othello addresses the Senate, the only remarkable circumstance being, that as Iago 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 common hessians, which contrasted rather oddly with his richly embroidered pantaloons. When Othello started with his address to the Senate (whose dignity was represented by, the Duke, a carpenter; two men engaged on the recommendation of the gardener; and a boy); Mrs. Porter found the opportunity she so anxiously sought. Mr. Sempronius proceeded - &quot;&#039; Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, My very noble and approv’d good masters, That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter, It is most true;—rude am I in my speech—&#039;&quot; &quot;Is that right?&quot; whispered Mrs. Porter to Uncle Tom. &quot;No.&quot; &quot;Tell him so, then.&quot; &quot;I will. - Sem!&quot; called out Uncle Tom, &quot;that’s wrong, my boy.&quot; &quot;What’s wrong, Uncle?&quot; demanded Othello, quite forgetting the dignity of his situation. &quot;You’ve left out something. &#039;True I have married—&#039;&quot; &quot;Oh, ah!&quot; 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 - - &quot; &#039;true I have married her; - The very head and front of my offending Hath this extent; no more.&#039; (Aside). Why don’t you prompt, father?&quot; &quot;Because I’ve mislaid my spectacles,&quot; said poor Mr. Gattleton, almost dead with the heat and bustle. &quot;There, now it’s &#039;rude am I,&#039;&quot; said Uncle Tom.&quot; &quot;Yes, I know it is,&quot; returned the unfortunate manager, proceeding with his part. 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 once 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 every body’s part, as it was being delivered, in an under tone. The audience were highly amused, Mrs. Porter delighted, the performers embarrassed; Uncle Tom never was better pleased in all his life; and Uncle Tom’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. Several other minor causes, too, united to damp the ardour of the dramatis personæ. 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. Mr. Evans, naturally too tall for the scenery, wore a black velvet hat with immense white plumes, the glory of which was lost in &quot;the flies;&quot; 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 couldn&#039;t take it off. 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. The pianoforte player, overpowered by the extreme heat of the room, fainted away at the commencement of the entertainments, leaving the music of &quot;Masaniello&quot; to the flute and violoncello. The orchestra complained that Mr. Harfield put them out, and Mr. Harfield declared that the orchestra prevented his singing at all. 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, they got drunk in the eruption-scene as naturally as possible. The red fire which was burnt at the conclusion of the second act not only nearly suffocated the audience, but they narrowly escaped setting the house on fire; as it was, the remainder of the piece was acted in a thick fog. In short, the whole affair was, as Mrs. Joseph Porter triumphantly told every body, &quot;a complete failure.&quot; The audience went home at four o’clock in the morning, exhausted with laughter, suffering from severe head aches, and smelling terribly of brimstone and gunpowder. The Messrs. Gattleton, senior and junior, retired to rest with a vague idea of emigrating to Swan River early in the ensuing week. 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. 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 the immortal bard.18340201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Mrs._Joseph_Porter_Over_the_Way/1834-02-Mrs_Joseph_Porter_Over_The_Way.pdf
167https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/167'Our Next-Door Neighbours'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle</em> (18 March 1836), p. 3.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18360318/009/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18360318/009/0003</a>. <em>Source is faded and illegible in places.</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-03-18">1836-03-18</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1836-03-18-Our_NextDoor_NeighboursDickens, Charles. 'Our Next-Door Neighbours'. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-03-18-Our_NextDoor_Neighbours">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-03-18-Our_NextDoor_Neighbours</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>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. 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. 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. For instance, there is one description of knocker that used to be common enough, but which is fast passing away—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—so far as our experience is concerned, it invariably bespoke hospitality and another bottle. 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—a sort of grand master among the knockers, and a great favourite with the selfish and brutal. 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. 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. A little trouble and attention, however, enabled us to overcome this difficulty, and to reconcile the new system to our favourite theory. You will invariably find this knocker on the doors of cold and formal people, who always ask you why you don’t come, and never say do. 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. Some phrenologists affirm, that the agitation of a man’s brain by different passions, produces corresponding developments in the form of his skull. Do not let us be understood as pushing our theory to the full length of asserting, that any alteration in a man’s disposition would produce a visible effect on the feature of his knocker. 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. 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. 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. 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. This was a calamity we had never anticipated. 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. We sauntered moodily from the spot, and bent our steps towards Eaton-square, then just building. What was our astonishment and indignation to find that bells were fast becoming the rule, and knockers the exception! Our theory trembled beneath the shock. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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’s feathers tastefully arranged above them, completed the decorative furniture of the apartment. 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. 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. Terms were soon arranged, for the bill was taken down immediately after his first visit. In a day or two the single gentleman came in, and shortly afterwards his real character came out. First of all, he displayed a most extraordinary partiality for sitting up till three or four o’clock in the morning, drinking whiskey-and-water, and smoking cigars; then he invited friends home, who used to come at ten o’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. 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 did go away, instead of walking quietly down the street, as anybody else’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’d excuse his giving him so much trouble, but he’d feel obliged if he’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—very straight, only it went over the wrong man; and the whole street was involved in confusion. A joke’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. The single gentleman received the remonstrance with great good-humour, and promised from that time forward, to spend his evenings at a coffee-house—a determination which afforded general and unmixed satisfaction. 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. The single gentleman’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. 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. The next applicant for the vacant first floor, was of a very different character from the troublesome single gentleman who had just quitted it. He was a tall, thin, young gentleman, with a profusion of brown hair, reddish whiskers, and very slightly developed moustaches. He wore a braided surtout, with frogs behind, light grey trousers, and wash-leather gloves, and had altogether rather a military appearance. So unlike the roystering single gentleman. Such insinuating manners, and such a delightful address! So seriously disposed, too! 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. Our next-door neighbour was now perfectly happy. He had got a lodger at last, of just his own way of thinking—a serious, well-disposed man, who abhorred gaiety, and loved retirement. 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. The serious man arrived, and his luggage was to arrive from the country next morning. 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’clock next morning—not before, as he was much fatigued. He was called, and did not answer: he was called again, but there was no reply. Our next-door neighbour became alarmed, and burst the door open. The serious man had left the house mysteriously; carrying with him the shirt, the prayer-book, a teaspoon, and the bedclothes. 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. The bill was soon removed. The new lodgers at first attracted our curiosity, and afterwards excited our interest. They were a young lad of eighteen or nineteen, and his mother, a lady of about fifty, or it might be less. The mother wore a widow’s weeds, and the boy was also clothed in deep mourning. They were poor—very poor; for their only means of support arose from the pittance the boy earned, by copying writings, and translating for booksellers. 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. They were proud under their reverses, and above revealing their wants and privations to strangers. How bitter those privations were, and how hard the boy worked to remove them, no one ever knew but themselves. 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. 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. Our worst fears were realised; the boy was sinking fast. 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—anything for bread. A few shillings now and then, were all she could earn. The boy worked steadily on; dying by minutes, but never once giving utterance to complaint or murmur. One beautiful autumn evening we went to pay our customary visit to the invalid. 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. His mother had been reading the Bible to him, for she closed the book as we entered, and advanced to meet us. &quot;I was telling William,&quot; she said, &quot;that we must manage to take him into the country somewhere, so that he may get quite well. He is not ill, you know, but he is not very strong, and has exerted himself too much lately.&quot; Poor thing! The tears that streamed through her fingers, as she turned aside, as if to adjust her close widow’s cap, too plainly showed how fruitless was the attempt to deceive herself. 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. At every respiration, his heart beat more slowly. The boy placed one hand in ours, grasped his mother’s arm with the other, drew her hastily towards him, and fervently kissed her cheek. There was a pause. He sunk back upon his pillow, and looked long and earnestly in his mother’s face. &quot;William, William!&quot; murmured the mother, after a long interval, &quot;don’t look at me so—speak to me, dear!&quot; The boy smiled languidly, but an instant afterwards his features resolved into the same cold, solemn gaze. &quot;William, dear William! rouse yourself; don’t look at me so, love—pray don’t! Oh, my God! what shall I do!&quot; cried the widow, clasping her hands in agony—&quot;my dear boy! he is dying!&quot; The boy raised himself by a violent effort, and folded his hands together—&quot;Mother! dear, dear mother, bury me in the open fields—anywhere but in these dreadful streets. 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—&quot; 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. The boy was dead.18360318https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Our_Next-Door_Neighbours/1836-03-18-Our_NextDoor_Neighbours.pdf
150https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/150'Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle' (Chapter the First)Published in <em>The Monthly Magazine</em> (January 1835), pp. 15-24.Dickens, Charles<em>Biodiversity Heritage Library, </em>(National History Museum): <a href="https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/19851#page/29/mode/1up">https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/19851#page/29/mode/1up</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-01">1835-01</a>Public domain. The BHL considers that this work is no longer under copyright protection.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1835-01-Watkins_Tottle_Chapter_IDickens, Charles. (January 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-01-Watkins_Tottle_Chapter_I">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-01-Watkins_Tottle_Chapter_I</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>Matrimony is proverbially a serious undertaking. 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. It is no use telling a man who is timorous on these points, that it is but one plunge, and all is over. 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. Mr. Watkins Tottle was a rather uncommon compound of strong uxorious inclinations, and an unparalleled degree of anti-connubial timidity. He was about fifty years of age; stood four feet six inches and three-quarters in his socks—for he never stood in stockings at all—plump, clean, and rosy. He looked something like a vignette to one of Richardson’s novels, and had a clean cravatish formality of manner, and kitchen-pokerness of carriage, which Sir Charles Grandison himself might have envied. He lived on an annuity, which was well adapted to the individual who received it, in one respect—it was rather small. 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. 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. Wrapt in profound reveries on this never-failing theme, fancy transformed his small parlour in Cecil-street into a neat house in the suburbs—the half-hundred weight 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’s. &quot;Who’s there?&quot; inquired Mr. Watkins Tottle, as a gentle tap at his room-door disturbed these meditations one evening. &quot;Tottle, my dear fellow, how do you do?&quot; said a short elderly gentleman with a gruffish voice, bursting into the room, and replying to the question by asking another, and then they shook hands with a great deal of solemnity. &quot;Told you I should drop in some evening,&quot; said the short gentleman, as he delivered his hat into Tottle’s hand, after a little struggling and dodging. &quot;Delighted to see you, I’m sure,&quot; said Mr. Watkins Tottle, wishing internally that his visitor had ‘dropped in’ to the Thames at the bottom of the street, instead of dropping into his parlour. The fortnight was nearly up, and Watkins was hard up. &quot;How is Mrs. Gabriel Parsons?&quot; inquired Tottle. &quot;Quite well, thank you,&quot; replied Mr. Gabriel Parsons, for that was the name the short gentleman revelled in. Here there was a pause; the short gentleman looked at the left hob of the fire-place; Mr. Watkins Tottle stared vacancy out of countenance. &quot;Quite well,&quot; repeated the short gentleman, when five minutes had expired. &quot;I may say remarkably well,&quot; and he rubbed the palms of his hands together as hard as if he were going to strike a light by friction. &quot;What will you take?&quot; 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 any thing else. &quot;Oh, I don’t know.—Have you any whiskey?&quot; &quot;Why,&quot; replied Tottle very slowly, for all this was gaining time, &quot;I had some capital, and remarkably strong whiskey last week; but it’s all gone—and therefore its strength—&quot; &quot;Is much beyond proof; or, in other words, impossible to be proved,&quot; said the short gentleman; and he laughed very heartily, and seemed quite glad the whiskey had been drank. Mr. Tottle smiled—but it was the smile of despair. When Mr. Gabriel Parsons had done laughing, he delicately insinuated that, in the absence of whiskey, he would not be averse to brandy. 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. The application was successful—the spirits were speedily called;—not from &quot;the vasty deep,&quot; but the adjacent wine-vaults. The two short gentlemen mixed their grog; and then sat cosily down before the fire—a pair of shorts, airing themselves. &quot;Tottle,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, &quot;you know my way—off-hand, open, say what I mean, and mean what I say, damn reserve, and can’t bear affectation. One is a bad domino which only hides what good-people have about ’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.—Now listen to what I’m going to say.&quot; Here, the little gentleman paused, and took a long pull at his brandy-and-water. Mr. Watkins Tottle took a sip of his, stirred the fire, and assumed an air of profound attention. &quot;It’s of no use humming and ha’ing about the matter,&quot; resumed the short gentleman.—&quot;You want to get married—don&#039;t you?&quot; &quot;Why,&quot; —replied Mr. Watkins Tottle evasively; for he trembled violently, and felt a sudden tingling throughout his whole frame—&quot;why—I should certainly—at least, I think I should like it.&quot; &quot;Won’t do,&quot; said the short gentleman.—&quot;Plain and free—or there’s an end of the matter. Do you want money?&quot; &quot;You know I do.&quot; &quot;You admire the sex?&quot; &quot;I do.&quot; &quot;And you’d like to be married?&quot; &quot;Certainly.&quot; &quot;Then you shall be.—There’s an end of that.&quot; And thus saying, Mr. Gabriel Parsons took a pinch of snuff, and mixed another glass. &quot;Let me entreat you to be more explanatory,&quot; said Tottle. —&quot;Really, as the party principally interested, I cannot consent to be disposed of in this way.&quot; &quot;I’ll tell you,&quot; replied Mr. Gabriel Parsons, warming with the subject, and the brandy-and-water—&quot;I know a lady—she’s stopping with my wife now—who is just the thing for you. 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.&quot; &quot;I’ll pay my addresses to her,&quot; said Mr. Watkins Tottle.—&quot;She isn’t very young—is she?&quot; &quot;Not very; just the thing for you.—I’ve said that already.&quot; &quot;What coloured hair has the lady?&quot; inquired Mr. Watkins Tottle. &quot;Egad, I hardly recollect,&quot; replied Gabriel, with great coolness. &quot;Perhaps I ought to have observed, at first, she wears a front.&quot; &quot;A what!&quot; ejaculated Tottle. &quot;One of those things with curls along here,&quot; said Parsons, drawing a straight line across his forehead, just over his eyes, in illustration of his meaning. —&quot;I know the front’s black; I can’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 rather lighter than the front—a shade of a greyish tinge, perhaps.&quot; Mr. Watkins Tottle, looked as if he had certain misgivings of mind. Mr. Gabriel Parsons perceived it, and thought it would be safe to begin the next attack without delay. &quot;Were you ever in love, Tottle?&quot; he inquired. 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. &quot;I suppose you popped the question more than once, when you were a young—,I beg your pardon—a younger—man,&quot; said Parsons. &quot;Never in my life,&quot; replied his friend, apparently indignant at being suspected of such an act. &quot;Never! the fact is, that I entertain, as you know, peculiar opinions on these subjects. I am not afraid of ladies, young or old—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. Now the fact is, that any thing 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.&quot; &quot;I shouldn’t wonder if you were,&quot; replied Parsons, gravely; &quot;I shouldn’t wonder. However, you’ll be all right in this case; for the strictness and delicacy of this lady’s ideas, greatly exceed your own. 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 bed-room; she positively refused to go to bed there till it was taken down, considering it decidedly improper.&quot; &quot;I think so too,&quot; said Mr. Watkins Tottle; &quot;certainly.&quot; &quot;And then the other night—I never laughed so much in my life,&quot; resumed Mr. Gabriel Parsons; :I had driven home in a strong easterly wind, and caught a devil of a face-ache. Well; as Fanny—that’s Mrs. Parsons, you know—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 up in Fanny’s flannel petticoat. She instantly threw up her cards and left the room.&quot; &quot;Quite right!&quot; said Mr. Watkins Tottle, &quot;she couldn&#039;t possibly have behaved in a more dignified manner. What did you do?&quot; &quot;Do?—Frank took dummy; and I won sixpence.&quot; &quot;But, didn’t you apologize for hurting her feelings?&quot; &quot;Devil a bit. Next morning at breakfast we talked it over. She contended that any reference to a flannel petticoat was highly improper;—men ought not to be supposed to know that such things were. I pleaded my coverture; being a married man.&quot; &quot;And what did the lady say to that?&quot; inquired Tottle; deeply interested. &quot;Changed her ground, and said that Frank being a single man, its impropriety was obvious.&quot; &quot;Noble-minded creature!&quot; exclaimed the enraptured Tottle. &quot;Oh! both Fanny and I, said at once, that she was regularly cut out for you.&quot; A gleam of placid satisfaction shone on the circular face of Mr. Watkins Tottle, as he heard the prophecy. &quot;There’s one thing I can’t understand,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as he rose to depart, &quot;I cannot for the life and soul of me, imagine how the deuce you’ll ever contrive to come together. The lady would certainly go into convulsions if the subject were mentioned.&quot; Mr. Gabriel Parsons sat down again, and laughed until he was weak. Tottle owed him money: so he had a perfect right to laugh at Tottle’s expense. Mr. Watkins Tottle, feared in his own mind, that this was another characteristic which he had in common with this modern Lucretia. He, however, accepted the invitation to dine with the Parsons&#039; on the next day but one, with great firmness; and looked forward to the introduction, when again left alone, with tolerable composure. 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 chimnies, 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 awkward or uncomfortable. The coach stopped and Mr. Watkins Tottle jumped—we beg his pardon—alighted with great dignity. &quot;All right!&quot; said he, and away went the coach up the hill with that beautiful equanimity of pace for which &quot;short&quot; stages are generally remarkable. Mr. Watkins Tottle gave a faultering jerk to the handle of the garden-gate bell, in shape something like a gigantic note of admiration, and he stood for some minutes like the Duke of Wellington waiting in vain for a peal. He essayed a more energetic tug, and his previous nervousness was not at all diminished by hearing the bell ringing like a fire alarum. &quot;Is Mr. Parsons at home?&quot; inquired Tottle of the man who opened the gate. He could hardly hear himself speak, for the bell had not yet done tolling. &quot;Here I am,&quot; shouted a voice on the lawn,—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. When the gentleman without the coat had found it—which he did in less than ten minutes—he ran back to the hats, and Gabriel Parsons pulled up. Then, the gentleman without the coat called out &quot;play&quot; very loudly and bowled; Mr. Gabriel Parsons knocked the ball several yards and took another run. Then the other gentleman aimed at the wicket, and didn’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. They called this cricket. &quot;Tottle, will you &#039;go in?&#039;&quot; inquired Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as he approached him, wiping the perspiration off his face. Mr. Watkins Tottle declined the offer, the bare idea of accepting which, made him even warmer than his friend. &quot;Then we’ll go into the house as it’s past four, and I shall have to wash my hands before dinner,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons. &quot;Here, I hate ceremony, you know! Timson, that is Tottle—Tottle, that’s Timson, bred for the church, which I fear will never be bread for him,&quot; and he chuckled at the old joke. Mr. Timson bowed carelessly; Mr. Watkins Tottle bowed stiffly, and Mr. Gabriel Parsons led the way to the house. 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. Mrs. Gabriel Parsons received the visitors most graciously on the steps, and preceded them to the drawing-room. On the sofa was seated a lady of very prim appearance, and remarkably inanimate. She was just 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. Her complexion—with a slight trace of powder here and there—was as clear as that of a well-made wax doll, and her face as expressive. She was handsomely dressed, and was winding up a gold watch for effect. &quot;Miss Lillerton, my dear, this is our friend Mr. Watkins Tottle; a very old acquaintance I assure you,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons, presenting the Strephon of Cecil-street, Strand. The lady rose, and made a deep courtesy; Mr. Watkins Tottle made a serio-comic bow. &quot;Splendid, majestic creature!&quot; thought Tottle. She was his beau idéal of a desirable female. Mr. Timson advanced, and Mr. Watkins Tottle began to hate him. Men generally discover a rival instinctively, and Mr. Watkins Tottle felt that his hate was deserved. &quot;May I beg,&quot; said the reverend gentleman—&quot;May I beg to call upon you, Miss Lillerton, for some trifling donation to my soup, coals, and blanket distribution society?&quot; &quot;Put my name down, for two sovereigns, if you please,&quot; responded the automaton-like Miss Lillerton. &quot;You are truly charitable, madam,&quot; said the Reverend Mr. Timson, &quot;and we know that charity will cover a multitude of sins. 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.&quot; Something like a bad imitation of animation lighted up the lady’s face, as she acknowledged the compliment. Watkins Tottle incurred the sin of wishing that the ashes of the Rev. Charles Timson were quietly deposited in the churchyard of his curacy, wherever it might be. &quot;I’ll tell you what,&quot; interrupted Parsons, who had just appeared with clean hands, and a black coat, &quot;it’s my private opinion Timson, that your &#039;distribution society&#039; is rather a humbug.&quot; &quot;You are so severe,&quot; replied Timson, with a christian smile;—he disliked Parsons, but liked his dinners. &quot;So positively unjust,&quot; said Miss Lillerton. &quot;Certainly,&quot; observed Tottle. The lady looked up; her eyes met those of Mr. Watkins Tottle. She withdrew them in a sweet confusion, and Watkins Tottle did the same—the confusion was mutual. &quot;Why,&quot; urged Mr. Parsons, pursuing his objections, &quot;what on earth is the use of giving a man coals who has nothing to cook; or giving him blankets when he hasn’t a bed; or giving him soup when he requires substantial food—like sending them ruffles when wanting a shirt. Why not give ’em a trifle of money, as I do, when I think they deserve it, and let them purchase what they think best? Why?—because your subscribers wouldn’t see their names flourishing in print on the church-door—that’s the reason.&quot; &quot;Really, Mr. Parsons, I hope you don’t mean to insinuate that I wish to see my name in print, on the church-door,&quot; interrupted Miss Lillerton, indignantly. &quot;I hope not,&quot; said Mr. Watkins Tottle, putting in another word, and getting another glance. &quot;Certainly not,&quot; replied Parsons. &quot;I dare say you wouldn’t mind seeing it in writing though, in the church register—eh?&quot; &quot;Register! What register?&quot; enquired the lady gravely. &quot;Why, the register of marriages, to be sure,&quot; replied Parsons, chuckling at the sally, and glancing at Tottle. Mr. Watkins Tottle thought he should have fainted for very shame, and it is quite impossible to imagine what effect the joke would have had upon the lady, if dinner had not been that moment announced. 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. The room was very snug, the dinner very good, and the little party in tolerable spirits. The conversation became pretty general, and when Mr. Watkins Tottle had extracted one or two cold observations from his neighbour, and taken wine with her, he began to acquire confidence rapidly. 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. 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—signals which Mrs. Parsons never happened to observe, until she had been pressed to take her ordinary quantum, which, to avoid giving trouble, she always did at once. &quot;What do you think of her?&quot; inquired Mr. Gabriel Parsons of Mr. Watkins Tottle, in an under tone. &quot;I dote on her with enthusiasm already,&quot; replied Mr. Watkins Tottle. &quot;Gentlemen, pray let us drink &#039;the ladies,&#039;&quot; said the Reverend Mr. Timson. &quot;The ladies!&quot; said Mr. Watkins Tottle, emptying his glass. In the fullness of his confidence he felt as if he could make love to a dozen ladies, off hand. &quot;Ah!&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, &quot;I remember when I was a younger man—fill your glass, Timson.&quot; &quot;I have this moment emptied it.&quot; &quot;Then fill again.&quot; &quot;I will,&quot; said Timson, suiting the action to the word. &quot;I remember,&quot; resumed Mr. Gabriel Parsons, &quot;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—quite a superior being.&quot; &quot;Was that before you were married?&quot; mildly inquired Mr. Watkins Tottle. &quot;Oh! certainly,&quot; replied Mr. Gabriel Parsons. I have never thought so since; and a precious milksop I must have been, ever to have thought so at all. Why, you know, I married Fanny under the oddest, and most ridiculous circumstances possible.&quot; &quot;What were they, if one may inquire?&quot; asked Timson, who had heard the story, on an average twice a week for the last six months. Mr. Watkins Tottle listened attentively, in the hope of picking up some suggestion that might be useful to him in his new undertaking. &quot;I spent my wedding-night in a back-kitchen chimney,&quot; said Parsons, by way of a beginning. &quot;In a back-kitchen chimney!&quot; ejaculated Watkins Tottle. &quot;How dreadful!&quot; &quot;Yes, it wasn’t very pleasant,&quot; replied the small host. &quot;The fact is, that Fanny’s father and mother liked me well enough as an individual, but had a decided objection to my becoming a husband. You see, I hadn’t any money in those days, and they had; and so they wanted Fanny to pick up somebody else. However, we managed to discover the state of each other’s affections somehow. I used to meet her at some mutual friends’ 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—we didn’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, and then I got very miserable and sentimental, and began to write verses, and use macassar. At last I couldn’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—and a devilish hot summer it was too—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. I said I had discovered, to my perfect satisfaction, that I couldn’t live without her, and that if she didn’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. Well, I borrowed a pound, and bribed the housemaid to give her the note which she did.&quot; &quot;And what was the reply?&quot; enquired Timson, who had found before, that to encourage the repetition of old stories, is sure to end in a general invitation. &quot;Oh, the usual way you know—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; and implored me to forget her, and find out somebody more deserving, and all that sort of thing. 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’clock next morning, not to attempt to meet her there.&quot; &quot;You didn’t go, of course?&quot; said Watkins Tottle. &quot;Didn’t I?—Of course I did. There she was, with the identical housemaid in perspective, in order that there might be no interruption. We walked about for a couple of hours; made ourselves delightfully miserable; and were regularly engaged. Then we began to &#039;correspond&#039;—that is to say, we used to exchange about four letters a day: what we used to say in ’em I can’t imagine. And I used to have an interview in the kitchen, or the cellar, or some such place, every evening. Well, things went on in this way for some time; and we got fonder of each other every day. 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. Fanny arranged to sleep at a friend’s the night before; we were to be married early in the morning, and then we were to return to her home and be pathetic. She was to fall at the old gentleman’s feet, and bathe his boots with her tears; and I was to hug the old lady, and call her &#039;mother,&#039; and use my pocket-handkerchief as much as possible. Married we were the next morning; two girls—friends of Fanny’s—acting as brides&#039;s-maids; and a man, who was hired for five shillings and a pint of porter, officiating as father. 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. My newly-made wife returned home, and I spent my wedding-day in strolling about Hampstead-heath, and damning my father-in-law. 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. I opened the garden-gate, of which I had a key, and was shewn by the servant to our old place of meeting—a back kitchen, with a stone-floor, and a dresser, upon which, in the absence of chairs, we used to sit, and make love.&quot; &quot;Make love upon a kitchen-dresser!&quot; interrupted Mr. Watkins Tottle, whose ideas of decorum were greatly outraged. &quot;Ah!—on a kitchen-dresser!&quot; replied Parsons. —&quot;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’d be devilish glad to avail yourself of such an opportunity. However, let me see;—where was I?&quot; &quot;On the dresser,&quot; suggested Timson. &quot;Oh—ah! Well, here I found poor Fanny—quite disconsolate, and uncomfortable. The old boy had been very cross all day, which made her feel still more lonely; and she was quite out of spirits. 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. I stopped there, till about eleven o’clock; and, just as I was taking my leave for the fourteenth time, the girl came running down stairs, without her shoes, in a great fright, to tell us that the old villain—God forgive me for calling him so! for he is dead and gone now—prompted I suppose by the prince of darkness, was coming down, to draw his own beer for supper—a thing he had not done before for six months, to my certain knowledge; for the cask stood in that very back kitchen. 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. There was only one thing to be done.—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. My hopes and fortune—the means of our joint existence almost—were at stake. 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. I heard him draw the beer; and I never heard beer run so slowly. He was just leaving the kitchen, and I was preparing to descend, when down came the infernal chimney-board with a tremendous crash. 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. 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. 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. And there,&quot; added Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as he passed the bottle—&quot;there I remained till half-past seven o&#039;clock next morning, when the housemaid’s sweetheart, who was a carpenter, unshelled me. 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.&quot; &quot;And what did Mrs. Parsons’s father say, when he found you were married?&quot; enquired Watkins Tottle, who, although he never saw a joke, was not satisfied until he heard a story to the very end. &quot;Why, the affair of the chimney so tickled his fancy, that he pardoned us off-hand, and allowed us something to live upon, till he went the way of all flesh. I spent the next night in his second-floor front much more comfortably than I did the preceding one; for, as you will probably guess—&quot; &quot;Please Sir, missis has made tea,&quot; said a middle-aged female servant, bobbing into the room. &quot;That’s the very housemaid that figures in my story,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons. —&quot;She went into Fanny’s service when we were first married, and has been with us ever since; but I don’t think she has felt one atom of respect for me since the morning she saw me released, when she went into violent laughing hysterics, to which she has been subject ever since. Now, shall we join the ladies?&quot; &quot;If you please,&quot; said Mr. Watkins Tottle. &quot;By all means,&quot; added the obsequious Mr. Timson; and the trio made for the drawing-room accordingly. Tea being concluded, and the toast and cups having been duly handed, and occasionally upset, by Mr. Watkins Tottle, a rubber was proposed&#039; They cut for partners—Mr. and Mrs. Parsons; and Mr. Watkins Tottle and Miss Lillerton. Mr. Timson being a clergyman, and having conscientious scruples on the subject of card-playing, drank brandy-and-water, and kept up a running spar with Mr. Watkins Tottle. 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. &quot;It’s all right, I think,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons to Mr. Watkins Tottle, as he opened the garden-gate for him. &quot;I hope so,&quot; he replied, squeezing his friend’s hand. &quot;You’ll be down by the first coach on Saturday,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons. &quot;Certainly,&quot; replied Mr. Watkins Tottle. &quot;Undoubtedly.&quot; But fortune had decreed that Mr. Watkins Tottle should not be down by the first coach on Saturday. His adventures on that day, however, and the success of his wooing, are subjects which must be reserved for another chapter.18350101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Passage_in_the_Life_of_Mr._Watkins_Tottle_[Chapter_the_First]/1835-01-Watkins_Tottle_Chapter_I.pdf
151https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/151'Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle' (Chapter the Second)Published in <em>The Monthly Magazine</em> (February 1835), pp. 121-137.Dickens, Charles<em>Biodiversity Heritage Library</em> (National History Museum): <a href="https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/19851#page/135/mode/1up">https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/19851#page/135/mode/1up</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-02">1835-02</a>Public domain. The BHL considers that this work is no longer under copyright protection.<br /> <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1835-02-Watkins_Tottle_Chapter_2Dickens, Charles. (February 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/02-1835-Watkins_Tottle_Chapter_2">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/02-1835-Watkins_Tottle_Chapter_2</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>&quot;The first coach has not come in yet, has it, Tom?&quot; inquired Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as he very complacently paced up and down the fourteen feet of gravel which bordered the &quot;lawn,&quot; on the Saturday morning which had been fixed upon for the Beulah Spa jaunt. &quot;No, Sir; I haven’t seen it,&quot; replied a gardener in a blue apron, who let himself out to do the ornamental for half-a-crown a day and his &quot;keep.&quot; &quot;Time Tottle was down,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, ruminating—&quot;Oh, here he is, no doubt,&quot; 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. The cab stopped, and out jumped a man in a coarse Petersham great coat, whitey-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. &quot;Mr. Parsons?&quot; said the man, looking at the superscription of a note he held in his hand, and addressing Gabriel with an inquiring air. &quot;My name is Parsons,&quot; responded the sugar-baker. &quot;I’ve brought this here note,&quot; replied the individual in the painted tops, in a hoarse whisper, &quot;I’ve brought this here note from a gen’lm’n as come to our house this mornin’.&quot; &quot;I expected the gentleman at my house,&quot; said Parsons, as he broke the seal, which bore the impression of his majesty’s profile, as it is seen on a sixpence. &quot;I’ve no doubt the gen’lm’n would ha’ been here,&quot; replied the stranger, &quot;if he hadn’t happened to call at our house first; but we never trusts no gen’lm’n furder nor we can see him—no mistake about that there&quot;—added the unknown, with a facetious grin; &quot;beg your pardon, Sir, no offence meant, only—once in, and I wish you may—catch the idea, Sir?&quot; Mr. Gabriel Parsons was not remarkable for catching anything suddenly, but a cold. 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. Once opened, and the idea was caught with very little difficulty. Mr. Watkins Tottle had been suddenly arrested for 33l. 10s. 4d., and dated his communication from a lock-up house in the vicinity of Chancery-lane. &quot;Unfortunate affair this!&quot; said Parsons, refolding then ote. &quot;Nothin’ ven you’re used to it,&quot; coolly observed the man in the Petersham. &quot;Tom!&quot; exclaimed Parsons, after a few minutes’ consideration, &quot;just put the horse in, will you?—Tell the gentleman that I shall be there almost as soon as you are,&quot; he continued, addressing the sheriff officer’s Mercury. &quot;Werry well,&quot; replied that important functionary; adding in a confidential manner, &quot;I’d adwise the gen’lm’n’s friends to settle. You see it’s a mere trifle; and, unless the gen’lm’n means to go up afore the court, it’s hardly worth while waiting for detainers, you know. Our governor’s wide awake, he is. I’ll never say nothin’ agin him, nor no man; but he knows what’s o’clock, he does, uncommon.&quot; 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. Mr. Gabriel Parsons continued to pace up and down the pathway for some minutes, apparently absorbed in deep meditation. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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—they are pigs, children, and old women. 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, would cross just before the horse’s head, until Mr. Gabriel Parsons was perfectly savage with vexation, and quite hoarse with hoi-ing and imprecating. Then, when he got into Fleet-street, there was &quot;a stoppage,&quot; 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’ bridles, and back them into shop windows, by way of clearing the road and preventing confusion. 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. 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 glass, grated like the windows of this inviting mansion with iron bars, painted white, to look comfortable. 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. &quot;I want to see Mr. Watkins Tottle,&quot; said Parsons. &quot;It’s the gentleman that come in this morning, Jem,&quot; 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. &quot;The gentleman’s in the coffee-room.&quot; &quot;Up stairs, Sir,&quot; 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—&quot;First floor—door on the right.&quot; Mr. Gabriel Parsons thus instructed, ascended the uncarpeted and ill-lighted staircase, and after giving several subdued taps at the before-mentioned &quot;door on the right,&quot; 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. 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. The room—which was a small, confined den—was partitioned off into boxes, like the common room of some inferior eating-house. 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. The grey 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. Over the mantel-shelf was a paltry looking-glass, extending about half the width of the chimney-piece; but, by way of a counterpoise, the ashes were confined, by a rusty fender, about twice as long as the hearth. From this cheerful room itself, the attention of Mr. Gabriel Parsons was naturally directed to its inmates. 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—selections from decayed packs. 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. In another box a stout, hearty-looking man, of about forty, was eating some dinner, which his wife—an equally comfortable-looking personage—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’s wife. A young fellow of vulgar manners, dressed in the very extremity 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 &quot;chilling&quot; on the hob. &quot;Fourpence more, by G-d!&quot; exclaimed one of the cribbage-players, lighting a pipe, and addressing his adversary at the close of the game; &quot;one ’ud think you’d got luck in a pepper-cruet, and shook it out when you wanted it.&quot; &quot;Well, that a’n’t a bad un,&quot; replied the other, who was a horse-dealer from Islington. &quot;No; I’m blessed if it is,&quot; 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. 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. &quot;You’re a rum chap, you are, Mr. Walker—will you dip your beak into this, Sir?&quot; &quot;Thank’ee, Sir,&quot; replied Mr. Walker, leaving his box, and advancing to the other to accept the proffered glass. &quot;Here’s your health, Sir, and your good ’ooman’s here. Gentlemen all—your&#039;s, and better luck still. Well, Mr. Willis,&quot; continued the facetious prisoner, addressing the young man with the cigar, &quot;you seem rather down to-day—floored, as one may say. What’s the matter, Sir? Never say die, you know.&quot; &quot;Oh! I’m all right,&quot; replied the smoker. &quot;I shall be bailed out to-morrow.&quot; &quot;Shall you, though?&quot; enquired the other. &quot;Damme, I wish I could say the same. I am as regularly over head and ears as the Royal George; and stand about as much chance of being bailed out. Ha! ha! ha!&quot; &quot;Why,&quot; said the young man, stopping short, and speaking in a very loud key, &quot;Look at me. What d’ye ye think I’ve stopped here two days for?&quot; &quot;&#039;Cause you couldn’t get out, I suppose,&quot; interrupted Mr. Walker, winking to the company. &quot;Not that you’re exactly obliged to stop here, only you can’t help it. No compulsion, you know, only you must—eh?&quot; &quot;A’n’t he a rum un?&quot; inquired the delighted individual, who had offered the gin-and-water, of his wife. &quot;Oh, he just is!&quot; replied the lady, who was quite overcome by these flashes of imagination. &quot;Why, my case,&quot; 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,—&quot;my case is a very singular one: my father’s a man of large property, and I am his son.&quot; &quot;That’s a very strange circumstance,&quot; interrupted the jocose Mr. Walker, en passant. &quot;—I am his son, and have received a liberal education. I don’t owe no man nothing—not the value of a farthing, but I was induced, you see, to put my name to some bills for a friend—bills to a large amount. I may say a very large amount, for which I didn’t receive no consideration. What’s the consequence?&quot; &quot;Why, I suppose the bills went out, and you came in. The acceptances were&#039;nt taken up, and you were, eh?&quot; inquired Walker. &quot;To be sure,&quot; replied the liberally educated young gentleman. &quot;To be sure; and so here I am, locked up for a matter of twelve hundred pound.&quot; &quot;Why don’t you ask your old governor to stump up?&quot; inquired Walker, with a somewhat sceptical air. &quot;Oh! bless you, he’d never do it,&quot; replied the other, in a tone of expostulation—&quot;Never!&quot; &quot;Well, it is very odd to—be—sure,&quot; interposed the owner of the flat bottle, mixing another glass, &quot;but I’ve been in difficulties, as one may say, now for thirty year. 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 ’tatur line—but all that time, I never see a youngish chap come into a place of this kind, who wasn’t going out again directly, and who hadn’t been arrested on bills which he’d given a friend, and for which he’d received nothing whatsomever—not a fraction.&quot; &quot;Oh! it’s always the cry,&quot; said Walker. &quot;I can’t see the use on it; that’s what makes me so wild. Why, I should have a much better opinion of an individual, if he’d say at once, in an honourable and gentlemanly manner, as he’d done everybody he possibly could.&quot; &quot;Ay, to be sure,&quot; interposed the horse-dealer, with whose notions of bargain and sale the axiom perfectly coincided, &quot;so should I.&quot; 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. 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. 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 whirr—r—bang of the spring door announced that they were out of hearing. It was broken by the wife of the ex-fruiterer. &quot;Poor creetur!&quot; said she, quenching a sigh in a rivulet of gin-and-water. &quot;She’s very young.&quot; &quot;She’s a nice-loooking ’ooman, too,&quot; added the horse-dealer. &quot;What’s he in for, Ikey?&quot; 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 recognizing as the man who had called upon him in the morning. &quot;Vy,&quot; responded the factotum, &quot;it’s one of the rummiest rigs you ever heard on. He come in here last Vensday, which, by the bye, he’s a-going over the water to-night—hows’ever that’s neither here nor there. You see I’ve been a going back’ards and for’ards about his business, and ha’ 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—&quot; &quot;Cut it short, old fellow,&quot; interrupted Walker, who knew from former experience that he of the top-boots was neither very concise nor intelligible in his narratives. &quot;Let me alone,&quot; replied Ikey, &quot;and I’ll ha’ vound up, and made my lucky in five seconds. This here young gen’lm’n’s father—so I’m told, mind ye—and the father o’ the young voman, have always been on very bad, out-and-out, rig’lar knock-me-down, sort o’ terms; but somehow or another when he was a wisitin’ at some gentlefolk’s house, as he know&#039;d at college, he came into contract with the young lady. He seed her several times; and then he up and said he’d keep company with her, if so be as she vos agreeable. Vell, she vos as sweet upon him as he vos upon her, and so I s’pose they made it all right: for they got married ’bout six months arterwards, unbeknown mind ye to the two fathers—leastways so I’m told. When they heard on it—my eyes, there was such a combustion! Starvation vos the very least that vos to be done to ’em. The young gen’lm’n’s father cut him off vith a bob, ’cos he’d cut himself off vith a wife; and the young lady’s father he behaved even worser and more unnat’ral, for he not only blow’d her up dreadful, and swore he’d never see her again, but he employed a chap as I knows—and as you knows, Mr. Valker, a precious sight too well—to go about and buy up the bills and them things on which the young husband, thinking his governor ’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. Consequence vos, that he paid as long as he could; but things he never expected to have to meet till he’d had time to turn himself round, come fast upon him, and he vos nabbed. He vos brought here, as I said afore, last Vensday, and I think there’s about—ah half-a-dozen detainers agin him down stairs now. I have been,&quot; added Ikey,&quot;‘in the purfession these fifteen year, and I never met vith such windictiveness afore!&quot; &quot;Poor creeturs!&quot; exclaimed the coal-dealer’s wife once more: again resorting to the same excellent prescription for nipping a sigh in the bud; &quot;Ah! when they’ve seen as much trouble as I and my old man here have, they’ll be as comfortable under it, as we are.&quot; &quot;The young lady’s a pretty creature,&quot; said Walker, &quot;only she’s a little too delicate for my taste—there an’t enough of her. As to the young cove, he may be very respectable and what not, but he’s too down in the mouth for me—he an’t game.&quot; &quot;Game!&quot; 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. &quot;He’s game enough ven there’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?—It’s enough to drive any man’s heart into his boots, to see ’em together—and no mistake at all about it. I never shall forget her first comin’ here; he wrote to her on the Thursday to come—I know he did ’cos I took the letter. Uncommon fidgetty he was all day to be sure, and in the evening he goes down into the office, and he says to Jacobs, says he &#039;Sir, can I have the loan of a private room for a few minutes this evening, without incurring any additional expense—just to see my wife in?&#039; says he. Jacobs looked as much as to say—&#039;Strike me bountiful if you an’t one of the modest sort;&#039; but as the gen’lm’n who had been in the back parlour, had just gone out, and had paid for it for that day, he says—werry grave—&#039;Sir,&#039; says he, &#039;it’s agin our rules to let private rooms to our lodgers on gratis terms, but,&#039; says he, &#039;for a gentleman, I don’t mind breaking through them, for once.&#039; So then he turns round to me and says, &#039;Ikey, put two mould candles in the back parlour, and charge ’em to this gen’lm’n’s account,&#039; vich I did. 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. I opened the gate that night, so I went up when the coach came, and he vos a watin’ at the parlour door—wasn’t he a trembling neither? The poor creetur see him, and could hardly walk to meet him. &#039;Oh, Harry!&#039; she says, &#039;that it should have come to this! and all for my sake,&#039; says she, putting her hand upon his shoulder. 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—&#039;Why, Kate,&#039; says he—&quot; &quot;Here’s the gentleman you want, Sir,&quot; 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. Watkins advanced with a wooden expression of passive endurance, and accepted the hand which Mr. Gabriel Parsons held out. &quot;I want to speak to you,&quot; said Gabriel, with a look strongly expressive of his dislike of the company. &quot;This way,&quot; 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. &quot;Well, here I am,&quot; said Watkins, as he sat down on the sofa; and placing the palms of his hands on his knees, anxiously glanced at his friend’s countenance. &quot;Yes; and here you’re likely to be,&quot; said Gabriel coolly, as he rattled the money in his unmentionable-pockets, and looked out of the window. &quot;What’s the amount with the costs?&quot; inquired Parsons after an awkward pause. &quot;37l. 3s. 10d.&quot; &quot;Have you any money?&quot; &quot;Nine and sixpence,&quot; 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; at length he stopped short, and said,—&quot;Tottle, you owe me fifty pounds.&quot; &quot;I do.&quot; &quot;And from all I see, I infer that you are likely to owe it me.&quot; &quot;I fear I am.&quot; &quot;Though you have every disposition to pay me if you could?&quot; &quot;Certainly.&quot; &quot;Then,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, &quot;listen; here’s my proposition. You know my way of old. Accept it—yes or no—I will or I won’t. I’ll pay the debt and costs, and I’ll lend you 10l. more (which, added to your annuity, will enable you to carry on the war well) if you’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.&quot; &quot;My dear—&quot; &quot;Stop a minute—on one condition; and that is, that you propose to Miss Lillerton at once.&quot; &quot;At once! My dear Parsons, consider.&#039; &quot;It’s for you to consider, not me. She knows you well from reputation, though she did not know you personally, until lately. Notwithstanding all her maiden modesty, I think she’d be devilish glad to get married, out of hand, with as little delay as possible. My wife has sounded her on the subject, and she has confessed.&quot; &quot;What—what?&quot; eagerly interrupted the enamoured Watkins.&quot; &quot;Why,&quot; replied Parsons, &quot;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—in fact, that no other man should have her.&quot; Mr. Watkins Tottle rose hastily from his seat, and rang the bell. &quot;What’s that for?&quot; inquired Parsons. &quot;I want to send the man for the bill stamp,&quot; replied Mr. Watkins Tottle. &quot;Then you’ve made up your mind?&quot; &quot;I have,&quot;—and they shook hands most cordially. The note of hand was given—the debt and costs were paid—Ikey was satisfied for his trouble, and the two friends soon found themselves on that side of Mr. Solomon Jacobs’ establishment, on which most of his visitors were very happy when they found themselves once again—to wit, the outside. &quot;Now,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as they drove to Norwood together—&quot;you shall have an opportunity to make the disclosure to-night, and mind you speak out, Tottle.&quot; &quot;I will—I will!&quot; replied Watkins, valorously. &quot;How I should like to see you together,&quot; ejaculated Mr. Gabriel Parsons.—&quot;What fun!&quot;— and he laughed so long and so loudly, that he disconcerted Mr. Watkins Tottle, and frightened the horse. &quot;There’s Fanny and your intended walking about on the lawn,&quot; said Gabriel, as they approached the house.—&quot;Mind your eye, Tottle.&quot; &quot;Never fear,&quot; replied Watkins, resolutely, as he made his way to the spot where the ladies were walking. &quot;Here’s Mr. Tottle, my dear,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons, addressing Miss Lillerton. 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. &quot;Did you see how glad she was to see you?&quot; whispered Parsons to his friend. &quot;Why, I really thought she looked as if she would rather have seen somebody else,&quot; replied Tottle. Pooh, nonsense!&quot; whispered Parsons again—&quot;It’s always the way with women, young or old. They never show how delighted they are to see those whose presence makes their hearts beat. It’s the way with the whole sex, and no man should have lived to your time of life without knowing it. Fanny confessed it to me, when we were first married, over and over again—see what it is to have a wife.&quot; &quot;Certainly,&quot; whispered Tottle, whose courage was vanishing fast. &quot;Well, now, you’d better begin to pave the way,&quot; said Parsons; who, having invested some money in the speculation, assumed the office of director. &quot;Yes, yes, I will—presently,&quot; replied Tottle, greatly flurried. &quot;Say something to her, man,&quot; urged Parsons again. &quot;Damn it! pay her a compliment, can’t you?&quot; &quot;No! not till after dinner,&quot; replied the bashful Tottle, anxious to postpone the evil moment. &quot;Well, gentlemen,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons, &quot;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.&quot; &quot;We were talking of the business, my dear, which detained us this morning,&quot; replied Parsons, looking significantly at Tottle. &quot;Dear me! how very quickly the morning has gone,&quot; said Miss Lillerton, referring to the gold watch, which was wound up on state occasions, whether it required it or not. &quot;I think it has passed very slowly,&quot; mildly suggested Tottle. (&quot;That’s right—bravo!&quot;) whispered Parsons. &quot;Indeed!&quot; said Miss Lillerton, with an air of majestic surprise. &quot;I can only impute it to my unavoidable absence from your society, Madam,&quot; said Watkins, &quot;and that of Mrs. Parsons.&quot; During this short dialogue, the ladies had been leading the way to the house. &quot;What the deuce did you stick Fanny into that last compliment for?&quot; enquired Parsons, as they followed together! &quot;it quite spoilt the effect.&quot; &quot;Oh! it really would have been too broad without,&quot; replied Watkins Tottle, &quot;much too broad!&quot; &quot;He’s mad!&quot; Parsons whispered his wife, as they entered the drawing-room, &quot;mad from modesty.&quot; &quot;Dear me!&quot; ejaculated the lady, &quot;I never heard of such a thing.&quot; &quot;You’ll find we have quite a family dinner, Mr. Tottle,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons, when they sat down to table: &quot;Miss Lillerton is one of us, and, of course, we make no stranger of you.&quot; 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. &quot;Take off the covers, Martha,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons, directing the shifting of the scenery with great anxiety. 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. 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. &quot;Miss Lillerton, my dear,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons, &quot;shall I assist you?&quot; &quot;Thank you, no; I think I’ll trouble Mr. Tottle.&quot; Watkins started—trembled—helped the rabbit—and broke a tumbler. The countenance of the lady of the house, which had been all smiles previously, underwent an awful change. &quot;Extremely sorry,&quot; stammered Watkins, assisting himself to currie, and parsley and butter, in the extremity of his confusion. &quot;Not the least consequence,&quot; replied Mrs. Parsons, in a tone which implied that it was of the greatest consequence possible, directing aside the researches of the boy, who was groping under the table for the bits of broken glass. &quot;I presume,&quot; said Miss Lillerton, &quot;that Mr. Tottle is aware of the interest which bachelors usually pay in such cases; a dozen glasses for one is the lowest penalty.&quot; Mr. Gabriel Parsons gave his friend an admonitory tread on the toe. Here was a clear hint that the sooner he ceased to be a bachelor and emancipated himself from such penalties, the better. 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. &quot;Miss Lillerton,&quot; said Gabriel, &quot;may I have the pleasure?&quot; &quot;I shall be most happy.&quot; &quot;Tottle, will you assist Miss Lillerton, and pass the decanter. Thank you.&quot; (The usual pantomimic ceremony of nodding and sipping gone through)— &quot;Tottle, were you ever in Suffolk?&quot; enquired the master of the house, who was burning to tell one of his seven stock stories. &quot;No,&quot; responded Watkins, adding, by way of a saving clause, &quot;but I’ve been in Devonshire.&quot; &quot;Ah!&quot; replied Gabriel, &quot;it was in Suffolk that a rather singular circumstance happened to me, many years ago. Did you ever happen to hear me mention it?&quot; Mr. Watkins Tottle had happened to hear his friend mention it some four hundred times. Of course he expressed great curiosity, and evinced the utmost impatience to hear the story again. 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. We will attempt to give them an idea of our meaning. &quot;When I was in Suffolk—&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons — &quot;Take off the fowls first, Martha,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons. &quot;I beg your pardon, my dear.&quot; &quot;When I was in Suffolk,&quot; resumed Mr. Parsons, with an impatient glance at his wife, who pretended not to observe it, &quot;which is now some years ago, business led me to the town of Bury St. Edmunds. I had to stop at the principal places in my way, and therefore, for the sake of convenience, I travelled in a gig. I left Sudbury one dark night—it was winter time—about nine o’clock; the rain poured in torrents, the wind howled among the trees that skirted the road-side, and I was obliged to proceed at a foot-pace, for I could hardly see my hand before me, it was so dark—&quot; &quot;John,&quot; interrupted Mrs. Parsons, in a low, hollow, voice, &quot;don’t spill that gravy.&quot; &quot;Fanny,&quot; said Parsons impatiently, &quot;I wish you’d defer these domestic reproofs to some more suitable time. Really, my dear, these constant interruptions are very annoying.&quot; &quot;My dear, I didn’t interrupt you,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons. &quot;But, my dear, you did interrupt me,&quot; remonstrated Mr. Parsons. &quot;How very absurd you are, my love! 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’d be the first to find fault when you saw the stain to-morrow morning.&quot; &quot;Well,&quot; continued Gabriel, with a resigned air, as if he knew there was no getting over the point about the carpet, &quot;I was just saying, it was so dark that I could hardly see my hand before me. 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—&quot; &quot;Pie to your master,&quot; interrupted Mrs. Parsons, again directing the servant. &quot;Now, pray, my dear,&quot; remonstrated Parsons once more, very pettishly. Mrs. P. turned up her hands and eyebrows, and appealed in dumb show to Miss Lillerton. &quot;As I turned a corner of the road,&quot; resumed Gabriel, &quot;the horse stopped short, and reared tremendously. 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. I thought he was dead; but no, he was alive, and there appeared to be nothing the matter with him. He jumped up, and putting his hand to his chest, and fixing upon me the most earnest gaze you can imagine, exclaimed—&quot; &quot;Pudding here,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons. &quot;Oh! it’s no use,&quot; exclaimed the host, who was now rendered desperate. &quot;Here, Tottle; a glass of wine. It’s useless to attempt relating any thing when Mrs. Parsons is present.&quot; This attack was received in the usual way. Mrs. Parsons talked to Miss Lillerton and at her bette 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. Really what she had to endure sometimes, was more than any one who saw her in every-day life could by possibility suppose.—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. The cloth was removed; the ladies soon afterwards retired, and Miss Lillerton played the piano in the drawing-room over head very loudly, for the edification of the visitor. 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. &quot;I say,&quot; said Tottle, as they went up stairs, &quot;don’t you think it would be better if we put it off till—till—to-morrow?&quot; &quot;Don’t you think it would have been much better if I had left you in that wretched hole I found you in this morning?&quot; retorted Parsons, bluntly. &quot;Well—well—I only made a suggestion,&quot; said poor Watkins Tottle, with a deep sigh. 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. &quot;God bless me!&quot; exclaimed Parsons, starting up with well-feigned surprise, &quot;I’ve forgotten those confounded letters. Tottle, I know you’ll excuse me.&quot; If Tottle had been a free agent, he would have allowed no one to leave the room on any pretence, except himself. As it was, however, he was obliged to look cheerful when Parsons quitted the apartment. He had scarcely left, when Martha put her head into the room, with—&quot;please, Ma’am, you’re wanted.&quot; Mrs. Parsons left the room, shut the door carefully after her, and Mr. Watkins Tottle was left alone with Miss Lillerton. For the first five minutes there was a dead silence.—Mr. Watkins Tottle was thinking how he should begin, and Miss Lillerton appeared to be thinking of nothing. The fire was burning low; Mr. Watkins Tottle stirred it, and put some coals on. &quot;Hem!&quot; coughed Miss Lillerton; Mr. Watkins Tottle thought the fair creature had spoken— &quot;I beg your pardon,&quot; said he. &quot;Eh!&quot; &quot;I thought you spoke.&quot; &quot;No.&quot; &quot;Oh!&quot; &quot;There are some books on the sofa, Mr. Tottle, if you would like to look at them,&quot; said Miss Lillerton, after the lapse of another five minutes. &quot;No, thank you,&quot; returned Watkins; and then he added, with a courage which was perfectly astonishing, even to himself, &quot;Madam, that is Miss Lillerton, I wish to speak to you.&quot; &quot;To me!&quot; said Miss Lillerton, letting the silk drop from her hands, and sliding her chair back a few paces.—&quot;Speak—to me!&quot; &quot;To you, Madam—and on the subject of the state of your affections.&quot; 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— &quot;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—for merits I have none which could give me a claim to your hand. I hope you will acquit me of any presumption when I explain that I have been acquainted through Mrs. Parsons, with the state—that is, that Mrs. Parsons has told me—at least, not Mrs. Parsons, but—&quot; here Watkins began to wander, but Miss Lillerton relieved him. &quot;Am I to understand, Mr. Tottle, that Mrs. Parsons has acquainted you with my feeling—my affection—I mean my respect, for an individual of the opposite sex?&quot; &quot;She has.&quot; &quot;Then, what,&quot; inquired Miss Lillerton, averting her face, with a girlish air, &quot;what could induce you to seek such an interview as this? What can your object be? How can I promote your happiness, Mr. Tottle?&quot; Here was the time for a flourish—&quot;By allowing me,&quot; replied Watkins, falling bump on his knees, and breaking two brace-buttons and a waistcoat-string, in the act—&quot;By allowing me to be your slave, your servant—in short, by unreservedly making me the confidant of your heart’s feelings—may I say for the promotion of your own happiness—may I say, in order that you may become the wife of a kind and affectionate husband?&quot; &quot;Disinterested creature!&quot; exclaimed Miss Lillerton, hiding her face in a white pocket-handkerchief with an eyelet-hole border. Mr. Watkins Tottle thought that if the lady knew all, she might possibly alter her opinion on this last point. He raised the tip of her middle finger ceremoniously to his lips, and got off his knees, as gracefully as he could. &quot;My information was correct?&quot; he tremulously inquired, when he was once more on his feet. &quot;It was.&quot; 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. &quot;Our situation, Mr. Tottle,&quot; resumed the lady, glancing at him through one of the eyelet-holes, &quot;is a most peculiar and delicate one.&quot; &quot;It is,&quot; said Mr. Tottle. &quot;Our acquaintance has been of so short duration,&quot; said Miss Lillerton. &quot;Only a week,&quot; assented Watkins Tottle. &quot;Oh! more than that,&#039; exclaimed the lady, in a tone of surprise. &quot;Indeed!&quot; said Tottle. &quot;More than a month—more than two months!&quot; said Miss Lillerton. Rather odd, this, thought Watkins. &quot;Oh!&quot; he said, recollecting Parsons’ assurance that she had known him from report, &quot;I understand. But, my dear madam, pray consider. The longer this acquaintance has existed, the less reason is there for delay now. Why not at once fix a period for gratifying the hopes of your devoted admirer?&quot; &quot;It has been represented to me again and again that this is the course I ought to pursue,&quot; replied Miss Lillerton, &quot;but—pardon my feelings of delicacy, Mr. Tottle—pray excuse this embarrassment—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.&quot; &quot;Then allow me to name it,&quot; said Tottle eagerly. &quot;I should like to fix it myself,&quot; replied Miss Lillerton, bashfully, &quot;but I cannot do so without at once resorting to a third party.&quot; &quot;A third party!&quot; thought Watkins Tottle, &quot;who the deuce is that to be, I wonder!&quot; &quot;Mr. Tottle,&quot; continued Miss Lillerton, &quot;you have made me a most disinterested and kind offer—that offer I accept. Will you at once be the bearer of a note from me to—to Mr. Timson?&quot; &quot;Mr. Timson!&quot; said Watkins. &quot;After what has passed between us,&quot; responded Miss Lillerton, still averting her head, &quot;you must understand whom I mean; Mr. Timson, the—the—clergyman.&quot; &quot;Mr. Timson, the clergyman!&quot; ejaculated Watkins Tottle, in a state of inexpressible beatitude, and positive wonder at his own success. &quot;Angel! Certainly—this moment!&quot; &quot;I’ll prepare it immediately,&quot; said Miss Lillerton, making for the door; &quot;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.&quot; &quot;Stay,—stay,&quot; cried Watkins Tottle, still keeping a most respectful distance from the lady; &quot;when shall we meet again?&quot; &quot;Oh! Mr. Tottle,&quot; replied Miss Lillerton, coquettishly, &quot;when we are married, I can never see you too often, nor thank you too much;&quot; and she left the room. Mr. Watkins Tottle flung himself into an arm-chair, and indulged in the most delicious reveries of future bliss, in which the idea of &quot;Five hundred pounds per annum, with an uncontrolled power of disposing of it, by her last will and testament,&quot; was somehow or other the foremost. 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. &quot;May I come in?&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, peeping in at the door. &quot;Come in,&quot; replied Watkins. &quot;Well, have you done it?&quot; anxiously inquired Gabriel. &quot;Have I done it!&quot; said Watkins Tottle. &quot;Hush—I’m going to the clergyman.&quot; &quot;No!&quot; said Parsons. &quot;How well you have managed it.&quot; &quot;Where does Timson live?&quot; inquired Watkins. &quot;At his uncle’s,&quot; replied Gabriel, &quot;just round the lane. He’s waiting for a living, and has been assisting his uncle here for the last two or three months. But how well you have done it—I didn’t think you could have carried it off so.&quot; 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. &quot;Miss Lillerton’s compliments,&quot; said Martha, as she delivered it into Tottle’s hands, and vanished. &quot;Do you observe the delicacy?&quot; said Tottle, appealing to Mr. Gabriel Parsons. &quot;Compliments, not love, by the servant, eh?&quot; Mr. Gabriel Parsons didn’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. &quot;Come,&quot; said Watkins, when the explosion of mirth, consequent on this practical jest, had subsided, &quot;we’ll be off at once—let’s lose no time.&quot; &quot;Capital!&quot; echoed Gabriel Parsons; and in five minutes they were at the garden-gate of the villa tenanted by the uncle of Mr. Timson. &quot;Is Mr. Charles Timson at home?&quot; inquired Mr. Watkins Tottle of Mr. Charles Timson’s uncle’s man. &quot;Mr. Charles is at home,&quot; replied the man, stammering; &quot;but he desired me to say he couldn’t be interrupted, Sir, by any of the parishioners.&quot; &quot;I am not a parishioner,&quot; replied Watkins. &quot;Is Mr. Charles writing a sermon, Tom?&quot; inquired Parsons, thrusting himself forward. &quot;No, Mr. Parsons, sir; he’s not exactly writing a sermon, but he is practising the violoncello in his own bedroom, and gave strict orders not to be disturbed.&quot; &quot;Say I’m here,&quot; replied Gabriel, leading the way across the garden; &quot;Mr. Parsons and Mr. Tottle, on private and particular business.&quot; They were shewn into the parlour, and the servant departed to deliver his message. 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. &quot;How do you do, Sir?&quot; said Watkins Tottle with great solemnity. &quot;How do you do, sir?&quot; 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. &quot;I beg to deliver this note to you,&quot; said Watkins Tottle, producing the cocked hat. &quot;From Miss Lillerton!&quot; said Timson, suddenly changing colour. &quot;Pray sit down.&quot; 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 fire-place. Mr. Timson rose from his seat when he had concluded the note, and looked dubiously at Parsons. —&quot;May I ask,&quot; he inquired, appealing to Watkins Tottle, &quot;whether our friend here is acquainted with the object of your visit?&quot; &quot;Our friend is in my confidence,&quot; replied Watkins, with considerable importance. &quot;Then, Sir,&quot; said Timson, seizing both Tottle’s hands, &quot;allow me in his presence to thank you most unfeignedly and cordially, for the noble part you have acted in this affair.&quot; &quot;He thinks I recommended him,&quot; thought Tottle. &quot;Confound these fellows! they never think of anything but their fees.&quot; &quot;I deeply regret having misunderstood your intentions, my dear Sir,&quot; continued Timson. &quot;Disinterested and manly indeed! There are very few men who would have acted as you have done.&quot; Mr. Watkins Tottle could not help thinking that this last remark was anything but complimentary. He therefore inquired rather hastily, &quot;When is it to be?&quot; &quot;On Thursday,&quot; replied Timson,—&quot;on Thursday morning at half-past-eight.&quot; &quot;Uncommonly early,&quot; observed Watkins Tottle, with an air of triumphant self-denial. &quot;I shall hardly be able to get down here by that hour.&quot; (This was intended for a joke.) &quot;Never mind, my dear fellow,&quot; replied Timson, all suavity, shaking hands with Tottle again most heartily, &quot;so long as we see you to breakfast, you know—&quot; &quot;Eh!&quot; said Parsons, with one of the most extraordinary expressions of countenance that ever appeared on the human face. &quot;What!&quot; ejaculated Watkins Tottle, at the same moment. &quot;I say that so long as we see you to breakfast,&quot; replied Timson, &quot;we will excuse your being absent from the ceremony, though of course your presence at it would give us the utmost pleasure.&quot; Mr. Watkins Tottle staggered against the wall, and fixed his eyes on Timson with apalling perseverance. &quot;Timson,&quot; said Parsons, hurriedly brushing his hat with his left arm, &quot;when you say “us,” whom do you mean?&quot; Mr. Timson looked foolish in his turn, when he replied, &quot;Why—Mrs. Timson that will be this day week: Miss Lillerton that is&quot;— &quot;Now don’t stare at that idiot in the corner,&quot; angrily exclaimed Parsons, as the extraordinary convulsions of Watkins Tottle’s countenance excited the wondering gaze of Timson, &quot;but have the goodness to tell me in three words the contents of that note?&quot; &quot;This note,&quot; replied Timson, &quot;is from Miss Lillerton, to whom I have been for the last five weeks regularly engaged. Her singular scruples and strange feeling on some points have hitherto prevented my bringing the engagement to that termination which I so anxiously desire. 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—an act of kindness for which I can never be sufficiently grateful.&quot; &quot;Good night, Timson,&quot; said Parsons hurrying off, and lugging the bewildered Tottle with him. &quot;Won’t you stay—and have something?&quot; said Timson. &quot;No, thank ye,&quot; replied Parsons, &quot;I’ve had quite enough;&quot; and away he went, followed by Watkins Tottle in a state of stupefaction. Mr. Gabriel Parsons whistled until they had walked some quarter of a mile past his own gate, when he suddenly stopped, and said, &quot;You are a clever fellow, Tottle, an’t you?&quot; &quot;I don’t know,&quot; said the unfortunate Watkins. &quot;I suppose you’ll say this is Fanny’s fault, won’t you?&quot; inquired Gabriel. &quot;I don’t know anything about it,&quot; replied the bewildered Tottle. &quot;Well,&quot; said Parsons, turning on his heel to go home, &quot;the next time you make an offer, you had better speak plainly, and don’t throw a chance away. And the next time you’re locked up in a spunging-house, just wait there till I come and take you out, there’s a good fellow.&quot; How, or at what hour, Mr. Watkins Tottle returned to Cecil-street is unknown. 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, or accepted sustenance for four-and-twenty hours; 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. 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. A few weeks since, the body of a gentleman unknown was found in the Regent’s canal. In the trousers-pockets were four shillings and three-pence-halfpenny; a matrimonial advertisement from a lady, which appeared to have been cut out of the Sunday Times; 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. Mr. Watkins Tottle absented himself from his lodgings shortly before. 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. He left a variety of papers in the hands of his landlady—the materials collected in his wanderings among different classes of society—which that lady has determined to published, to defray the unpaid expenses of his board and lodging. They will be carefully arranged, and presented to the public from time to time, with all due humility, by BOZ.18350201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Passage_in_the_Life_of_Mr._Watkins_Tottle_[Chapter_the_Second]/1835-02-Watkins_Tottle_Chapter_II.pdf
152https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/152'Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble, Once Mayor of Mudfog'Published in <em>Bentley's Miscellany, </em>vol.1 (January 1837), pp. 49-63.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em> <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858046014936">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858046014936</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1837-01">1837-01</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1837-01-Public_Life_TulrumbleDickens, Charles. 'Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble, Once Mayor of Mudfog.' <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1837-01-Public_Life_Tulrumble">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1837-01-Public_Life_Tulrumble</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBentley%27s+Miscellany%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bentley's Miscellany</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>Mudfog is a pleasant town—a remarkably pleasant town—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 oil-skin hats, a pretty steady influx of drunken bargemen, and a great many other maritime advantages. There is a good deal of water about Mudfog, and yet it is not exactly the sort of town for a watering-place, either. Water is a perverse sort of element at the best of times, and in Mudfog it is particularly so. In winter, it comes oozing down the streets and tumbling over the fields,—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 will 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. Mudfog is a healthy place—very healthy;—damp, perhaps, but none the worse for that. It’s quite a mistake to suppose that damp is unwholesome: plants thrive best in damp situations, and why shouldn’t men? 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. So, admitting Mudfog to be damp, we distinctly state that it is salubrious. The town of Mudfog is extremely picturesque. Limehouse and Ratcliffe Highway are both something like it, but they give you a very faint idea of Mudfog. There are a great many more public-houses in Mudfog,—more than in Ratcliffe Highway and Limehouse put together. The public buildings, too, are very imposing. 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. The idea of placing a large window on one side of the door, and a small one on the other, is particularly happy. There is a fine bold Doric beauty, too, about the padlock and scraper, which is strictly in keeping with the general effect. In this room do the mayor and corporation of Mudfog assemble together in solemn council for the public weal. 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. 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’s good. 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. 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. 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. 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. Time, which strews a man’s head with silver, sometimes fills his pockets with gold. As he gradually performed one good office for Nicholas Tulrumble, he was obliging enough, not to omit the other. 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. 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—only without a cat for a partner—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 endeavoured to delude himself into the belief was a hill, about a quarter of a mile distant from the town of Mudfog. 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. 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,—that Mr. Tulrumble junior took to smoking cigars, and calling the footman a “feller,”—and that Mr. Tulrumble from that time forth, was no more seen in his old seat in the chimney-corner of the Lighterman’s Arms at night. This looked bad; but, more than this, it began to be observed that Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble attended the corporation meetings more frequently than heretofore; that he no longer went to sleep as he had done for so many years, but propped his eyelids open with his two fore-fingers; 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 “masses of people,” and “the property of the country,” and “productive power,” and “the monied interest:” all of which denoted and proved that Nicholas Tulrumble was either mad, or worse; and it puzzled the good people of Mudfog amazingly. 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. Somehow or other, just about this time, despite the health-preserving air of Mudfog, the Mayor died. It was a most extraordinary circumstance; he had lived in Mudfog for eighty-five years. The corporation didn’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. 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. 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. Now, it being November time, and Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble being in the capital, it fell out that he was present at the Lord Mayor’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 patronised 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.&amp;nbsp;The more he thought of the Lord Mayor, the more enviable a personage he seemed. To be a King was all very well; but what was the King to the Lord Mayor! When the King made a speech, everybody knew it was somebody else’s writing; whereas here was the Lord Mayor, talking away for half an hour—all out of his own head—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. 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. 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. A crimson flush mantled over his face as he read it, for visions of brightness were already dancing before his imagination. “My dear,” said Mr. Tulrumble to his wife, “they have elected me, Mayor of Mudfog.” “Lor-a-mussy!” said Mrs. Tulrumble: “why, what’s become of old Sniggs?” “The late Mr. Sniggs, Mrs. Tulrumble,” said Mr. Tulrumble sharply, for he by no means approved of the notion of unceremoniously designating a gentleman who had filled the high office of Mayor, as “old Sniggs,”—“The late Mr. Sniggs, Mrs. Tulrumble, is dead.” The communication was very unexpected; but Mrs. Tulrumble only ejaculated “Lor-a-mussy!” once again, as if a Mayor were a mere ordinary Christian, at which Mr. Tulrumble frowned gloomily. “What a pity ’tan’t in London, ain’t it?” said Mrs. Tulrumble, after a short pause; “what a pity ’tan’t in London, where you might have had a show.” “I might have a show in Mudfog, if I thought proper, I apprehend,” said Mr. Tulrumble mysteriously. “Lor! so you might, I declare,” replied Mrs. Tulrumble.“And a good one, too,” said Mr. Tulrumble. “Delightful!” exclaimed Mrs. Tulrumble. “One which would rather astonish the ignorant people down there,” said Mr. Tulrumble. “It would kill them with envy,” said Mrs. Tulrumble. So it was agreed that his Majesty’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,—no, not even in London itself. On the very next day after the receipt of the letter, down came the tall postilion in a post-chaise,—not upon one of the horses, but inside—actually inside the chaise,—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. But even this was not all. The tall postilion produced from his right-hand top-boot, a damp copy of that afternoon’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. 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. 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 then next ensuing. 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’d be sure to come. 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—we think it very likely, but, being no great traveller, cannot distinctly say—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&amp;nbsp;sobriquet&amp;nbsp;of Bottle-nosed Ned.&amp;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. 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. He was by no means opposed to hard labour on principle, for he would work away at a cricket-match by the day together,—running, and catching, and batting, and bowling, and revelling in toil which would exhaust a galley-slave. 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’ 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’s apparatus.&amp;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. He had a general licence, and he showed his sense of the compliment by making the most of it. 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’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’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’s Arms, and enquiring whether one Ned Twigger was luxuriating within, announced himself as the bearer of a message from Nicholas Tulrumble, Esquire, requiring Mr. Twigger’s immediate attendance at the hall, on private and particular business. It being by no means Mr. Twigger’s interest to affront the Mayor, he rose from the fire-place 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. 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. “Well, Twigger!” said Nicholas Tulrumble, condescendingly. There was a time when Twigger would have replied, “Well, Nick!” but that was in the days of the truck, and a couple of years before the donkey; so, he only bowed. “I want you to go into training, Twigger,” said Mr. Tulrumble. “What for, sir?” enquired Ned, with a stare. “Hush, hush, Twigger!” said the Mayor. “Shut the door, Mr. Jennings. Look here, Twigger.” As the Mayor said this, he unlocked a high closet, and disclosed a complete suit of brass armour, of gigantic dimensions. “I want you to wear this, next Monday, Twigger,” said the Mayor. “Bless your heart and soul, sir!” replied Ned, “you might as well ask me to wear a seventy-four pounder, or a cast-iron boiler.” “Nonsense, Twigger! nonsense!” said the Mayor. “I couldn’t stand under it, sir,” said Twigger; “it would make mashed potatoes of me, if I attempted it.” “Pooh, pooh, Twigger!” returned the Mayor. “I tell you I have seen it done with my own eyes, in London, and the man wasn’t half such a man as you are, either.” “I should as soon have thought of a man’s wearing the case of an eight-day clock to save his linen,” said Twigger, casting a look of apprehension at the brass suit. “It’s the easiest thing in the world,” rejoined the Mayor. “It’s nothing,” said Mr. Jennings. “When you’re used to it,” added Ned. “You do it by degrees,” said the Mayor. “You would begin with one piece to-morrow, and two the next day, and so on, till you had got it all on. Mr. Jennings, give Twigger a glass of rum. Just try the breast-plate, Twigger. Stay; take another glass of rum first. Help me to lift it, Mr. Jennings. Stand firm, Twigger! There!—it isn’t half as heavy as it looks, is it?” Twigger was a good strong, stout fellow; so, after a great deal of staggering, he managed to keep himself up, under the breast-plate, and even contrived, with the aid of another glass of rum, to walk about in it, and the gauntlets into the bargain. He made a trial of the helmet, but was not equally successful, inasmuch as he tipped over instantly,—an accident which Mr. Tulrumble clearly demonstrated to be occasioned by his not having a counteracting weight of brass on his legs. “Now, wear that with grace and propriety on Monday next,” said Tulrumble, “and I’ll make your fortune.” “I’ll try what I can do, sir,” said Twigger. “It must be kept a profound secret,” said Tulrumble. “Of course, sir,” replied Twigger. “And you must be sober,” said Tulrumble; “perfectly sober.” 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. However, that’s neither here nor there. The next day, and the day following, and the day after that, Ned Twigger was securely locked up in the small cavern with the skylight, hard at work at the armour. 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. Never was man so delighted as Nicholas Tulrumble; never was woman so charmed as Nicholas Tulrumble’s wife. Here was a sight for the common people of Mudfog! A live man in brass armour! Why, they would go wild with wonder! The day—the&amp;nbsp;Monday—arrived. If the morning had been made to order, it couldn’t have been better adapted to the purpose. They never showed a better fog in London on Lord Mayor’s day, than enwrapped the town of Mudfog on that eventful occasion. 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’s work with the worst possible grace. The thick damp mist hung over the town like a huge gauze curtain. All was dim and dismal. The church-steeples had bidden a temporary adieu to the world below; and every object of lesser importance—houses, barns, hedges, trees, and barges—had all taken the veil. The church-clock struck one. 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.&amp;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. 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. But a Mudfog crowd never was a reasonable one, and in all probability never will be. 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 recognised the herald, than they began to growl forth the most unqualified disapprobation at the bare notion of his riding like any other man. 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. So, the herald was a decided failure, and the crowd hooted with great energy, as he pranced ingloriously away. On the procession came. 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;—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. Oh! it was a grand and beautiful sight to behold the 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 the chaplain, and a supernumerary on the other, with an old life-guardsman’s sabre, to imitate the sword-bearer; and to see the tears rolling down the faces of the mob as they screamed with merriment. 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. “They won’t laugh now, Mr. Jennings,” said Nicholas Tulrumble. “I think not, sir,” said Mr. Jennings. “See how eager they look,” said Nicholas Tulrumble. “Aha! the laugh will be on our side now; eh, Mr. Jennings?” “No doubt of that, sir,” 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. 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—just to drink success to master in. 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 the by 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. The companionable footman was very facetious to Ned, and Ned was very gallant to the cook and housemaid by turns. They were all very cosy and comfortable; and the something strong went briskly round. 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. The crowd roared—it was not with wonder, it was not with surprise; it was most decidedly and unquestionably with laughter. “What!” said Mr. Tulrumble, starting up in the four-wheel chaise. “Laughing? If they laugh at a man in real brass armour, they’d laugh when their own fathers were dying. Why doesn’t he go into his place, Mr. Jennings? What’s he rolling down towards us for?—he has no business here!” “I am afraid, sir —” faltered Mr. Jennings. “Afraid of what, sir?” said Nicholas Tulrumble, looking up into the secretary’s face. “I am afraid he’s drunk, sir;” replied Mr. Jennings. 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. 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 in 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. 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. 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. 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,— an article not strictly in keeping with a suit of armour some three hundred years old, or thereabouts. “Twigger, you villain!” said Nicholas Tulrumble, quite forgetting his dignity, “go back!” “Never,” said Ned. “I’m a miserable wretch. I’ll never leave you.” The by-standers of course received this declaration with acclamations of “That’s right, Ned; don’t!” “I don’t intend it,” said Ned, with all the obstinacy of a very tipsy man. “I’m very unhappy. I’m the wretched father of an unfortunate family; but I am very faithful, sir. I’ll never leave you.” 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. “Here! will anybody lead him away?” said Nicholas: “if they’ll call on me afterwards, I’ll reward them well.” Two or three men stepped forward, with the view of bearing Ned off, when the secretary interposed. “Take care! take care!” said Mr. Jennings. “I beg your pardon, sir; but they’d better not go too near him, because, if he falls over, he’ll certainly crush somebody.” 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. “But, Mr. Jennings,” said Nicholas Tulrumble, “he’ll be suffocated.” “I’m very sorry for it, sir,” replied Mr. Jennings; “but nobody can get that armour off, without his own assistance. I’m quite certain of it, from the way he put it on.” 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. “Dear me, Mr. Jennings,” said Nicholas, turning pale at the possibility of Ned’s being smothered in his antique costume—“Dear me, Mr. Jennings, can nothing be done with him?” “Nothing at all,” replied Ned, “nothing at all. Gentlemen, I’m an unhappy wretch. I’m a body, gentlemen, in a brass coffin.” 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’t been a poor man, Nicholas wouldn’t have dared to do it, hinted at the propriety of breaking the four-wheel chaise, or Nicholas’s head, or both, which last compound proposition the crowd seemed to consider a very good notion. It was not acted upon, however, for it had hardly been broached, when Ned Twigger’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 would carry him; and that was not very quick in the present instance either, for, however ready they might have been to carry &#039;&#039;him&#039;&#039;, they couldn’t get on very well under the brass armour. 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. 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. What a wailing and screaming Ned’s children raised when he got home at last! Mrs. Twigger tried to undo the armour, first in one place, and then in another, but she couldn’t manage it; so she tumbled Ned into bed, helmet, armour, gauntlets, and all. Such a creaking as the bedstead made, under Ned’s weight in his new suit! It didn’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. 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. 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. After which, the procession got back to Mudfog Hall any how it could; and Nicholas and the corporation sat down to dinner. But the dinner was flat, and Nicholas was disappointed. They were such dull sleepy old fellows, that corporation. 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. There was only one man in the party who was thoroughly awake; and he was insolent, and called him Nick. Nick! What would be the consequence, thought Nicholas, of anybody presuming to call the Lord Mayor of London “Nick!” 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. They’d nick him. But these were not the worst of Nicholas Tulrumble’s doings; If they had been, he might have remained a Mayor to this day, and have talked till he lost his voice. 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. 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 fire-place with a kettle to correspond, round which the working men have congregated time out of mind on a winter’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. Now Nicholas Tulrumble had been reading pamphlets on crime, and parliamentary reports,— or had made the secretary read them to him, which is the same thing in effect,—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. 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. 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’s music licence. 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. He descanted in glowing terms upon the increasing depravity of his native town of Mudfog, and the excesses committed by its population. 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’clock alone—which, by-the-bye, was the time at which the great majority of the Mudfog people dined. 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. Then he proceeded to show that a tambourine and moral degradation were synonymous terms, and a fiddle and vicious propensities wholly inseparable. 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. But although Nicholas triumphed, his triumph was short. 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. He grew tired of the lonely magnificence of Mudfog Hall, and his heart yearned towards the Lighterman’s Arms. 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. At length old Nicholas, being thoroughly miserable, took heart of grace, paid the secretary a quarter’s wages in advance, and packed him off to London by the next coach. 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’s Arms. There were only two of the old fellows there, and they looked coldly on Nicholas as he proffered his hand. “Are you going to put down pipes, Mr. Tulrumble?” said one. “Or trace the progress of crime to ’baccer?”&amp;nbsp;growled the other. “Neither,” replied Nicholas Tulrumble, shaking hands with them both, whether they would or not. “I’ve come down to say that I’m very sorry for having made a fool of myself, and that I hope you’ll give me up, the old chair, again.” 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. 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. The next day, the Jolly Boatmen got the licence, and the next night, old Nicholas and Ned Twigger’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. 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. Mr. Tulrumble, junior, couldn’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. As to old Nicholas, he kept his word, and having had six weeks of public life, never tried it any more. 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. 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. This is the first time we have published any of our gleanings from this particular source. Perhaps, at some future period, we may venture to open the chronicles of Mudfog.18370101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Public_Life_of_Mr._Tulrumble_Once_Mayor_of_Mudfog/1837-01-Public_Life_Tulrumble.pdf
60https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/60'Sentiment'Published in <em>The Magazine of the Beau Monde</em> (1 September 1836), pp. 122-126.Dickens, Charles<em>The Magazine of the Beau Monde,</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Magazine_of_the_beau_monde_or_Monthl/piYGAAAAQAAJ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Magazine_of_the_beau_monde_or_Monthl/piYGAAAAQAAJ.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-09-01">1836-09-01</a><p>Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1836-09-01_The_Magazine_of_the_Beau_Monde_SentimentDickens, Charles. 'Sentiment' (1 September 1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-09-01_The_Magazine_of_the_Beau_Monde_Sentiment">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-09-01_The_Magazine_of_the_Beau_Monde_Sentiment</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836-09-01_The_Magazine_of_the_Beau_Monde_Sentiment.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sentiment.' <em>The Magazine of the Beau Monde</em> (1 September 1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Magazine+of+the+Beau+Monde%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Magazine of the Beau Monde</em></a>The Miss Crumptons, or to quote the authority of the inscription on the garden-gate of Minerva House, Hammersmith—&quot;The Misses Crumpton&quot; were two unusually tall, particularly thin, and exceedingly skinny personages— very upright and very yellow. 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 fifty at least. They dressed in the most interesting manner—like twins, and looks about as happy and comfortable as a couple of marigolds run to seed. They were very precise, had the strictest possible ideas of propriety, wore false hair, and always smelt very strongly of lavender. Minerva House, conducted under the auspices of the two sisters, was a &quot;finishing establishment for young ladies,&quot; 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. The house was a white one, a little removed from the road side, with close palings in front. The bed-room windows were always left partly open to afford a bird&#039;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 knowledge-imparting appearance of the place. &quot;Amelia, my dear,&quot; said Miss Maria Crumpton, entering the school room, with her false hair in papers, as she occasionally did, in order to impress the young ladies with a conviction of its reality—&quot;Amelia, my dear, here&#039;s a most gratifying note I have just received. You needn&#039;t mind reading it aloud.&quot; Miss Amelia thus advised, proceeded to read the following note, with an air of great triumph. &quot;Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq. M.P. presents his compliments to Miss Crumpton, and will feel much obliged by Miss Crumpton&#039;s calling on him, if she conveniently can, to morrow morning at one o&#039;clock, as Cornelius Brook Dingall, Esq. M.P. is anxious to see Miss Crumpton on the subject of placing Miss Brook Dingwall under her charge. &quot;Adelphi. &quot;Monday morning.&quot; &quot;A Member of Parliament&#039;s daughter!&quot; ejaculated Amelia in an ecstatic tone. &quot;A Member of Parliament&#039;s daughter!&quot; repeated Miss Maria with a smile of delight, which of course, forthwith elicited a concurrent titter of pleasure from all the young ladies. &quot;Its exceedingly delightful,&quot; said Miss Amelia, whereupon all the young ladies murmured their admiration again. Courtiers are but schoolboys multiplied by fifty. So important an announcement at once superseded the business of the day. A holiday was declared in commemoration of the greatevent: 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 whethers of equal importance. 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—which, by-the-bye, is not saying much for them. 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. Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq., M.P. was very haughty, solemn, and portentous. He had naturally a somewhat spasmodic expression of countenance, which was not rendered the less remarkable by his wearing an extremely stiff cravat. He was wonderfully proud of the &quot;M.P.,&quot; attached to his name, and never lost an opportunity of reminding people of his dignity. 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. He was a country magistrate, and discharged the duties of his station with all due justice and impartiality, frequently committing poachers, and occasionally committing himself. Miss Brook Dingwall was one of that numerous class of young ladies, who, like adverbs may be known by their answering to a common-place question, and doing nothing else. 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. Acts of Parliament, and letters directed to &quot;Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq. M.P.,&quot; were ostentatiously scattered over the table, at a little distance from which, Mrs. Brook Dingwall was seated at work. One of those public nuisances, a spoiled child, was playing about the room, dressed after the most approved fashion, in a blue tunic with a black belt a quarter of a yard wide, fastened with an immense buckle, and looking like a robber in a Melo-Drama, seen through a diminishing glass. After a little pleasantry from the sweet child, who amused himself by running away with Miss Maria Crumpton&#039;s chair as fast as it was placed for her, the visitors were seated, and Cornelius Brook Dingwall Esq. opened the conversation. 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. Miss Crumpton murmured her acknowledgments to him (Muggs) and Cornelius proceeded. &quot;One of my principal reasons Miss Crumpton for parting with my daughter is, that she has lately acquired some false sentimental sort of ideas which it is most desirable to eradicate from her young mind.&quot; (Here the little innocent before-noticed, fell out of an arm chair with an awful crash.) &quot;Naughty boy,&quot; said his mamma, who appeared more surprised at his taking the liberty of falling down, than at anything else, &quot;I&#039;ll ring the bell for James to take him away.&quot; &quot;Pray don&#039;t check him, my love,&quot; said the diplomatist, as soon as he could make himself heard amidst the unearthly howling, consequent upon the threat and the tumble. &quot;It all arises from his great flow of spirits.&quot; This last explanation was addressed to Miss Crumpton. &quot;Certainly, Sir,&quot; replied the antique Maria, not exactly seeing, however, the connection between a flow of animal spirits, and a fall from an arm chair. Silence was restored, and the M.P. resumed: &quot;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.&quot; The youngest Miss Crumpton expressed the acknowledgements of the establishment generally. Maria was rendered perfectly speechless by bodily pain—the dear little fellow having recovered his 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. &quot;Of course Lavinia will be a parlour boarder,&quot; continued the enviable father; &quot;and on one point I wish my directions to be strictly observed. The fact is, that some ridiculous love affair with a person much her inferior in life has been the case of her present state of mind. Knowing that of course under your care she can have no opportunity of meeting this person, I do not object to—indeed, I should rather prefer—her joining in such society as you see yourself,&quot; The 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. James was rung for; considerable confusion and screaming succeeded, two little blue legs, about the size of hoopsticks, were seen to kick violently in the air, as the man left the room, and the child was gone. &quot;Mr. Brook Dingwall would like Miss Brook Dingwall to learn everything,&quot; said Mrs. Brook Dingwall, who hardly ever said any thing at all. &quot;Certainly.&quot; said both the Miss Crumptons together. &quot;And as I trust the plan I have devised will be effectual in weaning my daughter from this absurd idea, Miss Crumpton,&quot; continued the legislator, &quot;I hope you will have the goodness to comply in all respects with any request I may forward to you.&quot; The promise was of course made, and after a lengthened discussion, conducted on behalf of the Dingwall&#039;s with the most becoming diplomatic gravity, and on that of the Crumpton&#039;s 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. It might divert the dear girl&#039;s mind. This, by the way, was another bit of diplomacy. Miss Lavinia was forthwith introduced to her future governesses, and both the Miss Crumpton&#039;s pronounced her &quot;a most charming girl,&quot; an opinion which, by a singular coincidence, they always entertained of any new pupil. Curtsies were made, acknowledgements expressed, condescension exhibited; and the interview terminated. Preparations, to make use of theatrical phraseology, &quot;on a scale of magnitude never before attempted,&quot; were incessantly made at Minerva House, to give every effect to the forthcoming ball. 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. The carpet was taken up; the folding-doors were taken door; the furniture was taken out, and rout seats taken in. The linen-drapers of Hammersmith were astounded at the sudden demand for blue sarsnet ribbon, and long white gloves. 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. The young ladies who were selected to show off &quot;on the occasion,&quot; and do credit to the establishment, practised unceasingly, 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 with the Misses Crumpton and the Hammersmith pastry cook. 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. The smaller girls managed to be in everybody&#039;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 come out. &quot;How do I look, dear?&quot; enquired 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. &quot;Oh, charming dear. How do I?&quot; &quot;Delightful—you never looked so handsome,&quot; returned the belle, adjusting her own dress, and not bestowing a glance on her poor companion. &quot;I hope young Hilton will come early,&quot; said another young lady to Miss somebody else, in a fever of expectation. &quot;I&#039;m sure he&#039;d be highly flattered if he knew it,&quot; returned the other, who was practicing l&#039;eté for effect. &quot;Oh! he&#039;s so handsome,&quot; said the first. &quot;Such a charming person,&quot; added a second. &quot;Such a distingue air,&quot; said a third. &quot;Oh what do you think?&quot; said another girl running into the room; Miss Crumpton says that her cousin&#039;s coming.&quot; &quot;What! Theodosius Butler?&quot; said everybody, in raptures. &quot;Is he handsome,&quot; enquired a novice. &quot;No, not particularly handsome,&quot; was the general reply; but oh, so clever!&quot; Mr. Theodosius Butler was one of those immortal geniuses who are to be met with in almost every circle. They have usually very deep monotonous voices. They always persuade themselves that they are wonderful persons, and that they ought to be very miserable. They dont exactly know why. They are very conceited, and usually possess exactly half an idea: but with enthusiastic young ladies and silly young gentlemen, they are something wonderfully superior. The individual in question, Mr. Theodosius, had written a phamphlet containing some very weighty considerations on the expediency of doing something or other; and as every sentence contained at least fifty words of four syllables, his admirers took it for granted that he meant a good deal. &quot;Perhaps that&#039;s he,&quot; exclaimed several young ladies, as the first pull of the evening threatened destruction to the bell at the gate. An awful pause ensued. Some boxes arrived, and a young lady—it was Miss Brook Dingwall, in full ball costumes, 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. The Miss Crumptons enquired after the family with the most excruciating anxiety, and Miss Brook Dingwall was formally introduced to her future companions. 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. Another pull at the bell. Mr. Dadson, the writing master and his wife. The wife in green silk, with shoes and cap trimmings to correspond, and the writing master in a white waistcoat, black knee shorts, and ditto silk stockings, displaying a leg large enough for two writing masters, at least. 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. Repeated pulls at the bell, and arrivals too numerous to particularize: 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 pianoforte 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. A general hum of conversation.—Coffee handed round, and plentifully partaken of by fat mamma&#039;s, looking like the stout people who come on in pantomimes for the sole purpose of being knocked down. The popular Mr. Hilton was the next arrival, and having, at the request of the Miss Crumptons, undertaken the office of Master of Ceremonies, the quadrilles commenced with considerable spirit. 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. The writing master danced every set, springing about with the most fearful agility, and his wife played a rubber in the back parlour—a little room with five book shelves dignified by the name of the study. Setting her down to whist was a half-yearly piece of generalship on the part of the Miss Crumptons, as it was necessary to hide her somewhere on account of her being a fright. The interesting Lavinia Brook Dingwall was the only girl present who appeared to take no interest in the proceedings of the evening. In vain was she solicited to dance, in vain was the universal homage paid to her as the daughter of a member of parliament. She was equally unmoved by the splendid tenor of the inimitable Lobskini, and the brilliant execution of Miss Letitia Parsons, who performance of &quot;The Recollections of Ireland,&quot; was universally declared to be almost equal to Moscheles himself. 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. &quot;Now, Theodosius,&quot; said Miss Maria Crumpton, after that enlightened pamphleteer had nearly run the gauntlet of he whole company, &quot;I must introduce you to our new pupil.&quot; Theodosius looked as if he cared for nothing earthly. &quot;She&#039;s the daughter of a member of parliament,&quot; said Maria - Theodosius started. &quot;And her name is—?&quot; he enquired. &quot;Miss Brook Dingwall.&quot; &quot;Great Heaven!&quot; poetically exclaimed Theodosius in a low tone. Miss Crumpton commenced the introduction in due form. Miss Brook Dingwall languidly raised her head. &quot;Edward!&quot; she exclaimed with a half shriek, on seeing the well known nankeen legs. 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&#039;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. &quot;Oh, Edward,&quot; exclaimed that most romantic of all romantic young ladies, as that light of science seated himself beside her, &quot;Oh, Edward is it you?&quot; Mr. Theodosius assured the dear creature in the most impassioned manner that he was not conscious of being anybody but himself. &quot;Then why—why—this disguise? oh, Edward McNeville Walter, what have I not suffered on your account.&quot; &quot;Lavinia, hear me,&quot; replied the hero in his most poetic strain &quot;Do not condemn me unheard. If anything that emanates from the soul of such a wretch as I, can occupy a place in your recollection—if any being so vile deserve your notice—you may remember that I once published a pamphlet (and paid for its publication) entitled &quot;Considerations on the policy of removing the duty on bee&#039;s wax.&quot; &quot;I do—I do—&quot; sobbed Lavinia. &quot;That,&quot; continued the lover &quot;was a subject to which your father was devoted heart and soul.&quot; &quot;He was—he was,&quot; reiterated the sentimentalist. &quot;I knew it&quot; continued Theodosius tragically, &quot;I knew it—I forwarded him a copy. He wished to know me. Could I disclose my real name? Never! no, I assumed that name which you have so often pronounced in tones of endearment. As McNeville Walter I devoted myself to the stirring cause; as McNeville Walter I gained your heart; in the same character i was ejected from your house by your father&#039;s domestics, and in no character at all, have I since been enabled to see you. We now meet again, and I proudly own that I am—Theodosius Butler. The young lady appeared perfectly satisfied with this very argumentative address, and bestowed a look of the most ardent affection on the immortal advocate of bees wax. &quot;May I hope,&quot; said he, &quot;that the promise, your father&#039;s violent behaviour interrupted, may be renewed?&quot; &quot;Let us join this set,&quot; replied Lavinia coquetishly—for girls of nineteen can coquette. &quot;No,&quot; ejaculated he of the nankeens. &quot;I stir not from this spot writhing under this torture of suspense. May I—may I hope?&quot; &quot;You may.&quot; &quot;The promise is renewed?&quot; &quot;It is.&quot; &quot;I have your permission?&quot; &quot;You have.&quot; &quot;To the fullest extent?&quot; &quot;You know it,&quot; returned Lavinia, affecting to blush. The contortions of the interesting Butler&#039;s visage expressed his raptures. We could dilate upon the occurrences of the evening. How Mr. Theodosius and Miss Lavinia danced and talked, and sighed for the remainder of the evening. How the Miss Crumpton&#039;s were delighted thereat. 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. How the supper consisted of small triangular sandwiches in trays, with 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. These, and other matters of as much interest, however, we pass over, for the purpose of describing a scene of even more importance. 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. He was alone, and his face bore an expression of deep thought and solemn gravity—he was drawing up a bill for the better observance of Easter Monday. The footman tapped at the door. The legislator started from his reverie, and &quot;Miss Crumpton&quot; was announced. Permission was given for Miss Crumption to enter the sanctum; Maria came sidling 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. Oh! how she longed for the presence of a third party—even the facetious young gentleman would have been a relief. Miss Crumpton began the duet. She hoped Mrs. Brook Dingwall, and the handsome little boy were in good health. They were. Mrs. Brook Dingwall and little Frederick were at Brighton. &quot;Much obliged to you Miss Crumpton,&quot; said Cornelius in his dignified manner, &quot;for your attention to calling this morning. 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. How has she gone on.&quot; &quot;Very well, indeed, Sir,&quot; returned Maria, dreading to inform the father she had gone off. &quot;Ah, I thought the plan on which I proceeded would be a match for her.&quot; &quot;Here was a favourable opportunity to say that somebody else had been a match for her. The unfortunate governess was unequal to the task. &quot;You have persevered strictly in the line of conduct I prescribed Miss Crumpton?&quot; &quot;Strictly, Sir.&quot; &quot;You tell me in your note that her spirits gradually improved.&quot; &quot;Very much, indeed, sir.&quot; &quot;To be sure, I was convinced they would.&quot; &quot;But I fear, sir,&quot; said Miss Crumpton, with visible emotion. &quot;I fear the plan has not succeeded so well as we could have wished.&quot; &quot;No!&quot; exclaimed the prophet, &quot;God bless me, Miss Crumpton, you look alarmed. What has happened?&quot; &quot;Miss Brook Dingwall, Sir—&quot; &quot;Yes, Ma&#039;am.&quot; &quot;Has gone, Sir&quot;—said Maria, exhibiting a strong inclination to faint. &quot;Gone!&quot; &quot;Eloped, Sir.&quot; &quot;Eloped!—Who wish—when—where—how?&quot; almost shrieked the agitated diplomatist. The natural yellow of the unfortunate Maria&#039;s face, changed to all the hues of the rainbow, as she laid a small packet upon the member&#039;s table. He hurriedly opened it. A letter from his daughter and another from Theodosius. He glanced over their contents - &quot;ere this reaches you, far distant—appeal to feelings—love to distraction—bee&#039;s wax—slavery,&quot; &amp;amp;c., &amp;amp;c. He dashed his hand to his forehead, and paced the room with fearfully long strides, to the great alarm of the precise Maria. &quot;Now mind; from this time forward,&quot; said the Brook Dingwall, suddenly stopping at the table, and beating time upon it with his hand &quot;from this time forward, I never will, under any circumstances whatever, allow a man who writes pamphlets to enter any room of this house but the kitchen—I&#039;ll allow my daughter and her husband one hundred and fifty pounds a year, and never see their faces again—and damme, ma&#039;am, I&#039;ll bring in a bill for abolition of finishing schools!&quot; Some time has elapsed since this passionate declaration. Mr. and Mrs. Butler are at present rusticating in a small cottage at Ball&#039;s Pond, pleasantly situated in the immediate vicinity of a brick-field. They have no family. Mr. Theodosius looks very important and writes incessantly, but in consequence of some gross combination on the part of publishers, none of his productions appear in print. 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. 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&#039;, but his own diplomacy. 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. Minerva House is in statu quo, and &quot;The Misses Crumpton&quot; remain in the peaceable and undisturbed enjoyment of all the advantages resulting from their Finishing-school.18360901https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sentiment/1836-09-01_The_Magazine_of_the_Beau_Monde_Sentiment.pdf
134https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/134'The Bloomsbury Christening'<span>Published in&nbsp;</span><em>The Monthly Magazine</em><span>&nbsp;(April 1834).</span>Dickens, Charles<em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres.</em><span>&nbsp;April 1834, pp. 375-386,&nbsp;</span><em>Internet Archive,</em><span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://archive.org/details/monthlymagazineo17lond/page/n9/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/monthlymagazineo17lond/page/n9/mode/2up</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-04">1834-04</a><em>Internet Archive,<br /></em><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a><span>. Access to the Archive’s Collections is granted for scholarship and research purposes only.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-04-The_Bloomsbury_ChristeningDickens, Charles. "The Bloomsbury Christening." <em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres.</em> <span>April 1834, pp. 375-386. </span><em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-04-The-Bloomsbury-Christening">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-04-The-Bloomsbury-Christening</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a>Mr. Nicodemus Dumps, or, as his acquaintance called him, &quot;long Dumps,&quot; was a bachelor, six feet high, and fifty years old, —cross, cadaverous, odd, and ill-natured. He was never happy but when he was miserable (pardon the contradiction); and always miserable when he had the best reason to be happy. The only real comfort of his existence was to make everybody about him wretched—then he might be truly said to enjoy life. He was afflicted with a situation in the Bank worth five hundred a-year, and he rented a &quot;first floor furnished&quot; at Pentonville, which he originally took because it commanded a dismal prospect of an adjacent churchyard. He was familiar with the face of every tombstone, and the burial service seemed to excite his strongest sympathy. His friends said he was surly—he insisted he was nervous; they thought him a lucky dog, but he protested that he was &quot;the most unfortunate man in the world.&quot; Cold as he was, and wretched as he declared himself to be, he was not wholly unsusceptible of attachments. 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. He adored King Herod for his massacre of the innocents; for if he hated one thing more than another, it was a child. However, he could hardly be said to hate any thing in particular, because he disliked every thing in general; but perhaps his greatest antipathies were cabs, old women, doors that would not shut, musical amateurs, and omnibus cads. He subscribed to the Society for the Suppression of Vice for the pleasure of putting a stop to any harmless amusements; and he contributed largely towards the support of two itinerant methodist parsons, under the amiable hope that if circumstances rendered any people happy in this world, they might perchance be rendered miserable by fears for the next. 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. Mr. Charles Kitterbell was a small, sharp, spare man, with a very large head, and a broad, good-humoured countenance. 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. 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. 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 to himself a wife, and for himself a house in Great Russell-street, Russell-square (Uncle Dumps always dropped the Russell-square,&quot; and inserted in lieu thereof the dreadful words &quot;Tottenham-court-road&quot;). &quot;No, but, uncle, ’pon my life you must—you must promise to be godfather,&quot; said Mr. Kitterbell, as he sat in conversation with his respected relative one morning. &quot;I cannot, indeed I cannot,&quot; returned Dumps. &quot;Well, but why not? Jemima will think it very unkind. It’s very little trouble.&quot; &quot;As to the trouble,&quot; rejoined the most unhappy man in existence, &quot;I don’t mind that; but my nerves are in that state—I cannot go through the ceremony. You know I don’t like going out.—For God’s sake, Charles, don’t fidget with that stool so, you’ll drive me mad.&quot; Mr. Kitterbell, quite regardless of his uncle’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. &quot;I beg your pardon, uncle,&quot; 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. &quot;But come, don’t refuse. If it’s a boy, you know, we must have two godfathers.&quot; &quot;If it’s a boy!&quot; said Dumps, &quot;why can’t you say at once whether it is a boy or not?&quot; &quot;I should be very happy to tell you, but it’s impossible I can undertake to say whether it’s a girl or a boy, if the child isn’t born yet.&quot; &quot;Not born yet!&quot; echoed Dumps, with a gleam of hope lighting up his lugubrious visage; &quot;oh, well, it may be a girl, and then you won’t want me, or if it is a boy, it may die before it&#039;s christened.&quot; &quot;I hope not,&quot; said the father that expected to be, looking very grave. &quot;I hope not,&quot; acquiesced Dumps, evidently pleased with the subject. He was beginning to get happy. &quot;I hope not, but distressing cases frequently occur during the first two or three days of a child’s life; fits, I am told, are exceedingly common, and alarming convulsions are almost matters of course.&quot; &quot;Lord, uncle!&quot; ejaculated little Kitterbell, gasping for breath. &quot;Yes; my landlady was confined—let me see—last Tuesday: an uncommonly fine boy. On the Thursday night the nurse was sitting with him upon her knee before the fire, and he was as well as possible. Suddenly he became black in the face, and alarmingly spasmodic. The medical man was instantly sent for, and every remedy was tried, but—&quot; &quot;How frightful!&quot; interrupted the horror-stricken Kitterbell. &quot;The child died, of course. However, your child may not die; and if it should be a boy, and should live to be christened, why I suppose I must be one of the sponsors.&quot; Dumps was evidently good-natured on the faith of his anticipations. &quot;Thank you, uncle,&quot; said his agitated nephew, grasping his hand as warmly as if he had done him some essential service. &quot;Perhaps I had better not tell Mrs. K. what you have mentioned.&quot; ‘Why, if she’s low-spirited, perhaps you had better not mention the melancholy case to her,’ returned Dumps, who of course had invented the whole story; &quot;though perhaps it would be but doing your duty as a husband to prepare her for the worst.&quot; 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 eye:- &quot;Births.—On Saturday, the 18th inst., in Great Russell-street, the lady of Charles Kitterbell, Esq., of a son.&quot; &quot;It is a boy!&quot; he exclaimed, dashing down the paper, to the astonishment of the waiters. &quot;It is a boy!&quot; But he speedily regained his composure as his eye rested on a paragraph quoting the number of infant deaths from the bills of mortality. 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:- &quot;Great Russell-street, Monday morning. &quot;DEAR UNCLE: You will be delighted to hear that my dear Jemima has left her room, and that your future godson is getting on capitally; he was very thin at first, but he is getting much larger, and nurse says he is filling out every day. He cries a good deal, and is a very singular colour, which made Jemima and me rather uncomfortable; but as nurse says it’s natural, and as of course we know nothing about these things yet, we are quite satisfied with what nurse says. We think he will be a sharp child; and nurse says she’s sure he will, because he never goes to sleep. You will readily believe that we are all very happy, only we’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. 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. Perhaps this may in some degree account for his being rather fractious; at least, so nurse says. We propose to have him christened at twelve o’clock on Friday, at Saint George’s church, in Hart-street, by the name of Frederick Charles William. Pray don’t be later than a quarter before twelve. We shall have a very few friends in the evening, when, of course we shall see you. I am sorry to say that the dear boy appears rather restless and uneasy to-day: the cause, I fear, is fever. &quot;Believe me, dear Uncle, &quot;Yours affectionately, &quot;CHARLES KITTERBELL.&quot; &quot;P.S.—I open this note to say that we have just discovered the cause of little Frederick’s restlessness. It is not fever, as I apprehended, but a small pin, which nurse accidentally stuck in his leg yesterday evening. We have taken it out, and he appears more composed, though he still sobs a good deal.&quot; 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. It was impossible to recede, however, and so he put the best face—that is to say, an uncommonly miserable one—upon the matter; and purchased a handsome silver mug for the infant Kitterbell, upon which he ordered the initials &quot;F. C. W. K.,&quot; with the customary untrained grape-vine-looking flourishes, and a large full stop, to be engraved forthwith. 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! Hackney-coachmen became revolutionary, and crossing-sweepers began to doubt the existence of a First Cause. The Morning Herald informed its readers that an old woman, in Camden Town, had been heard to say that the fineness of the season was &quot;unprecedented in the memory of the oldest inhabitant;&quot; 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. Dumps beheld all this with an eye of supreme contempt—his triumph was at hand. — 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—and so it was. &quot;I knew how it would be,&quot; said Dumps, as he turned round opposite the Mansion House at half-past eleven o’clock on the Friday morning. &quot;I knew how it would be, I am concerned, and that’s enough;&quot;—and certainly the appearance of the day was sufficient to depress the spirits of a much more buoyant-hearted individual than himself. It had rained, without a moment’s cessation, since eight o’clock; everybody that passed up Cheapside, and down Cheapside, looked wet, cold, and dirty. All sorts of forgotten and long-concealed umbrellas had been put into requisition. Cabs whisked about, with the &quot;fare&quot; as carefully boxed up behind two glazed calico curtains as any mysterious picture in any one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s castles; omnibus horses smoked like steam-engines; nobody thought of &quot;standing up&quot; 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. Dumps paused; he could not think of walking, being rather smart for the christening. If he took a cab he was sure to be spilt, and a hackney-coach was too expensive for his economical ideas. An omnibus was waiting at the opposite corner—it was a desperate case—he had never heard of an omnibus upsetting or running away, and if the cad did knock him down, he could &quot;pull him up&quot; in return. &quot;Now, sir!&quot; cried the young gentleman who officiated as &quot;cad&quot; to the &quot;Lads of the Village,&quot; which was the name of the machine just noticed. Dumps crossed. &quot;This vay, sir!&quot; shouted the driver of the &quot;Hark away,&quot; pulling up his vehicle immediately across the door of the opposition—&quot;This vay, sir—he’s full.&quot; Dumps hesitated, whereupon the &quot;Lads of the Village&quot; commenced pouring out a torrent of abuse against the &quot;Hark away&quot;; but the conductor of the &quot;Admiral Napier&quot; 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. &quot;All right,&quot; said the &quot;Admiral,&quot; 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 boot-jack, and falling about with every jerk of the machine, first on one side, and then on the other, like a &quot;Jack-in-the-green,&quot; on May-day, &quot;setting&quot; to the lady with the brass ladle. &quot;For Heaven’s sake, where am I to sit?&quot; inquired the miserable man of an old gentleman, into whose stomach he had just fallen for the fourth time. &quot;Anywhere but on my chest, sir,&quot; replied the old gentleman, in a surly tone. &quot;Perhaps the box would suit the gentleman better,&quot; suggested a very damp lawyer’s clerk, in a pink shirt and a smirking countenance. 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 wouldn&#039;t 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—only wetter. &quot;Don’t bang the door so,&quot; said Dumps to the conductor, as he shut it after letting out four of the passengers; &quot;I am very nervous—it destroys me.&quot; &quot;Did any gen’lm’n say anythink?&quot; replied the cad, thrusting in his head, and trying to look as if he didn’t understand the request. &quot;I told you not to bang the door so,&quot; repeated Dumps, with an expression of countenance like the knave of clubs, in convulsions. &quot;Oh! vy, it’s rather a sing’ler circumstance about this here door, sir, that it von’t shut without banging,&quot; replied the conductor; and he opened the door very wide, and shut it again with a terrific bang, in proof of the assertion. &quot;I beg your pardon, sir,&quot; said a little prim, wheezing old gentleman, sitting opposite Dumps, &quot;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?&quot; ‘Why, sir,’ returned Dumps, as he heard the clock strike twelve, &quot;it never struck me before; but now you mention it, I—Hollo! hollo!&quot; shouted the persecuted individual, as the omnibus dashed past Drury-lane, where he had directed to be set down.—&quot;Where is the cad?&quot; &quot;I think he’s on the box, sir,&quot; said the young gentleman before noticed in the pink shirt, which looked like a white one ruled with red ink. &quot;I want to be set down!&quot; said Dumps in a faint voice, overcome by his previous efforts. &quot;I think these cads want to be set down,&quot; returned the attorney’s clerk, chuckling at his sally. &quot;Hollo!&quot; cried Dumps again. &quot;Hollo!&quot; echoed the passengers; the omnibus passed St. Giles’s church. &quot;Hold hard!&quot; said the conductor; &quot;I’m blowed if we ha’n’t forgot the gen’lm’n as vas to be set down at Doory-lane.—Now, sir, make haste, if you please,&quot; he added, opening the door, and assisting Dumps out with as much coolness as if it was &quot;all right.&quot; Dumps’s indignation was for once getting the better of his cynical equanimity. &quot;Drury-lane!&quot; he gasped, with the voice of a boy in a cold bath for the first time. &quot;Doory-lane, sir?—yes, sir,—third turning on the right-hand side, sir.&quot; Dumps’ passion was paramount, he clutched his umbrella, and was striding off with the firm determination of not paying the fare. 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. &quot;Hollo!&quot; said that respectable person standing up on the box, and leaning with one hand on the roof of the omnibus. &quot;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. He can’t reject that anyhow.&quot; 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. Everything indicated that preparations were making for the reception of &quot;a few friends&quot; in the evening. Two dozen extra tumblers, and four ditto wine-glasses—looking anything but transparent, with little bits of straw in them — were on the slab in the passage, just arrived. 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 the 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. 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. &quot;Ah, uncle!&quot; said Mr. Kitterbell, &quot;how d’ye do? allow me—Jemima, my dear—my uncle, — I think you’ve seen Jemima before, sir?&quot; &quot;Have had the pleasure,&quot; returned big Dumps, his tone and look making it doubtful whether in his life he had ever experienced the sensation. &quot;I’m sure,&quot; said Mrs. Kitterbell, with a languid smile, and a slight cough. &quot;I’m sure—hem—any friend—of Charles’s—hem—much less a relation, is—&quot; &quot;Knew you’d say so, my love,&quot; said little Kitterbell, who, while he appeared to be gazing on the opposite houses, was looking at his wife with a most affectionate air: &quot;bless you.&quot; The last two words were accompanied with an interesting simper, and a squeeze of the hand, which stirred up all Uncle Dumps’ bile. &quot;Jane, tell nurse to bring down baby,&quot; said Mrs. Kitterbell, addressing the servant. Mrs. Kitterbell was a tall thin young lady with very light hair, and a particularly white face—one of those young women who almost invariably, though one hardly knows why, recal to one’s mind the idea of a cold fillet of veal. 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.—This was the baby. &quot;Now, uncle,&quot; said Mr. Kitterbell, lifting up that part of the mantle which covered the infant’s face, with an air of great triumph, &quot;Who do you think he’s like?&quot; &quot;He! he! Yes, who?&quot; said Mrs. K. putting her arm through her husband’s, and looking up into Dumps’s face with an expression of as much interest as she was capable of displaying. &quot;Good God, how small he is!&quot; cried the amiable uncle, starting back with well-feigned surprise; &quot;remarkably small indeed.&quot; &quot;Do you think so?&quot; inquired poor little Kitterbell, rather alarmed. &quot;He’s a monster to what he was—an’t he, nurse?&quot; &quot;He’s a dear;&quot; said the nurse, squeezing the child, and evading the question—not because she scrupled to disguise the fact, but because she couldn’t afford to throw away the chance of Dumps’ half-crown. &quot;Well, but who is he like?&quot; inquired little Kitterbell. Dumps looked at the little pink heap before him, and only thought at the moment of the best mode of mortifying the youthful parents. &quot;I really don’t know who he’s like,&quot; he answered, very well knowing the reply expected of him. &quot;Don’t you think he’s like me?&quot; inquired his nephew with a knowing air. &quot;Oh, decidedly not!&quot; returned Dumps, with an emphasis not to be misunderstood. &quot;Decidedly not like you.—Oh, certainly not.&quot; &quot;Like Jemima?&quot; asked Kitterbell, faintly. &quot;Oh, dear no; not in the least. I’m no judge, of course, in such cases; but I really think he’s more like one of those little interesting carved representations that one sometimes sees blowing a trumpet on a tombstone!&quot; The nurse stooped down over the child, and with great difficulty prevented an explosion of mirth. Pa and ma looked almost as miserable as their amiable uncle. &quot;Well!&quot; said the disappointed little father, &quot;you’ll be better able to tell what he’s like by-and-by. You shall see him this evening with his mantle off.&quot; &quot;Thank you,&quot; said Dumps, feeling particularly grateful. &quot;Now, my love,&quot; said Kitterbell to his wife, &quot;it’s time we were off. We’re to meet the other godfather and the godmother at the church, uncle,—Mr. and Mrs. Wilson from over the way—uncommonly nice people. My love, are you well wrapped up?&quot; &quot;Yes, dear.&quot; &quot;Are you sure you won’t have another shawl?&quot; inquired the anxious husband. &quot;No, sweet,&quot; returned the charming mother, accepting Dumps’ 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. The ceremony (which occupied about five minutes) passed off without anything particular occurring. The clergyman had to dine some distance from town, and had got two churchings, three christenings, and a funeral to perform in something less than an hour. The godfathers and godmother, therefore, promised to renounce the devil and all his works—&quot;and all that sort of thing,&quot;—as little Kitterbell said—&quot;in less than no time;&quot; 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’clock with a heavy heart, and the painful conviction that he was regularly booked for an evening party. Evening came—and so did Dumps’ pumps, black silk stockings, and white cravat which he had ordered to be forwarded, per boy, from Pentonville. The depressed godfather dressed himself at a friend’s counting-house, from whence, with his spirits fifty degrees below proof, he sallied forth—as the weather had cleared up, and the evening was tolerably fine—to walk to Great Russell-street. 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. 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. The shock so disarranged Dumps’ nerves, as well as his dress, that he could hardly stand. The gentleman took his arm, and in the kindest manner walked with him as far as Furnival’s Inn. 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. &quot;There are at least some well-disposed men in the world,&quot; ruminated the misanthropical Dumps, as he proceeded towards his destination. Rat—tat—ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-rat—knocked a hackney-coachman at Kitterbell’s door, in imitation of a gentleman’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. &quot;It’s a large party,&quot; sighed the unhappy godfather, wiping the perspiration from his forehead, and leaning against the area-railings. 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 green-grocer (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 &quot;How are you?&quot; 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 saw-dust, looking like so many inverted commas, on his inexpressibles. &quot;Good God!&quot; 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. &quot;How many people are there up-stairs?&quot; &quot;Oh, not above thirty-five. We’ve had the carpet taken up in the back drawing-room, and the piano, and the card-tables are in the front. Jemima thought we’d better have a regular sit-down supper, in the front parlour, because of the speechifying, and all that. But, Lord! uncle, what’s the matter?&quot; continued the excited little man, as Dumps stood with one shoe on, rummaging his pockets with the most frightful distortion of visage. &quot;What have you lost? Your pocket-book?&quot; &quot;No,&quot; 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. &quot;Your card-case? snuff-box? the key of your lodgings?&quot; continued Kitterbell, pouring question on question with the rapidity of lightning. &quot;No! no!&quot; ejaculated Dumps, still diving eagerly into his empty pockets. &quot;Not—not—the mug you spoke of this morning?&quot; &quot;Yes, the mug!&quot; replied Dumps, sinking into a chair&quot; &quot;How could you have done it?&quot; inquired Kitterbell. &quot;Are you sure you brought it out?&quot; &quot;Yes! yes! I see it all;&quot; said Dumps, starting up as the idea flashed across his mind; &quot;miserable dog that I am—I was born to suffer. I see it all; it was the gentlemanly-looking young man!&quot; &quot;Mr. Dumps!&quot; shouted the green-grocer in a stentorian voice, as he ushered the somewhat recovered godfather into the drawing-room half an hour after the above declaration. &quot;Mr. Dumps!&quot;—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. &quot;Happy to see you again,&quot; said Mrs. Kitterbell, quite unconscious of the unfortunate man’s confusion and misery; &quot;you must allow me to introduce you to a few of our friends:- my mama, Mr. Dumps—my papa and sisters.&quot; Dumps seized the hand of the mother as warmly as if she was his own parent, bowed to the young ladies, and against a gentleman behind him, and took no notice whatever of the father, who had been bowing incessantly for three minutes and a quarter.&quot; &quot;Uncle,&quot; said little Kitterbell, after Dumps had been introduced to a select dozen or two, &quot;you must let me lead you to the other end of the room, to introduce you to my friend Danton. Such a splendid fellow!—I’m sure you’ll like him—this way.&quot;—Dumps followed as tractably as a tame bear. 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. 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. 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. The introduction took place in due form. Mr. Danton bowed and twirled a lady’s handkerchief, which he held in his hand, in a most comic way. Everybody smiled. &quot;Very warm,&quot; said Dumps, feeling it necessary to say something. &quot;Yes. It was warmer yesterday,&quot; returned the brilliant Mr. Danton.—A general laugh. &quot;I have great pleasure in congratulating you on your first appearance in the character of a father, sir,&quot; he continued, addressing Dumps—&quot;godfather, I mean.&quot;—The young ladies were convulsed, and the gentlemen in ecstasies. A general hum of admiration interrupted the conversation, and announced the entrance of nurse with the baby. An universal rush of the young ladies immediately took place. (Girls are always so fond of babies in company.) &quot;Oh, you dear!&quot; said one. &quot;How sweet!&quot; cried another, in a low tone of the most enthusiastic admiration. &quot;Heavenly!&quot; added a third. &quot;Oh! what dear little arms!&quot; said a fourth, holding up an arm and fist about the size and shape of the leg of a fowl cleanly picked. &quot;Did you ever&quot;—said a little coquette with a large bustle, who looked like a French lithograph, appealing to a gentleman in three waistcoats—&quot;Did you ever—&quot; &quot;Never, in my life,&quot; returned her admirer, pulling up his collar. &quot;Oh, do let me take it, nurse,&quot; cried another young lady. &quot;The love!&quot; &quot;Can it open its eyes, nurse?&quot; inquired another, affecting the utmost innocence.—Suffice it to say, that the single ladies unanimously voted him an angel, and that the married ones, nem. con., agreed that he was decidedly the finest baby they had ever beheld—except their own. The quadrilles were resumed with great spirit. Mr. Danton was universally admitted to be beyond himself, several young ladies enchanted the company and gained admirers by singing &quot;We met&quot;—&quot;I saw her at the Fancy Fair&quot;—&quot;Can I believe Love&#039;s Wreath will pain?&quot; — and other equally sentimental and interesting ballads. &quot;The young men,&quot; as Mrs. Kitterbell said, &quot;made themselves very agreeable;&quot; the girls did not lose their opportunity; and the evening promised to go off excellently. Dumps didn’t mind it: he had devised a plan for himself—a little bit of fun in his own way—and he was almost happy! 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. 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. There was only one drawback—the musicians did not play with quite as much spirit as could have been wished. 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. The &quot;sit-down supper&quot; 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. Then there were fowls, and tongue, and trifle, and sweets, and lobster salad, and potted beef—and everything. And little Kitterbell kept calling out for clean plates, and the clean plates didn&#039;t come: and then the gentlemen who wanted the plates said they didn’t mind, they’d take a lady’s; and then Mrs. Kitterbell applauded their gallantry; and the green-grocer ran about till he thought his 7s.6d. was very hardly earned; and the young ladies didn’t eat much for fear it shouldn’t look romantic, and the married ladies eat as much as possible for fear they shouldn’t have enough; and a great deal of wine was drank, and everybody talked and laughed considerably. &quot;Hush! hush!&quot; said Mr. Kitterbell, rising and looking very important. &quot;My love (this was addressed to his wife at the other end of the table), take care of Mrs. Maxwell, and your mama, and the rest of the married ladies; the gentlemen will persuade the young ladies to fill their glasses, I am sure.&quot; &quot;Ladies and gentlemen,&quot; said long Dumps, in a very sepulchral voice and rueful accent, rising from his chair like the ghost in Don Juan, &quot;will you have the kindness to charge your glasses? I am desirous of proposing a toast.&quot; A dead silence ensued, and the glasses were filled—everybody looked serious—&quot;from gay to grave, from lively to severe.&quot; &quot;Ladies and gentlemen,&quot; slowly continued the ominous Dumps, &quot;I&quot;—(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). &quot;Order! order!&quot; said little Kitterbell, endeavouring to suppress his laughter. &quot;Order!&quot; said the gentlemen. &quot;Danton, be quiet,&quot; said a particular friend on the opposite side of the table. &quot;Ladies and gentlemen,&quot; resumed Dumps, somewhat recovered, and not much disconcerted, for he was always a pretty good hand at a speech—&quot;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—(here the speaker’s voice faltered, for he remembered the mug)—venture to rise to propose a toast. 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—(applause). 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!&quot;—Here the arch-traitor paused, and slowly drew forth a long, white pocket-handkerchief—his example was followed by several ladies. &quot;That these trials may be long spared them is my most earnest prayer, my most fervent wish (a distinct sob from the grandmother). 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 apparently healthy form, may not be wasted by lingering disease. (Here Dumps cast a sardonic glance around, for a great sensation was manifest among the married ladies.) You, I am sure, will concur with me in wishing that he may live to be a comfort and a blessing to his parents. (&#039;Hear, hear!&#039; and an audible sob from Mr. Kitterbell.) But should he not be what we could wish—should he forget in after times, the duty which he owes to them—should they unhappily experience that distracting truth, &#039;how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child&#039;&quot;—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’s favour; for people like sentiment after all. It need hardly be added, that this occurrence quite put a stop to the harmony of the evening. Vinegar, hartshorn, and cold water, were now as much in request as negus, rout-cakes, and bon-bons had been a short time before. Mrs. Kitterbell was immediately conveyed to her apartment, the musicians were silenced, flirting ceased, and the company slowly departed. Dumps left the house at the commencement of the bustle, and walked home with a light step, and (for him) a cheerful heart. 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. 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. 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. He is determined, however, to impose upon him two conditions: 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 &quot;the most miserable man in the world.&quot;18340401https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/The_Bloomsbury_Christening/1834-04-The_Bloomsbury_Christening.pdf
135https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/135'The Boarding-House' (No. 1)<div id="dublin-core-description" class="element"> <div class="element-text">Published in&nbsp;<em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres, </em>May <span>1834, pp. 481-493.</span></div> </div> <div id="dublin-core-creator" class="element"></div>Dickens, Charles<em>Internet Archive,</em><span><br /></span><a href="https://archive.org/details/monthlymagazineo17lond/page/n9/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/monthlymagazineo17lond/page/n9/mode/2up</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-05">1834-05</a><em>Internet Archive,<br /></em><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a><span>. Access to the Archive’s Collections is granted for scholarship and research purposes only.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-05-The_Boarding_House_No1<span>Dickens, Charles. "The Boarding House" (No.1). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-05-The-Boarding_House_No1">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-05-The-Boarding_House_No1</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a>Mrs. Tibbs was, beyond all dispute, the most tidy, fidgetty, 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. 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 as bright as indefatigable white-washing, and hearth-stoning, and scrubbing and rubbing could make them. The wonder was that the brass door-plate, with the interesting inscription &quot;MRS. TIBBS,&quot; had never caught fire from constant friction, so perseveringly was it polished. There were meat-safe-looking wire-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, &quot;all the way up.&quot; 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; the banisters were bees&#039;-waxed; and the very stair-wires made your eyes wink, they were so glittering. Mrs. Tibbs was somewhat short of stature, and Mr. Tibbs was by no means a large man; he had moreover very short legs, but, by way of indemnification, his face was peculiarly long; he was to his wife what the 0 is in 90—he was of some importance with her—he was nothing without her. Mrs. Tibbs was always talking. 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 did it. Mrs. Tibbs detested long stories, and Mr. Tibbs had one, the conclusion of which had never been heard by his most intimate friends. It always began, &quot;I recollect when I was in the volunteer corps, in eighteen hundred and six,&quot;—but, as he spoke very slowly and softly, and his better half very quickly and loudly, he rarely got beyond the introductory sentence. He was a melancholy specimen of the story-teller. He was the wandering Jew of Joe Millerism—ever pursuing and ever shunned. Mr. Tibbs enjoyed a small independence from the pension-list—about 43l. 15s. 10d. a-year. 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. But as this said independence was not quite sufficient to furnish two people with all 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 700l., would be to take and furnish a tolerable house, somewhere in that partially-explored tract of country which lies between the British Museum, and a remote village called Somer&#039;s Town, for the reception of boarders. Great Coram-street was the spot pitched upon. 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 &quot;Six individuals would meet with all the comforts of a cheerful musical home, in a select private family, residing within ten minutes’ walk of everywhere.&quot; 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. &quot;E.&quot; didn’t like this, and &quot;I.&quot; couldn’t think of putting up with that; &quot;I. O. U.&quot; didn’t think the terms would suit him; and &quot;G. R.&quot; had never slept in a French bed. The result, however, was, that three gentlemen became inmates of Mrs. Tibbs’s house, on terms which were &quot;agreeable to all parties.&quot; In went the advertisement again, and a lady with her two daughters, proposed to increase—not their families, but Mrs. Tibbs’. &quot;Charming woman, that Mrs. Maplesone!&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, as she and her spouse were sitting by the fire after breakfast; the gentlemen having gone out on their several avocations. &quot;Charming woman, indeed!&quot; repeated little Mrs. Tibbs, more by way of soliloquy than anything else, for she never thought of consulting her husband. &quot;And the two daughters are delightful. We must have some fish to-day; they’ll join us at dinner for the first time.&quot; Mr. Tibbs placed the poker at right angles with the fire-shovel, and essayed to speak, but recollected he had nothing to say. &quot;The young ladies,&#039; continued Mrs. T., &quot;have kindly volunteered to bring their own piano.&quot; Tibbs thought of the volunteer story, but did not venture it. A bright thought struck him - &quot;It’s very likely,&quot; said he. &quot;Pray don’t lean your head against the paper,&quot; interrupted Mrs. Tibbs — &quot;and don’t put your feet on the steel fender; that’s worse.&quot; Tibbs took his head from the paper, and his feet from the fender; and proceeded. &quot;It’s very likely one of the young ladies may set her cap at young Mr. Simpson, and you know a marriage&quot;—— &quot;A what!&quot; shrieked Mrs. Tibbs. Tibbs modestly repeated his former suggestion. &quot;I beg you won’t mention such a thing,&quot; said Mrs. T. &quot;A marriage, indeed! — to rob me of my boarders—no, not for the world.&quot; 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 &quot;time to go to business.&quot; He always went out at ten o’clock in the morning, and returned at five in the afternoon, with an exceedingly dirty face, and smelling very mouldy. Nobody knew what he was, or where he went to; but Mrs. Tibbs used to say with an air of great importance, that he was engaged in the City. 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. Trunks, bonnet-boxes, muff-boxes, parasols, guitar-cases; and parcels of all imaginable shapes, done up in brown paper, and fastened with pins, filled the passage. 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. Little Mrs. Tibbs was quite in her element, bustling about, talking incessantly, and distributing towels and soap, and all the et ceteras, like a head nurse in a hospital. The house was not restored to its usual state of quiet repose until the ladies were safely shut up in their respective bed-rooms, engaged in the important occupation of dressing for dinner. &quot;Are these gals andsome?&quot; 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. &quot;Don’t know,&quot; 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—a most interesting person; a poetical walker of the hospitals, and a &quot;very talented young man.&quot; He was fond of &quot;lugging&quot; 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. 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. He was as empty-headed as the great bell of St. Paul’s, and had about as long a tongue. He always dressed according to the caricatures, published in Townsend&#039;s monthly fashions; and spelt Character with a K. &quot;I saw a devilish number of parcels in the passage when I came home,&quot; simpered Simpson. &quot;Materials for the toilet, no doubt,&quot; rejoined the Don Juan reader. &quot; — much linen, lace, and several pair Of stockings, slippers, brushes, combs, complete; With other articles of ladies&#039; fair, To keep them beautiful, or leave them neat.&quot; &quot;Is that from Milton?&quot; inquired Mr. Simpson. &quot;No—from Byron,&quot; returned Mr. Hicks, with a look of profound contempt. He was quite sure of his author, because he had never read any other. — &quot;Hush!&quot; said the sapient hospital walker,, &quot;Here come the gals,&quot; and they both commenced talking in a very loud key. &quot;Mrs. Maplesone and the Miss Maplesones, Mr. Hicks. Mr. Hicks—Mrs. Maplesone and the Miss Maplesones,&quot; 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. Mr. Simpson, I beg your pardon—Mr. Simpson—Mrs. Maplesone and the Miss Maplesone&#039;s&quot;—and vice versa. 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. The ladies smiled, curtsied, and glided into chairs, and dived for dropped pockethandkerchiefs; 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. &quot;Julia, my love,&quot; said Mrs. Maplesone to her youngest daughter, in a tone just loud enough for the remainder of the company to hear—&quot;Julia.&quot; &quot;Yes, Ma.&quot; &quot;Don’t stoop.&quot;—This was said for the purpose of directing general attention to Miss Julia’s figure, which was undeniable. Everybody looked at her, accordingly, and there was another pause. &quot;We had the most uncivil hackney-coachman to-day, you can imagine,&quot; said Mrs. Maplesone to Mrs. Tibbs, in a truly confidential tone. &quot;Dear me!&quot; replied the hostess, with an air of great commiseration. She couldn’t say more, for the servant again appeared at the door, and commenced telegraphing most earnestly to her &quot;Misses.&quot; &quot;I think hackney-coachmen generally are uncivil,&quot; said Mr. Hicks in his most insinuating tone. &quot;Positively I think they are,&quot; replied Mrs. Maplesone, as if the idea had never struck her before. &quot;And cabmen, too,&quot; said Mr. Simpson. This remark was a failure, for no one intimated by word or sign the slightest knowledge of the manners and customs of cabmen. &quot;Robinson, what do you want?&quot; 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. &quot;Please, ma’am, master wants his clean things,&quot; replied the servant, taken off her guard. There was no resisting this: the two young men turned their faces to the window, and &quot;went off&quot; like a couple of bottles of ginger-beer; the ladies put their cambrics to their mouths, and little Mrs. Tibbs bustled out of the room to give Tibbs his clean linen,—and the servant warning. Mr. Calton, the remaining boarder, shortly afterwards made his appearance, and proved a surprising promoter of the conversation. Mr. Calton was a superannuated beau—an old boy. He used to say of himself, that although his features were not regularly handsome, they were striking. They certainly were: 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. He had stood still while everything else had been moving. He never originated a conversation, or started a new idea; but if any common-place topic were broached, or, to pursue the comparison, if anybody lifted him up, he would hammer away with surprising rapidity. He had the tic douloreux 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. He had never been married; but he was still on the look-out for a wife with money. He had a life interest worth about 300l. a year—he was exceedingly vain, and inordinately selfish. He had acquired the reputation of being the very pink of politeness; and he walked round the park, and up Regent-street, every day. This respectable personage had made up his mind to render himself exceedingly agreeable to Mrs. Maplesone—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 some reason to believe the ladies were fortunes, and to hint to the ladies, that all the gentlemen were &quot;eligible.&quot; A little flirtation, she thought, might keep her house full, without leading to any other result. Mrs. Maplesone was an enterprising widow of about fifty; shrewd, scheming, and good-looking. 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—she could have no other motive. The &quot;dear girls&quot; themselves were not at all insensible to the merits of &quot;a good establishment.&quot; One of them was twenty-five; the other three years younger. 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—in short, they had done all that industrious girls could do, and all to no purpose. &quot;What a magnificent dresser Mr. Simpson is!&quot; whispered Miss Matilda Maplesone to her sister Julia. &quot;Splendid!&quot; returned the youngest. The magnificent individual alluded to wore a maroon-coloured dress-coat, with a velvet collar and cuffs of the same tint—very like that which usually invests the form of the distinguished unknown who condescends to play the &quot;swell&quot; in the pantomime at &quot;Richardson’s Show.&quot; &quot;What whiskers!&quot; said Miss Julia. &quot;Charming!&quot; responded her sister; &quot;and what hair!&quot; His hair was like a wig, and distinguished by that insinuating wave which graces the shining locks of those chef-d’oeuvres of art surmounting the waxen images in Bartellot’s window in Regent-street; and his whiskers, meeting beneath his chin, seemed strings wherewith to tie it on, ere science had rendered them unnecessary by her patent invisible springs. &quot;Dinner’s on the table, ma’am, if you please,&quot; said the boy, who now appeared for the first time, in a revived black coat of his master’s. &quot;Oh! Mr. Calton, will you lead Mrs. Maplesone?—Thank you.&quot; Mr. Simpson offered his arm to Miss Julia; Mr. Septimus Hicks escorted the lovely Matilda; and the procession proceeded to the dining-room. 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. The boarders were seated, a lady and gentleman alternately, like the layers of bread and meat in a sandwich; and then Mrs. Tibbs directed James to take off the covers, and 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. &quot;Soup for Mrs. Maplesone, my dear,&quot; said the bustling Mrs. Tibbs. She always called her husband &quot;my dear&quot; before company. 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. &quot;Miss Julia, shall I assist you to some fish?&quot; &quot;If you please—very little—oh! plenty, thank you;&quot; (a bit about the size of a walnut put upon the plate). &quot;Julia is a very little eater,&quot; said Mrs. Maplesone to Mr. Calton. The knocker gave a single rap. He was busy eating the fish with his eyes: so he only ejaculated, &quot;Ah!&quot; &quot;My dear,&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs to her spouse after every one else had been helped, &quot;what do you take?&quot; The inquiry was accompanied with a look intimating that he mustn’t say fish, because there was not much left. Tibbs thought the frown referred to the island on the table-cloth; he therefore coolly replied, &quot;Why—I’ll take a little—fish, I think.&quot; &quot;Did you say fish, my dear?&quot; (another frown.) &quot;Yes, dear,&quot; replied the villain, with an expression of acute hunger depicted in his countenance. The tears almost started to Mrs. Tibbs’s eyes, as she helped her &quot;wretch of a husband,&quot; as she inwardly called him, to the last eatable bit of salmon on the dish. &quot;James, take this to your master, and take away your master’s knife.&quot; This was deliberate revenge, as Tibbs never could eat fish without one. He was, however, constrained to chase small particles of salmon round and round his plate with a piece of bread and a fork, occasionally securing a bit; the number of successful attempts being about one in seventeen. &quot;Take away, James,&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, as Tibbs swallowed the fourth mouthful—and away went the plates like lightning. &quot;I’ll take a bit of bread, James,&quot; said the poor &quot;master of the house,&quot; more hungry than ever. &quot;Never mind your master now, James,&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, &quot;see about the meat.&quot; — 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. A pause ensued before the table was replenished—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—except Tibbs: no one ever thought of him. Between the fish and an intimated sirloin there was a prolonged interval. Here was an opportunity for Mr. Hicks. He could not resist the singularly appropriate quotation: - &quot;But beef is rare within these oxless isles; Goats’ flesh there is, no doubt, and kid, and mutton, And when a holiday upon them smiles, A joint upon their barbarous spits they put on.&quot; &quot;Very ungentlemanly behaviour,&quot; thought little Mrs. Tibbs, &quot;to talk in that way.&quot; &quot;Ah,&quot; said Mr. Calton, filling his glass. &quot;Tom Moore is my poet.&quot; &quot;And mine,&quot; said Mrs. Maplesone. &quot;And mine,&quot; said Miss Julia. &quot;And mine,&quot; added Mr. Simpson. &quot;Look at his compositions,&quot; resumed the knocker. &quot;To be sure,&quot; said Simpson, with confidence. &quot;Look at Don Juan,&quot; replied Mr. Septimus Hicks. &quot;Julia’s letter,&quot; suggested Miss Matilda. &quot;Can anything be grander than The Fire Worshippers?&quot; inquired Miss Julia. &quot;To be sure,&quot; said Simpson. &quot;Or Paradise and the Peri,&quot; said the old beau. &quot;Yes; or Paradise and the Peer,&quot; repeated the deeply-read Simpson, who thought he was getting through it capitally. &quot;It’s all very well,&quot; replied Mr. Septimus Hicks, who, as we have before hinted, never had read anything but Don Juan. Where will you find anything finer than the description of the siege, at the commencement of the seventh canto?&quot; &quot;Talking of a siege,&quot; said Tibbs, with a mouthful of bread—&quot;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—&quot; &quot;Tell your master, James,&quot; interrupted Mrs. Tibbs, in an awfully distinct tone, &quot;tell your master if he won’t carve those fowls, to send them to me.&quot; The discomfited volunteer instantly set to work, and carved the fowls almost as expeditiously as his wife operated on the haunch of mutton. Whether he ever finished that story is not exactly known. As the ice was now broken, and the new inmates more at home, every member of the company felt more at ease. Tibbs himself most certainly did, because he went to sleep immediately after dinner. Mr. Hicks and the ladies discoursed most eloquently about poetry, and the theatres, and Lord Chesterfield’s Letters; and Mr. Calton followed up what everybody said, with continuous double knocks. 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 &quot;Yes,&quot; or &quot;Certainly,&quot; at intervals of about four minutes each, he received full credit for understanding what was going forward. The gentlemen rejoined the ladies in the drawing-room very shortly after they had left the dining-parlour. Mrs. Maplesone and Mr. Calton played cribbage, and the &quot;young people&quot; amused themselves with music and conversation. The Miss Maplesones sang the most fascinating duets, and accompanied themselves on guitars, ornamented with bits of ethereal blue ribbon. 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,—it was the same thing to him. Mrs. Tibbs was quite charmed with the new comers, and Mr. Tibbs spent the evening in his usual way—he went to sleep, and woke up, and went to sleep again, and woke at supper-time. We are not about to adopt the licence of novel-writers, and to let &quot;years roll on;&quot; 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’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; and we will beg them, the period we have mentioned having elapsed, to imagine further, that Mr. Septimus Hicks received, in his own bed-room (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’s) dressing-room on the second-floor back. &quot;Tell Mr. Calton I’ll come down directly,&quot; said Mr. Septimus to the boy. &quot;Stop—Is Mr. Calton unwell?&quot; inquired this excited walker of hospitals, as he put on a bed-furniture-looking dressing-gown. &quot;Not as I knows on, Sir,&quot; replied the boy. &quot;Please, Sir, he looked rather rum, as it might be.&quot; &quot;Ah, that’s no proof of his being ill,&quot; returned Hicks, unconsciously. &quot;Very well: I’ll be down directly.&quot; Down stairs ran the boy with the message, and down went the excited Hicks himself, almost as soon as the message was delivered. &quot;Tap, tap.&quot; &quot;Come in.&quot;—Door opens, and discovers Mr. Calton sitting in an easy chair, and looking more like a knocker than ever. Mutual shakes of the hand exchanged, and Mr. Septimus Hicks motioned to a seat. A short pause. Mr. Hicks coughed, and Mr. Calton took a pinch of snuff. It was just one of those interviews where neither party knows what to say. Mr. Septimus Hicks broke silence. &quot;I received a note—&quot; he said, very tremulously, in a voice like a Punch with a cold. &quot;Yes,&quot; returned the other, &quot;you did.&quot; &quot;Exactly.&quot; &quot;Yes.&quot; 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—they looked at the table with a most determined aspect. The conversation had been opened, however, and Mr. Calton had made up his mind to continue it with a regular double knock. He always spoke very pompously. &quot;Hicks,&quot; said he, &quot;I have sent for you in consequence of certain arrangements which are pending in this house, connected with a marriage.&quot; &quot;With a marriage!&quot; gasped Hicks, compared with whose expression of countenance, Hamlet’s, when he sees his father’s ghost, is pleasing and composed. &quot;With a marriage!&quot; returned the knocker. &quot;I have sent for you to prove the great confidence I can repose in you.&quot; &quot;And will you betray me?&quot; eagerly inquired Hicks, who in his alarm had even forgotten to quote. I betray you! Won’t you betray me?&quot; &quot;Never: no one shall know, to my dying day, that you had a hand in the business,&quot; 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. &quot;People must know that, some time or other—within a year, I imagine,&quot; said Mr. Calton, with an air of great self-complacency. &quot;We may have a family.&quot; &quot;We!—That won’t affect you, surely?&quot; &quot;The devil it won’t!&quot; &quot;No! How can it?&quot; said the bewildered Hicks. 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, &quot;Oh, Matilda!&quot; sighed the antique beau, in a lack-a-daysical voice, and applying his right hand a little to the left of the fourth button of his waistcoat, counting from the bottom. This was meant to be pathetic - &quot;Oh, Matilda!&quot; &quot;What Matilda?&quot; inquired Hicks, starting up. &quot;Matilda Maplesone,&quot; responded the other, doing the same. &quot;I marry her to-morrow morning,&quot; said Hicks, furiously. &quot;It’s false,&quot; rejoined his companion: &quot;I marry her!&quot; &quot;You marry her?&quot; &quot;I marry her!&quot; &quot;You marry Matilda Maplesone?&quot; &quot;Matilda Maplesone.&quot; &quot;Miss Maplesone marry you?&quot; &quot;Miss Maplesone! No; Mrs. Maplesone.&quot; &quot;Good Heaven!&quot; said Hicks, falling into his chair like Ward in Gustavus: &quot;You marry the mother, and I the daughter!&quot; &quot;Most extraordinary circumstance!&quot; replied Mr. Calton, &quot;and rather inconvenient too; for the fact is, that owing to Matilda’s wishing to keep her intention secret from her daughters until the ceremony had taken place, she doesn’t like applying to any of her friends to give her away. 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’d oblige me by acting as father.&quot; &quot;I should have been most happy, I assure you,&quot; said Hicks, in a tone of condolence; &quot;but, you see, I shall be acting as bridegroom. One character is frequently a consequence of the other; but it is no usual to act in both at the same time. There’s Simpson—I have no doubt he’ll do it for you.&quot; &quot;I don’t like to ask him,&quot; replied Calton, &quot;he’s such a donkey.&quot; Mr. Septimus Hicks looked up at the ceiling and down at the floor; at last an idea struck him — &quot;Let the man of the house, Tibbs, be the father,&quot; he suggested; and then he quoted, as peculiarly applicable to Tibbs and the pair - &quot;Oh Powers of Heaven! what dark eyes meeets she there? &#039;Tis—’tis her father’s—fixed upon the pair.&quot; &quot;The idea has struck me already,&quot; said Mr. Calton: &quot;but, you see, Matilda, for what reason I know not, is very anxious that Mrs. Tibbs should know nothing about it, till it’s all over. It’s a natural delicacy, after all, you know.&quot; &quot;He’s the best-natured little man in existence, if you manage him properly,&quot; said Mr. Septimus Hicks. &quot;Tell him not to mention it to his wife, and assure him she won’t mind it, and he’ll do it directly. My marriage is to be a secret one, on account of the mother and my father; therefore he must be enjoined to secrecy.&quot; A small double knock, like a presumptuous single one, was that instant heard at the street door. It was Tibbs; it could be no one else; for no one else occupied five minutes in rubbing their shoes. He had been out to pay the baker’s bill. &quot;Mr. Tibbs,&quot; called Mr. Calton in a very bland tone, looking over the banisters. &quot;Sir!&quot; replied he of the dirty face. &quot;Will you have the kindness to step up-stairs for a moment.&quot; &quot;Certainly, sir,&quot; said Tibbs, delighted to be taken notice of. The bed-room door was carefully closed, and Tibbs, having put his hat on the floor (as all timid men do), and been accommodated with a seat, looked as astounded as if he were suddenly summoned before the familiars of the Inquisition. &quot;A rather unpleasant occurrence, Mr. Tibbs,&quot; said Calton, in a very portentous manner, &quot;obliges me to consult you, and to beg you will not communicate what I am about to say to your wife.&quot; 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. Mr. Calton resumed; &quot;I am placed, Mr. Tibbs, in rather an unpleasant situation.&quot; Tibbs looked at Mr. Septimus Hicks, as if he thought his being in the immediate vicinity of his fellow-boarder constituted the unpleasantness of his situation; but as he did not exactly know what to say, he merely ejaculated the monosyllable &quot;Lor!&quot; &quot;Now,&quot; continued the knocker, &quot;let me beg you will exhibit no manifestations of surprise, which may be overheard by the domestics, when I tell you—command your feelings of astonishment—that two inmates of this house intend to be married to-morrow morning,&quot; — and he drew back his chair several feet to perceive the effect of the unlooked-for announcement. If Tibbs had rushed from the room, staggered down stairs, and fainted in the passage—if he had instantaneously jumped out of the window into the mews behind the house, in an agony of surprise —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, &quot;Just so.&quot; &quot;You are not surprised, Mr. Tibbs?&quot; inquired Mr. Calton. &quot;Bless you, no, sir,&quot; returned Tibbs; &quot;after all, it&#039;s very natural. When two young people get together, you know—&quot; &quot;Certainly, certainly,&quot; said Calton, with an indescribable air of self-satisfaction. &quot;You don’t think it’s at all an out-of-the-way affair then?&quot; asked Mr. Septimus Hicks, who had watched the countenance of Tibbs in mute astonishment. &quot;No, Sir,&quot; replied Tibbs; &quot;I was just the same at his age.&quot; He actually smiled when he said this. &quot;How devilish well I must carry my years!&quot; thought the delighted old beau, knowing he was at least ten years older than Tibbs at that moment. &quot;Well, then, to come to the point at once,&quot; he continued, &quot;I have to ask you whether you will object to act as father on the occasion?&quot; &quot;Certainly not,&quot; replied Tibbs; still without evincing an atom of surprise. ‘You will not?’ &quot;Decidedly not,&quot; reiterated Tibbs, still as calm as a pot of porter with the head off. Mr. Calton seized the hand of the petticoat-governed little man, and vowed eternal friendship from that hour. Hicks, who was all admiration and surprise, did the same. &quot;Now, confess,&quot; asked Mr. Calton of Tibbs, as he picked up his hat, &quot;were you not a little surprised?&quot; &quot;I b’lieve you!&quot; replied that illustrious person, holding up one hand; &quot;I b’lieve you! when I first heard of it.&quot; &quot;So sudden,&quot; said Septimus Hicks. &quot;So strange to ask me, you know,&quot; said Tibbs. &quot;So odd altogether,&quot; said the superannuated love-maker; and then all three laughed. &quot;I say,&quot; said Tibbs, shutting the door which he had previously opened, and giving full vent to a hitherto corked-up giggle, &quot;what bothers me is, what will his father say?&quot; Mr. Septimus Hicks looked at Mr. Calton. &quot;Yes; but the best of it is,&quot; said the latter, giggling in his turn, &quot;I haven’t got a father—he! he! he!&quot; &quot;You haven’t got a father. No; but he has,&quot; said Tibbs. &quot;Who has?&quot; inquired Septimus Hicks. &quot;Why, him.&quot; &quot;Him, who? Do you know my secret? Do you mean me?&quot; &quot;You! No; you know who I mean,&quot; returned Tibbs, with a knowing wink. &quot;For Heaven’s sake, whom do you mean?&quot; inquired Mr. Calton, who, like Septimus Hicks, was all but out of his senses at the strange confusion. &quot;Why Mr. Simpson, of course,&quot; replied Tibbs; &quot;who else could I mean?&quot; &quot;I see it all,&quot; said the Byron-quoter; &quot;Simpson marries Julia Maplesone to-morrow morning!&quot; &quot;Undoubtedly,&quot; replied Tibbs, thoroughly satisfied, &quot;of course he does.&quot; It would require the pencil of Hogarth to illustrate—our feeble pen is inadequate to describe—the expression which the countenances of Mr. Calton and Mr. Septimus Hicks respectively assumed at this unexpected announcement. 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. Whatever they were, however, they were successful. 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. They agreed, however, that it would have a much better appearance if each feigned ignorance of the other’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. Hence the mystification of Mr. Calton and Mr. Septimus Hicks, and the pre-engagement of the unwary Tibbs. On the following morning, Mr. Septimus Hicks was united to Miss Matilda Maplesone. Mr. Simpson also entered into a &quot;holy alliance&quot; with Miss Julia, Tibbs acting as father, &quot;his first appearance in that character.&quot; 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. The lady, however, &quot;appealed,&quot; as her counsel said on the trial of the cause, Maplesone v. Calton, for a breach of promise, &quot;with a broken heart, to the outraged laws of her country.&quot; She recovered damages to the amount of 1,000l. which the unfortunate knocker was compelled to pay, because he had declined to ring the belle. Mr. Septimus Hicks having walked the hospitals, took it into his head to walk off altogether. His injured wife is at present residing with her mother at Boulonge. 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’s bill), and being disinherited by his father, who died soon afterwards, was fortunate enough to obtain a permanent engagement at a fashionable hair-cutter’s; hair dressing being a science to which he had frequently directed his attention. 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. 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 exaggeration, cant, and maudlin quackery continues to exist, cannot fail to instruct and amuse the thinking portion of the community. It only remains to add, that this &quot;complication of disorders&quot; completely deprived poor Mrs. Tibbs of all her inmates, except the one whom it would have afforded her the greatest pleasure to lose —her husband. 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. 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’s order for his exclusive accommodation. It is very likely that he will be enabled to finish there his story of the volunteers. The advertisement has again appeared in the morning papers. Whether it will be productive of any beneficial result, we of course are unable to foretell. If it should, we may, perhaps, at no distant period, return to Mrs. Tibbs and her &quot;Boarding-House.&quot;18340501https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/The_Boarding-House_[No._1]/1834-05-The_Boarding_House_No1.pdf
148https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/148'The Boarding-House' (No.2)Published in <em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres,</em>&nbsp;August 1834, pp. 177-192.Dickens, Charles<em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres.</em> August 1834, pp. 177-192, <em>Internet Archive</em>, <a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_monthly-magazine_1834_18_index/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/sim_monthly-magazine_1834_18_index/mode/2up</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-08">1834-08</a><em>Internet Archive,</em> <a href="https://archive.org/about.terms.php">https://archive.org/about.terms.php</a>. Access to the Archive's Collections is granted for scholarship and research purposes only.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-08-The_Boarding_House_No2Dickens, Charles. "The Boarding House" (No.2). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-08-The_Boarding_House_No2">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-08-The_Boarding_House_No2</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>&quot;Well,&quot; 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 landing;—&quot;well! things have not turned out so badly either, and if I only get a favourable answer to the advertisement, we shall be full again.&quot; 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. The house was as quiet as possible. There was only one low sound to be heard—it was the unhappy Tibbs cleaning the gentlemen’s boots in the back kitchen, and accompanying himself with a buzzing noise, in wretched mockery of humming a tune. The postman drew near the house. He paused—so did Mrs. Tibbs—a knock—a bustle—a letter—post-paid. &quot;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’clock to-morrow morning. &quot;T. I. as To apoligise to I. T. for the shortness Of the notice But i hope it will not unconvenience you. &quot;I remain &quot;yours Truly &quot;Wednesday evening.&quot; 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 &quot;I&quot; for the &quot;T. I,&quot; and the transition from the &quot;I. T.&quot; to the you.&quot; 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. 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. One thing, however, was perfectly clear to the perplexed Mrs. Tibbs. Somebody was to call at twelve. 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. Down went the piece of stair-carpet before noticed, and up ran Mrs. Tibbs &quot;to make herself tidy.&quot; 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. The visitor (who was very fat and red-faced) was shown into the drawing-room; Mrs. Tibbs presented herself, and the negociation commenced. &quot;I called in consequence of an advertizement,&quot; said the stranger, in a voice like a man who had been playing a set of Pan’s pipes for a fortnight without leaving off. &quot;Yes!&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, rubbing her hands very slowly, and looking the applicant full in the face—two things she always did on such occasions. &quot;Money isn’t no object whatever to me,&quot; said the lady, &quot;so much as living in a state of retirement and obtrusion.&quot; Mrs. Tibbs, as a matter of course, acquiesced in such an exceedingly natural desire. &quot;I am constantly attended by a medical man,&quot; resumed the pelisse wearer; &quot;have been a shocking unitarian for some time—have had very little peace since the death of Mr. Bloss.&quot; Mrs. Tibbs looked at the relict of the departed Bloss, and thought he must have had very little peace in his time. Of course she could not say so; so she looked very sympathising. &quot;I shall be a good deal of trouble to you,&quot; said Mrs. Bloss; &quot;but, for that trouble I am willing to pay. I am going through a course of treatment which renders attention necessary. I have one mutton chop in bed at half-past eight, and another at ten, every morning.&quot; Mrs. Tibbs, as in duty bound, expressed the pity she felt for any body placed in such a distressing situation; and the carnivorous Mrs. Bloss proceeded to arrange the various preliminaries with wonderful despatch. &quot;Now mind,&quot; said that lady, after terms were arranged; &quot;I am to have the second-floor front for my bedroom?&quot; &quot;Yes, ma’am.&quot; &quot;And you’ll find room for my little servant Agnes?&quot; &quot;Oh! certainly.&quot; &quot;And I can have one of the cellars in the area for my bottled porter.&quot; &quot;With the greatest pleasure;—James shall get it ready for you by Saturday.&quot; &quot;And I’ll join the company at the breakfast-table on Sunday morning,&quot; said Mrs. Bloss. &quot;I shall get up on purpose.&quot; &quot;Very well,&quot; returned Mrs. Tibbs, in her most amiable tone; for satisfactory references had &quot;been given and required,&quot; and it was quite certain that the new comer had plenty of money. &quot;It’s rather singular,&quot; continued Mrs. Tibbs, with what was meant for a most bewitching smile, &quot;that we have a gentleman now with us, who is in a very delicate state of health—a Mr. Gobler.—His apartment is the back drawing-room.&quot; &quot;The next room?&quot; inquired Mrs. Bloss. &quot;The next room,&quot; repeated the hostess. &quot;How very promiscuous!&quot; ejaculated the widow. &quot;He hardly ever gets up,&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs in a whisper. &quot;Lor!&quot; cried Mrs. Bloss, in an equally low tone. &quot;And when he is up,&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, &quot;we never can persuade him to go to bed again.&quot; &quot;Dear me!&quot; said the astonished Mrs. Bloss, drawing her chair nearer Mrs. Tibbs. &quot;What is his complaint?&quot; &quot;Why, the fact is,&quot; replied Mrs. Tibbs, with a most communicative air, &quot;he has no stomach whatever.&quot; &quot;No what?&quot; inquired Mrs. Bloss, with a look of the most indescribable alarm. &quot;No stomach,&quot; repeated Mrs. Tibbs, with a shake of the head. &quot;Lord bless us! what an extraordinary case!&quot; 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. &quot;When I say he has no stomach,&quot; explained the chatty little Mrs. Tibbs, &quot;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;—in fact, it’s rather an inconvenience than otherwise.&quot; &quot;Never heard such a case in my life!&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Bloss. &quot;Why, he’s worse than I am.&quot; &quot;Oh, yes!&quot; replied Mrs. Tibbs;—&quot;certainly.&quot; She said this with great confidence, for the set of the damson pelisse satisfactorily proved that Mrs. Bloss, at all events, was not suffering under Mr. Gobler’s complaint. &quot;You have quite incited my curiosity,&quot; said Mrs. Bloss, as she rose to depart. &quot;How I long to see him!&quot; &quot;He generally comes down once a week,&quot; replied Mrs. Tibbs; &quot;I dare say you’ll see him on Sunday.&quot; And with this consolatory promise Mrs. Bloss was obliged to be contented. 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. 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. 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. Her deceased better-half had been an eminent cork-cutter, in which capacity he had amassed a decent fortune. He had no relative but his nephew, and no friend but his cook. 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 100l a year), and a bequest of his whole property to his wife. He felt ill after breakfast, and died after dinner. There is a mantelpiece-looking tablet in a civic parish church, setting forth his virtues, and deploring his loss. He never dishonoured a bill, or gave away a halfpenny! The relict and sole executrix of this noble-minded man was an odd mixture of shrewdness and simplicity, liberality and meanness. 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 very ill—an impression which was most assiduously promoted by her medical attendant, Dr. Wosky, and her handmaid, Agnes, both of whom, doubtless for excellent reasons, encouraged all her extravagant notions. Since the catastrophe recorded in our last, Mrs. Tibbs had been very shy of young lady boarders. 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. The gentlemen received the communication with stoical indifference, and Mrs. Tibbs devoted all her energies to prepare for the reception of the valetudinarian. The second-floor front was scrubbed, and washed, and flannelled, till the wet went through to the drawing-room ceiling. 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. The warming-pan was in constant requisition, and a fire lighted in the room every day. The chattels of Mrs. Bloss were forwarded by instalments. First there came a large hamper of Guinness’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—&quot;though last not least&quot;—Mrs. Bloss and Agnes, the latter in a cherry-coloured merino dress, open-work stockings, and shoes with sandals; looking like a disguised Columbine. 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. 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. 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 two-grain calomel pill, a pint-bottle of stout, and other medicines, were carried up stairs for her consumption. &quot;Why, what do you think, ma’am?&quot; inquired the inquisitive Agnes of her mistress, after they had been in the house some three hours; &quot;what do you think, ma’am? the lady of the house is married.&quot; &quot;Married!&quot; said Mrs. Bloss, taking the pill and a draught of Guinness—&quot;married! Unpossible!&quot; &quot;She is indeed, ma’am,&quot; returned the Columbine; &quot;and her husband, ma’am, lives—he—he—he—lives in the kitchen, ma’am.&quot; &quot;In the kitchen!&quot; &quot;Yes, ma’am: and he—he—he—the housemaid says, he never goes into the parlour except on Sundays; and that Ms. Tibbs makes him clean the gentlemen’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—&#039;Ah! Mr. Calton, Sir, how are you?&#039;&quot; Here the attendant laughed till Mrs. Bloss was in serious apprehension of her chuckling herself into a fit. &quot;Well, I never!&quot; said Mrs. Bloss. &quot;Yes, and please, ma’am, the servants give him gin-and-water sometimes; and then he cries, and says he hates his wife and the boarders, and wants to tickle them.&quot; &quot;Tickle the boarders!&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Bloss, seriously alarmed. &quot;No, ma’am, not the boarders, the servants.&quot; &quot;Oh, is that all!&quot; said Mrs. Bloss, quite satisfied. &quot;He wanted to kiss me as I came up the kitchen-stairs, just now,&quot; said Agnes, indignantly; &quot;but I gave it him—a little wretch!&quot; This intelligence was but too true. 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. He had no one to whom he could detail his injuries but the servants, and they were almost of necessity his chosen confidants. 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. He was actually a sort of journeyman Giovanni in the basement story. The next morning, being Sunday, breakfast was laid in the front parlour at ten o’clock. Nine was the usual time, but the family always breakfasted an hour later on Sabbath. Tibbs enrobed himself in his Sunday costume—a black coat, and exceedingly short thin trowsers, with a very large white waistcoat, white stockings and cravat, and Blucher boots—and mounted to the parlour aforesaid. Nobody had come down, and he amused himself by drinking the contents of the milk-pot with a tea-spoon. A pair of slippers were heard descending the stairs; Tibbs flew to a chair, and a stern-looking man of about fifty, with very little hair on his head, and &quot;The Examiner&quot; in his hand, entered the room. &quot;Good morning, Mr. Evenson,&quot; said Tibbs, very humbly, with something between a nod and a bow. &quot;How do you do, Mr. Tibbs?&quot; replied he of the slippers, as he sat himself down, and began to read his paper without saying another word. &quot;Is Mr. Wisbottle in town to-day do you know, Sir?&quot; inquired Tibbs, just for the sake of saying something. &quot;I should think he was,&quot; replied the stern gentleman. &quot;He was whistling &#039;The Light Guitar,&#039; in the next room to mine, at five o’clock this morning.&quot; &quot;He’s very fond of whistling,&quot; said Tibbs, with a slight smirk. &quot;Yes—I an’t,&quot; was the laconic reply. Mr. John Evenson was in the receipt of an independent income, arising chiefly from various houses he owned in the different suburbs. He was very morose and discontented. 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. Mr. Wisbottle, on the other hand, was a high Tory. 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. He had a good set of teeth, and a capital tailor. 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. It should be added, that, in addition to his partiality for whistling, Mr. Wisbottle had a great idea of his singing powers. There were two other boarders, besides the gentleman in the back drawing-room—Mr. Alfred Tomkins, and Mr. Frederick O’Bleary. Mr. Tomkins was a clerk in a wine-house; he was a connoisseur in paintings, and had a wonderful eye for the picturesque. Mr. O’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—he was not particular. He was on familiar terms with two small Irish members, and got franks for everybody in the house. Like all Irishmen when they first come to England, he felt convinced that his intrinsic merits must procure him a high destiny. He wore shepherds&#039;-plaid inexpressibles, and used to look under all the ladies’ bonnets as he walked along the streets. His manners and appearance always forcibly reminded one of Orson. &quot;Here comes Mr. Wisbottle,&quot; said Tibbs; and Mr. Wisbottle forthwith appeared in blue slippers, and a shawl dressing-gown, whistling &quot;Di piacer.&quot; &quot;Good morning, Sir,&quot; said Tibbs again. It was about the only thing he ever said to any body. &quot;How are you, Tibbs?&quot; condescendingly replied the amateur; and he walked to the window, and whistled louder than ever. &quot;Pretty air, that!&quot; said Evenson with a snarl, and without taking his eyes off the paper. &quot;Glad you like it,&quot; replied Wisbottle, highly gratified. &quot;Don’t you think it would sound better, if you whistled it a little louder?&quot; inquired the mastiff. &quot;No; I don’t think it would,&quot; rejoined the unconscious Wisbottle. &quot;I’ll tell you what, Wisbottle,&quot; said Evenson, who had been bottling up his anger for some hours,&quot;the next time you feel disposed to whistle &#039;The Light Guitar,&#039; at five o’clock in the morning, I’ll trouble you to whistle it with your head out o’ window. If you don’t, I’ll learn the triangle—I will, by—.&quot; The entrance of Mrs. Tibbs (with the keys in a little basket) interrupted the threat, and prevented its conclusion. Mrs. Tibbs apologized for being down rather late; the bell was rung; James brought up the urn, and received an unlimited order for dry toast and bacon. Tibbs sat down at the bottom of the table and began eating water-cresses like a Nebuchadnezzar. Mr. O’Bleary appeared and Mr. Alfred Tomkins. The compliments of the morning were exchanged, and the tea was made. &quot;God bless me,&quot; exclaimed Tomkins, who had been looking out at window. &quot;Here—Wisbottle—pray come here; make haste.&quot; Mr. Wisbottle started from table, and every one looked up. &quot;Do you see,&quot; said the connoisseur, placing Wisbottle in the right position—&quot;a little more this way: there—do you see how splendidly the light falls upon the left side of that broken chimney-pot at No. 48?&quot; &quot;Dear me—I see,&quot; replied Wisbottle, in a tone of admiration. &quot;I never saw an object stand out so beautifully against the clear sky in my life,&quot; ejaculated Alfred. Every body (except John Evenson) echoed the sentiment, for Mr. Tomkins had a great character for finding out beauties which no one else could discover—he certainly deserved it. &quot;I have frequently observed a chimney-pot in College-green, Dublin, which has a much better effect,&quot; said the patriotic O’Bleary, who never allowed Ireland to be outdone on any point. 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. 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 the dimensions of a breakfast-cup; a chain like a gilt street-door chain, and a splendid assortment of rings, with stones about the size of half-crowns. A general rush was made for a chair, and a regular introduction took place. Mr. John Evenson made a slight inclination of the head: Mr. Frederick O’Bleary, Mr. Alfred Tomkins, and Mr. Wisbottle bowed like the mandarins in a grocer’s shop; and Tibbs rubbed his hands, and went round in circles. 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. We repel the calumny, and challenge contradiction. Mrs. Tibbs inquired after Mrs. Bloss’s health in a low tone. 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. &quot;You must have been very much pleased with the appearance of the ladies going to the drawing-room the other day, Mr. O’Bleary?&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, hoping to start a topic. &quot;Yes;&quot; replied Orson, with a mouthful of toast. &quot;Never saw any thing like it before, I suppose?&quot; suggested Wisbottle. &quot;No—except the Lord Lieutenant’s levees,&quot; replied O’Bleary. &quot;Are they at all equal to our drawing-rooms?&quot; &quot;Oh, infinitely superior.&quot; &quot;Gad I don’t know,&quot; said the aristocratic Wisbottle, &quot;the Dowager Marchioness of Publiccash was most magnificently dressed, and so was the Baron Slappenbachenhausen.&quot; &quot;What was he presented on?&quot; inquired Evenson. &quot;On his arrival in England.&quot; &quot;I thought so,&quot; growled the radical; &quot;you never hear of these fellows being presented on their going away again. They know better than that.&quot; &quot;Unless somebody pervades them with an apintment,&quot; said Mrs. Bloss, joining in the conversation in a faint voice. &quot;Well,&quot; said Wisbottle, evading the point, &quot;it’s a splendid sight.&quot; &quot;And did it never occur to you,&quot; inquired the radical, who never would be quiet, —&quot;did it never occur to you, that you pay for these precious ornaments of society.&quot; &quot;It certainly has occurred to me,&quot; said Wisbottle, who thought this answer was a poser;&quot; it has occurred to me, and I am willing to pay for them.&quot; &quot;Well, and it has occurred to me too,&quot; replied John Evenson, &quot;and I an’t willing to pay for ’em. Then why should I?—I say, why should I?&quot; continued the politician, laying down the paper, and knocking his knuckles on the table. &quot;There are two great principles—demand—&quot; &quot;A cup of tea if you please, dear,&quot; interrupted Tibbs. &quot;And supply—&quot; &quot;May I trouble you to hand this tea to Mr. Tibbs?&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, interrupting the argument, and unconsciously illustrating it. The thread of the orator’s discourse was broken. He drank his tea and resumed the paper. &quot;If it’s very fine,&quot; said Mr. Alfred Tomkins, addressing the company in general, &quot;I shall ride down to Richmond to-day, and come back by the steamer. 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.&quot; Mr. Wisbottle hummed, &quot;Flow on, thy shining river.&quot; &quot;We have some splendid steam-vessels in Ireland,&quot; said O’Bleary. &quot;Certainly,&quot; said Mrs. Bloss, delighted to find a subject broached in which she could take part. &quot;The accommodations are extraordinary,&quot; said O’Bleary. &quot;Extraordinary indeed,&quot; returned Mrs. Bloss. &quot;When Mr. Bloss was alive, he was promiscuously obligated to go to Ireland on business. I went with him, and raly the manner in which the ladies and gentlemen were accommodated with births, is not creditable.&quot; Tibbs, who had been listening to the dialogue, looked very aghast, and evinced a strong inclination to ask a question, but was checked by a look from his wife. Mr. Wisbottle laughed, and said Tomkins had made a pun; and Tomkins laughed too, and said he hadn&#039;t. The remainder of the meal passed off as breakfasts usually do. Conversation flagged, and people played with their tea-spoons. The gentlemen looked out at the window; walked about the room, and when they got near the door, dropped off one by one. Tibbs retired to the back parlour by his wife’s orders, to check the green-grocer’s weekly account; and ultimately Mrs. Tibbs and Mrs. Bloss were left alone together. &quot;Oh dear,&quot; said the latter, &quot;I feel alarmingly faint; it’s very singular.&quot; (It certainly was, for she had eaten four pounds of solids that morning.) &quot;By-the-bye,&quot; said Mrs. Bloss, &quot;I have not seen Mr. what’s-his-name yet.&quot; &quot;Mr. Gobler?&quot; suggested Mrs. Tibbs. &quot;Yes.&quot; &quot;Oh!&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, &quot;he is a most mysterious person. He has his meals regularly sent up stairs, and sometimes don’t leave his room for weeks together.&quot; &quot;I haven’t seen or heard nothing of him,&quot; repeated Mrs. Bloss. &quot;I dare say you’ll hear him to-night,&quot; replied Mrs. Tibbs; &quot;he generally groans a good deal on Sunday evenings.&quot; &quot;I never felt such an interest in any one in my life,&quot; ejaculated Mrs. Bloss. A finicking double-knock interrupted the conversation; Doctor Wosky was announced, and duly shown in. He was a little man with a red face, dressed of course in black, with a stiff white neckerchief. 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. Mrs. Tibbs offered to retire, but was entreated to stay. &quot;Well, my dear ma’am, and how are we?&quot; inquired Wosky in a soothing tone. &quot;Very ill, doctor—very ill,&quot; said Mrs. Bloss, in a whisper. &quot;Ah! we must take care of ourselves;—we must, indeed,&quot; said the obsequious Wosky, as he felt the pulse of his interesting patient. &quot;How is our appetite?&quot; Mrs. Bloss shook her head. &quot;Our friend requires great care,&quot; said Wosky, appealing to Mrs. Tibbs, who of course assented. &quot;I hope, however, with the blessing of Providence, that we shall be enabled to make her quite stout again.&quot; Mrs. Tibbs wondered in her own mind what the patient would be when she had got quite stout; for she looked like a pincushion on eastors already. &quot;We must take stimulants,&quot; said the cunning Wosky—&quot;plenty of nourishment, and, above all, we must keep our nerves quiet; we positively must not give way to our sensibilities. We must take all we can get,&quot; concluded the Doctor as he pocketed his fee, &quot;and we must keep quiet.&quot; &quot;Dear man!&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Bloss, as the Doctor stepped into the carriage. &quot;Charming creature indeed—quite a lady’s man!&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs; and Dr. Wosky rattled away to make fresh gulls of delicate females, and pocket fresh fees. As we had occasion in a former paper to describe a dinner at Mrs. Tibbs’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. 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. As his character in many respects closely assimilated to that of Mrs. Bloss, a very warm friendship soon sprung up between them. He was tall, thin, and pale; he always fancied he had got a severe pain somewhere or other, and his face invariably wore a pinched, screwed-up expression; he looked like a man who had got his feet in a tub of exceedingly hot water against his will. For two or three months after Mrs. Bloss’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. He found it at last. One evening, the different inmates of the house were assembled in the drawing-room engaged in their ordinary occupations. Mr. Gobler and Mrs. Bloss were sitting at a small card-table near the centre window, playing cribbage; Mr. Wisbottle was describing semi-circles 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’Bleary was reading Horace, and trying to look as if he understood it; and John Evenson had drawn his chair close to Mrs. Tibbs’s work-table, and was talking to her very earnestly in a low tone. &quot;I can assure you, Mrs. Tibbs,&quot; said the radical, laying his forefinger on the muslin she was at work on; &quot;I can assure you, Mrs. Tibbs, that nothing but the interest I take in your welfare would induce me to make this communication. I repeat that 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. From my bed-room I distinctly heard voices there last night. 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.—Bless me, Mrs. Tibbs, you change colour.&quot; &quot;No, no—it’s nothing,&quot; returned Mrs. T. in a hurried manner; &quot;it’s only the heat of the room.&quot; &quot;A flush!&quot; ejaculated Mrs. Bloss from the card-table; &quot;that’s good for four.&quot; &quot;If I thought it was Mr. Wisbottle,&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, after a pause, &quot;he should leave this house instantly.&quot; &quot;Go!&quot; said Mrs. Bloss again. &quot;And if I thought,&quot; continued the hostess with a most threatening air, &quot;if I thought he was assisted by Mr. Tibbs—&quot; &quot;One for his nob!&quot; said Gobler. &quot;Oh,&quot; said Evenson, in a most soothing tone;—he liked to make mischief—&quot;I should hope Mr. Tibbs was not in any way implicated. He always appeared to me very harmless.&quot; &quot;I have generally found him so,&quot; sobbed poor little Mrs. Tibbs; crying like a watering-pot in full play. &quot;Hush! hush! pray—Mrs. Tibbs,—consider;—we shall be observed—pray, don’t!&quot; said John Evenson, fearing his whole plan would be interrupted. &quot;We will set the matter at rest with the utmost care, and I shall be most happy to assist you in doing so.&quot; Mrs. Tibbs murmured her thanks. &quot;When you think every one has retired to rest to-night,&quot; said Evenson very pompously, &quot;if you’ll meet me without a light, just outside my bed-room 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.&quot; Mrs. Tibbs was easily persuaded; her curiosity was excited, her jealousy was roused, and the arrangement was forthwith made. 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. The game of cribbage was over, and conversation began again. &quot;Well, Mr. O’Bleary,&quot; said the humming-top, turning round on his pivot, and facing the company, &quot;what did you think of Vauxhall the other night?&quot; &quot;Oh, it’s very fair,&quot; replied Orson, who had been euthusiastically lelighted with the whole exhibition. &quot;Never saw anything like that Captain Ross’s set-out—eh?&quot; &quot;No,&quot; returned the patriot with his usual reservation—&quot;except in Dublin.&quot; &quot;I saw the Count de Canky and Captain Fitzthompson in the Gardens,&quot; said Wisbottle; &quot;they appeared much delighted.&quot; &quot;Then it must be beautiful!&quot; snarled Evenson. &quot;I think the white bears is partickerlerly well done, suggested Mrs. Bloss. &quot;In their shaggy white coats they look just like Polar bears—don’t you think they do, Mr. Evenson?&quot; &quot;I think they look a great deal more like omnibus cads on all fours,&quot; replied the discontented one. &quot;Upon the whole, I should have liked our evening very well,&quot; gasped Gobler; &quot;only I caught a desperate cold which increased my pain dreadfully; I was obliged to have several shower baths, before I could leave my room.&quot; &quot;Capital things those shower-baths!&quot; ejaculated Wisbottle. &quot;Excellent!&quot; said Tomkins. &quot;Delightful!&quot; chimed in O’Bleary. (He had once seen one, outside a tinman’s.) &quot;Disgusting machines!&quot; rejoined Evenson, who extended his dislike to almost every created object, masculine, feminine, or neuter. &quot;Disgusting, Mr. Evenson!&quot; said Gobler, in a tone of strong indignation.—&quot;Disgusting! Look at their utility—consider how many lives they&#039;ve saved by promoting perspiration.&quot; &quot;Promoting perspiration, indeed,&quot; growled John Evenson, stopping short in his walk across the large squares in the pattern of the carpet—&quot;I was ass enough to be persuaded some time ago to have one in my bedroom. &#039;Gad, I was in it once, and it effectually cured me, for the mere sight of it threw me into a profuse perspiration for six months afterwards.&quot; A titter followed this announcement, and before it had subsided, James brought up &quot;the tray,&quot; containing the remains of a leg of lamb which had made its début at dinner; bread, cheese; an atom of butter in a forest of parsley, one pickled walnut and the third of another, and so forth. The boy disappeared, and returned again with another tray, containing glasses and jugs of hot and cold water. 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. Chairs were drawn round the table, and the conversation proceeded in the customary manner. John Evenson, who never eat supper, lolled on the sofa, and amused himself by contradicting everybody. O’Bleary eat 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 &quot;got into an argument;&quot; 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. An hour or two passed away; and the boarders and the plated candlesticks retired in pairs to their respective bed-rooms. John Evenson pulled off his boots, locked his door, and determined to sit up until Mr. Gobler had retired. He always sat in the drawing-room an hour after everybody else had left it, taking medicine, and groaning. Great Coram-street was hushed into a state of profound repose: it was nearly two o’clock. A hackney-coach now and then rumbled slowly by; and occasionally some stray lawyer’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. A low, monotonous, gushing sound was heard, which added considerably to the romantic dreariness of the scene. It was the water &quot;coming in&quot; at No.11. &quot;He must be asleep by this time,&quot; said John Evenson to himself, after waiting with exemplary patience for nearly an hour after Mr. Gobler had left the drawing-room. He listened for a few moments; the house was perfectly quiet; he extinguished his rushlight, and opened his bed-room door. The staircase was so dark that it was impossible to see anything. &quot;S-s-fit!&quot; whispered the mischief-maker, making a noise like the first indication a catherine-wheel gives of the probability of its going off. &quot;Hush!&quot; whispered somebody else. &quot;Is that you, Mrs. Tibbs?&quot; &quot;Yes, Sir.&quot; &quot;Where?&quot; &quot;Here;&quot; and the misty outline of Mrs. Tibbs appeared at the staircase-window, like the ghost of Queen Anne in the tent-scene in Richard. &quot;This way, Mrs. Tibbs;&quot; whispered the delighted busybody: &quot;give me your hand—there. 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. You have no shoes on, have you?&quot; &quot;No,&quot; said little Mrs. Tibbs, who could hardly speak for trembling. &quot;Well; I have taken my boots off, so we can go down, close to the store-room door, and listen over the banisters,&quot; continued Evenson; and down stairs they both crept accordingly, every board creaking like a patent mangle on a Saturday afternoon. &quot;It’s Wisbottle and somebody I’ll swear,&quot; exclaimed the radical in an energetic whisper, when they had listened for a few moments. &quot;Hush—pray let’s hear what they say,&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Tibbs, the gratification of whose curiosity was now paramount to every other consideration. &quot;Ah! if I could but believe you,&quot; said a female voice coquettishly, &quot;I’d be bound to settle my missis for life.&quot; &quot;What does she say?&quot; inquired Mr. Evenson, who was not quite so well situated as his companion. &quot;She says she’ll settle her missis’s life,&quot; replied Mrs. Tibbs. &quot;The wretch! they’re plotting murder.&quot; &quot;I know you want money,&quot; continued the voice, which belonged to Agnes; &quot;and if you’d secure me the five hundred pound, I warrant she should take fire soon enough.&quot; &quot;What’s that?&quot; inquired Evenson again. He could just hear enough to want to hear more. &quot;I think she says she’ll set the house on fire,&quot; replied the affrighted Mrs. Tibbs. &quot;Thank God I’m insured in the Phoenix!&quot; &quot;The moment I have secured your mistress, my dear,&quot; said a man’s voice in a strong Irish brogue, &quot;you may depend on having the money.&quot; &quot;Bless my soul, it’s Mr. O’Bleary!&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Tibbs in a parenthesis. &quot;The villain!&quot; said the indignant Mr. Evenson. &quot;The first thing to be done,&quot; continued the Hibernian, &quot;is to poison Mr. Gobler’s mind.&quot; &quot;Oh, certainly!&quot; returned Agnes, with the utmost coolness. &quot;What’s that?&quot; inquired Evenson again, in an agony of curiosity and a whisper. &quot;He says she’s to mind and poison Mr. Gobler,&quot; replied Mrs. Tibbs, aghast at this sacrifice of human life. &quot;And in regard of Mrs. Tibbs,&quot; continued O’Bleary.—Mrs. Tibbs shuddered. &quot;Hush!&quot; exclaimed Agnes, in a tone of the greatest alarm, just as Mrs. Tibbs was on the extreme verge of a fainting fit. &quot;Hush!&quot; &quot;Hush!&quot; exclaimed Evenson, at the same moment to Mrs. Tibbs. &quot;There’s somebody coming up stairs,&quot; said Agnes to O’Bleary. &quot;There’s somebody coming down stairs,&quot; whispered Evenson to Mrs. Tibbs. &quot;Go into the parlour, Sir,&quot; said Agnes to her companion. &quot;You will get there, before whoever it is gets to the top of the kitchen stairs.&quot; &quot;The drawing-room, Mrs. Tibbs!&quot; whispered the astonished Evenson to his equally astonished companion; and for the drawing-room they both made, plainly hearing the rustling of two persons coming down stairs, and one coming up. &quot;What can it be?&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Tibbs. &quot;It’s like a dream. I wouldn’t be found in this situation for the world!&quot; &quot;Nor I,&quot; returned Evenson, who could never bear a joke at his own expense. &quot;Hush! here they are at the door.&quot; &quot;What fun!&quot; whispered one of the new comers.—It was Wisbottle. &quot;Glorious!&quot; replied his companion, in an equally low tone.—This was Alfred Tomkins. &quot;Who would have thought it?&quot; &quot;I told you so,&quot; said Wisbottle, in a most knowing whisper. &quot;Lord bless you, he has paid her most extraordinary attention for the last two months. I saw ’em when I was sitting at the piano to-night.&quot; &quot;Well, do you know I didn’t notice it?&quot; interrupted Tomkins. &quot;Not notice it!&quot; continued Wisbottle. &quot;Bless you; I saw him whispering to her, and she crying; and then I’ll swear I heard him say something about to-night when we were all in bed.&quot; &quot;They’re talking of us!&quot; exclaimed the agonized Mrs. Tibbs, as the painful suspicion, and a sense of their situation, flashed upon her mind. &quot;I know it—I know it,&quot; replied Evenson, with a melancholy consciousness that there was no mode of escape. &quot;What’s to be done?—we cannot both stop here,&quot; ejaculated Mrs. Tibbs in a state of partial derangement. &quot;I’ll get up the chimney,&quot; replied Evenson, who really meant what he said. &quot;You can’t,&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, in despair. &quot;You can’t—it’s a register stove.&quot; &quot;Hush!&quot; repeated John Evenson. &quot;Hush—hush!&quot; cried somebody down stairs. &quot;What a d-d hushing!&quot; said Alfred Tomkins, who began to get rather bewildered. &quot;There they are!&quot; exclaimed the sapient Wisbottle, as a rustling noise was heard in the store-room. &quot;Hark!&quot; whispered both the young men. &quot;Hark!&quot; repeated Mrs. Tibbs and Evenson. &quot;Let me alone, Sir,&quot; said a female voice in the store-room. &quot;Oh, Hagnes!&quot; cried another voice, which clearly belonged to Tibbs, for nobody else ever owned one like it, &quot;Oh, Hagnes—lovely creature!&quot; &quot;Be quiet, Sir!&quot; (a bounce.) &quot;Hag—&quot; &quot;Be quiet, Sir,—I am ashamed of you. Think of your wife, Mr. Tibbs.—Be quiet, Sir!&quot; &quot;My wife!&quot; exclaimed the valorous Tibbs, who was clearly under the influence of gin-and-water, and a misplaced attachment; &quot;I ate her! Oh, Hagnes! when I was in the volunteer corps, in eighteen hundred and—&quot; &quot;I declare I’ll scream. Be quiet, Sir, will you?&quot; (Another bounce, and a scuffle.) &quot;What’s that?&quot; exclaimed Tibbs with a start. &quot;What’s what?&quot; said Agnes, stopping short. &quot;Why that!&quot; &quot;Ah! you have done it nicely now, Sir,&quot; sobbed the frightened Agnes, as a tapping was heard at Mrs. Tibbs’ bed-room door, which would have beaten any twelve woodpeckers hollow. &quot;Mrs. Tibbs! Mrs. Tibbs!&quot; called out Mrs. Bloss. &quot;Mrs. Tibbs, pray get up.&quot; (Here the imitation of a woodpecker was resumed with tenfold violence.) &quot;Oh, dear—dear!&quot; exclaimed the wretched partner of the depraved Tibbs. &quot;She’s knocking at my door. We must be discovered. What will they think?&quot; &quot;Mrs. Tibbs! Mrs. Tibbs!&quot; screamed the woodpecker again. &quot;What’s the matter?&quot; shouted Gobler, bursting out of the back drawing-room, like the dragon at Astley’s—only without the portable gas in his countenance. &quot;Oh, Mr. Gobler!&quot; cried Mrs. Bloss, with a proper approximation to hysterics; &quot;I think the house is on fire, or else there’s thieves in it. I have heard the most dreadful noises.&quot; &quot;The devil you have!&quot; shouted Gobler again, bouncing back into his den, in happy imitation of the aforesaid dragon, and returning immediately with a lighted candle. &quot;Why, what’s this? Wisbottle! Tomkins! O’Bleary! Agnes! What the deuce, all up and dressed?&quot; &quot;Astonishing!&quot; said Mrs. Bloss, who had run down stairs, and taken Mr. Gobler’s arm. &quot;Call Mrs. Tibbs directly, somebody,&quot; said Gobler, turning into the front drawing-room. &quot;What! Mrs. Tibbs and Mr. Evenson!!&quot; &quot;Mrs. Tibbs and Mr. Evenson!&quot; repeated every body, as that unhappy pair were discovered, Mrs. Tibbs seated in an arm-chair by the fireplace, and Mr. Evenson standing by her side. We must leave the scene that ensued to the reader’s imagination. 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 it; and how his explanation was evidently disbelieved;—how Agnes repelled the accusations of Mrs. Tibbs, by proving that she was negotiating with Mr. O’Bleary to influence her mistress’s affections in his behalf; and how Mr. Gobler threw a damp counterpane on the hopes of Mr. O’Bleary by avowing that he (Gobler) had already proposed to, and been accepted by, Mrs. Bloss; how Agnes was discharged from that lady’s service; how Mr. O’Bleary discharged himself from Mrs. Tibbs’ 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, &quot;except in Ireland.&quot; We repeat that we could tell all this, but we love to exercise our self-denial, and we therefore prefer leaving it to be imagined. The lady whom we have hitherto described as Mrs. Bloss, is no more. Mrs. Gobler exists: Mrs. Bloss has left us for ever. 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. We would willingly stop here, but we have a painful duty imposed upon us, which we must discharge. Mr. and Mrs. Tibbs have separated by mutual consent, Mrs. Tibbs receiving one moiety of 43l.15s.10d., which we before stated to be the amount of her husband’s annual income, and Mr. Tibbs the other. He is spending the evening of his days in retirement; and he is spending also annually that small but honourable independence. 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. 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. 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. It is to contain, among a variety of brilliant matter, seventy-eight words in large capitals, and six original quotations in inverted commas. We fear Mrs. Tibb&#039;s determination is irrevocable. Should she, however, be induced to rescind it, we may become once again her faithful biographer.18340801https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/The_Boarding-House_[No.2]/1834-08-The_Boarding_House_No2.pdf
219https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/219'The Hospital Patient'Published in <em>The Carlton Chronicle,</em> 6 August 1836, pp. 11.Dickens, Charles<em>Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://newspaperarchive.com/carlton-chronicle-aug-06-1836-p-11/">https://newspaperarchive.com/carlton-chronicle-aug-06-1836-p-11/</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-08-06">1836-08-06</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1836-08-06-The_Hospital_PatientA brief preface states,<em> 'LEAVES from an unpublished volume. By "BOZ," (which will be torn out once a fortnight).</em>Dickens, Charles. 'The Hospital Patient' (6 August 1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-08-06-The_Hospital_Patient">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-08-06-The_Hospital_Patient</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Carlton+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Carlton Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>In my rambles through the streets of London after evening has set in, I have often paused beneath the windows of some public hospital, and picture to myself the gloomy and mournful scenes that were passing within. The sudden moving of a taper as its feeble ray shot from window after window, until its light gradually disappeared, as if it were carried further back into the room to the bedside of some suffering patient, has been 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, has been sufficient to check the most boisterous merriment. 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? 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,—what hands, be they ever so gentle, can wipe the clammy brow, or smooth the restless bed, like those of mother, wife, or child? Impressed with these thoughts, I 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. 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 outcasts like these, when they are stretched on the bed of sickness with scarcely a hope of recovery? The wretched woman who lingers about the pavement, hours after midnight, and the miserable shadow of a man—the ghastly remnant that want and drunkenness have left—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? 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? About a twelvemonth ago, as I was strolling through Covent Garden (I had been thinking about these things overnight), I was 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&#039;t the slightest wish to go there at all, was being conveyed thither in a wheelbarrow, to the huge delight of a crowd, but apparently not very much to his own individual gratification. Somehow, I never can resist joining a crowd—nature certainly intended me for a vagabond—so I turned back with the mob, and entered the office, in company with my friend the pickpocket, a couple of policemen, and as many dirty-faced spectators as could squeeze their way in. 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. 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. 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&#039;clock that evening, to take her deposition, it was settled that the man should be taken there also. He turned deadly pale at this, and I saw him clench the bar very hard when the order was given. He was removed directly afterwards, and he spoke not a word. I felt an irrepressible curiosity to witness this interview, although I can hardly tell why, at this instant, for I knew it must be a painful one. It was no very difficult matter for me to gain permission, and I obtained it. The prisoner, and the officer who had him in custody, were already at the hospital when I reached it, and waiting the arrival of the magistrates in a small room below stairs. The man was handcuffed, and his hat was pulled forward over his eyes. I could tell though, by the livid whiteness of his countenance, and the constant twitching of the muscles of his face, that he dreaded what was to come. After a short interval, the magistrates and clerk were bowed in, by the house-surgeon, and a couple of young men who smelt very strongly of tobacco-smoke—&quot;dressers&quot; I think they call them&quot;—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 &quot;casualty ward&quot; in which she was lying. 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. 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 an agony of pain; on a third, there lay stretched a young girl, apparently in the heavy stupor which is sometimes the immediate precursor of death: her face was stained with blood, and her breast and arms were bound up in folds of linen. 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. On every face was stamped the expression of anguish and suffering. The object of the visit was lying at the upper end of the room. She was a fine young woman of about two or three and twenty. Her long black hair had been hastily cut from about the wounds on her head, and streamed over the pillow in jagged and matted locks. Her face bore frightful marks of the ill-usage she had received: her hand was pressed upon her side, as if her chief pain was there, her breathing was short and heavy, and it was plain to see that she was dying fast. She murmured a few words in reply to the magistrate&#039;s inquiry, whether she was in great pain: and having been raised on the pillow by the nurse, looked anxiously into the strange countenances that surrounded her bed. The magistrate nodded to the officer, to bring the man forward. He did so, and stationed him at the bedside. The girl looked on with a wild and troubled expression of face, but her sight was dim, and she did not know him. &quot;Take off his hat,&quot; said the magistrate. The officer did as he was desired, and the man&#039;s features were fully disclosed. 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. It was a convulsive effort. She fell back upon her pillow, and covering her scarred and bruised face with her hands, burst into tears. The man cast an anxious look towards her, but otherwise appeared wholly unmoved. After a brief pause the nature of the errand was explained, and the oath tendered. &quot;Oh, no, gentlemen,&quot; said the girl, raising herself once more, and folding her hands together; &quot;no, gentlemen, for God&#039;s sake! I did it myself, it was nobody&#039;s fault, it was an accident. He didn&#039;t hurt me; he wouldn&#039;t for all the world. Jack, dear Jack, you know you wouldn&#039;t.&quot; Her sight was fast failing her, and her hand groped over the bedclothes in search of his, in vain. Brute as the man was, he was not prepared for this. He turned his face from the bed, and sobbed aloud. The girl&#039;s colour changed, and her breathing grew more difficult. She was evidently dying. &quot;We respect the feelings which prompt you to this,&quot; said the gentleman who had spoken first &quot;but let me warn you, not to persist in what you know to be untrue, until it is too late. It cannot save him.&quot; &quot;Jack,&quot; murmured the girl, laying her hand upon his arm. &quot;They shall not persuade me to swear your life away. He didn&#039;t do it, gentlemen He never hurt me.&quot; She grasped his arm tightly, and added, in a broken whisper, &quot;I hope God Almighty will forgive me all the wrong I have done, and the life I have led. God bless you, Jack. Some kind gentleman take my love to my poor old father. Five years ago, he said he wished I had died a child. Oh, I wish I had! I wish I had!&quot; We turned away; it was no sight for strangers to look upon. The nurse bent over the girl for a few seconds, and then drew the sheet over her face. It covered a corpse.18360806https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/The_Hospital_Patient/1836-08-06-The_Hospital_Patient.pdf
169https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/169'The Lamplighter's Story'Published in <em>The Pic-nic Papers </em>as 'By the Editor'.&nbsp;London: Chapman and Hall, 1851.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em> <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100142129">https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100142129</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1851">1851</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+George+Cruikshank+and+Hablot+Knight+Browne+%28%27PHIZ%27%29">Illustrated by George Cruikshank and Hablot Knight Browne (&#039;PHIZ&#039;)</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.Based on the 1838 farce by Dickens of the same name.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1851-The_Lamplighters_Story_The_Picnic_PapersDickens, Charles. 'The Lamplighter's Story' (1851).<em> Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1851-The_Lamplighters_Story_The_Picnic_Papers">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1851-The_Lamplighters_Story_The_Picnic_Papers</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Book">Book</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Pic-nic+Papers%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Pic-nic Papers</em></a>&quot;If you talk of Murphy and Francis Moore, gentlemen,&quot; said the lamplighter who was in the chair, &quot;I mean to say that neither of &#039;em ever had any more to do with the stars than Tom Grig had.&quot; &quot;And what had he to do with &#039;em?&quot; asked the lamplighter who officiated as vice. &quot;Nothing at all,&quot; replied the other; &quot;just exactly nothing at all.&quot; &quot;Do you mean to say you don&#039;t believe in Murphy, then?&quot; demanded the lamplighter who had opened the discussion. &quot;I mean to say I believe in Tom Grig,&quot; replied the chairman. &quot;Whether I believe in Murphy, or not, is a matter between me and my conscience; and whether Murphy believes in himself or not, is a matter between him and his conscience. Gentlemen, I drink your healths.&quot; The lamplighter who did the company this honour, was seated in the chimney corner of a certain tavern, which has been, time out of mind, the Lamplighters&#039; House of Call. He sat in the midst of a circle of lamplighters, and was the cacique, or chief of the tribe. If any of our readers have had the good fortune to behold a lamplighter&#039;s funeral, they will not be surprised to learn that lamplighters are a strange and primitive people; that they rigidly adhere to old ceremonies and customs which have been handed down among them from father to son since the first public lamp was lighted out of doors; that they intermarry, and betroth their children in infancy; that they enter into no plots or conspiracies (for who ever heard of a traitorous lamplighter?); that they commit no crimes against the laws of their country (there being no instance of a murderous or burglarious lamplighter); that they are, in short, notwithstanding their apparently volatile and restless character, a highly moral and reflective people: having among themselves as many traditional observances as the Jews, and being, as a body, if not as old as the hills, at least as old as the streets. It is an article of their creed that the first faint glimmering of true civilisation shone in the first street-light maintained at the public expense. They trace their existence and high position in the public esteem, in a direct line to the heathen mythology; and hold that the history of Prometheus himself is but a pleasant fable, whereof the true hero is a lamplighter. &quot;Gentlemen,&quot; said the lamplighter in the chair, &quot;I drink your healths.&quot; &quot;And perhaps, sir,&quot; said the vice, holding up his glass, and rising a little way off his seat and sitting down again, in token that he recognised and returned the compliment, &quot;perhaps you will add to that condescension by telling us who Tom Grig was, and how he came to be connected in your mind with Francis Moore, Physician.&quot; &quot;Hear, hear, hear!&quot; cried the lamplighters generally. &quot;Tom Grig, gentlemen,&quot; said the chairman, &quot;was one of us; and it happened to him as it don&#039;t often happen to a public character in our line, that he had his what-you-may-call-it cast.&quot; &quot;His head?&quot; said the vice. &quot;No,&quot; replied the chairman, &quot;not his head.&quot; &quot;His face, perhaps?&quot; said the vice. &quot;No, not his face.&quot; &quot;His legs?&quot; &quot;No, not his legs.&quot; Nor yet his arms, nor his hands, nor his feet, nor his chest—all of which were severally suggested. &quot;His nativity, perhaps?&quot; &quot;That&#039;s it,&quot; said the chairman, awakening from his thoughtful attitude at the suggestion. &quot;His nativity. That&#039;s what Tom had cast, gentlemen.&quot; &quot;In plaster?&quot; asked the vice. &quot;I don&#039;t rightly know how it&#039;s done,&quot; returned the chairman. &quot;But I suppose it was.&quot; And there he stopped as if that were all he had to say; whereupon there arose a murmur among the company, which at length resolved itself into a request, conveyed through the vice, that he would go on. This being exactly what the chairman wanted, he mused for a little time, performed that agreeable ceremony which is popularly termed wetting one&#039;s whistle, and went on thus: &quot;Tom Grig, gentlemen, was, as I have said, one of us; and I may go further, and say he was an ornament to us, and such a one as only the good old times of oil and cotton could have produced. Tom&#039;s family, gentlemen, were all lamplighters.&quot; &quot;Not the ladies, I hope?&quot; asked the vice. &quot;They had talent enough for it, sir,&quot; rejoined the chairman, &quot;and would have been, but for the prejudices of society. Let women have their rights, sir, and the females of Tom&#039;s family would have been every one of &#039;em in office. But that emancipation hasn&#039;t come yet, and hadn&#039;t then, and consequently they confined themselves to the bosoms of their families, cooked the dinners, mended the clothes, minded the children, comforted their husbands, and attended to the housekeeping generally. It&#039;s a hard thing upon the women, gentlemen, that they are limited to such a sphere of action as this; very hard.&quot; &quot;I happen to know all about Tom, gentlemen, from the circumstance of his uncle by his mother&#039;s side having been my particular friend. His (that&#039;s Tom&#039;s uncle&#039;s) fate was a melancholy one. Gas was the death of him. When it was first talked of, he laughed. He wasn&#039;t angry; he laughed at the credulity of human nature. &#039;They might as well talk,&#039; he says, &#039;of laying on an everlasting succession of glow-worms;&#039; and then he laughed again, partly at his joke, and partly at poor humanity. &quot;In course of time, however, the thing got ground, the experiment was made, and they lighted up Pall Mall. Tom&#039;s uncle went to see it. I&#039;ve heard that he fell off his ladder fourteen times that night, from weakness, and that he would certainly have gone on falling till he killed himself, if his last tumble hadn&#039;t been into a wheelbarrow which was going his way, and humanely took him home. &#039;I foresee in this,&#039; says Tom&#039;s uncle faintly, and taking to his bed as he spoke—&#039;I foresee in this,&#039; he says, &#039;the breaking up of our profession. There&#039;s no more going the rounds to trim by daylight, no more dribbling down of the oil on the hats and bonnets of ladies and gentlemen when one feels in spirits. Any low fellow can light a gas-lamp. And it&#039;s all up.&#039; In this state of mind, he petitioned the government for—I want a word again, gentlemen—what do you call that which they give to people when it&#039;s found out, at last, that they&#039;ve never been of any use, and have been paid too much for doing nothing?&quot; &quot;Compensation?&quot; suggested the vice. &quot;That&#039;s it,&quot; said the chairman. &quot;Compensation. They didn&#039;t give it him though, and then he got very fond of his country all at once, and went about saying that gas was a death-blow to his native land, and that it was a plot of the radicals to ruin the country and destroy the oil and cotton trade for ever, and that the whales would go and kill themselves privately, out of sheer spite and vexation at not being caught. At last he got right down cracked; called his tobacco-pipe a gas-pipe; thought his tears were lamp-oil; and went on with all manner of nonsense of that sort, till one night he hung himself on a lamp-iron in Saint Martin&#039;s Lane, and there was an end of him. &quot;Tom loved him, gentlemen, but he survived it. He shed a tear over his grave, got very drunk, spoke a funeral oration that night in the watch-house, and was fined five shillings for it, in the morning. Some men are none the worse for this sort of thing. Tom was one of &#039;em. He went that very afternoon on a new beat: as clear in his head, and as free from fever as Father Mathew himself. &quot;Tom&#039;s new beat, gentlemen, was—I can&#039;t exactly say where, for that he&#039;d never tell; but I know it was in a quiet part of town, where there were some queer old houses. I have always had it in my head that it must have been somewhere near Canonbury Tower in Islington, but that&#039;s a matter of opinion. Wherever it was, he went upon it, with a bran new ladder, a white hat, a brown holland jacket and trowsers, a blue neck-kerchief, and a sprig of full-blown double wall-flower in his button-hole. Tom was always genteel in his appearance, and I have heard from the best judges, that if he had left his ladder at home that afternoon, you might have took him for a lord. &quot;He was always merry, was Tom, and such a singer, that if there was any encouragement for native talent, he&#039;d have been at the opera. He was on his ladder, lighting his first lamp, and singing to himself in a manner more easily to be conceived than described, when he hears the clock strike five, and suddenly sees an old gentleman with a telescope in his hand, throw up a window and look at him very hard. &quot;Tom didn&#039;t know what could be passing in this old gentleman&#039;s mind. He thought it likely enough that he might be saying within himself, &#039;Here&#039;s a new lamplighter—a good-looking young fellow—shall I stand something to drink?&#039; Thinking this possible, he keeps quite still, pretending to be very particular about the wick, and looks at the old gentleman sideways, seeming to take no notice of him. &quot;Gentlemen, he was one of the strangest and most mysterious-looking files that ever Tom clapped his eyes on. He was dressed all slovenly and untidy, in a great gown of a kind of bed-furniture pattern, with a cap of the same on his head; and a long old flapped waistcoat; with no braces, no strings, very few buttons—in short, with hardly any of those artificial contrivances that hold society together. Tom knew by these signs, and by his not being shaved, and by his not being over-clean, and by a sort of wisdom not quite awake, in his face, that he was a scientific old gentleman. He often told me that if he could have conceived the possibility of the whole Royal Society being boiled down into one man, he should have said the old gentleman&#039;s body was that Body. &quot;The old gentleman claps the telescope to his eye, looks all round, sees nobody else in sight, stares at Tom again, and cries out very loud: &quot;&#039;Hal-loa!&#039; &quot;&#039;Halloa, Sir,&#039; says Tom from the ladder; &#039;and halloa again, if you come to that.&#039; &quot;&#039;Here&#039;s an extraordinary fulfilment,&#039; says the old gentleman, &#039;of a prediction of the planets.&#039; &quot;&#039;Is there?&#039; says Tom. &#039;I&#039;m very glad to hear it.&#039; &quot;&#039;Young man,&#039; says the old gentleman, &#039;you don&#039;t know me.&#039; &quot;&#039;Sir,&#039; says Tom, &#039;I have not that honour; but I shall be happy to drink your health, notwithstanding.&#039; &quot;&#039;I read,&#039; cries the old gentleman, without taking any notice of this politeness on Tom&#039;s part—&#039;I read what&#039;s going to happen, in the stars.&#039; &quot;Tom thanked him for the information, and begged to know if anything particular was going to happen in the stars, in the course of a week or so; but the old gentleman, correcting him, explained that he read in the stars what was going to happen on dry land, and that he was acquainted with all the celestial bodies. &quot;&#039;I hope they&#039;re all well, sir,&#039; says Tom,—&#039;everybody.&#039; &quot;&#039;Hush!&#039; cries the old gentleman. &#039;I have consulted the book of Fate with rare and wonderful success. I am versed in the great sciences of astrology and astronomy. In my house here, I have every description of apparatus for observing the course and motion of the planets. Six months ago, I derived from this source the knowledge that precisely as the clock struck five this afternoon a stranger would present himself— the destined husband of my young and lovely niece—in reality of illustrious and high descent, but whose birth would be enveloped in uncertainty and mystery. Don&#039;t tell me yours isn&#039;t,&#039; says the old gentleman, who was in such a hurry to speak that he couldn&#039;t get the words out fast enough, &#039;for I know better.&#039; &quot;Gentlemen, Tom was so astonished when he heard him say this, that he could hardly keep his footing on the ladder, and found it necessary to hold on by the lamp-post. There was a mystery about his birth. His mother had always admitted it. Tom had never known who was his father, and some people had gone so far as to say that even she was in doubt. &quot;While he was in this state of amazement, the old gentleman leaves the window, bursts out of the house-door, shakes the ladder, and Tom, like a ripe pumpkin, comes sliding down into his arms. &quot;&#039;Let me embrace you,&#039; he says, folding his arms about him, and nearly lighting up his old bed-furniture gown at Tom&#039;s link. &#039;You&#039;re a man of noble aspect. Everything combines to prove the accuracy of my observations. You have had mysterious promptings within you,&#039; he says; &#039;I know you have had whisperings of greatness, eh?&#039; he says. &quot;&#039;I think I have,&#039; says Tom—Tom was one of those who can persuade themselves to anything they like—&#039;I have often thought I wasn&#039;t the small beer I was taken for.&#039; &quot;&#039;You were right,&#039; cries the old gentleman, hugging him again. &#039;Come in. My niece awaits us.&#039; &quot;&#039;Is the young lady tolerable good-looking, sir?&#039; says Tom, hanging fire rather, as he thought of her playing the piano, and knowing French, and being up to all manner of accomplishments. &quot;&#039;She&#039;s beautiful!&#039; cries the old gentleman, who was in such a terrible bustle that he was all in a perspiration. &#039;She has a graceful carriage, an exquisite shape, a sweet voice, a countenance beaming with animation and expression; and the eye,&#039; he says, rubbing his hands, &#039;of a startled fawn.&#039;&quot; &quot;Tom supposed this might mean, what was called among his circle of acquaintance, &#039;a game eye;&#039; and, with a view to this defect, inquired whether the young lady had any cash. &quot;&#039;She has five thousand pounds,&#039; cries the old gentleman. &#039;But what of that? what of that? A word in your ear. I&#039;m in search of the philosopher&#039;s stone. I have very nearly found it —not quite. It turns everything to gold; that&#039;s its property.&#039; &#039;Tom naturally thought it must have a deal of property; and said that when the old gentleman did get it, he hoped he&#039;d be careful to keep it in the family. &quot;&#039;Certainly,&#039; he says, &#039;of course. Five thousand pounds! What&#039;s five thousand pounds to us? What&#039;s five million?&#039; he says. &#039;What&#039;s five thousand million? Money will be nothing to us. We shall never be able to spend it fast enough.&#039; &quot;&#039;We&#039;ll try what we can do, sir,&#039; says Tom. &quot;&#039;We will,&#039; says the old gentleman. &#039;Your name?&#039; &quot;&#039;Grig,&#039; says Tom. &#039;The old gentleman embraced him again, very tight; and without speaking another word, dragged him into the house in such an excited manner, that it was as much as Tom could do to take his link and ladder with him, and put them down in the passage. &quot;Gentlemen, if Tom hadn&#039;t been always remarkable for his love of truth, I think you would still have believed him when he said that all this was like a dream. There is no better way for a man to find out whether he is really asleep or awake, than calling for something to eat. If he&#039;s in a dream, gentlemen, he&#039;ll find something wanting in the flavour, depend upon it. &quot;Tom explained his doubts to the old gentleman, and said that if there was any cold meat in the house, it would ease his mind very much to test himself at once. The old gentleman ordered up a venison pie, a small ham, and a bottle of very old Madeira. At the first mouthful of pie, and the first glass of wine, Tom smacks his lips and cries out, &#039;I&#039;m awake—wide awake;&#039; and to prove that he was so, gentlemen, he made an end of &#039;em both. &quot;When Tom had finished his meal (which he never spoke of afterwards without tears in his eyes), the old gentleman hugs him again, and says, &#039;Noble stranger! let us visit my young and lovely niece.&#039; Tom, who was a little elevated with the wine, replies, &#039;The noble stranger is agreeable!&#039; At which words the old gentleman took him by the hand, and led him to the parlour; crying as he opened the door, &#039;Here is Mr. Grig, the favourite of the planets!&#039; &quot;I will not attempt a description of female beauty, gentlemen, for every one of us has a model of his own that suits his own taste best. In this parlour that I&#039;m speaking of, there were two young ladies; and if every gentleman present, will imagine two models of his own in their places, and will be kind enough to polish &#039;em up to the very highest pitch of perfection, he will then have a faint conception of their uncommon radiance. &quot;Besides these two young ladies, there was their waiting-woman, that under any other circumstances Tom would have looked upon as a Venus; and besides her, there was a tall, thin, dismal-faced young gentleman, half man and half boy, dressed in a childish suit of clothes very much too short in the legs and arms, and looking, according to Tom&#039;s comparison, like one of the wax juveniles from a tailor&#039;s door, grown up and run to seed. Now, this youngster stamped his foot upon the ground and looked very fierce at Tom, and Tom looked fierce at him—for to tell the truth, gentlemen, Tom more than half suspected that when they entered the room he was kissing one of the young ladies; and for anything Tom knew, you observe, it might be his young lady—which was not pleasant. &quot;&#039;Sir,&#039; says Tom, &#039;before we proceed any further, will you have the goodness to inform me who this young Salamander&#039;— Tom called him that for aggravation, you perceive, gentlemen—&#039;who this young Salamander may be?&#039; &quot;&#039;That, Mr. Grig,&#039; says the old gentleman, &#039;is my little boy. He was christened Galileo Isaac Newton Flamstead. Don&#039;t mind him. He&#039;s a mere child.&#039; &quot;&#039;And a very fine child too,&#039; says Tom—still aggravating, you&#039;ll observe—&#039;of his age, and as good as fine, I have no doubt. How do you do, my man?&#039; with which kind and patronising expressions, Tom reached up to pat him on the head, and quoted two lines about little boys, from Doctor Watts&#039;s Hymns, which he had learnt at a Sunday School. &quot;It was very easy to see, gentlemen, by this youngster&#039;s frowning and by the waiting-maid&#039;s tossing her head and turning up her nose, and by the young ladies turning their backs and talking together at the other end of the room, that nobody but the old gentleman took very kindly to the noble stranger. Indeed, Tom plainly heard the waiting-woman say of her master, that so far from being able to read the stars as he pretended, she didn&#039;t believe he knew his letters in &#039;em, or at best that he had got further than words in one syllable; but Tom, not minding this (for he was in spirits after the Madeira), looks with an agreeable air towards the young ladies, and, kissing his hand to both, says to the old gentleman, &#039;Which is which?&#039; &quot;&#039;This,&#039; says the old gentleman, leading out the handsomest, if one of &#039;em could possibly be said to be handsomer than the other—&#039;this is my niece, Miss Fanny Barker.&#039; &quot;&#039;If you&#039;ll permit me, miss,&#039; says Tom, &#039;being a noble stranger and a favourite of the planets, I will conduct myself as such.&#039; With these words, he kisses the young lady in a very affable way, turns to the old gentleman, slaps him on the back, and says, &#039;When&#039;s it to come off, my buck?&#039; &quot;The young lady coloured so deep, and her lip trembled so much, gentlemen, that Tom really thought she was going to cry. But she kept her feelings down, and turning to the old gentleman, says, &#039;Dear uncle, though you have the absolute disposal of my hand and fortune, and though you mean well in disposing of &#039;em thus, I ask you whether you don&#039;t think this is a mistake? Don&#039;t you think, dear uncle,&#039; she says, &#039;that the stars must be in error? Is it not possible that the comet may have put &#039;em out?&#039; &quot;&#039;The stars,&#039; says the old gentleman, &#039;couldn&#039;t make a mistake if they tried. Emma,&#039; he says to the other young lady. &quot;&#039;Yes, papa,&#039; says she. &quot;&#039;The same day that makes your cousin Mrs. Grig will unite you to the gifted Mooney. No remonstrance—no tears. Now, Mr. Grig, let me conduct you to that hallowed ground, that philosophical retreat, where my friend and partner, the gifted Mooney of whom I have just now spoken, is even now pursuing those discoveries which shall enrich us with the precious metal, and make us masters of the world. Come, Mr. Grig,&#039; he says. &quot;&#039;With all my heart, sir,&#039; replies Tom; &#039;and luck to the gifted Mooney, say I—not so much on his account as for our worthy selves!&#039; With this sentiment, Tom kissed his hand to the ladies again, and followed him out; having the gratification to perceive, as he looked back, that they were all hanging on by the arms and legs of Galileo Isaac Newton Flamstead, to prevent him from following the noble stranger, and tearing him to pieces. &quot;Gentlemen, Tom&#039;s father-in-law that was to be, took him by the hand, and having lighted a little lamp, led him across a paved court-yard at the back of the house, into a very large, dark, gloomy room: filled with all manner of bottles, globes, books, telescopes, crocodiles, alligators, and other scientific instruments of every kind. In the centre of this room was a stove or furnace, with what Tom called a pot, but which in my opinion was a crucible, in full boil. In one corner was a sort of ladder leading through the roof; and up this ladder the old gentleman pointed, as he said in a whisper: &quot;&#039;The observatory. Mr. Mooney is even now watching for the precise time at which we are to come into all the riches of the earth. It will be necessary for he and I, alone in that silent place, to cast your nativity before the hour arrives. Put the day and minute of your birth on this piece of paper, and leave the rest to me.&#039; &quot;&#039;You don&#039;t mean to say,&#039; says Tom, doing as he was told and giving him back the paper, &#039;that I&#039;m to wait here long, do you? It&#039;s a precious dismal place.&#039; &quot;&#039;Hush!&#039; says the old gentleman. &#039;it&#039;s hallowed ground. Farewell!&#039; &quot;&#039;Stop a minute,&#039; says Tom. &#039;What a hurry you&#039;re in! What&#039;s in that large bottle yonder?&#039; &quot;&#039;It&#039;s a child with three heads,&#039; says the old gentleman; &#039;and everything else in proportion.&#039; &quot;&#039;Why don&#039;t you throw him away?&#039; says Tom. &#039;What do you keep such unpleasant things here for?&#039; &quot;&#039;Throw him away!&#039; cries the old gentleman. &#039;We use him constantly in astrology. He&#039;s a charm.&#039; &quot;&#039;I shouldn&#039;t have thought it,&#039; says Tom, &#039;from his appearance. Must you go, I say?&#039; &quot;The old gentleman makes him no answer, but climbs up the ladder in a greater bustle than ever. Tom looked after his legs till there was nothing of him left, and then sat down to wait; feeling (so he used to say) as comfortable as if he was going to be made a freemason, and they were heating the pokers. &quot;Tom waited so long, gentlemen, that he began to think it must be getting on for midnight at least, and felt more dismal and lonely than ever he had done in all his life. He tried every means of wiling away the time, but it never had seemed to move so slow. First, he took a nearer view of the child with three heads, and thought what a comfort it must have been to his parents. Then he looked up a long telescope which was pointed out of the window, but saw nothing particular, in consequence of the stopper being on at the other end. Then he came to a skeleton in a glass case, labelled, &#039;Skeleton of a Gentleman—prepared by Mr. Mooney,&#039; —which made him hope that Mr. Mooney might not be in the habit of preparing gentlemen that way without their own consent. A hundred times at least, he looked into the pot where they were boiling the philosopher&#039;s stone down to the proper consistency, and wondered whether it was nearly done. &#039;When it is,&#039; thinks Tom, &#039;I&#039;ll send out for sixpenn&#039;orth of sprats, and turn &#039;em into gold fish for a first experiment.&#039; Besides which, he made up his mind, gentlemen, to have a country-house and a park; and to plant a bit of it with a double row of gas-lamps a mile long, and go out every night with a French-polished mahogany ladder, and two servants in livery behind him, to light &#039;em for his own pleasure. &quot;At length and at last, the old gentleman&#039;s legs appeared upon the steps leading through the roof, and he came slowly down: bringing along with him the gifted Mooney. This Mooney, gentlemen, was even more scientific in appearance than his friend; and had, as Tom often declared upon his word and honour, the dirtiest face we can possibly know of, in this imperfect state of existence. &quot;Gentlemen, you are all aware that if a scientific man isn&#039;t absent in his mind, he&#039;s of no good at all. Mr. Mooney was so absent, that when the old gentleman said to him, &#039;Shake hands with Mr. Grig,&#039; he put out his leg. &#039;Here&#039;s a mind, Mr. Grig!&#039; cries the old gentleman in a rapture. &#039;Here&#039;s philosophy! Here&#039;s rumination! Don&#039;t disturb him,&#039; he says, &quot;&#039;or this is amazing!&#039; &quot;Tom had no wish to disturb him, having nothing particular to say; but he was so uncommonly amazing, that the old gentleman got impatient, and determined to give him an electric shock to bring him to—&#039;for you must know, Mr. Grig,&#039; he says, &#039;that we always keep a strongly charged battery, ready for that purpose.&#039; These means being resorted to, gentlemen, the gifted Mooney revived with a loud roar, and he no sooner came to himself than both he and the old gentleman looked at Tom with compassion, and shed tears abundantly. &quot;&#039;My dear friend,&#039; says the old gentleman to the Gifted, &#039;prepare him.&#039; &quot;&#039;I say,&#039; cries Tom, falling back, &#039;none of that, you know. No preparing by Mr. Mooney if you please.&#039; &quot;&#039;Alas!&#039; replies the old gentleman, &#039;you don&#039;t understand us. My friend, inform him of his fate.—I can&#039;t.&#039; &quot;The Gifted mustered up his voice, after many efforts, and informed Tom that his nativity had been carefully cast, and he would expire at exactly thirty-five minutes, twenty-seven seconds, and five-sixths of a second past nine o&#039;clock, A.M., on that day two months. &quot;Gentlemen, I leave you to judge what were Tom&#039;s feelings at this announcement, on the eve of matrimony and endless riches. &#039;I think,&#039; he says in a trembling voice, &#039;there must be a mistake in the working of that sum. Will you do me the favour to cast it up again?&#039;—&#039;There is no mistake,&#039; replies the old gentleman, &#039;it is confirmed by Francis Moore, Physician. Here is the prediction for to-morrow two months.&#039; And he showed him the page, where sure enough were these words—&#039;The decease of a great person may be looked for, about this time.&#039; &quot;&#039;Which,&#039; says the old gentleman, &#039;is clearly you, Mr. Grig.&#039; &quot;&#039;Too clearly,&#039; cries Tom, sinking into a chair, and giving one hand to the old gentleman, and one to the Gifted. &#039;The orb of day has set on Thomas Grig for ever!&#039; &quot;At this affecting remark, the Gifted shed tears again, and the other two mingled their tears with his, in a kind—if I may use the expression—of Mooney and Co.&#039;s entire. But the old gentleman recovering first, observed that this was only a reason for hastening the marriage, in order that Tom&#039;s distinguished race might be transmitted to posterity; and requesting the Gifted to console Mr. Grig during his temporary absence, he withdrew to settle the preliminaries with his niece immediately. &quot;And now, gentlemen, a very extraordinary and remarkable occurrence took place; for as Tom sat in a melancholy way in one chair, and the Gifted sat in a melancholy way in another, a couple of doors were thrown violently open, the two young ladies rushed in, and one knelt down in a loving attitude at Tom&#039;s feet, and the other at the Gifted&#039;s. So far, perhaps, as Tom was concerned—as he used to say—you will say there was nothing strange in this; but you will be of a different opinion when you understand that Tom&#039;s young lady was kneeling to the Gifted, and the Gifted&#039;s young lady was kneeling to Tom. &quot;&#039;Halloa! stop a minute!&#039; cries Tom; &#039;here&#039;s a mistake. I need condoling with by sympathising woman, under my afflicting circumstances; but we&#039;re out in the figure. Change partners, Mooney.&#039; &quot;&#039;Monster!&#039; cries Tom&#039;s young lady, clinging to the Gifted. &quot;&#039;Miss!&#039; says Tom. &#039;Is that your manners?&#039; &quot;&#039;I abjure thee!&#039; cries Tom&#039;s young lady. &#039;I renounce thee. I never will be thine. Thou,&#039; she says to the Gifted, &#039;art the object of my first and all-engrossing passion. Wrapt in thy sublime visions, thou hast not perceived my love; but, driven to despair, I now shake off the woman and avow it. Oh, cruel, cruel man!&#039; With which reproach she laid her head upon the Gifted&#039;s breast, and put her arms about him in the tenderest manner possible, gentlemen. &quot;&#039;And I,&#039; says the other young lady, in a sort of ecstasy, that made Tom start—&#039;I hereby abjure my chosen husband too. Hear me, Goblin!&#039;—this was to the Gifted—&#039;Hear me! I hold thee in the deepest detestation. The maddening interview of this one night has filled my soul with love—but not for thee. It is for thee, for thee, young man,&#039; she cries to Tom. &#039;As Monk Lewis finely observes, Thomas, Thomas, I am thine, Thomas, Thomas, thou art mine: thine for ever, mine for ever!&#039; with which words, she became very tender likewise. &quot;Tom and the Gifted, gentlemen, as you may believe, looked at each other in a very awkward manner, and with thoughts not at all complimentary to the two young ladies. As to the Gifted, I have heard Tom say often, that he was certain he was in a fit, and had it inwardly. &quot;&#039;Speak to me! Oh, speak to me!&#039; cries Tom&#039;s young lady to the Gifted. &quot;&#039;I don&#039;t want to speak to anybody,&#039; he says, finding his voice at last, and trying to push her away. &#039;I think I had better go. I&#039;m—I&#039;m frightened,&#039; he says, looking about as if he had lost something. &quot;&#039;Not one look of love!&#039; she cries. &#039;Hear me while I declare—&#039; &quot;&#039;I don&#039;t know how to look a look of love,&#039; he says, all in a maze. &#039;Don&#039;t declare anything. I don&#039;t want to hear anybody.&#039; &quot;&#039;That&#039;s right!&#039; cries the old gentleman (who it seems had been listening). &#039;That&#039;s right! Don&#039;t hear her. Emma shall marry you to-morrow, my friend, whether she likes it or not, and she shall marry Mr. Grig.&#039; &quot;Gentlemen, these words were no sooner out of his mouth than Galileo Isaac Newton Flamstead (who it seems had been listening too) darts in, and spinning round and round, like a young giant&#039;s top, cries,&#039;&quot;Let her. Let her. I&#039;m fierce; I&#039;m furious. I give her leave. I&#039;ll never marry anybody after this— never. It isn&#039;t safe. She is the falsest of the false,&#039; he cries, tearing his hair and gnashing his teeth; &#039;and I&#039;ll live and die a bachelor!&#039; &quot;&#039;The little boy,&#039; observed the Gifted gravely, &#039;albeit of tender years, has spoken wisdom. I have been led to the contemplation of womankind, and will not adventure on the troubled waters of matrimony.&#039; &quot;&#039;What!&#039; says the old gentleman, &#039;not marry my daughter! Won&#039;t you, Mooney? Not if I make her? Won&#039;t you? Won&#039;t you?&#039; &quot;&#039;No,&#039; says Mooney, &#039;I won&#039;t. And if anybody asks me any more, I&#039;ll run away, and never come back again.&#039; &quot;&quot;Mr. Grig,&#039; says the old gentleman,&#039;&quot;the stars must be obeyed. You have not changed your mind because of a little girlish folly—eh, Mr. Grig?&#039; &quot;Tom, gentlemen, had had his eyes about him, and was pretty sure that all this was a device and trick of the waiting-maid, to put him off his inclination. He had seen her hiding and skipping about the two doors, and had observed that a very little whispering from her pacified the Salamander directly. &#039;So,&#039; thinks Tom, &#039;this is a plot—but it won&#039;t fit.&#039; &quot;&#039;Eh, Mr. Grig?&#039; says the old gentleman. &quot;&#039;Why, sir,&#039; says Tom, pointing to the crucible, &#039;if the soup&#039;s nearly ready—&#039; &quot;&#039;Another hour beholds the consummation of our labours,&#039; returned the old gentleman. &quot;&#039;Very good,&#039; says Tom, with a mournful air. &#039;It&#039;s only for two months, but I may as well be the richest man in the world even for that time. I&#039;m not particular, I&#039;ll take her, sir. I&#039;ll take her.&#039; &quot;The old gentleman was in a rapture to find Tom still in the same mind, and drawing the young lady towards him by little and little, was joining their hands by main force, when all of a sudden, gentlemen, the crucible blows up, with a great crash; everybody screams; the room is filled with smoke; and Tom, not knowing what may happen next, throws himself into a Fancy attitude, and says, &#039;Come on, if you&#039;re a man!&#039; without addressing himself to anybody in particular. &quot;&#039;The labours of fifteen years!&#039; says the old gentleman, clasping his hands and looking down upon the Gifted, who was saving the pieces, &#039;are destroyed in an instant!&#039;—And I am told, gentlemen, by the by, that this same philosopher&#039;s stone would have been discovered a hundred times at least, to speak within bounds, if it wasn&#039;t for the one unfortunate circumstance that the apparatus always blows up, when it&#039;s on the very point of succeeding. &quot;Tom turns pale when he hears the old gentleman expressing himself to this unpleasant effect, and stammers out that if it&#039;s quite agreeable to all parties, he would like to know exactly what has happened, and what change has really taken place in the prospects of that company. &quot;&#039;We have failed for the present, Mr. Grig,&#039; says the old gentleman, wiping his forehead. &#039;And I regret it the more, because I have in fact invested my niece&#039;s five thousand pounds in this glorious speculation. But don&#039;t be cast down,&#039; he says, anxiously—&#039;in another fifteen years, Mr. Grig—&#039; &quot;&#039;Oh!&#039; cries Tom, letting the young lady&#039;s hand fall. &#039;Were the stars very positive about this union, sir?&#039; &quot;&#039;They were,&#039; says the old gentleman. &quot;&#039;I&#039;m sorry to hear it,&#039; Tom makes answer, &#039;for it&#039;s no go, sir.&#039; &quot;&#039;No what!&#039; cries the old gentleman. &quot;&#039;Go, sir,&#039; says Tom, fiercely. &#039;I forbid the banns.&#039; And with these words—which are the very words he used—he sat himself down in a chair, and, laying his head upon the table, thought with a secret grief of what was to come to pass on that day two months. &quot;Tom always said, gentlemen, that that waiting-maid was the artfullest minx he had ever seen; and he left it in writing in this country when he went to colonise abroad, that he was certain in his own mind she and the Salamander had blown up the philosopher&#039;s stone on purpose, and to cut him out of his property. I believe Tom was in the right, gentlemen; but whether or no, she comes forward at this point, and says, &#039;May I speak, sir?&#039; and the old gentleman answering, &#039;Yes, you may,&#039; she goes on to say that &#039;the stars are no doubt quite right in every respect, but Tom is not the man.&#039; And she says, &#039;Don&#039;t you remember, sir, that when the clock struck five this afternoon, you gave Master Galileo a rap on the head with your telescope, and told him to get out of the way?&#039; &#039;Yes, I do,&#039; says the old gentleman. &#039;Then,&#039; says the waiting-maid, &#039;I say he&#039;s the man, and the prophecy is fulfilled.&#039; The old gentleman staggers at this, as if somebody had hit him a blow on the chest, and cries, &#039;He! why, he&#039;s a boy!&#039; Upon that, gentlemen, the Salamander cries out that he&#039;ll be twenty-one next Lady-day; and complains that his father has always been so busy with the sun round which the earth revolves, that he has never taken any notice of the son that revolves round him; and that he hasn&#039;t had a new suit of clothes since he was fourteen; and that he wasn&#039;t even taken out of nankeen frocks and trowsers till he was quite unpleasant in &#039;em; and touches on a good many more family matters to the same purpose. To make short of a long story, gentlemen, they all talk together, and cry together, and remind the old gentleman that as to the noble family, his own grandfather would have been Lord Mayor if he hadn&#039;t died at a dinner the year before; and they show him by all kinds of arguments that if the cousins are married, the prediction comes true every way. At last, the old gentleman being quite convinced, gives in; and joins their hands; and leaves his daughter to marry anybody she likes; and they are all well pleased; and the Gifted as well as any of them. &quot;In the middle of this little family party, gentlemen, sits Tom all the while, as miserable as you like. But, when everything else is arranged, the old gentleman&#039;s daughter says, that their strange conduct was a little device of the waiting-maid&#039;s to disgust the lovers he had chosen for &#039;em, and will he forgive her? and if he will, perhaps he might even find her a husband—and when she says that, she looks uncommon hard at Tom. Then the waiting-maid says that, oh dear! she couldn&#039;t abear Mr. Grig should think she wanted him to marry her; and that she had even gone so far as to refuse the last lamp-lighter, who was now a literary character (having set up as a bill-sticker); and that she hoped Mr. Grig would not suppose she was on her last legs by any means, for the baker was very strong in his attentions at that moment, and as to the butcher, he was frantic. And I don&#039;t know how much more she might have said, gentlemen (for, as you know, this kind of young women are rare ones to talk), if the old gentleman hadn&#039;t cut in suddenly, and asked Tom if he&#039;d have her, with ten pounds to recompense him for his loss of time and disappointment, and as a kind of bribe to keep the story secret. &quot;&#039;It don&#039;t much matter, sir,&#039; says Tom, &#039;I ain&#039;t long for this world. Eight weeks of marriage, especially with this young woman, might reconcile me to my fate. I think,&#039; he says, &#039;I could go off easy after that.&#039; With which he embraces her with a very dismal face, and groans in a way that might move a heart of stone—even of philosopher&#039;s stone. &quot;&#039;Egad,&#039; says the old gentleman, &#039;that reminds me—this bustle put it out of my head—there was a figure wrong. He&#039;ll live to a green old age—eighty-seven at least!&#039; &quot;&#039;How much, sir?&#039; cries Tom. &quot;&#039;Eighty-seven!&#039; says the old gentleman. &quot;&#039;Without another word, Tom flings himself on the old gentleman&#039;s neck; throws up his hat; cuts a caper; defies the waiting-maid; and refers her to the butcher. &quot;&#039;You wont marry her!&#039; says the old gentleman, angrily. &quot;&#039;And live after it!&#039; says Tom. &#039;I&#039;d sooner marry a mermaid with a small-tooth comb and looking-glass.&#039; &quot;&#039;Then take the consequences,&#039; says the other. &quot;With those words—I beg your kind attention here, gentlemen, for it&#039;s worth your notice—the old gentleman wetted the forefinger of his right hand in some of the liquor from the crucible that was spilt on the floor, and drew a small triangle on Tom&#039;s forehead. The room swam before his eyes, and he found himself in the watch-house.&quot; &quot;Found himself where?&quot; cried the vice, on behalf of the company generally. &quot;In the watch-house,&quot; said the chairman. &quot;It was late at night, and he found himself in the very watch-house from which he had been let out that morning.&quot; &quot;Did he go home?&quot; asked the vice. &quot;The watch-house people rather objected to that,&quot; said the chairman; &quot;so he stopped there that night, and went before the magistrate in the morning. &#039;Why, you&#039;re here again, are you?&#039; says the magistrate, adding insult to injury; &#039;we&#039;ll trouble you for five shillings more, if you can conveniently spare the money.&#039; Tom told him he had been enchanted, but it was of no use. He told the contractors the same, but they wouldn&#039;t believe him. It was very hard upon him, gentlemen, as he often said, for was it likely he&#039;d go and invent such a tale? They shook their heads and told him he&#039;d say anything but his prayers—as indeed he would; there&#039;s no doubt about that. It was the only imputation on his moral character that ever I heard of.&quot;18510101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/The_Lamplighter_s_Story/1851-The_Lamplighters_Story_The_Picnic_Papers.pdf
149https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/149'The Steam Excursion'Published in <em>The Monthly Magazine</em> (October 1834), pp. 360-376.Dickens, Charles<em>Biodiversity Heritage Library, </em>(National History Museum)<em>: </em><a href="https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/19780#page/360/mode/1up">https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/19780#page/360/mode/1up</a>.<span>Public domain. The BHL considers that this work is no longer under copyright protection.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-10-The_Steam_ExcursionDickens, Charles. 'The Steam Excursion' (October 1834). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https:www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-10-The_Steam_Excursion">https:www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-10-The_Steam_Excursion</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>Mr. Percy Noakes was a law-student inhabiting a set of chambers on the fourth floor, in one of those houses in Gray’s-inn-square, which command an extensive view of the gardens, and their usual adjuncts—flaunting nursery-maids, and town-made children, with parenthetical legs. Mr. Percy Noakes was what is generally termed—&quot;a devilish good fellow.&quot; He had a large circle of acquaintance, and seldom dined at his own expense. 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. Like those paragons of perfection, advertising footmen out of place, he was always &quot;willing to make himself generally useful.&quot; 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’s family died, Mr. Percy Noakes was invariably to be seen in the second mourning coach, with a white handkerchief to his eyes, sobbing—to use his own appropriate and expressive description—&quot;like winkin!&quot; It may readily be imagined that these numerous avocations were rather calculated to interfere with Mr. Percy Noakes’s professional studies. Mr. Percy Noakes was perfectly aware of the fact, and he had, therefore, after mature reflection, made up his mind not to study at all—a laudable determination, to which he adhered in the most praiseworthy manner. His sitting-room presented a strange chaos of dress-gloves, boxing-gloves, caricatures, albums, invitation cards, foils, cricket-bats, card-board drawings, paste, gum, and fifty other miscellaneous articles, heaped together in the strangest confusion. He was always making something for somebody, or planning some party of pleasure, which was his great forte. He invariably spoke with astonishing rapidity; was smart, spoffish, and eight-and-twenty. &quot;Splendid idea, ’pon my life,&quot; —soliloquised Mr. Percy Noakes, over his morning&#039;s coffee, as his mind reverted to a suggestion which had been thrown out the previous night, by a lady at whose house he had spent the evening. &quot;Glorious idea!—Mrs. Stubbs,&quot; cried the student, raising his voice. &quot;Yes, Sir,&quot; replied a dirty old woman, with an inflamed countenance, emerging from the bed-room, with a barrel of dirt and cinders.—This was the laundress. &quot;Did you call, Sir?&quot; &quot;Oh! Mrs. Stubbs, I’m going out. If that tailor should call again you’d better say—you’d better say, I’m out of town, and shan’t be back for a fortnight; and if that bootmaker should come, tell him I’ve lost his address, or I’d have sent him that little amount; mind he writes it down; and if Mr. Hardy should call—you know Mr. Hardy?—&quot; &quot;The funny gentleman, Sir?&quot; &quot;Ah! the funny gentleman. If Mr. Hardy should call, say I’ve gone to Mrs. Taunton’s about that water-party.&quot; &quot;Yes, Sir.&quot; &quot;And if any fellow calls, and says he’s come about a steamer, tell him to be here at five o’clock this afternoon, Mrs. Stubbs.&quot; &quot;Very well, Sir.&quot; Mr. Percy Noakes brushed his hat; whisked the crumbs off his inexplicables with a silk handkerchief, gave the ends of his hair a persuasive roll round his fore-finger, and sallied forth for Mrs. Taunton’s domicile in Great Marlborough-street, where she and her daughters occupied the upper part of a house. She was a good-looking widow of fifty, with the form of a giantess and the mind of a child. The pursuit of pleasure, and some means of killing time, appeared the sole end of her existence. She doted on her daughters, who were as frivolous as herself. 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’ work-table, with all the ease of a regularly established friend of the family. 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; and Miss Sophia was at the piano, practising a new song—poetry by the young officer, or the police officer, or the custom-house officer, or some equally interesting amateur. &quot;You good creature!&quot; said Mrs. Taunton, addressing the gallant Percy. &quot;You really are a good soul! You’ve come about the water-party, I know.&quot; &quot;I should rather suspect I had,&quot; replied Mr. Noakes, triumphantly. &quot;Now come here, girls, and I’ll tell you all about it.&quot; Miss Emily and Miss Sophia advanced to the table, with that ballet sort of step which some young ladies appear to think so fascinating - something between a skip and a canter. &quot;Now,&quot; continued Mr. Percy Noakes, &quot;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. Well, then, I propose that the expenses shall be paid by these ten fellows jointly.&quot; &quot;Excellent, indeed!&quot; said Mrs. Taunton, who highly approved of this part of the arrangements. &quot;Then my plan is, that each of these ten fellows shall have the power of asking five people. 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. This will ensure our having a pleasant party, you know.&quot; &quot;What a manager you are!&quot; interrupted Mrs. Taunton again. &quot;Charming!&quot; said the lovely Emily. &quot;I never did!&quot; ejaculated Sophia. &quot;Yes, I think it’ll do,&quot; replied Mr. Percy Noakes, who was now quite in his element. &quot;I think it’ll do. Well, 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 every thing 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—I don’t know what you call ’em. Then we shall hire a steamer expressly for our party, and a band, you know, and have the deck chalked, and we shall be able to dance quadrilles all day: and then whoever we know that’s musical, you know, why they’ll make themselves useful and agreeable—and—and—upon the whole I really hope we shall have a glorious day, you know.&quot; The announcement of these arrangements was received with the utmost enthusiasm. Mrs. Taunton, Emily, and Sophia, were loud in their praises. &quot;Well, but tell me, Percy,&quot; said Mrs. Taunton, &quot;who are the ten gentlemen to be?&quot; &quot;Oh! I know plenty of fellows who’ll be delighted with the scheme,&quot; replied Mr. Percy Noakes; &quot;of course we shall have—&quot; &quot;Mr. Hardy,&quot; interrupted the servant, announcing a visitor. Miss Sophia and Miss Emily hastily assumed the most interesting attitudes that could be adopted on so short a notice. &quot;How are you?&quot; said a stout gentleman of about forty, pausing at the door in the attitude of an awkward harlequin. This was Mr. Hardy, whom we have before described, on the authority of Mrs. Stubbs, as &quot;the funny gentleman.&quot; He was an Astley Cooperish Joe Miller—a practical joker, immensely popular with married ladies, and a general favourite with young men. He was always engaged in some pleasure excursion or other, and delighted in getting somebody into a scrape on such occasions. He could sing comic songs; imitate hackney coachmen and fowls; play airs on his chin, and execute concertos on the Jew&#039;s harp. He always eat and drank most immoderately, and was the bosom friend of Mr. Percy Noakes. He had a red face, a somewhat husky voice, and a tremendously loud laugh. &quot;How are you?&quot; 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 were so many pump-handles. &quot;You’re just the very man I wanted,&quot; said Mr. Percy Noakes, who proceeded to explain the cause of his being in requisition. &quot;Ha! ha! ha!&quot; shouted Hardy, after hearing the statement, and receiving a detailed account of the proposed excursion. &quot;Oh, capital! glorious! What a day it will be! what fun! But, I say, when are you going to begin making the arrangements?&quot; &quot;No time like the present—at once, if you please.&quot; &quot;Oh, charming!&quot; cried the ladies. &quot;Pray, do.&quot; 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 at least the fate of nations had depended on their appointment. It was then agreed that a meeting should take place at Mr. Percy Noakes’s chambers on the ensuing Wednesday evening at eight o’clock, and the visitors departed. Wednesday evening arrived; eight o’clock came, and eight members of the committee were punctual in their attendance. Mr. Loggins, the solicitor, of Boswell-court, sent an excuse, and Mr. Samuel Briggs, the ditto of Furnival’s Inn, sent his brother, much to his (the brother’s) satisfaction, and greatly to the discomfiture of Mr. Percy Noakes. Between the Briggs&#039;s and the Tauntons there existed a degree of implacable hatred, quite unprecedented. The animosity between the Montagues and Capulets, was nothing to that which prevailed between these two illustrious houses. 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 definite articles to his brother. They resided in Portland-street, Oxford-street, and moved in the same orbit as the Tauntons—hence their mutual dislike. If the Miss Briggs&#039;s appeared in smart bonnets, the Miss Tauntons eclipsed them with smarter. 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. If Miss Sophia Taunton learnt a new song, two of the Miss Briggs&#039;s came out with a new duet. The Tauntons had once gained a temporary triumph with the assistance of a harp, but the Briggs&#039;s brought three guitars into the field, and effectually routed the enemy. In short, there was no end to the rivalry between them. 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&#039;s 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 pleasing animal which brouzes upon the thistle—he required but little tuition. He was especially enjoined to make himself as disagreeable as possible; and, above all, to black-ball the Tauntons at every hazard. The proceedings of the evening were opened by Mr. Percy Noakes. After successfully urging on the gentlemen present the propriety of their mixing some brandy-and-water, he briefly stated the objects of the meeting, and concluded by observing that the first step must be the selection of a chairman, necessarily possessing some arbitrary—he trusted not unconstitutional—powers, to whom the personal direction of the whole of the arrangements (subject to the approval of the committee) should be confided. 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. He had known him long, and this he would say, that a more honourable, a more excellent, or a better hearted fellow, never existed—(hear, hear). 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. Mr. Alexander Briggs opposed the motion. 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—(oh, oh!)—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. Mr. Hardy defended his honourable friend, in a voice rendered partially unintelligible by emotion and brandy-and-water; 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. The business of the meeting now proceeded with great rapidity. The chairman delivered in his estimate of the probable expense of the excursion, and every one present subscribed his portion thereof. The question was put that &quot;The Endeavour&quot; be hired for the occasion; Mr. Alexander Briggs moved as an amendment that the word &quot;Fly&quot; be substituted for the word &quot;Endeavour;&quot; but after some debate consented to withdraw his opposition. The important ceremony of balloting then commenced. 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. 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. The names were respectively balloted for, and Mrs. Taunton and her daughters were declared to be black-balled. Mr. Percy Noakes and Mr. Hardy exchanged glances. &quot;Is your list prepared, Mr. Briggs?&quot; inquired the chairman. &quot;It is,&quot; replied Alexander, delivering in the following:—&quot;Mrs. Briggs and three daughters, Mr. Samuel Briggs.&quot; The previous ceremony was repeated, and Mrs. Briggs and three daughters were declared to be black-balled. Mr. Alexander Briggs looked rather foolish, and the remainder of the company appeared somewhat overawed by the mysterious nature of the proceedings. 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—everybody was black-balled. 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 incessant balloting, the names of only three gentlemen were found to have been agreed to. In this dilemma what was to be done? either the whole plan must fall to the ground, or a compromise must be effected. 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. The proposal was readily acceded to; the Tauntons and the Briggs&#039;s were reinstated, and the party was formed. 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. 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’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’clock. 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. The weather had been beautiful up to this period, and beautiful it continued to be. Sunday passed over, and Mr. Percy Noakes became unusually fidgetty—rushing, constantly, to and from the Steam Packet Wharf, to the astonishment of the clerks, and the great emolument of the Holborn cab-men. Tuesday arrived, and the anxiety of Mr. Percy Noakes knew no bounds: 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’s chambers. 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’s side, and grinning as if in derision of his fruitless attempts to move. He made a violent effort to get on board, and awoke. The bright sun was shining cheerfully into the bed-room; and Mr. Percy Noakes started up for his watch, in the dreadful expectation of finding his worst dreams realized. It was just five o’clock: he calculated the time—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. He dressed himself, took a hasty apology for a breakfast, and sallied forth. The streets looked as lonely and deserted as if they had been crowded over-night for the last time. Here and there an early apprentice, with quenched-looking, sleepy eyes, was taking down the shutters of a shop; and a policeman or milk-woman might occasionally be seen pacing slowly along; but the servants had not yet begun to clean the doors, or light the fires, and London looked the picture of desolation. At the corner of a bye-street, near Temple Bar, was stationed a &quot;street breakfast.&quot; 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. The company were seated on a form, which, with a view both to security and comfort, was placed against a neighbouring wall. Two young men, whose uproarious mirth and disordered dress bespoke the conviviality of the preceding evening, were treating three &quot;ladies&quot; and an Irish labourer. 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. The wan looks, and gaudy finery of the wretched, thinly-clad females contrasted as strangely with the gay sun-light, as did their forced merriment with the boisterous hilarity of the two young men, who now and then varied their amusements by &quot;bonneting&quot; the proprietor of this itinerant coffee-house. 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. &quot;Boat, Sir?&quot; cried one of the three watermen who were mopping out their boats, and all whistling different tunes. &quot;Boat, Sir!&quot; &quot;No,&quot; replied Mr. Percy Noakes rather sharply, for the inquiry was not made in a manner at all suitable to his dignity. &quot;Would you prefer a wessel, Sir?&quot; inquired another, to the infinite delight of the &#039;Jack-in-the-water.&#039; Mr. Percy Noakes replied with a look of the most supreme contempt. &quot;Did you want to be put on board a steamer, Sir?&quot; inquired an old fireman-waterman, very confidentially. He was dressed in a faded red suit, just the colour of the cover of a very old Court-guide. &quot;Yes, make haste—the Endeavour; off the Custom-house.&quot; &quot;Endeavour!&quot; cried the man who had convulsed the ‘Jack’ before. &quot;Vy, I see the Endeavour go up half an hour ago.&quot; &quot;So did I,&quot; said another; &quot;and I should think she’d gone down by this time, for she’s a precious sight too full of ladies and gen’lmen.&quot; 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.— &quot;Shove her off,&quot; 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’d never reach the &quot;Custum-us.&quot; &quot;Here she is, by Jove!&quot; said the delighted Percy, as they ran alongside the Endeavour. &quot;Hold hard!&quot; cried the steward over the side, and Mr. Percy Noakes jumped on board. &quot;Hope you&#039;ll find everything as you wished it, Sir—she looks uncommon well this morning.&quot; &quot;She does, indeed!&quot; replied the manager, in a state of ecstasy which it is impossible to describe. 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’s men, and the steward’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’s wife laughed till she cried, and Mr. Percy Noakes panted with the violence of his exertions. 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 a great many people who wanted to go were left behind, and a great many people who didn&#039;t want to go were carried away; and the whole scene was one of the most delightful bustle and confusion that can be imagined. The time wore on; half-past eight o’clock arrived; the pastry-cook’s men went ashore; the dinner was completely laid out, and Mr. Percy Noakes locked the principal cabin, and put the key into his pocket, in order that it might be suddenly disclosed in all its magnificence to the eyes of the astonished company. The band came on board, and so did the wine. Ten minutes to nine, and the committee embarked in a body. There was Mr. Hardy in a blue jacket and waistcoat, white trousers, silk stockings, and pumps; habited 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—not the saint, but he of Virginia notoriety. The remainder of the committee, dressed as they were in white hats, light jackets, waistcoats and trousers, looked something between waiters and West India planters. Nine o’clock struck, and the company arrived in shoals. Mr. Samuel Briggs, Mrs. Briggs, and the Misses Briggs made their appearance in a smart private wherry. 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’s incessant playing to get through. The Tauntons arrived at the same moment with more music, and a lion—a gentleman with a bass voice, and incipient red moustachios. The colours of the Taunton party were pink; those of the Briggs&#039;s a light blue. The Tauntons had artificial flowers in their bonnets; here the Briggs&#039;s gained a decided advantage—they wore feathers. &quot;How d’ye do, dear?&quot; said the Misses Briggs to the Misses Taunton. (The word &quot;dear&quot; among girls is frequently synonymous with &quot;wretch.&quot;) &quot;Quite well, thank you, dear,&quot; replied the Misses Taunton, to the Misses Briggs—and then there was such a kissing, and congratulating, and shaking of hands, as would induce one to suppose the two families were the best friends in the world, instead of each wishing the other overboard, as they most sincerely did. Mr. Percy Noakes received the visitors, and bowed to the strange gentleman, as if he should like to know who he was. This was just what Mrs. Taunton wanted. Here was an opportunity to astonish the Briggs&#039;s. &quot;Oh! I beg your pardon,&quot; said the general of the Taunton party, with a careless air.—&quot;Captain Helves—Mr. Percy Noakes—Mrs. Briggs—Captain Helves.&quot; Mr. Percy Noakes bowed very low; the gallant captain did the same with all due ferocity, and the Briggs&#039;s were clearly overcome. &quot;Our friend, Mr. Wizzle, being unfortunately prevented from coming,&quot; resumed Mrs. Taunton, &quot;I did myself the pleasure of bringing the captain, whose musical talents I knew would be a great acquisition.&quot; &quot;In the name of the committee I have to thank you for doing so, and to offer you a most sincere welcome, Sir,&quot; replied Percy (here the scraping was renewed). &quot;But pray be seated—won’t you walk aft? Captain, will you conduct Miss Taunton?—Miss Briggs, will you allow me?&quot; &quot;Where could they have picked up that military man?&quot; inquired Mrs. Briggs of Miss Kate Briggs, as they followed the little party. &quot;Can’t imagine,&quot; 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. Boat after boat came alongside, and guest after guest arrived. 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. &quot;Now is every one on board?&quot; inquired Mr. Percy Noakes. 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. &quot;Go on,&quot; cried the master of the boat from the top of one of the paddle-boxes. &quot;Go on,&quot; 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. &quot;Hoi-oi-oi-oi-oi-oi-o-i-i-i!&quot; shouted half-a-dozen voices from a boat, a quarter of a mile astern. &quot;Ease her,&quot; cried the captain; &quot;do these people belong to us, sir?&quot; &quot;Noakes,&quot; exclaimed Hardy, who had been looking at every object, far and near, through the large telescope; &quot;it’s the Fleetwoods and the Wakefields—and two children with them, by Jove.&quot; &quot;What a shame to bring children!&quot; said every body; &quot;how very inconsiderate!&quot; &quot;I say, it would be a good joke to pretend not to see ’em, wouldn’t it?&quot; suggested Hardy, to the immense delight of the company generally. A council of war was hastily held, and it was resolved that the new comers should be taken on board, on Mr. Hardy&#039;s solemnly pledging himself to teaze the children during the whole of the day. &quot;Stop her,&quot; cried the captain. &quot;Stop her,&quot; repeated the boy; whizz went the steam, and all the young ladies, as in duty bound, screamed in concert. 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 losf of human life. 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. The girl was about six years old; the boy about four; the former was dressed in a white frock with a pink sash, and a dog’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. 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 dear little countenance. The boat once more started off; the band played &quot;Off she goes,&quot; 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. They ran briskly down the pool; the gentlemen pointed out the Docks, the Thames&#039; Police-office, and other elegant public edifices; and the young ladies exhibited a proper display of horror and bashfulness at the appearance of the coal-whippers, and ballast-heavers. 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 &quot;a naughty man—a shocking creature&quot;—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. Quadrilling commenced; Captain Helves danced one set with Miss Emily Taunton, and another set with Miss Sophia Taunton. Mrs. Taunton was in ecstasies. The victory appeared to be complete; but alas! the inconstancy of man!—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. Mr. Hardy having played one or two very brilliant fantasias on the Jew&#039;s-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. &quot;Perhaps,&quot; he said in a very insinuating manner, &quot;Captain Helves will oblige us?&quot; Mrs. Taunton’s countenance lightened up, for the captain only sang duets, and couldn’t sing them with anybody but one of her daughters. &quot;Really,&quot; said that warlike individual, &quot;I should be very happy, but—&quot; &quot;Oh! pray do,&quot; cried all the young ladies. &quot;Miss Sophia, have you any objection to join in a duet?&quot; &quot;Oh! not the slightest,&quot; returned the young lady, in a tone which clearly showed she had the greatest possible objection. &quot;Shall I accompany you, dear?&quot; inquired one of the Miss Briggs&#039;s, with the bland intention of spoiling the effect. &quot;Very much obliged to you, Miss Briggs,&quot; sharply retorted Mrs. Taunton, who saw through the manœuvre—&quot;my daughters always sing without accompaniments.&quot; &quot;And without voices,&quot; tittered Mrs. Briggs, in a low tone. &quot;Perhaps,&quot; said Mrs. Taunton, reddening, for she guessed the tenor of the observation, though she had not heard it clearly. &quot;Perhaps it would be as well for some people, if their voices were not quite so audible as they are to other people.&quot; &quot;And, perhaps, if gentlemen who are kidnapped to pay attention to some persons’ daughters, had not sufficient discernment to pay attention to other persons’ daughters,&quot; returned Mrs. Briggs, &quot;some persons would not be so ready to display that ill-temper, which, thank God, distinguishes them from other persons.&quot; &quot;Persons!&quot; ejaculated Mrs. Taunton. &quot;Yes; persons, ma&#039;am,&quot; replied Mrs. Briggs. &quot;Insolence!&quot; &quot;Creature!&quot; &quot;Hush! hush!&quot; interrupted Mr. Percy Noakes, who was one of the very few by whom this dialogue had been overheard. &quot;Hush!—pray; silence for the duet.&quot; After a great deal of preparatory crowing and humming, the Captain began the following duet from the opera of Paul and Virginia, in that grunting tone in which a man gets down, Heaven knows where, without the remotest chance of ever getting up again. This, in private circles, is frequently designated &quot;a bass voice.&quot; &quot;See (sung the Captain) from o—ce—an ri—sing Bright flames the or—b of d—ay. From yon gro—ove, the varied so—ongs—&quot; 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. &quot;My child!&quot; screamed Mrs. Fleetwood. &quot;My child! it is his voice—I know it.&quot; 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. &quot;What is the matter?&quot; shouted the agonized father, as he returned with the child in his arms. &quot;Oh! oh! oh!&quot; screamed the small sufferer again. &quot;What is the matter, dear?&quot; inquired the father, once more—hastily stripping off the nankeen frock, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the child had one bone which was not smashed to pieces. &quot;Oh! oh!—I’m so frightened.&quot; &quot;What at, dear?—what at?&quot; said the mother, soothing the sweet infant. &quot;Oh! he’s been making such dreadful faces at me,&quot; cried the boy, relapsing into convulsions, at the bare recollection. &quot;He!—who?&quot; cried every body, crowding round him. &quot;Oh!—him!&quot; replied the child, pointing at Hardy, who affected to be the most concerned of the whole group. The real state of the case at once flashed upon the minds of all present, with the exception of the Fleetwoods and the Wakefields. The facetious Hardy, in fulfilment of his promise, had watched the child to a remote part of the vessel, and, by suddenly appearing before him with the most awful contortions of visage, had produced his paroxysm of terror. 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. This little interruption having been adjusted, the captain resumed, and Miss Emily chimed in, in due course. The duet was loudly applauded; and, certainly, the perfect independence of the parties, deserved great commendation. 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. 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 always assume, when they think they have done something to astonish the company, though they don&#039;t exactly know what. &quot;Now,&quot; said Mr. Percy Noakes, who had just ascended from the fore-cabin, where he had been busily engaged in decanting the wine, &quot;if the Misses Briggs will oblige us with something before dinner, I am sure we shall be very much delighted.&quot; 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. 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. The Misses Briggs asked for their guitars, and several gentlemen seriously damaged the cases in their anxiety to present them. 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. Mrs. Taunton whispered to a neighbour that it was &quot;quite sickening!&quot; and the Misses Taunton looked as if they knew how to play, but disdained to do so. At length the Misses Briggs began in real earnest. It was a new Spanish composition for three voices and three guitars. The effect was electrical. All eyes were turned upon the captain, who was reported to have once passed through Spain with his regiment, and who, of course, must be well acquainted with the national music. He was in raptures. This was sufficient; the trio was encored—the applause was universal, and never had the Tauntons suffered such a complete defeat. Mrs. Taunton looked as philanthropic as one of Mr. Barnett&#039;s &quot;Salamanders.&quot; &quot;Bravo! Bravo!&quot; ejaculated the captain;—&quot;Bravo!&quot; &quot;Pretty! isn’t it, Sir?&quot; inquired Mr. Samuel Briggs, with the air of a self-satisfied showman. By-the-bye, they were the first words he had been heard to utter since he left Boswell-court the evening before. &quot;De-lightful!&quot; returned the captain, with a flourish, and a military cough;—&quot;de-lightful!&quot; &quot;Sweet instrument!&quot; 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. &quot;Did you ever hear a Portuguese tambourine?&quot; inquired that jocular individual. &quot;Did you ever hear a tom-tom, Sir?&quot; sternly inquired the captain, who lost no opportunity of shewing off his travels, real or pretended. &quot;A what?&quot; asked Hardy, rather taken aback. &quot;A tom-tom.&quot; &quot;Never!&quot; &quot;Nor a gum-gum?&quot; &quot;Never!&quot; &quot;What is a gum-gum?&quot; eagerly inquired several young ladies. &quot;When I was in the East Indies,&quot; replied the captain, (here was a discovery—he had been in the East Indies!)—&quot;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—a devilish pleasant fellow. 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 Consumars, approaching the house with a threatening aspect, and beating a tom-tom. The Ram started up—&quot; &quot;The who?&quot; inquired the bald gentleman, intensely interested. &quot;The Ram—Ram Chowdar—&quot; &quot;Oh!&quot; said the old gentleman, &quot;I beg your pardon; it really didn&#039;t occur to me; pray go on.&quot; &quot;—Started up and drew a pistol. &#039;Helves,&#039; said he, &#039;my boy,&#039;—he always called me, my boy—&#039;Helves,&#039; said he, &#039;do you hear that tom-tom?&#039; &#039;I do,&#039; said I. His countenance, which before was pale, assumed a most frightful appearance; his whole visage was distorted, and his frame shaken by violent emotions. &#039;Do you see that gum-gum?&#039; said he. &#039;No,&#039; said I, staring about me. &#039;You don’t?&#039; said he. &#039;No, I’ll be damned if I do,&#039; said I; &#039;and what’s more, I don’t know what a gum-gum is,&#039; said I. I really thought the man would have dropped. He drew me aside, and with an expression of agony I shall never forget, said in a low whisper—&quot; &quot;Dinner’s on the table, ladies,&quot; interrupted the steward’s wife. &quot;Will you allow me?&quot; 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. &quot;What an extraordinary circumstance!&quot; ejaculated the same old gentleman, preserving his listening attitude. &quot;What a traveller!&quot; said the young ladies. &quot;What a singular name!&quot; exclaimed the gentlemen, rather confused by the coolness of the whole affair. &quot;I wish he had finished the story,&quot; said an old lady. &quot;I wonder what a gum-gum really is?&quot; &quot;By Jove!&quot; exclaimed Hardy, who until now had been lost in utter amazement, &quot;I don’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.&quot; &quot;How illiberal! how envious!&quot; cried every body, as they made for the cabin, fully impressed with a belief in the captain’s amazing adventures. Helves was the sole lion for the remainder of the day—impudence and the marvellous are pretty sure passports to any society. The party had by this time reached their destination, and put about on their return home. 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. It had been &quot;spitting&quot; with rain for the last half-hour, and now began to pour in good earnest. The wind was freshening very fast, and the &quot;jolly young waterman&quot; at the wheel had unequivocally expressed his opinion that there would shortly be a squall. 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. Sea-sickness, however, is like a belief in ghosts—every one entertains some misgivings on the subject, but few will acknowledge them. The majority of the company, therefore, endeavoured to look peculiarly happy, feeling all the while especially miserable. &quot;Don’t it rain?&quot; inquired the old gentleman before noticed, when, by dint of squeezing and jamming, they were all seated at table. &quot;I think it does—a little,&quot; replied Mr. Percy Noakes, who could hardly hear himself speak, in consequence of the pattering on the deck. &quot;Don’t it blow?&quot; inquired some one else. &quot;No—I don’t think it does,&quot; 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. &quot;It’ll soon clear up,&quot; said Mr. Percy Noakes, in a cheerful tone. &quot;Oh, certainly,&quot; ejaculated the committee generally. &quot;No doubt of it,&quot; 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. The throbbing motion of the engine was but too perceptible. There was a large, substantial, cold boiled leg of mutton at the bottom of the table, shaking like blanc-mange; 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, were going through the most surprising evolutions, darting from side to side and from end to end, like a fly in an inverted wine-glass. 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. The table vibrated and started like a feverish pulse, and the very legs were slightly convulsed—every thing was shaking and jarring. 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. As fast as the steward put the fire-irons up, they would 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. 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. The cloth was removed; the desert was laid on the table, and the glasses were filled. 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. The young gentleman with the spectacles who had been in a fluctuating state for some time—one moment jolly, and another dismal, like a revolving light on the sea-coast—rashly announced his wish to propose a toast. 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:— &quot;Ladies and Gentlemen. A gentleman is among us—I may say a stranger—(here some painful thought seemed to strike the orator; he paused, and looked extremely odd) whose talents, whose travels, whose cheerfulness—&quot; &quot;I beg your pardon, Edkins,&quot; hastily interrupted Mr. Percy Noakes. &quot;Hardy, what’s the matter?&quot; &quot;Nothing,&quot; replied the ‘funny gentleman,’ who had just life enough left to utter two consecutive syllables. &quot;Will you have some brandy?&quot; &quot;No,&quot; replied Hardy in a tone of great indignation, and looking as comfortable as Temple Bar in a Scotch mist; &quot;what should I want brandy for?&quot; &quot;Will you go on deck?&quot; &quot;No, I will not.&quot; 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. &quot;I beg your pardon, Edkins,&quot; said the courteous Percy, &quot;I thought our friend was ill. Pray go on.&quot; A pause. &quot;Pray go on.&quot; &quot;Mr. Edkins is gone,&quot; cried somebody. &quot;I beg your pardon, Sir,&quot; said the steward, running up to Mr. Percy Noakes, &quot;I beg your pardon, Sir, but the gentleman as just went on deck—him with the green spectacles—is uncommon bad to be sure; and the young man as played the wiolin says, that unless he has some brandy he can’t answer for the consequences. He says he has a wife and two children, whose werry subsistence depends on his breaking a wessle, and that he expects to do so every moment. The flageolet’s been werry ill, but he’s better, only he’s in a dreadful prusperation.&quot; 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. Never was such a blowing, and raining, and pitching, and tossing endured by any pleasure party before. 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. That interesting child screamed at the very 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. 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. Having been for some months past subject to indigestion, and loss of appetite, he was recently persuaded to try a keener air and a more northern climate for the removal of the one, and the improvement of the other. We are credibly informed that he was present at the Edinburgh dinner, and, moreover, that he is the individual to whose eager appetite on that occasion we find allusion made in The Morning Chronicle of a few days since. The party arrived off the Custom-house at about two o’clock on the Thursday morning—dispirited and worn out. The Tauntons were too ill to quarrel with the Briggs&#039;s, and the Briggs&#039;s were too wretched to annoy the Tauntons. 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. Mr. Alexander Briggs opposes vote by ballot—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. Mr. Edkins—the young gentleman in the green spectacles—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. In the event of his not being previously appointed to a judgeship, it is most probable that he will practise as a barrister in the New Central Criminal Court. 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. 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. Mrs. Taunton complains that she has been much deceived in him. He introduced himself to the family on board a Gravesend steam-packet, and certainly, therefore, ought to have proved respectable. Mr. Percy Noakes is as light-hearted and careless as ever. We have described him as a general favourite in his private circle—we hope he may find a kindly disposed friend or two in public.18341001https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/The_Steam_Excursion/1834-10-The_Steam_Excursion.pdf
164https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/164'The Tuggs's at Ramsgate'Published in <em>The Library of Fiction,</em> vol. 1. London: Chapman and Hall, 1836, pp. 1-17.Dickens, Charles<em>Internet Archive,</em> <a href="https://archive.org/details/libraryoffiction01dick/page/n9/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/libraryoffiction01dick/page/n9/mode/2up</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+Robert+Seymour">Illustrated by Robert Seymour</a><p><em>Internet Archive,</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://archive.org/about.terms.php">https://archive.org/about.terms.php</a>. Access to the Archive's Collections is granted for scholarship and research purposes only.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1836-The_Tuggss_at_Ramgate<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Book">Book</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Library+of+Fiction%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Library of Fiction</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>Once upon a time, there dwelt, in a narrow street on the Surrey side of the water, within three minutes’ walk of old London Bridge, Mr. Joseph Tuggs—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. 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. Mr. Simon Tuggs, his only son, and Miss Charlotte Tuggs’s only brother, was as differently formed in body, as he was differently constituted in mind, from the remainder of his family. 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. The slightest traits of character in such a being, possess no mean interest to speculative minds. 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. There is perhaps no profession, however useful, no pursuit, however meritorious, which can escape the petty attacks of vulgar minds. Mr. Joseph Tuggs was a grocer. It might be supposed that a grocer was beyond the breath of calumny; but no,—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. These taunts, however, were lost upon the Tuggs&#039;s. Mr. Tuggs attended to the grocery department, Mrs. Tuggs to the cheesemongery, and Miss Tuggs to her education. Mr. Simon Tuggs kept his father’s books, and his own counsel. 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: he was habited in black cloth, and bore with him a green umbrella and a blue bag. &quot;Mr. Tuggs?&quot; said the stranger, inquiringly. &quot;My name is Tuggs,&quot; replied Mr. Simon. &quot;It’s the other Mr. Tuggs,&quot; 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. Mr. Simon gracefully waved his pen, as if in intimation of his wish that his father would advance, and Mr. Joseph Tuggs with considerable celerity removed his face from the curtain, and placed it before the stranger. &quot;I come from the Temple,&quot; said the man with the bag. &quot;From the Temple!&quot; said Mrs. Tuggs, flinging open the door of the little parlour, and disclosing Miss Tuggs in perspective. &quot;From the Temple!&quot; said Miss Tuggs and Mr. Simon Tuggs at the same moment. &quot;From the Temple!&quot; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs, turning as pale as a Dutch cheese. &quot;From the Temple,&quot; repeated the man with the bag; &quot;from Mr. Cower’s, the solicitor’s. Mr. Tuggs, I congratulate you, sir. Ladies, I wish you joy of your prosperity! We have been successful.&quot; And the man with the bag, leisurely divested himself of his umbrella and glove, as a preliminary to shaking hands with Mr. Joseph Tuggs. Now the words &quot;we have been successful,&quot; 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. &quot;Water!&quot; screamed Mrs. Tuggs. &quot;Look up, my son,&quot; exclaimed Mr. Tuggs. &quot;Simon! Dear Simon!&quot; shrieked Miss Tuggs. &quot;I’m better now,&quot; said Mr. Simon Tuggs. &quot;What! successful!&quot; 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. To a casual spectator, or to any one unacquainted with the position of the family, this fainting would have been unaccountable. 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. 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. A prolonged consultation took place that night in the little parlour—a consultation that was to settle the future destinies of the Tuggs&#039;s. 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’orths of pepper, which were to have been &quot;left till Saturday,&quot; but which fortune had decreed were to be left alone altogether. &quot;We must certainly give up business,&quot; said Miss Tuggs. &quot;Oh, decidedly,&quot; said Mrs. Tuggs. &quot;Simon shall go to the bar,&quot; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs. &quot;And I shall always sign myself &#039;Cymon&#039; in future,&quot; said his son. &quot;And I shall call myself Charlotta,&quot; said Miss Tuggs. &quot;And you must always call me &#039;Ma,&#039; and father &#039;Pa,’&quot; said Mrs. Tuggs. &quot;Yes, and Pa must leave off all his vulgar habits,&quot; interposed Miss Tuggs. &quot;I’ll take care o&#039; all that,&quot; responded Mr. Joseph Tuggs, complacently.—He was at that very moment eating pickled salmon with a pocket-knife. &quot;We must leave town immediately,&quot; said Mr. Cymon Tuggs. Everybody concurred that this was an indispensable preliminary to being genteel. The question then arose—Where should they go? &quot;Gravesend,&quot; mildly suggested Mr. Joseph Tuggs. The idea was unanimously scouted. Gravesend was low. &quot;Margate,&quot; insinuated Mrs. Tuggs. Worse and worse—nobody there, but tradespeople. &quot;Brighton?&quot; Mr. Cymon Tuggs opposed an insurmountable objection. 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 &quot;no blame whatever was attributable to the coachman.&quot; &quot;Ramsgate!&quot; ejaculated Mr. Cymon, thoughtfully.—To be sure; how stupid they must have been not to have thought of that before. Ramsgate was just the place of all others that they ought to go to. Two months after this conversation, the City of London Ramsgate steamer was running gaily down the river. Her flag was flying, her band was playing, her passengers were conversing; everything about her seemed gay and lively.—No wonder, the Tuggs&#039;s were on board. &quot;Charming, a&#039;nt it?&quot; 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. &quot;Soul-inspiring,&quot; replied Mr. Cymon Tuggs—he was entered at the bar.—&quot;Soul-inspiring!&quot; &quot;Delightful morning, sir,&quot; 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. Mr. Cymon Tuggs took upon himself the responsibility of answering the observation. &quot;Heavenly!&quot; he replied. &quot;You are an enthusiastic admirer of the beauties of Nature, sir?&quot; said the military gentleman, deferentially. &quot;I am, sir,&quot; replied Mr. Cymon Tuggs. &quot;Travelled much, sir?&quot; inquired the military gentleman. &quot;Not much,&quot; replied Mr. Cymon Tuggs. &quot;You’ve been on the continent, of course?&quot; inquired the military gentleman. &quot;Not exactly,&quot; replied Mr. Cymon Tuggs, in a qualified tone, as if he wished it to be implied that he had gone half way and come back again. &quot;You of course intend your son to make the grand tour, sir?&quot; said the military gentleman, addressing Mr. Joseph Tuggs. As Mr. Joseph Tuggs did not precisely understand what the grand tour was, or how such an article was manufactured, he replied, &quot;Of course.&quot; 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. &quot;Walter, my dear,&quot; said the young lady to the military gentleman. &quot;Yes, Belinda, my love,&quot; responded the military gentleman to the black-eyed young lady. &quot;What have you left me alone so long for?&quot; said the young lady. &quot;I have been stared out of countenance by those rude young men.&quot; &quot;What! stared at?&quot; exclaimed the military gentleman, with an emphasis which made Mr. Cymon Tuggs withdraw his eyes from the young lady’s face with inconceivable rapidity. &quot;Which young men—where?&quot; and the military gentleman clenched his fist, and glared fearfully on the cigar-smokers around. &quot;Be calm, Walter, I entreat,&quot; said the young lady. &quot;I won’t,&quot; said the military gentleman. &quot;Do, sir,&quot; interposed Mr. Cymon Tuggs. &quot;They a&#039;nt worth your notice.&quot; &quot;No—no—they are not indeed,&quot; urged the young lady. &quot;I will be calm,&quot; said the military gentleman. &quot;You speak truly, sir. I thank you for a timely remonstrance, which may have spared me the guilt of manslaughter;&quot; and calming his wrath, the military gentleman wrung Mr. Cymon Tuggs by the hand. &quot;My sister, sir,&quot; said Mr. Cymon Tuggs: seeing that the military gentleman was casting an admiring look towards Miss Charlotta. &quot;My wife, ma’am—Mrs. Captain Waters,&quot; said the military gentleman, presenting the black-eyed young lady. &quot;My mother, ma’am—Mrs. Tuggs,&quot; said Mr. Cymon. The military gentleman and his wife murmured enchanting courtesies; and the Tuggses looked as unembarrassed as they could. &quot;Walter, my dear,&quot; said the black-eyed young lady, after they had sat chatting with the Tuggs&#039;s some half hour. &quot;Yes, my love,&quot; said the military gentleman. &quot;Don’t you think this gentleman (with an inclination of the head towards Mr. Cymon Tuggs) is very much like the Marquis Carriwini.&quot; &quot;God bless me, very!&quot; said the military gentleman. &quot;It struck me, the moment I saw him,&quot; said the young lady, gazing intently, and with a melancholy air, on the scarlet countenance of Mr. Cymon Tuggs. Mr. Cymon Tuggs looked at every body; and finding that every body was looking at him, appeared to feel some temporary difficulty in disposing of his eyesight. &quot;So exactly the air of the marquis,&quot; said the military gentleman. &quot;Quite extraordinary!&quot; sighed the military gentleman’s lady. &quot;You don’t know the marquis, sir?&quot; inquired the military gentleman. Mr. Cymon Tuggs stammered a negative. &quot;If you did,&quot; continued Captain Walter Waters, &quot;you would feel how much reason you have to be proud of the resemblance—a most elegant man, with a most prepossessing appearance.&quot; &quot;He is—he is indeed!&quot; exclaimed Belinda Waters energetically: and as her eye caught that of Mr. Cymon Tuggs, she withdrew it from his features in bashful confusion. All this was highly gratifying to the feelings of the Tuggs&#039;s; and when in the course of further conversation, it was discovered that Miss Charlotta Tuggs was the fac simile 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. Even the dignity of Captain Walter Waters relaxed to such a 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. &quot;Good by&#039;e, dear!&quot; said Mrs. Captain Waters to Miss Charlotta Tuggs, just before the bustle of landing commenced; &quot;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.&quot; &quot;Oh! I hope so,&quot; said Miss Charlotta Tuggs, emphatically. &quot;Tickets, ladies and gen’lm’n,&quot; said the man on the paddle-box. &quot;Want a porter, sir?&quot; inquired a dozen men in smock-frocks. &quot;Now, my dear—&quot; said Captain Waters. &quot;Good by&#039;e,&quot; said Mrs. Captain Waters—&quot;good by&#039;e! Mr. Cymon!&quot; and with a pressure of the hand which threw the amiable young man’s nerves into a state of considerable derangement, Mrs. Captain Waters disappeared among the crowd. A pair of puce-coloured boots were seen ascending the steps, a white handkerchief fluttered, a black eye gleamed:&amp;nbsp; the Waters&#039;s were gone, and Mr. Cymon Tuggs was alone indeed. Silently and abstractedly did that too sensitive youth follow his revered parents, and a train of smock-frocks and wheel-barrows, along the pier, until the bustle of the scene around, recalled him to himself. 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. 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 were 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. &quot;Fly, sir?&quot; 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. &quot;Here’s the gen’lm’n at last!&quot; said one, touching his hat with mock politeness. &quot;Werry glad to see you, sir,—been a-waitin’ for you these six weeks. Jump in, if you please, sir.&quot; &quot;Nice light fly and a fast trotter, sir,&quot; said another: &quot;fourteen mile a hour, and surroundin’ objects rendered inwisible by hextreme welocity!&quot; &quot;Large fly for your luggage, sir,&quot; cried a third. &quot;Werry large fly here, sir—reg’lar bluebottle!&quot; &quot;Here’s your fly, sir!&quot; shouted another aspiring charioteer, mounting the box, and inducing an old grey horse to indulge in some imperfect reminiscences of a canter. &quot;Look at him, sir!—temper of a lamb and haction of a steam-ingin!&quot; 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. &quot;How many beds have you got?&quot; 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. &quot;How many did you want, ma’am?&quot; was of course the reply. &quot;Three.&quot; &quot;Will you step in, ma’am?&quot; Down got Mrs. Tuggs. The family were delighted. Splendid view of the sea from the front windows—charming! A short pause. Back came Mrs. Tuggs again.—One parlour and a mattress. &quot;Why the devil didn’t they say so at first?&quot; inquired Mr. Joseph Tuggs, rather pettishly. &quot;Don’t know,&quot; said Mrs. Tuggs. &quot;Wretches!&quot; exclaimed the nervous Cymon. Another bill—another stoppage. Same question—same answer—similar result. &quot;What do they mean by this?&quot; inquired Mr. Joseph Tuggs, thoroughly out of temper. &quot;Don’t know,&quot; said the placid Mrs. Tuggs. &quot;Orvis the vay here, sir,&quot; 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. It had grown dusk when the &quot;fly&quot;—the rate of whose progress greatly belied its name—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—if you thrust half of your body out of it, at the imminent peril of falling into the area. Mrs. Tuggs alighted. One ground-floor sitting-room, and three cells with beds in them up stairs—a double-house—family on the opposite side—five children milk-and-watering in the parlour, and one little boy, expelled for bad behaviour, screaming on his back in the passage. &quot;What’s the terms?&quot; said Mrs. Tuggs. 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. &quot;What’s the terms?&quot; said Mrs. Tuggs, in a louder key. &quot;Five guineas a week, ma’am, with attendance,&quot; replied the lodging-house keeper. (Attendance means the privilege of ringing the bell as often as you like, for your own personal amusement.) &quot;Rather dear,&quot; said Mrs. Tuggs. &quot;Oh dear, no, ma’am,&quot; replied the mistress of the house, with a benign smile of pity at the ignorance of manners and customs, which the observation betrayed. &quot;Very cheap.&quot; &quot;Such an authority was indisputable. Mrs. Tuggs paid a week’s rent in advance, and took the lodgings for a month. In an hour’s time, the family were seated at tea in their new abode. &quot;Capital srimps!&quot; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs. Mr. Cymon eyed his father with a rebellious scowl, as he emphatically said &quot;Shrimps.&quot; &quot;Well, then, shrimps,&quot; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs. &quot;Srimps or shrimps, don’t much matter.&quot; There was pity, blended with malignity, in Mr. Cymon’s eye, as he replied, &quot;Don’t matter, father! What would Captain Waters say, if he heard such vulgarity?&quot; &quot;Or what would dear Mrs. Captain Waters say,&quot; added Charlotta, &quot;if she saw mother—ma, I mean—eating them whole, heads and all!&quot; &quot;It won’t bear thinking of!&quot; ejaculated Mr. Cymon, with a shudder. &quot;How different,&quot; he thought, &quot;from the Dowager Duchess of Dobbleton!&quot; &quot;Very pretty woman, Mrs. Captain Waters, is she not, Cymon?&quot; inquired Miss Charlotta. A glow of nervous excitement passed over the countenance of Mr. Cymon Tuggs, as he replied, &quot;An angel of beauty!&quot; &quot;Hallo!&quot; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs. &quot;Hallo, Cymon, my boy, take care—married lady, you know;&quot; and he winked one of his twinkling eyes, knowingly. &quot;Why,&quot; exclaimed Cymon, starting up with an ebullition of fury, as unexpected as alarming, &quot;Why am I to be reminded of that blight of my happiness, and ruin of my hopes? Why am I to be taunted with the miseries which are heaped upon my head! Is it not enough to—to—to—!&quot; and the orator paused; but whether for want of words, or lack of breath, was never distinctly ascertained. 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. He stalked dramatically to bed, and the Tuggs&#039;s went to bed too, half an hour afterwards, in a state of considerable mystification and perplexity. If the pier had presented a scene of life and bustle to the Tuggs&#039;s on their first landing at Ramsgate, it was far surpassed by the appearance of the sands on the morning after their arrival. It was a fine, bright, clear day, with a light breeze from the sea. There were the same ladies and gentlemen, the same children, the same nursemaids, the same telescopes, the same portable chairs; the ladies were employed in needle-work, 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 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. &quot;Well, I never!&quot; 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.—&quot;Well, I never!&quot; Mr. Cymon, by an exertion of great personal strength, uprooted the chairs, and removed them further back. &quot;Why, I’m blessed if there a&#039;nt some ladies a-going in!&quot; exclaimed Mr. Joseph Tuggs, with intense astonishment. &quot;Lor, pa!&quot; exclaimed Miss Charlotta. &quot;There is! my dear,&quot; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs. And, sure enough, four young ladies, each furnished with a towel, tripped up the steps of a bathing machine; 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. &quot;Well, that’s sing’ler, too!&quot; ejaculated Mr. Joseph Tuggs, after an awkward pause. Mr. Cymon coughed slightly. &quot;Why, here’s some gentlemen a-going in on this side,&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Tuggs, in a tone of horror. Three machines—three horses—three flounderings—three turnings round—three splashes—three gentlemen, disporting themselves in the water, like so many dolphins. &quot;Well, that’s sing’ler!&quot; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs again. Miss Charlotta coughed this time, and another pause ensued. It was agreeably broken. &quot;How d’ye do, dear? We have been looking for you, all the morning,&quot; said a voice to Miss Charlotta Tuggs. Mrs. Captain Waters was the owner of it. &quot;How d’ye do?&quot; said Captain Walter Waters, all suavity; and a most cordial interchange of greetings ensued. &quot;Belinda, my love,&quot; said Captain Walter Waters, applying his glass to his eye, and looking in the direction of the sea. &quot;Yes, my dear,&quot; replied Mrs. Captain Waters. &quot;There’s Harry Thompson.&quot; &quot;Where?&quot; said Belinda, applying her glass to her eye. &quot;Bathing.&quot; &quot;Lor, so it is! He don’t see us, does he?&quot; &quot;No, I don’t think he does,&quot; replied the captain.—&quot;Bless my soul, how very singular!&quot; &quot;What?&quot; inquired Belinda. &quot;There’s Mary Golding, too.&quot; &quot;Lor!—where?&quot; (Up went the glass again.) &quot;There,&quot; 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. &quot;So it is, I declare!&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Captain Waters.—&quot;How very curious we should see them both!&quot; &quot;Very,&quot; said the captain, with perfect coolness. &quot;It’s the reg’lar thing here, you see,&quot; whispered Mr. Cymon Tuggs to his father. &quot;I see it is,&quot; whispered Mr. Joseph Tuggs in reply. &quot;Queer, though—an&#039;t it?&quot; Mr. Cymon Tuggs nodded assent. &quot;What do you think of doing with yourself this morning?&quot; inquired the captain.—&quot;Shall we lunch at Pegwell?&quot; &quot;I should like that very much indeed,&quot; interposed Mrs. Tuggs. She had never heard of Pegwell before; but the word &quot;lunch&quot; had reached her ears, and it sounded very agreeably. &quot;How shall we go?&quot; inquired the captain; &quot;it’s too warm to walk.&quot; &quot;A chay?&quot; suggested Mr. Joseph Tuggs. &quot;Chaise,&quot; whispered Mr. Cymon. &quot;I should think one would be enough,&quot; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs aloud, quite unconscious of the meaning of the correction. &quot;However, two chays, if you like.&quot; &quot;I should like a donkey so much,&quot; said Belinda. &quot;Oh, so should I!&quot; echoed Charlotta Tuggs. &quot;Well, we can have a fly,&quot; suggested the captain, &quot;and you can have a couple of donkeys.&quot; A fresh difficulty arose. Mrs. Captain Waters declared it would be decidedly improper for two ladies to ride alone. The remedy was obvious. Perhaps young Mr. Tuggs would be gallant enough to accompany them. Mr. Cymon Tuggs blushed, smiled, looked vacant, and faintly protested he was no horseman. The objection was at once overruled. A fly was speedily found; and three donkeys—which the proprietor declared on his solemn asseveration to be &quot;three parts blood, and the other corn&quot;—were engaged in the service. &quot;Kum up!&quot; 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. &quot;Hi—hi—hi!&quot; groaned the other boy behind Mr. Cymon Tuggs. Away went the donkey, with the stirrups jingling against the heels of Cymon’s boots, and Cymon’s boots nearly scraping the ground. &quot;Way—way! Wo—o—o—o—!&quot; cried Mr. Cymon Tuggs as well as he could, in the midst of the jolting. &quot;Don’t make it gallop!&quot; screamed Mrs. Captain Waters, behind. &quot;My donkey will go into the public-house!&quot; shrieked Miss Tuggs in the rear. &quot;Hi—hi—hi!&quot; groaned both the boys together; and on went the donkeys as if nothing would ever stop them. Everything has an end, however; and even the galloping of donkeys will cease in time. The animal which Mr. Cymon Tuggs bestrode, feeling sundry uncomfortable tugs at the bit, the intent of which he could by no means understand, abruptly sidled against a brick wall, and expressed his uneasiness by grinding Mr. Cymon Tuggs’s leg on the rough surface. Mrs. Captain Waters’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. This abrupt termination to the rapidity of the ride, naturally occasioned some confusion. 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. 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. &quot;Now let ’em walk,&quot; said Mr. Cymon Tuggs. &quot;It’s cruel to over-drive ’em.&quot; &quot;Werry well, sir,&quot; 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. &quot;What a lovely day, dear!&quot; said Charlotta. &quot;Charming; enchanting, dear!&quot; responded Mrs. Captain Waters. &quot;What a beautiful prospect, Mr. Tuggs!&quot; Cymon looked full in Belinda’s face, as he responded—&quot;Beautiful, indeed!&quot; The lady cast down her eyes, and suffered the animal she was riding to fall a little back. Cymon Tuggs instinctively did the same. There was a brief silence, broken only by a sigh from Mr. Cymon Tuggs. &quot;Mr. Cymon,&quot; said the lady suddenly, in a low tone, &quot;Mr. Cymon—I am another’s.&quot; Mr. Cymon expressed his perfect concurrence in a statement which it was impossible to controvert. &quot;If I had not been—&quot; resumed Belinda; and there she stopped. &quot;What—what?&quot; said Mr. Cymon earnestly. &quot;Do not torture me. What would you say?&quot; &quot;If I had not been&quot;—continued Mrs. Captain Waters—&quot;If in earlier life, it had been my fate to have known, and been beloved by, a noble youth—a kindred soul—a congenial spirit—one capable of feeling and appreciating the sentiments which—&quot; &quot;Heavens! what do I hear?&quot; exclaimed Mr. Cymon Tuggs. &quot;Is it possible! can I believe my—Come up.&quot; (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.) &quot;Hi—hi—hi,&quot; said the boys behind. &quot;Come up, expostulated Cymon Tuggs again. &quot;Hi—hi—hi,&quot; repeated the boys: and whether it was that the animal felt indignant at the tone of Mr. Tuggs’s command, or felt alarmed by the noise of the deputy proprietor’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 &quot;hi—hi&#039;s,&quot; than he started away with a celerity of pace which jerked Mr. Cymon’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 door of the tavern. 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; and agonizing were the apprehensions of Mrs. Captain Waters on his account. It was speedily discovered, however, that he had not sustained much more injury than the donkey—he was grazed, and the animal was grazing—and then it was a delightful party to be sure! Mr. and Mrs. Tuggs, and the captain, had ordered lunch in the little garden behind:—small saucers of large shrimps, dabs of butter, crusty loaves, and bottled ale. The sky was without a cloud, there were flower-pots and turf before them; and the sea at the foot of the cliff, stretching away as far as the eye could discern any thing at all, and vessels in the distance with sails as white, and as small, as nicely-got-up cambric handkerchiefs. The shrimps were delightful, the ale better, and the captain even more pleasant than either. Mrs. Captain Waters was in such spirits after lunch; chasing, first the captain across the turf, and among the flower-pots, and then Mr. Cymon Tuggs, and then Miss Tuggs, laughing, too, quite boisterously. But as the captain said, it didn’t matter; who knew what they were, there? For all the people of the house knew, they might be common people. To which Mr. Joseph Tuggs responded, &quot;To be sure,&quot; and then they went down the steep wooden steps a little further on, which lead to the bottom of the cliff; and looked at the crabs, and the seaweed, and the eels, &#039;till it was more than fully time to go back to Ramsgate again, and 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. 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: it requires a great deal of foresight and presence of mind in the one case, to anticipate the numerous flights of his discursive imagination; while in the other, all you have to do is to hold on, and place a blind confidence in the animal. 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. The library was crowded. 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. 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. There were marriageable daughters, and marriage-making mammas, gaming, and promenading, and turning over music, and flirting. There were some male beaux doing the sentimental in whispers, and others doing the ferocious in moustache. There were Mrs. Tuggs in amber, Miss Tuggs in sky-blue, and Mrs. Captain Waters in pink. There was Captain Waters in a braided surtout: there was Mr. Cymon Tuggs in pumps, and a gilt waistcoat; and moreover there was Mr. Joseph Tuggs in a blue coat, and a shirt-frill. &quot;Number three, eight, and eleven,&quot; cried one of the young ladies in maroon-coloured gowns. &quot;Number three, eight, and eleven,&quot; echoed another young lady in the same uniform. &quot;Number three’s gone,&quot; said the first young lady. &quot;Number eight and eleven.&quot; &quot;Number eight and eleven,&quot; echoed the second young lady. &quot;Number eight’s gone, Mary Ann,&quot; said the first young lady. &quot;Number eleven,&quot; screamed the second. &quot;The numbers are all taken now, Ladies, if you please,&quot; said the first; and the representatives of numbers three, eight, and eleven, and the rest of the numbers, crowded round the table. &quot;Will you throw, ma’am?&quot; said the presiding goddess, handing the dice-box to the eldest daughter of a stout lady, with four girls. There was a profound silence among the lookers-on. &quot;Throw, Jane, my dear,&quot; said the stout lady—an interesting display of bashfulness—a little blushing in a cambric handkerchief—a whispering to a younger sister. &quot;Amelia, my dear, throw for your sister,&quot; said the stout lady; and then she turned to a walking advertisement of Rowland’s Macassar, who stood next her, and said, &quot;Jane is so very modest and retiring; but I can’t be angry with her for it. An artless and unsophisticated girl is so truly amiable, that I often wish Amelia was more like her sister!&quot; The gentleman with the whiskers, whispered his admiring approval; and the artless young lady glances across, to observe the effect of her most unqualified simplicity. &quot;Now, my dear!&quot; said the stout lady. Miss Amelia threw—eight for her sister, ten for herself. &quot;Nice figure, Amelia,&quot; whispered the stout lady to a thin youth beside her. &quot;Beautiful!&quot; &quot;And such a spirit! I am like you in that respect. I can not help admiring that life and vivacity. Ah! (a sigh) I wish I could make poor Jane a little more like my dear Amelia!&quot; The young gentleman cordially acquiesced in the sentiment; both he, and the individual first addressed, were perfectly contented. &quot;Who’s this?&quot; 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. &quot;Mrs. Tippin, of the London theatres,&quot; replied Belinda, referring to the programme of the concert. The talented Tippin having condescendingly acknowledged the clapping of hands, and shouts of &quot;bravo!&quot; which greeted her appearance, proceeded to sing the popular cavatina of &quot;Bid me discourse,&quot; 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. Thus passed the evening: and thus passed the days and evenings of the Tuggs&#039;s, and the Waters&#039;s, for six weeks afterwards. Sands in the morning—donkeys at noon: pier in the afternoon—library at night; and the same people every where. 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—or would have been, if any body had looked for them—seated on one of the wooden benches which are stationed near the verge of the western cliff. The moon had climbed higher into the heavens, by two hours’ journeying, since those figures first sat down, and yet they had moved not. 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. 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. Mr. Cymon Tuggs, and Mrs. Captain Waters, were seated on that bench. They spoke not, but were silently gazing on the sea. &quot;Walter will return to-morrow,&quot; said Mrs. Captain Waters, mournfully breaking silence. Mr. Cymon Tuggs sighed like a gust of wind through a forest of gooseberry bushes, as he replied—&quot;Alas! he will.&quot; &quot;Oh, Cymon!&quot; resumed Belinda, &quot;the chaste delight, the calm happiness, of this one week of Platonic love, is too much for me.&quot; Cymon was about to suggest that it was too little for him, but he stopped himself, and murmured unintelligibly. &quot;And to think that even this gleam of happiness, innocent as it is,&quot; exclaimed Belinda, &quot;is now to be lost for ever!&quot; &quot;Oh, do not say for ever! Belinda,&quot; exclaimed the excitable Cymon, as two strongly-defined tears chased each other down his pale face—it was so long that there was plenty of room for a chase.—&quot;Do not say for ever!&quot; &quot;I must,&quot; replied Belinda. ‘Why?’ urged Cymon, &quot;oh why? Such Platonic acquaintance as ours is so harmless, that even your husband can never object to it.&quot; &quot;My husband!&quot; exclaimed Belinda. &quot;You little know him. Jealous and revengeful; ferocious in his revenge—a maniac in his jealousy! Would you be assassinated before my eyes?&quot; Mr. Cymon Tuggs, in a voice broken by emotion, expressed his disinclination to undergo the process of assassination before the eyes of any body. &quot;Then leave me,&quot; said Mrs. Captain Waters. &quot;Leave me, this night, for ever. It is late; let us return.&quot; Mr. Cymon Tuggs sadly offered the lady his arm, and escorted her to her lodgings. He paused at the door—he felt a Platonic pressure of his hand. &quot;Good night,&quot; he said, hesitating. &quot;Good night,&quot; sobbed the lady. Mr. Cymon Tuggs paused again. &quot;Won’t you walk in, sir?&quot; said the servant. Mr. Tuggs hesitated. Oh, that hesitation! He did walk in. &quot;Good night,&quot; said Mr. Cymon Tuggs again, when he reached the drawing-room. &quot;Good night!’ replied Belinda; &quot;and, if at any period of my life, I— Hush!&quot; The lady paused, and stared, with a steady gaze of horror, on the ashy countenance of Mr. Cymon Tuggs. There was a double knock at the street-door. &quot;It is my husband!&quot; said Belinda, as the captain’s voice was heard below. &quot;And my family!&quot; added Cymon Tuggs, as the voices of his relatives floated up the staircase. &quot;The curtain! The curtain!&quot; gasped Mrs. Captain Waters, pointing to the window, before which some chintz hangings were closely drawn. &quot;But I have done nothing wrong,&quot; said the hesitating Cymon. &quot;The curtain!&quot; reiterated the lady, franticly: &quot;you will be murdered.&quot; This last appeal to his feelings was irresistible. The dismayed Cymon concealed himself behind the curtain, with pantomimic suddenness. Enter the captain, Joseph Tuggs, Mrs. Tuggs, and Charlotta. &quot;My dear,&quot; said the captain, &quot;Lieutenant, Slaughter.&#039; Two iron-shod boots and one gruff voice were heard by Mr. Cymon to advance, and acknowledge the honour of the introduction. The sabre of the lieutenant rattled heavily upon the floor, as he seated himself at the table. Mr. Cymon’s fears almost overcame his reason. &quot;The brandy, my dear,&quot; said the captain. Here was a situation! They were going to make a night of it: and Mr. Cymon Tuggs was pent up behind the curtain, and afraid to breathe. &quot;Slaughter,&quot; said the captain, &quot;a cigar?&quot; 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. The cigars were introduced; the captain was a professed smoker, so was the lieutenant, so was Joseph Tuggs. 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. Cymon Tuggs held his nose, his mouth, his breath. It was all of no use—out came the cough. &quot;Bless my soul!&quot; said the captain, &quot;I beg your pardon, Miss Tuggs. You dislike smoking?&quot; &quot;Oh, no; I don’t indeed,&quot; said Charlotta. &quot;It makes you cough.&quot; &quot;Oh dear no.&quot; &quot;You coughed just now.&quot; &quot;Me, Captain Waters! Lor! how can you say so?&quot; &quot;Somebody coughed,&quot; said the captain. &quot;I certainly thought so,&quot; said Slaughter. No; every body denied it. &quot;Fancy,&quot; said the captain. &quot;Must be,&quot; echoed Slaughter. Cigars resumed, more smoke, another cough—smothered, but violent. &quot;Damned odd!&quot; said the captain, staring about him. &quot;Sing’ler!&quot; ejaculated the unconscious Mr. Joseph Tuggs. 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. &quot;Slaughter!&quot; ejaculated the captain, rising from table, &quot;what do you mean?&quot; The lieutenant in reply, drew back the curtain, and discovered Mr. Cymon Tuggs behind it; pallid with apprehension, and blue with wanting to cough. &quot;Ah!&quot; exclaimed the captain, furiously. &quot;What do I see? Slaughter, your sabre!&quot; &quot;Cymon!&quot; screamed the Tuggs&#039;s. &quot;Mercy!&quot; said Belinda. &quot;Platonic!&quot; gasped Cymon. &quot;Your sabre!&#039; roared the captain, &quot;Slaughter—unhand me—the villain’s life!&quot; &quot;Murder!&quot; screamed the Tuggses. &quot;Hold him fast, sir!&quot; faintly articulated Cymon. &quot;Water!&quot; exclaimed Joseph Tuggs—and Mr. Cymon Tuggs, and all the ladies forthwith fainted away, and formed a tableau. Most willingly would we conceal the disastrous termination of the six weeks’ acquaintance. 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. Lieutenant Slaughter brought a message—the captain brought an action. Mr. Joseph Tuggs interposed—the lieutenant negotiated. 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. The money was paid to hush the matter up, but it got abroad notwithstanding; and there are not wanting those who affirm that three designing impostors never found more easy dupes, than did Captain Waters, Mrs. Waters, and Lieutenant Slaughter, in the Tuggs&#039;s at Ramsgate.18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/The_Tuggs_s_at_Ramsgate/1836-The_Tuggss_at_Ramsgate.pdf
168https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/168'To Be Read at Dusk'Published in <em>The Keepsake</em>, Edited by Marguerite Power. Engraved by Frederick A. Heath. London: David Bogue, 1852, pp. 117-131.Dickens, Charles<em>Google Books,</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Keepsake_1852_Edited_by_Miss_Power_w/icKeHrEqFxEC?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;bsq=read%20at%20dusk">https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Keepsake_1852_Edited_by_Miss_Power_w/icKeHrEqFxEC?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;bsq=read%20at%20dusk</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1852">1852</a><p>Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1852_To_Be_Read_at_DuskDickens, Charles 'To Be Read at Dusk' (1852). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1852_To_Be_Read_at_Dusk">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1852_To_Be_Read_at_Dusk</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Keepsake%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Keepsake</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Charles+Dickens">Charles Dickens</a>One, two, three, four, five. There were five of them. Five couriers, sitting on a bench outside the convent on the summit of the Great St. Bernard in Switzerland, looking at the remote heights, stained by the setting sun, as if a mighty quantity of red wine had been broached upon the mountain top, and had not yet had time to sink into the snow. This is not my simile. It was made for the occasion by the stoutest courier, who was a German. None of the others took any more notice of it than they took of me, sitting on another bench on the other side of the convent door, smoking my cigar, like them, and—also like them—looking at the reddened snow, and at the lonely shed hard by, where the bodies of belated travellers, dug out of it, slowly wither away, knowing no corruption in that cold region. The wine upon the mountain top soaked in as we looked; the mountain became white; the sky, a very dark blue; the wind rose; and the air turned piercing cold. The five couriers buttoned their rough coats. There being no safer man to imitate in all such proceedings than a courier, I buttoned mine. The mountain in the sunset had stopped the five couriers in a conversation. It is a sublime sight, likely to stop conversation. The mountain being now out of the sunset, they resumed. Not that I had heard any part of their previous discourse; for indeed, I had not then broken away from the American gentleman, in the travellers’ parlour of the convent, who, sitting with his face to the fire, had undertaken to realise to me the whole progress of events which had led to the accumulation by the Honourable Ananias Dodger of one of the largest acquisitions of dollars ever made in our country. &quot;My God!&quot; said the Swiss courier, speaking in French, which I do not hold (as some authors appear to do) to be such an all-sufficient excuse for a naughty word, that I have only to write it in that language to make it innocent; &quot;if you talk of ghosts—&quot; &quot;But I don’t talk of ghosts,&quot; said the German. &quot;Of what then?&quot; asked the Swiss. &quot;If I knew of what then,&quot; said the German, &quot;I should probably know a great deal more.&quot; It was a good answer, I thought, and it made me curious. So, I moved my position to that corner of my bench which was nearest to them, and leaning my back against the convent-wall, heard perfectly, without appearing to attend. &quot;Thunder and lightning!&quot; said the German, warming, &quot;when a certain man is coming to see you, unexpectedly; and, without his own knowledge, sends some invisible messenger, to put the idea of him in your head all day, what do you call that? When you walk along a crowded street—at Frankfort, Milan, London, Paris—and think that a passing stranger is like your friend Heinrich, and then that another passing stranger is like your friend Heinrich, and so begin to have a strange foreknowledge that presently you’ll meet your friend Heinrich—which you do, though you believed him at Trieste—what do you call that?&quot; &quot;It’s not uncommon, either,&quot; murmured the Swiss and the other three. &quot;Uncommon!&quot; said the German. &quot;It’s as common as cherries in the Black Forest. It’s as common as maccaroni at Naples. And Naples reminds me! When the old Marchesa Senzanima shrieks at a card-party on the Chiaja—as I heard and saw her, for it happened in a Bavarian family of mine, and I was overlooking the service that evening—I say, when the old Marchesa starts up at the card-table, white through her rouge, and cries, &#039;My sister in Spain is dead! I felt her cold touch on my back!&#039;—and when that sister is dead at the moment—what do you call that?&quot; &quot;Or when the blood of San Gennaro liquefies at the request of the clergy—as all the world knows that it does regularly once a-year, in my native city,&quot; said the Neapolitan courier after a pause, with a comical look, &quot;what do you call that?&quot; &quot;That!&quot; cried the German. &quot;Well! I think I know a name for that.&quot; &quot;Miracle?&quot; said the Neapolitan, with the same sly face. The German merely smoked and laughed; and they all smoked and laughed. &quot;Bah!&quot; said the German, presently. &quot;I speak of things that really do happen. When I want to see the conjurer, I pay to see a professed one, and have my money’s worth. Very strange things do happen without ghosts. Ghosts! Giovanni Baptista, tell your story of the English bride. There’s no ghost in that, but something full as strange. Will any man tell me what?&quot; As there was a silence among them, I glanced around. He whom I took to be Baptista was lighting a fresh cigar. He presently went on to speak. He was a Genoese, as I judged. &quot;The story of the English bride?&quot; said he. &quot;Basta! one ought not to call so slight a thing a story. Well, it’s all one. But it’s true. Observe me well, gentlemen, it’s true. That which glitters is not always gold; but what I am going to tell, is true.&quot; He repeated this more than once. Ten years ago, I took my credentials to an English gentleman at Long’s Hotel, in Bond Street, London, who was about to travel—it might be for one year, it might be for two. He approved of them; likewise of me. He was pleased to make inquiry. The testimony that he received was favourable. He engaged me by the six months, and my entertainment was generous. He was young, handsome, very happy. He was enamoured of a fair young English lady, with a sufficient fortune, and they were going to be married. It was the wedding-trip, in short, that we were going to take. For three months’ rest in the hot weather (it was early summer then) he had hired an old place on the Riviera, at an easy distance from my city, Genoa, on the road to Nice. Did I know that place? Yes; I told him I knew it well. It was an old palace, with great gardens. It was a little bare, and it was a little dark and gloomy, being close surrounded by trees; but it was spacious, ancient, grand, and on the sea shore. He said it had been so described to him exactly, and he was well pleased that I knew it. For its being a little bare of furniture, all such places were. For its being a little gloomy, he had hired it principally for the gardens, and he and my mistress would pass the summer weather in their shade. &quot;So all goes well, Baptista?&quot; said he. &quot;Indubitably, signor; very well.&quot; We had a travelling chariot for our journey, newly built for us, and in all respects complete. All we had was complete; we wanted for nothing. The marriage took place. They were happy. I was happy, seeing all so bright, being so well situated, going to my own city, teaching my language in the rumble to the maid, la bella Carolina, whose heart was gay with laughter: who was young and rosy. The time flew. But I observed—listen to this, I pray! (and here the courier dropped his voice)—I observed my mistress sometimes brooding in a manner very strange; in a frightened manner; in an unhappy manner; with a cloudy, uncertain alarm upon her. I think that I began to notice this when I was walking up hills by the carriage side, and master had gone on in front. At any rate, I remember that it impressed itself upon my mind one evening in the South of France, when she called to me to call master back; and when he came back, and walked for a long way, talking encouragingly and affectionately to her, with his hand upon the open window, and hers in it. Now and then, he laughed in a merry way, as if he were bantering her out of something. By and by, she laughed, and then all went well again. It was curious. I asked la bella Carolina, the pretty little one, Was mistress unwell?—No. Out of spirits?—No. Fearful of bad roads, or brigands?—No. And what made it more mysterious was, the pretty little one would not look at me in giving answer, but would look at the view. But, one day she told me the secret. &quot;If you must know,&quot; said Carolina, &quot;I find, from what I have overheard, that mistress is haunted.&quot; &quot;How haunted?&quot; &quot;By a dream.&quot; &quot;What dream?&quot; &quot;By a dream of a face. For three nights before her marriage, she saw a face in a dream—always the same face, and only One.&quot; &quot;A terrible face?&quot; &quot;No. The face of a dark, remarkable-looking man, in black, with black hair and a grey moustache—a handsome man except for a reserved and secret air. Not a face she ever saw, or at all like a face she ever saw. Doing nothing in the dream but looking at her fixedly, out of darkness.&quot; &quot;Does the dream come back?&quot; &quot;Never. The recollection of it is all her trouble.&quot; &quot;And why does it trouble her?&quot; Carolina shook her head. &quot;That’s master’s question,&quot; said la bella. &quot;She don’t know. She wonders why, herself. But I heard her tell him, only last night, that if she was to find a picture of that face in our Italian house (which she is afraid she will) she did not know how she could ever bear it.&quot; Upon my word I was fearful after this (said the Genoese courier) of our coming to the old palazzo, lest some such ill-starred picture should happen to be there. I knew there were many there; and, as we got nearer and nearer to the place, I wished the whole gallery in the crater of Vesuvius. To mend the matter, it was a stormy dismal evening when we, at last, approached that part of the Riviera. It thundered; and the thunder of my city and its environs, rolling among the high hills, is very loud. The lizards ran in and out of the chinks in the broken stone wall of the garden, as if they were frightened; the frogs bubbled and croaked their loudest; the sea-wind moaned, and the wet trees dripped; and the lightning—body of San Lorenzo, how it lightened! We all know what an old palace in or near Genoa is—how time and the sea air have blotted it—how the drapery painted on the outer walls has peeled off in great flakes of plaster—how the lower windows are darkened with rusty bars of iron—how the courtyard is overgrown with grass—how the outer buildings are dilapidated—how the whole pile seems devoted to ruin. Our palazzo was one of the true kind. It had been shut up close for months. Months?—years! It had an earthy smell, like a tomb. The scent of the orange-trees on the broad back terrace, and of the lemons ripening on the wall, and of some shrubs that grew around a broken fountain, had got into the house somehow, and had never been able to get out again. There it was, in every room, an aged smell, grown faint with confinement. It pined in all the cupboards and drawers. In the little rooms of communication between great rooms, it was stifling. If you turned a picture—to come back to the pictures—there it still was, clinging to the wall behind the frame, like a sort of bat. The lattice-blinds were close shut, all over the house. There were two ugly grey old women in the house, to take care of it; one of them with a spindle, who stood winding and mumbling in the doorway, and who would as soon have let in the devil as the air. Master, mistress, la bella Carolina, and I, went all through the palazzo. I went first, though I have named myself last, opening the windows and the lattice-blinds, and shaking down on myself splashes of rain, and scraps of mortar, and now and then a dozing mosquito, or a monstrous, fat, blotchy, Genoese spider. When I had let the evening light into a room, master, mistress, and la bella Carolina, entered. Then, we looked round at all the pictures, and I went forward again into another room. Mistress secretly had great fear of meeting with the likeness of that face—we all had; but there was no such thing. The Madonna and Bambino, San Francisco, San Sebastiano, Venus, Santa Caterina, Angels, Brigands, Friars, Temples at Sunset, Battles, White Horses, Forests, Apostles, Doges, all my old acquaintances many times repeated?—yes. Dark handsome man in black, reserved and secret, with black hair and grey moustache, looking fixedly at mistress out of darkness?—no. At last we got through all the rooms and all the pictures, and came out into the gardens. They were pretty well kept, being rented by a gardener, and were large and shady. In one place there was a rustic theatre, open to the sky; the stage a green slope; the coulisses, three entrances upon a side, sweet-smelling leafy screens. Mistress moved her bright eyes, even there, as if she looked to see the face come in upon the scene: but all was well. &quot;Now, Clara,&quot; master said, in a low voice, &quot;you see that it is nothing? You are happy.&quot; Mistress was much encouraged. She soon accustomed herself to that grim palazzo, and would sing, and play the harp, and copy the old pictures, and stroll with master under the green trees and vines, all day. She was beautiful. He was happy. He would laugh and say to me, mounting his horse for his morning ride before the heat: &quot;All goes well, Baptista!&quot; &quot;Yes, signore, thank God, very well.&quot; We kept no company. I took la bella to the Duomo and Annunciata, to the Café, to the Opera, to the village Festa, to the Public Garden, to the Day Theatre, to the Marionetti. The pretty little one was charmed with all she saw. She learnt Italian—heavens! miraculously! Was mistress quite forgetful of that dream? I asked Carolina sometimes. Nearly, said la bella—almost. It was wearing out. One day master received a letter, and called me. &quot;Baptista!&quot; &quot;Signore.&quot; &quot;A gentleman who is presented to me will dine here to day. He is called the Signor Dellombra. Let me dine like a prince.’ It was an odd name. I did not know that name. But, there had been many noblemen and gentlemen pursued by Austria on political suspicions, lately, and some names had changed. Perhaps this was one. Altro! Dellombra was as good a name to me as another. When the Signor Dellombra came to dinner (said the Genoese courier in the low voice, into which he had subsided once before), I showed him into the reception-room, the great sala of the old palazzo. Master received him with cordiality, and presented him to mistress. As she rose, her face changed, she gave a cry, and fell upon the marble floor. Then, I turned my head to the Signor Dellombra, and saw that he was dressed in black, and had a reserved and secret air, and was a dark, remarkable-looking man, with black hair and a grey moustache. Master raised mistress in his arms, and carried her to her own room, where I sent la bella Carolina straight. La bella told me afterwards that mistress was nearly terrified to death, and that she wandered in her mind about her dream, all night. Master was vexed and anxious—almost angry, and yet full of solicitude. The Signor Dellombra was a courtly gentleman, and spoke with great respect and sympathy of mistress’s being so ill. The African wind had been blowing for some days (they had told him at his hôtel of the Maltese Cross), and he knew that it was often hurtful. He hoped the beautiful lady would recover soon. He begged permission to retire, and to renew his visit when he should have the happiness of hearing that she was better. Master would not allow of this, and they dined alone. He withdrew early. Next day he called at the gate, on horseback, to inquire for mistress. He did so two or three times in that week. What I observed myself, and what la bella Carolina told me, united to explain to me that master had now set his mind on curing mistress of her fanciful terror. He was all kindness, but he was sensible and firm. He reasoned with her, that to encourage such fancies was to invite melancholy, if not madness. That it rested with herself to be herself. That if she once resisted her strange weakness, so successfully as to receive the Signor Dellombra as an English lady would receive any other guest, it was for ever conquered. To make an end, the Signor came again, and mistress received him without marked distress (though with constraint and apprehension still), and the evening passed serenely. Master was so delighted with this change, and so anxious to confirm it, that the Signor Dellombra became a constant guest. He was accomplished in pictures, books, and music; and his society, in any grim palazzo, would have been welcome. I used to notice, many times, that mistress was not quite recovered. She would cast down her eyes and droop her head, before the Signor Dellombra, or would look at him with a terrified and fascinated glance, as if his presence had some evil influence or power upon her. Turning from her to him, I used to see him in the shaded gardens, or the large half-lighted sala, looking, as I might say, &quot;fixedly upon her out of darkness.&quot; But, truly, I had not forgotten la bella Carolina’s words describing the face in the dream. After his second visit I heard master say: &quot;Now, see, my dear Clara, it’s over! Dellombra has come and gone, and your apprehension is broken like glass.&quot; &quot;Will he—will he ever come again?&quot; asked mistress. &quot;Again? Why, surely, over and over again! Are you cold?&quot; (she shivered.) &quot;No, dear—but—he terrifies me: are you sure that he need come again?&quot; &quot;The surer for the question, Clara!&quot; replied master, cheerfully. But, he was very hopeful of her complete recovery now, and grew more and more so every day. She was beautiful. He was happy. &quot;All goes well, Baptista?&quot; he would say to me again. &quot;Yes, signore, thank God; very well.&quot; We were all (said the Genoese courier, constraining himself to speak a little louder), we were all at Rome for the Carnival. I had been out, all day, with a Sicilian, a friend of mine, and a courier, who was there with an English family. As I returned at night to our hotel, I met the little Carolina, who never stirred from home alone, running distractedly along the Corso. &quot;Carolina! What’s the matter?&quot; &quot;O Baptista! O, for the Lord’s sake! where is my mistress?&quot; &quot;Mistress, Carolina?&quot; &quot;Gone since morning—told me, when master went out on his day’s journey, not to call her, for she was tired with not resting in the night (having been in pain), and would lie in bed until the evening; then get up refreshed. She is gone!—she is gone! Master has come back, broken down the door, and she is gone! My beautiful, my good, my innocent mistress!&quot; The pretty little one so cried, and raved, and tore herself that I could not have held her, but for her swooning on my arm as if she had been shot. Master came up—in manner, face, or voice, no more the master that I knew, than I was he. He took me (I laid the little one upon her bed in the hôtel, and left her with the chamber-women), in a carriage, furiously through the darkness, across the desolate Campagna. When it was day, and we stopped at a miserable posthouse, all the horses had been hired twelve hours ago, and sent away in different directions. Mark me!—iby the Signor Dellombra, who had passed there in a carriage, with a frightened English lady crouching in one corner. I never heard (said the Genoese courier, drawing a long breath) that she was ever traced beyond that spot. All I know is, that she vanished into infamous oblivion, with the dreaded face beside her that she had seen in her dream. &quot;What do you call that?&quot; said the German courier, triumphantly: &quot;Ghosts! There are no ghosts there! What do you call this, that I am going to tell you? Ghosts! There are no ghosts here!&quot; I took an engagement once (pursued the German courier) with an English gentleman, elderly and a bachelor, to travel through my country, my Fatherland. He was a merchant who traded with my country and knew the language, but who had never been there since he was a boy—as I judge, some sixty years before. His name was James, and he had a twin-brother John, also a bachelor. Between these brothers there was a great affection. They were in business together, at Goodman’s Fields, but they did not live together. Mr. James dwelt in Poland Street, turning out of Oxford Street, London. Mr. John resided by Epping Forest. Mr. James and I were to start for Germany in about a week. The exact day depended on business. Mr. John came to Poland Street (where I was staying in the house), to pass that week with Mr. James. But, he said to his brother on the second day, &quot;I don’t feel very well, James. There’s not much the matter with me; but I think I am a little gouty. I’ll go home and put myself under the care of my old housekeeper, who understands my ways. If I get quite better, I’ll come back and see you before you go. If I don’t feel well enough to resume my visit where I leave it off, why you will come and see me before you go.&quot; Mr. James, of course, said he would, and they shook hands—both hands, as they always did—and Mr. John ordered out his old-fashioned chariot and rumbled home. It was on the second night after that—that is to say, the fourth in the week—when I was awoke out of my sound sleep by Mr. James coming into my bedroom in his flannel-gown, with a lighted candle. He sat upon the side of my bed, and looking at me, said: &quot;Wilhelm, I have reason to think I have got some strange illness upon me.&quot; I then perceived that there was a very unusual expression in his face. &quot;Wilhelm,&quot; said he, &quot;I am not afraid or ashamed to tell you what I might be afraid or ashamed to tell another man. You come from a sensible country, where mysterious things are inquired into and are not settled to have been weighed and measured—or to have been unweighable and unmeasurable—or in either case to have been completely disposed of, for all time—ever so many years ago. I have just now seen the phantom of my brother.&quot; I confess (said the German courier) that it gave me a little tingling of the blood to hear it. &quot;I have just now seen,&quot; Mr. James repeated, looking full at me, that I might see how collected he was, &quot;the phantom of my brother John. I was sitting up in bed, unable to sleep, when it came into my room, in a white dress, and regarding me earnestly, passed up to the end of the room, glanced at some papers on my writing-desk, turned, and, still looking earnestly at me as it passed the bed, went out at the door. Now, I am not in the least mad, and am not in the least disposed to invest that phantom with any external existence out of myself. I think it is a warning to me that I am ill; and I think I had better be bled.&quot; I got out of bed directly (said the German courier) and began to get on my clothes, begging him not to be alarmed, and telling him that I would go myself to the doctor. I was just ready, when we heard a loud knocking and ringing at the street door. My room being an attic at the back, and Mr. James’s being the second-floor room in the front, we went down to his room, and put up the window, to see what was the matter. &quot;Is that Mr. James?&quot; said a man below, falling back to the opposite side of the way to look up. &quot;It is,&quot; said Mr. James, &quot;and you are my brother’s man, Robert.&quot; &quot;Yes, sir. I am sorry to say, sir, that Mr. John is ill. He is very bad, sir. It is even feared that he may be lying at the point of death. He wants to see you, sir. I have a chaise here. Pray come to him. Pray lose no time.&quot; Mr. James and I looked at one another. &quot;Wilhelm,&quot; said he, &quot;this is strange. I wish you to come with me!&quot; I helped him to dress, partly there and partly in the chaise; and no grass grew under the horses’ iron shoes between Poland Street and the Forest. Now, mind! (said the German courier) I went with Mr. James into his brother’s room, and I saw and heard myself what follows. His brother lay upon his bed, at the upper end of a long bed-chamber. His old housekeeper was there, and others were there: I think three others were there, if not four, and they had been with him since early in the afternoon. He was in white, like the figure—necessarily so, because he had his night-dress on. He looked like the figure—necessarily so, because he looked earnestly at his brother when he saw him come into the room. But, when his brother reached the bed-side, he slowly raised himself in bed, and looking full upon him, said these words: &quot;JAMES, YOU HAVE SEEN ME BEFORE, TO-NIGHT—AND YOU KNOW IT!&quot; And so died! I waited, when the German courier ceased, to hear something said of this strange story. The silence was unbroken. I looked round, and the five couriers were gone: so noiselessly that the ghostly mountain might have absorbed them into its eternal snows. By this time, I was by no means in a mood to sit alone in that awful scene, with the chill air coming solemnly upon me—or, if I may tell the truth, to sit alone anywhere. So I went back into the convent-parlour, and, finding the American gentleman still disposed to relate the biography of the Honourable Ananias Dodger, heard it all out.18520101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/To_Be_Read_at_Dusk/1852-To_Be_Read_at_Dusk.pdf
137https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/137<em>'New Series</em>, No. 1, Meditations in Monmouth-Street'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle </em>(24 September 1836), p. 3.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18360924/009/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18360924/009/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-09-24">1836-09-24</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1836-09-24-Meditations_in_Monmouth_StreetDickens, Charles. <em>'New Series</em>, No. 1, Meditations in Monmouth-Street' (24 September 1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-09-24-Meditations_in_Monmouth_Street">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-09-24-Meditations_in_Monmouth_Street</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>We have always entertained a particular attachment towards Monmouth-street, as the only true and real emporium for second-hand wearing apparel. Monmouth-street is venerable from its antiquity, and respectable from its usefulness. 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. 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 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. Their countenances bear a thoughtful and dirty cast—certain indications of their love of traffic; and their habitations are distinguished by that disregard of outward appearances, and neglect of personal comfort, so common among people who are constantly immersed in profound speculations, and deeply engaged in sedentary pursuits. We have hinted at the antiquity of our favourite spot. &quot;A Monmouth-street laced coat&quot; was a by-word years and years ago; and still we find Monmouth-street the same. 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. 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. 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’s eye. 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. 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. The idea seemed a fantastic one, and we looked at the clothes again with a firm determination not to be easily led away. No, we were right, the more we looked the more we were convinced of the accuracy of our previous impression. There was the man’s whole life written as legibly on those clothes as if we had his autobiography engrossed on parchment before us. 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’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. This was the boy’s dress. 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. A small day-school he had been at, evidently. If it had been a regular boys’ school they wouldn’t have let him play on the floor so much, and rub his knees so white. He had 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’s skill could not succeed in disguising, sufficiently betokened. 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’ school, however, and learnt to write—and in ink of pretty tolerable blackness too, if the place where he used to wipe his pen might be taken as evidence. A black suit, and the jacket changed into a diminutive coat. His father had died, and the mother had got the boy a message-lad’s place in some office. A long-worn suit that one; rusty and threadbare before it was laid aside, but clean and free from soil to the last. Poor woman! 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. 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—the sharp pain that even then a careless word or a cold look would give her—all crowded on our thoughts as vividly as if the very scene were passing before us. These things happen every hour, and we all know it; and yet we felt as much sorrow when we saw, or fancied we saw—it makes no difference which—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. 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’s comfort had rapidly faded away. We could imagine that coat—imagine! we could see it; we had seen it a hundred times—sauntering in company with three or four other coats of the same cut, about some place of profligate resort at night. 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 often-repeated oath. 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 house, 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. We beheld the look of patience with which she bore the brutish threat, and the drunken blow; and we heard the agony of tears that gushed from her very heart as she sunk upon her knees in her solitary and wretched chamber. A long period had elapsed, and a greater change had taken place by the time of casting off the suit that hung above. 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. The vices of the boy had grown with the man, and we fancied his home then—if such a place deserved the name. 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. 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. 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. A coarse round frock, with a worn cotton neckerchief, and other articles of clothing of the commonest description, completed the history. A prison, and the sentence— banishment or the gallows. 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’s grave? The children wild in the streets, the mother a destitute widow; both deeply tainted with the deep disgrace of the husband and father’s name, and impelled, by sheer necessity, down the precipice that had led him to a lingering death, possibly of many years’ duration, thousands of miles away. We had no clue to the end of the tale; but it was easy to guess its termination. 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. There was one pair of boots in particular—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. They were just the very thing for him. 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. 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 that 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. 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’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. 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. 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 corps de ballet of boots and shoes in the back-ground, 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. It was perfectly delightful to witness the agility of the market-gardener. 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. Nor were the Denmark satins a bit behind-hand, 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. 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’s toes, which made him roar with anguish, and rendered all the others like to die of laughing. We were in the full enjoyment of these festivities when we heard a shrill, and by no means musical voice, exclaim, &quot;Hope you’ll know me agin, imperence;&quot; 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. 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 &quot;Dials.&quot;18360924https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/New_Series_No._1_Meditations_in_Monmouth-Street/1836-09-24-The-Morning_Chronicle_New_Series_I_Meditations_in_Monmouth_Street.pdf
138https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/138<em>'New Series</em>, No. 2, 'Scotland Yard'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle</em> (4 October 1836), p.3.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive, </em><a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18361004/009/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18361004/009/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-10-04">1836-10-04</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1836-10-04-The-Morning_Chronicle__New_Series_No2_Scotland_YardDickens, Charles. '<em>New Series</em>, No. II, Scotland Yard' (4 October 1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].<a href="1836-10-04-The-Morning_Chronicle__New_Series_No2_Scotland_Yard">1836-10-04-The-Morning_Chronicle__New_Series_No2_Scotland_Yard</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>If our recollection serves us, we have more than once hinted, confidentially, to our readers that we entertain a strong partiality for the queer little old streets which yet remain in some parts of London, and that we infinitely prefer them to the modern innovations, the wide streets with broad pavements, which are every day springing up around us. The old Exeter &#039;Change, for instance, and the narrow and dirty part of the Strand immediatley adjoining, we were warmly attached to. The death of the elephant was a great shock to us; we knew him well; and, having enjoyed the honour of his intimate acquaintance for some years, felt grieved—deeply grieved—that in a paroxysm of insanity he should have so far forgotten all his estimable and companionable qualities as to exhibit a sanguinary desire to scrunch his faithful valet, and pulverize even Mrs. Cross herself, who for a long period had evinced towards him that pure and touching attachment which woman alone can feel. This was a sad blow to us. The constitution of the beef-eater at the door sunk beneath the loss of the elephant; this was another. They pulled down Exeter &#039;Change itself; this was a greater trial than either but we got over it in time. And since that period the rage for improvement has exposed us to so many melancholy trials of a similar description, that we have grown callous to suffering, and the only effect of our persecutions is to render us more attached than ever to the few old spots that are yet left us. Of these, there is no one which, having a peculiar character of its own, preserved it so tenaciously, or took an honest pride in it so long, as Scotland-yard. It is so thoroughly a little colony of itself, it is so utterly unlike any other part of London, that a slight account of its progress and history has always seemed to us to be imperatively called for. None has as yet appeared, however, and we now take pen in hand, more with the view of throwing out a few slight hints for the guidance of future historians, than with any idea of developing with the ability which such an empire demands, the past and present state of this little empire. Scotland-yard, then, is a small—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. 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’clock, to fill heavy waggons with coal, with which they proceeded to distant places up the country, and supplied the inhabitants with fuel. When they had emptied their waggons they again returned for a fresh supply, and this trade was continued throughout the year. 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. 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. The two eating-house-keepers exhibited joints of a magnitude and puddings of a solidity which coal-heavers 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. But the choicest spot in all Scotland-yard, was the old public-house in the corner. Here, in a dark, wainscotted 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 coal-heavers, quaffing large draughts of Barclay’s best, and puffing forth volumes of smoke, which wreathed heavily above their heads, and involved the room in a thick dark cloud. From this apartment might their voices be heard on a winter’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. Here, too, would they tell old legends of what the Thames was in ancient times, when the Patent Shot Manufactory wasn’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’t rightly tell what to make of it—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’clock came, and with it the tailor’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. 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. 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. 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 &#039;stopped, and that preparations were actually in progress for constructing the new one. What an excitement was visible in the old tap-room on that memorable night! Each man looked into his neighbour’s face, pale with alarm and astonishment, and read therein an echo of the sentiments which filled his own breast. 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 gulley in its place. What was to become of the coal-barges, - of the trade of Scotland-yard,—of the very existence of its population? 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. He said nothing—not he; but if the Lord Mayor didn’t fall a victim to popular indignation, why he would be rather astonished; that was all. They did wait; barge after barge arrived, and still no tidings of the assassination of the Lord Mayor. The first stone was laid: it was done by a Duke—the King’s brother. Years passed away, and the bridge was opened by the King himself. 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’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. A result so different from that which they had anticipated from this first improvement produced its full effect upon the inhabitants of Scotland-yard. One of the eating-house-keepers began to court public opinion, and to look for customers among a new class of people. He covered his little dining-tables with white cloths, and got a painter’s apprentice to inscribe something about hot joints from twelve till two in one of the little panes of his shop window. Improvement began to march with rapid strides to the very threshold of Scotland-yard. A new market sprung up at Hungerford, and the Police Commissioners established their office in Whitehall-place. 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. We marked the advance of civilization, and beheld it with a sigh. The eating-house-keeper who manfully resisted the innovation of table-cloth, was losing ground every day, as his opponent gained it; a deadly feud sprung up between them, and the genteel one no longer took his evening’s pint in Scotland-yard, but drank gin and water at a &quot;parlour&quot; in Parliament-street. The fruit-pie maker still continued to visit the old room, but he took to smoking cigars, and began to call himself a pastry-cook, and to read the papers. 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. And what is Scotland-yard now? How have its old customs changed; and how has the ancient simplicity of its inhabitants faded away! The old tottering public-house is converted into a spacious and lofty &quot;wine-vaults;&quot; gold leaf has been used in the construction of the letters which emblazon its exterior, and the poet’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. The tailor exhibits in his window the pattern of a foreign-looking brown surtout, with silk buttons, a fur collar, and fur cuffs. 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. 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—real Wellington boots—an article which a few years ago, none of the original inhabitants had ever seen or heard of. 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 ladies’ ears may be pierced, within. 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. Amidst all this change, and restlessness, and innovation, there remains but one old man who seems to mourn the downfall of this ancient place. 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. He is the presiding genius of Scotland-yard. 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. 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. 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 column we have just filled: and not all his knowledge of the history of the past—not the dry studies of a whole life—may help him to the whereabout either of Scotland-yard, or any one of the land marks we have mentioned in describing it.18361004https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/New_Series_No._2_Scotland_Yard/1836-10-04-The-Morning_Chronicle__New_Series_No2_Scotland_Yard.pdf
139https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/139<em>'New Series</em>, No. 3, Doctors' Commons'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle</em> (11 October 1836), p.3.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18361011/005/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18361011/005/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-10-11">1836-10-11</a><em>The British Newspaper Archive.</em> Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1836-10-11-The_Morning_Chronicle_New_Series_No3_Doctors_CommonsDickens, Charles. '<em>New Series</em>, No. III, Doctors' Commons' (11 October 1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="1836-10-11-The_Morning_Chronicle_New_Series_No3_Doctors_Commons">1836-10-11-The_Morning_Chronicle_New_Series_No3_Doctors_Commons</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>Walking, without any definite object, through St. Paul’s Church-yard, a little while ago, we happened to turn down a street entitled &quot;Paul’s-chain,&quot; and keeping straight forward for a few hundred yards, found ourself, as a natural consequence, in Doctors’ Commons. Now, Doctors’ 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. 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. 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. 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 officers of the Court. 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’t wear red gowns or fur collars either; with many other scraps of intelligence equally interesting. 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. 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. So we had plenty of time to look about us. There was one individual amused us mightily. 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. 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. His wig was put on all awry, with the tail straggling about his neck, his scanty gray trowsers 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. We shall never be able to claim any credit as a physiognomist again, for, after a careful scrutiny of this gentleman’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 law, an ecclesiastical dignitary in the cinque ports, a not very distant relation to a commissioner of lunacy, and heaven knows what besides. So of course we were mistaken, and he must be a very talented man. He conceals it so well though—perhaps with the merciful view of not astonishing ordinary people too much—that you would suppose him to be one of the stupidest dogs alive. 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 &quot;the office of the Judge promoted by Bumple against Sludberry.&quot; A general movement was visible in the court at this announcement, and the obliging functionary with silver staff whispered us that &quot;there would be some fun now, for this was a brawling case.&quot; We were not rendered much the wiser by this piece of information till we found by the opening speech of the counsel for their 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 &quot;brawling&quot; or &quot;smiting&quot; 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 reporter, the words &quot;You be blowed;&quot; 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, &quot;You be blowed;&quot; and furthermore desired and requested to know, whether the said Michael Bumple &quot;wanted anything for himself;&quot; adding, ‘that if the said Michael Bumple did want anything for himself, he the said Thomas Sludberry &quot;was the man to give it him;&quot; 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’s health and chastening of Sludberry, prayed for sentence of excommunication against him accordingly. 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 pro and con, 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. Upon this, Sludberry, who was a little, red-faced, sly-looking, ginger-beer seller, addressed the Court, and said, if they’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. To this appeal the gentleman in the spectacles made no other reply than a look of virtuous propriety; and Sludberry and his friends retired. As the man with the silver staff informed us that the Court was on the point of rising, we retired too—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. 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. On looking upwards to see what house we had stumbled upon, the words &quot;Prerogative-office,&quot; 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, without more ado. 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. 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. As we knew that they were searching for wills, they attracted our attention at once. It was curious to contrast the lazy indifference of the attorneys’ 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. There was one little dirty-faced man in a blue apron, who after a whole morning’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. It was perfectly evident that the more the clerk read, the less the man with the blue apron understood about the matter. 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’s face with the air of a man who had made up his mind to recollect every word he heard. The first two or three lines were intelligible enough; but then the technicalities began, and the little man began to look rather dubious. Then came a whole string of complicated trusts, and he was regularly at sea. 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. 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. Every wrinkle about his toothless mouth, and sharp keen eyes, told of avarice and cunning. 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. It was a good speculation—a very safe one. The old man stowed away his pocket-book in the breast of his great-coat, and hobbled away with a leer of anticipation. That will had made him ten years younger at least. 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. 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. In short, the subject obtained such complete possession of us, that if we fail to write a whole paper about it one of these days we shall be rather surprised.18361011https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/New_Series_No._3_Doctors_Commons/1836-10-11-The_Morning_Chronicle_New_Series_No3_Doctors_Commons.pdf
166https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/166<em>'New Series</em>, No. 4, Vauxhall-Gardens by Day'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle</em> (26 October 1836), p. 3.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18361026/006/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18361026/006/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-10-26">1836-10-26</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1836-10-26-VauxhallGardens_by_DayDickens, Charles. '<em>New Series</em>, No. 4, 'Vauxhall-Gardens by Day' (26 October 1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-10-26-VauxhallGardens_by_Day">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-10-26-VauxhallGardens_by_Day</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>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. Vauxhall by day-light! A porter pot without porter, the House of Commons without the Speaker, a gas lamp without the gas—pooh, nonsense, the thing was not to be thought of. 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. 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. Of this class of people we confess to having made one. 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. 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 reeking punch bewildered our brains; and we were happy. In an evil hour, the proprietors of Vauxhall-gardens took to opening them by day. 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 noon-day Sun and the late Mr. Simpson had ever penetrated. We shrunk from going; at this moment we scarcely know why. Perhaps a morbid consciousness of approaching disappointment—perhaps a fatal presentiment—perhaps the weather; whatever it was, we did not go until the second or third announcement of a race between two balloons tempted us, and we went. 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 saw-dust. We glanced at the orchestra and supper-room as we hurried past—we just recognised them, and that was all. We bent our steps to the firework-ground; there, at least, we should not be disappointed. We reached it, and stood rooted to the spot with mortification and astonishment. That the Moorish tower—that wooden shed with a door in the centre, and daubs of crimson and yellow all round, like a gigantic watch-case! That 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 or other, 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! That the—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. It was for the concert in the orchestra. A small party of dismal men in cocked hats were &quot;executing&quot; the overture to Tancredi, 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. 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. 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. The tall lady, too, we had gazed on, lost in raptures of admiration, many and many a time—how different people do look by daylight and without punch, to be sure! 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. 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. A fearfully facetious old man 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. He sang a song about the seven ages, the first half hour of which seemed to afford the assembly the purest delight; of the rest we can make no report, as we did not stay to hear any more. 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. There was a spectral attempt at rope-dancing in the little open theatre; 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. So we retraced our steps to the firework-ground, and mingled with the little crowd of people who were contemplating Mr. Green. 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 &quot;going up,&quot; the crowd were more than usually anxious and talkative. 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. He was standing with his arms folded, staring up at the balloon, and every now and then vented his feelings of reverence for the aeronaut, by saying, as he looked round to catch somebody’s eye, &quot;He’s a rum ’un is Green; think o’ this here being up’ards of his two hundredth ascent; by God, the man as is ekal to Green never had the tooth-ache yet, nor wo&#039;nt have within this hundred year, and that’s all about it. Wen you meets with real talent, and native, too, encourage it, that’s wot I say;&quot; 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. &quot;Ah, you’re very right, sir,&quot; said another gentleman, with his wife, and children, and mother, and wife’s sister, and a host of female friends, in all the gentility of white pocket-handkerchiefs, frills, and spencers, &quot;Mr. Green is a steady hand, sir, and there’s no fear about him.&quot; &quot;Fear!&quot; said the little man: &quot;ain&#039;t it a lovely thing to see him and his wife a going up in one balloon, and his own son and his wife a jostling up agin &#039;em in another, and all of &#039;em going twenty or thirty mile in three hours or so, and then coming back in po-chayses? I don’t know where this here science is to stop, mind you; that’s what bothers me.&quot; Here there was a considerable talking among the females in the spencers. &quot;What’s the ladies a laughing at, sir?&quot; inquired the little man, condescendingly. &quot;It’s only my sister Mary,&quot; said one of the girls, &quot;as says she hopes his Lordship won’t be frightened when he’s in the car, and want to come out agin.&quot; &quot;Make yourself easy about that there, my dear,&quot; replied the little man. &quot;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 vid send him into the bottom of the basket in no time, and stun him till they come down again.&quot; &quot;Would he, though?&quot; inquired the other man. &quot;Yes, by God, would he,&quot; replied the little one, &#039;and think nothing of it, neither, if he was the king himself. Green’s presence of mind is wonderful.&quot; Just at this moment all eyes were directed to the preparations which were being made for starting. 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. Then Mr. Green, sen., and his noble companion entered one car, and Mr. Green, jun., and his companion the other; and then the balloons went up, and the aerial 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; the gardens disgorged their multitudes, boys ran up and down screaming &quot;bal-loon,&quot; 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. 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’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’s rays, and some mysterious hints respecting atmospheric heat and eddying currents of air. There was also an interesting account how a man in a boat was distinctly heard by Mr. Green, jun., to exclaim, &quot;My eye!&quot; 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. 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.18361026https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/New_Series_No._4_Vauxhall-Gardens_by_Day/1836-10-26-VauxhallGardens_by_Day.pdf
220https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/220<em>'Street Sketches,</em> No. V, Brokers and Marine Store Shops'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle</em> on 15 December 1834.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18341215/021/0006">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18341215/021/0006</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-12-15">1834-12-15</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-12-15-Street_Sketches_No5_Brokers_and_Marine_Store_ShopsDickens, Charles. '<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. V, Brokers and Marine Store Shops' (15 December 1834). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-12-15-Street_Sketches_No5_Brokers_and_Marine_Store_Shops">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-12-15-Street_Sketches_No5_Brokers_and_Marine_Store_Shops</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>When we affirm that brokers’ 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. Perhaps when we make use of the term &quot;brokers’ shops,&quot; 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 fore-ground of dining-room chairs. Perhaps they will imagine that we mean an humble class of second-hand furniture repositories. Their imagination will then naturally lead them to that street at the back of Long-acre, which is composed almost entirely of brokers’ 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. 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; they are lost in admiration, and hardly know which to admire most. The dog is very beautiful, but they have a dog already on the best tea-tray, and two more on the mantel piece. 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! There are some of the most beautiful looking Pembroke tables that ever were 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. 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—a sofa bedstead. 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; that he is indispensably necessary; and that, being so useful, he disdains to be ornamental. How different is the demeanour of a sofa-bedstead! Ashamed of its real use, it strives to appear an article of luxury and gentility, an attempt in which it miserably fails. 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—we question whether you could insult him more than by insinuating that you entertain the least suspicion of its real use. To return from this digression, we beg to say, that neither of these classes of brokers’ shops forms the subject of our fifth sketch. The shops to which we advert, are immeasurably inferior to those on whose outward appearance we have slightly touched. Our readers must often have observed in some bye-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. 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. On a board, at the side of the door, are placed about twenty books—all odd volumes, and as many wine-glasses—all different patterns; several locks, an old earthen-ware pan, full of rusty keys; two or three gaudy chimney-ornaments—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. 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’ 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. Imagine, in addition to this incongruous mass, a black doll in a white frock with two faces, one looking up the street, and the other looking down, swinging over the door; a board with the squeezed-up inscription &quot;Dealer in Marine Stores,&quot; 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. Although the same heterogeneous mixture of things which we have attempted to describe, 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—articles of wearing apparel, for instance—mark the character of the neighbourhood. Take Drury-Lane and Covent-garden for example. This is essentially a theatrical neighbourhood. There is not a pot-boy in the vicinity who is not, to a greater or less extent, a dramatic character. The errand-boys and chandler’s-shop-keepers’ sons, are all stage-struck; they &quot;get up&quot; 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, &quot;as he appeared in the character of Tongo the Denouncer.&quot; 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 &quot;fourth robber&quot; or &quot;fifth mob;&quot; a pair of rusty broad swords, 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. There are several of these shops in the narrow streets and dirty courts, of which there are so many near our national Theatres, and they all have tempting goods of this description; with the addition, perhaps, of a lady’s pink dress, covered with spangles, white wreaths, stage shoes, and a tiara like a tin lamp-reflector. 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. Let us take a very different quarter, and apply it to the test. Look at a marine store-dealer’s in that reservoir of dirt, drunkenness, and drabs, thieves, oysters, baked potatoes, and pickled salmon—Ratcliff-highway. Here, the wearing-apparel is all nautical: rough blue jackets, with mother-of-pearl buttons, oilskin hats, coarse checked shirts, and large canvass trousers, that look as if they were made for a pair of bodies instead of a pair of legs, are the staple commodities. 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. 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. In the window are a few compasses, and 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. 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. In either case it is an even chance that he afterwards unconsciously re-purchases the same things at a higher price than he gave for them at first. Again; pay a visit with a similar object, to a part of London, as unlike both of these as they are to each other. Cross over to the Surrey side, and look at such shops of this description as are to be found near the King’s Bench Prison, and in &quot;The Rules.&quot; How different, and how strikingly illustrative of the decay of some of the unfortunate residents in this part of the metropolis! Imprisonment and neglect have done their work: there is contamination in the profligate denizens of a debtor’s prison; old friends have fallen off; the recollection of former prosperity has passed away, and with it all thought of the past, all care for the future. First, watches and rings, then cloaks, coats, and all the more expensive articles of dress, have found their way to the pawnbroker’s. 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. Dressing-cases, and writing-desks, too old to pawn, but too good to keep, guns, fishing-rods, musical instruments, in the same condition, have been first sold, and the sacrifice has been but slightly felt. But hunger must be allayed, and what has already become a habit is easily resorted to when an emergency arises. 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 piece-meal. 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. We had intended to sketch this subject less in outline than is customary with us. We are, however, unwilling to exceed our ordinary limits, or to trespass at greater length than usual on the patience of our readers. We have more of these imperfect sketches to submit for their perusal; and as we hope to have many opportunies—when the partial absence of matter of pressing and absorbing interest again enables us to occupy a column occasionally—of laying our pen-and-ink drawings before them, we postpone the further consideration of this subject until a future time.18341215https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Street_Sketches_No._V_Brokers_and_Marine_Store_Shops/1834-12-15-Street_Sketches_No5_Brokers_and_Marine_Store_Shops.pdf
212https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/212<em>Sketches by Boz </em>(1839)Published by Chapman and Hall, 1839, 1. vol.Dickens, Charles<em>Google Books,</em>&nbsp;<br /><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz/niIGAAAAQAAJ">https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz/niIGAAAAQAAJ</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1839">1839</a>Public domain, Google-digitisedTable of Contents and Relation to Previous <em>Sketches.<br /></em><br />*An asterisk marks where titles were altered, usually in punctuation, from their appearance in <em>Sketches by Boz, </em>First Series (1836) and Second Series (1837) published by John Macrone. Note that, due to Dickens's efforts to include both the First Series and Second Series in one organised volume, placement and/or pagination is different for a given story or sketch in the 1839 Chapman and Hall new edition (one volume) in contrast to the previous editions. Only 'The Tuggs's at Ramsgate' is included in a <em>Sketches</em> edition for the first time, not having been in the 1836 and 1837 editions.<br /> <ul> <li><em>Seven Sketches From Our Parish.</em> <ul> <li>Chap. I. 'The Beadle<span>—The Parish Engine—The Schoolmaster', pp. 3-8. Originally </span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/43">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. IV, The Parish'</a></li> <li>Chap. II. 'The Curate<span>—The Old Lady—The Half-Pay Captain',* pp. 9-14. Orig. </span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/51">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XII, Our Parish' (I)</a></li> <li>Chap. III. 'The Four Sisters', pp. 15-20. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/53">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIV, Our Parish' (II)</a></li> <li>Chap. IV. 'The Election for Beadle', pp. 21-28. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/55">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XVI, Our Parish' (III)</a></li> <li>Chap. V. 'The Broker's Man', pp. 29-38. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/57">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XVIII, Our Parish' (IV)</a>&nbsp;</li> <li>Chap. VI. 'The Ladies' Societies', pp. 39-44. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/59">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XX, Our Parish' (V)</a></li> <li>'Our Next-Door Neighbour',* pp. 45-54. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/167">'Our Next-Door Neighbours'</a>.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <ul> <li><em>Scenes</em>. <ul> <li>'The Streets by Morning', pp. 55-60. Originally <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/56">'Sketches of London, No. XVII, The Streets—Morning'</a>.</li> <li>'The Streets by Night', pp. 61-66. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/106">'Scenes and Characters, No. 12, The Streets at Night'</a>.</li> <li>'Shops and their Tenants',* pp. 67-71. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/id/221">'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. II, Shops and their Tenants'</a>.</li> <li>'Scotland Yard',* pp. 72-76. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/138">New Series, No. 2, 'Scotland Yard'</a>.</li> <li>'Seven Dials', pp. 77-81. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/64">'Scenes and Characters, No. 1, Seven Dials'</a>.</li> <li>'Meditations in Monmouth-Street', pp. 82-88. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/137">New Series, No. 1, 'Meditations in Monmouth-Street'</a>.</li> <li>'Hackney-Coach Stands', pp. 89-93. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/40">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No.I. Hackney-Coach Stands'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'Doctors' Commons', pp. 94-99. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/139">'New Series, No. 3, 'Doctors' Commons'</a>.</li> <li>'London Recreations', pp. 100-105. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/45">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. VI, London Recreations'</a>.</li> <li>'The River', pp. 106-112.&nbsp;Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/52">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIII, The River'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'Astley's', pp. 113-119. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/50">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XI, Astley's'</a>.</li> <li>'Greenwich Fair', pp. 120-128. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/48">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. IX, Greenwich Fair'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'Private Theatres', pp. 129-135.&nbsp;Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/58">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIX, Private Theatres'</a>.</li> <li>'Vauxhall-Gardens by Day',* pp. 136-140. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/166">New Series No. 4, 'Vauxhall-Gardens by Day'.</a></li> <li>'Early Coaches', pp. 141-147. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/42">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. III, Early Coaches'</a>.</li> <li>'Omnibuses', pp. 148-152. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/id/223">'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. I, Omnibuses'</a>.</li> <li>'The Last Cab Driver, and the First Omnibus Cad',* pp. 153-162. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/87">'Scenes and Characters, No. 6, Some Account of an Omnibus Cad'</a>.</li> <li>'A Parliamentary Sketch'*, pp. 163-174. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/44">'Sketches of London, No. V, The House'</a> and <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/47">'Sketches of London, No. VIII, Bellamy's'</a>.</li> <li>'Public Dinners', pp. 175-180. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/46">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. VII, Public Dinners'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'The First of May', pp. 181-188. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/165">'A Little Talk about Spring and the Sweeps'</a>.</li> <li>'Brokers' and Marine-Store Shops', pp. 189-193. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/220">'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. V, 'Brokers and Marine Store Shops'</a>.</li> <li>'Gin-Shops', pp. 194-199. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/41">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. II, Gin Shops'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'The Pawnbroker's Shop', pp. 200-207. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/54">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XV, The Pawnbrokers' Shop'</a>.</li> <li>'Criminal Courts', pp. 208-217. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/160">'Street Sketches. No. III. The Old Bailey'</a>.</li> <li>'A Visit to Newgate', 218-228. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/213">'A Visit to Newgate'</a> (<em>Sketches by Boz, </em>Vol.1, 1836).</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <ul> <li><em>Characters</em>.&nbsp; <ul> <li>'Thoughts about People', pp. 229-233. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/49">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. X, Thoughts About People'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'A Christmas Dinner', pp. 234-238. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/104">'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 10, Christmas Festivities'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'The New Year', pp. 239-244. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/105">'Scenes and Characters, No. 11, The New Year'</a>.</li> <li>'Miss Evans and the Eagle', pp. 245-249. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/65">'<em>Scenes and Characters,</em> No.2, Miss Evans and "The Eagle"'</a>.</li> <li>'The Parlour Orator', pp. 250-254. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/103">'Scenes and Characters, No. 9, The Parlour'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'The Hospital Patient', pp. 255-259. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/219">'The Hospital Patient'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'Misplaced Attachment of Mr. John Dounce', pp. 260-266. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/68">'Scenes and Characters, No. 5, Love and Oysters'</a>.</li> <li>'The Mistaken Milliner (A Tale of Ambition)',* pp. 267-273. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/101">'Scenes and Characters, No. 7, The Vocal Dressmaker'</a>.</li> <li>'The Dancing Academy', pp. 274-280. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/66">'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 3, The Dancing Academy'</a>.</li> <li>'Shabby-genteel People', pp. 281-285. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/id/222">'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. IV, Shabby-genteel People'</a>.</li> <li>'Making a Night of It', pp. 286-291. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/67">'Scenes and Characters, No. 4, Making a Night of It'</a>.</li> <li>'The Prisoners' Van', pp. 292-296. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/102">'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 9, The Prisoners' Van'</a>.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <ul> <li><em>Tales.</em> <ul> <li>‘The Boarding-House’, * pp. 297-334. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/1834-05-The_Boarding_House_No1">'The Boarding-House No.1'</a> and <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/1834-08-The_Boarding_House_No2">'The Boarding-House No.2'</a>.</li> <li>'Mr. Minns and His Cousin', pp. 335-345. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/39">'A Dinner at Poplar Walk'</a>.</li> <li><strong>'Sentiment', pp. 346-357. Orig. 'Sentiment'.</strong></li> <li>‘The Tuggs’s at Ramsgate’, pp. 358-377. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/1836-The_Tuggss_at_Ramgate">'The Tuggs's at Ramgate'</a>.</li> <li>'Horatio Sparkins', pp. 111-141. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/132">'Horatio Sparkins'</a>.</li> <li>'The Black Veil', pp. 396-407. Orig. ‘The Black Veil’ (<em>Sketches by Boz</em>, 1836).</li> <li>'The Steam Excursion', pp. 408-430. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/149">'The Steam Excursion'</a>.</li> <li>'The Great Winglebury Duel', pp. 431-448. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/213">‘The Great Winglebury Duel’</a> (<em>Sketches by Boz</em>, Vol.2, 1836).</li> <li>'Mrs. Joseph Porter', pp. 449-459. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/133">'Mrs. Joseph Porter, "Over the Way"'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>‘Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle’,* pp. 460-496. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/150">'Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle. Chapter the First'</a> and <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/151">'Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle. Chapter the Second'</a>.</li> <li>'The Bloomsbury Christening', pp. 497-514. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/1834-04-The_Bloomsbury_Christening">'The Bloomsbury Christening'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>‘The Drunkard’s Death’, pp. 515-525. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/159">‘The Drunkard’s Death’</a> (<em>Sketches by Boz,</em> 1837).</li> </ul> </li> </ul><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1839-Sketches_by_BozDickens, Charles. <em>Sketches by Boz</em> (1839). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1839-Sketches_by_Boz">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1839-Sketches_by_Boz</a>.18390101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_by_Boz_[1839]/1839-Sketches_by_Boz.pdf
211https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/211<em>Sketches by Boz </em>(1850 Cheap Edition)Published by Chapman and Hall, 1850Dickens, Charles<em>Google Books,</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz_i_e_Charles_Dickens_With/e0JWAAAAcAAJ">https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz_i_e_Charles_Dickens_With/e0JWAAAAcAAJ</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1850">1850</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1850-Sketches_by_Boz_Cheap_EditionDickens, Charles. <em>Sketches by Boz</em> (Cheap Edition, 1850). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1850-Sketches_by_Boz_Cheap_Edition">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1850-Sketches_by_Boz_Cheap_Edition</a>.18500101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_by_Boz_[1850_Cheap_Edition]/1850-Sketches-by-Boz-Cheap-Edition.pdf
213https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/213<em>Sketches by Boz,</em> First Series (1836)Published by John Macrone, 1836, 2 vols.Dickens, Charles<em>Google Books,</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz/_P5NAAAAcAAJ">https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz/_P5NAAAAcAAJ</a>&nbsp;(Vol.1)<br /><br /><em>Google Books,</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz/Ff9NAAAAcAAJ">https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz/Ff9NAAAAcAAJ</a> (Vol.2)<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+George+Cruikshank">Illustrated by George Cruikshank</a><span>Public domain, Google-digitised</span>Table of Contents and Relation to Previous <em>Sketches:</em><br /><br />Vol. I:<br /> <ul> <li><em>The Parish.</em> <ul> <li>Chapter I. 'The Beadle<span>—The Parish-Engine—The Schoolmaster', pp. 1-11. Originally </span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/43">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. IV, The Parish'</a></li> <li>Chapter II. 'The Curate<span>—The Old Lady—The Captain', pp. 12-23. Orig. </span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/51">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XII, Our Parish' (I)</a></li> <li>Chapter III. 'The Four Sisters', pp. 24-33. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/53">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIV, Our Parish' (II)</a>&nbsp;</li> <li>Chapter IV. 'The Election for Beadle', pp. 34-47. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/55">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XVI, Our Parish' (III)</a></li> <li>Chapter V. 'The Broker's Man', pp. 48-66. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/57">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XVIII, Our Parish' (IV)</a></li> <li>Chapter VI. 'The Ladies' Societies', pp. 67-78. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/59">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XX, Our Parish' (V)</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>'Miss Evans and the Eagle', pp. 79-87. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/65">'<em>Scenes and Characters,</em> No.2, Miss Evans and "The Eagle"'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Shops, and their Tenants', pp. 88-96. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/id/221">'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. II, Shops and their Tenants'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Thoughts about People', pp. 97-106. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/49">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. X, Thoughts About People'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>'A Visit to Newgate', 107-135. First Printing.</strong></li> <li><strong>'London Recreations', pp. 136-146. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/45">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. VI, London Recreations'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong><em>The Boarding House. </em></strong> <ul> <li><strong>Chapter the First, pp. 147-180. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/1834-05-The_Boarding_House_No1">'The Boarding-House No.1'</a></strong></li> <li><strong>Chapter the Second, pp. 181-223. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/1834-08-The_Boarding_House_No2">'The Boarding-House No.2'</a>.</strong></li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>'Hackney-Coach Stands', pp. 224-232. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/40">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No.I. Hackney-Coach Stands'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>'Brokers' and Marine-Store Shops', pp. 233-241. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/220">'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. V, 'Brokers and Marine Store Shops'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'The Bloomsbury Christening', pp. 242-275. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/1834-04-The_Bloomsbury_Christening">'The Bloomsbury Christening'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>'Gin-Shops', pp. 276-287. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/41">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. II, Gin Shops'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>'Public Dinners', pp. 288-299. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/46">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. VII, Public Dinners'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>'Astley's', pp. 300-313. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/50">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XI, Astley's'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Greenwich Fair', pp. 314-330. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/48">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. IX, Greenwich Fair'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>'The Prisoners' Van', pp. 331-337. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/102">'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 9, The Prisoners' Van'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'A Christmas Dinner', pp. 338-348. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/104">'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 10, Christmas Festivities'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> </ul> <strong>Vol. II:</strong><br /> <ul> <li><strong><em>Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle.</em></strong> <ul> <li><strong>Chapter the First, pp. 1-29. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/150">'Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle. Chapter the First'</a>&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>Chapter the Second, pp. 30-76. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/151">'Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle. Chapter the Second'</a>.</strong></li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>'The Black Veil', pp. 77-100. First Printing.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Shabby-genteel People', pp. 101-110. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/id/222">'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. IV, Shabby-genteel People'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Horatio Sparkins', pp. 111-141. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/132">'Horatio Sparkins'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'The Pawnbroker's Shop', pp. 142-157. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/54">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XV, The Pawnbrokers' Shop'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'The Dancing Academy', pp. 158-170. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/66">'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 3, The Dancing Academy'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Early Coaches', pp. 171-181. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/42">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. III, Early Coaches'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'The River', pp. 182-195. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/52">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIII, The River'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>'Private Theatres', pp. 196-208. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/58">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIX, Private Theatres'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'The Great Winglebury Duel', pp. 209-243. First Printing.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Omnibuses', pp. 244-252. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/id/223">'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. I, Omnibuses'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Mrs. Joseph Porter', pp. 253-272. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/133">'Mrs. Joseph Porter, "Over the Way"'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>'The Steam Excursion', pp. 273-318. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/149">'The Steam Excursion'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Sentiment', pp. 319-342. Orig. 'Sentiment'.</strong></li> </ul><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1836-Sketches_by_BozDickens, Charles. <em>Sketches by Boz</em> (1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-Sketches_by_Boz">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-Sketches_by_Boz</a>.18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_by_Boz_First_Series_[1836]/1836-Sketches_by_Boz_First_Series_Vol1.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_by_Boz_First_Series_[1836]/1836-Sketches_by_Boz_First_Series_Vol2.pdf
159https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/159<em>Sketches by Boz,</em> Second Series (1837)Published by John Macrone, 1837, 1 vol.Dickens, Charles<em>Google Books,</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz/NyAGAAAAQAAJ">https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz/NyAGAAAAQAAJ</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1837">1837</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+George+Cruikshank">Illustrated by George Cruikshank</a>Public domain, Google-digitised<span>Table of Contents and Relation to Previous&nbsp;</span><em>Sketches:<br /></em> <ul> <li>'The Streets by Morning', pp. 1-16. Originally <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/56">'Sketches of London, No. XVII, The Streets<span>—</span>Morning'</a>.</li> <li>'The Streets by Night', pp. 17-23. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/106">'Scenes and Characters, No. 12, The Streets at Night'</a>.</li> <li>'Making a Night of It', pp. 24-48. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/67">'Scenes and Characters, No. 4, Making a Night of It'</a>.</li> <li>'Criminal Courts', pp. 49-62. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/160">'Street Sketches. No. III. The Old Bailey'</a>.</li> <li>'Scotland-Yard', pp. 63-76. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/138">New Series, No. 2, 'Scotland Yard'</a>.</li> <li>'The New Year', pp. 77-92. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/105">'Scenes and Characters, No. 11, The New Year'</a>.</li> <li>'Meditations in Monmouth-Street', pp. 93-112. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/137">New Series, No. 1, 'Meditations in Monmouth-Street'</a>.</li> <li>'Our Next-Door Neighbours', pp. 113-131. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/167">'Our Next-Door Neighbours'</a>.</li> <li>'The Hospital Patient', pp. 132-142. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/219">'The Hospital Patient'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'Seven Dials', pp. 143-156. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/64">'Scenes and Characters, No. 1, Seven Dials'</a>.</li> <li>'The Mistaken Milliner. A Tale of Ambition', pp. 157-174. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/101">'Scenes and Characters, No. 7, The Vocal Dressmaker'</a>.</li> <li>'Doctors' Commons', pp. 175-190. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/139">'New Series, No. 3, 'Doctors' Commons'</a>.</li> <li>'Misplaced Attachment of Mr. John Dounce', pp. 191-208. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/68">'Scenes and Characters, No. 5, Love and Oysters'</a>.</li> <li>'Vauxhall Gardens by Day', pp. 209-224. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/166">New Series No. 4, 'Vauxhall-Gardens by Day'.</a></li> <li>'A Parliamentary Sketch—With a Few Portraits', pp. 225-255. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/44">'Sketches of London, No. V, The House'</a> and <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/47">'Sketches of London, No. VIII, Bellamy's'</a>.</li> <li><span>'Mr. Minns and His Cousin', pp. 256-282. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/39">'A Dinner at Poplar Walk'</a>.&nbsp;</span></li> <li><span>'The Last Cab-Driver, and the First Omnibus Cad', pp. 283-308. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/87">'Scenes and Characters, No. 6, Some Account of an Omnibus Cad'</a>.</span></li> <li>'The Parlour Orator', pp. 309. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/103">'Scenes and Characters, No. 9, The Parlour'</a>.</li> <li>'The First of May', pp. 325-346. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/165">'A Little Talk about Spring and the Sweeps'</a>.</li> <li><span>'The Drunkard's Death', pp. 347-377. First Printing.</span></li> </ul><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1837_Sketches_by_Boz_Second_SeriesDickens, Charles. <em>Sketches by Boz, Second Series</em> (1837). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1837_Sketches_by_Boz_Second_Series">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1837_Sketches_by_Boz_Second_Series</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Book">Book</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>18370101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_by_Boz_Second_Series_[1837]/1837_Sketches_by_Boz_Second_Series.pdf
158https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/158<em>Sketches of Young Couples</em>Published London: Chapman and Hall, 1840.Dickens, Charles<em>Google Books,</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_of_young_couples_by_the_author/KtwDAAAAQAAJ">https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_of_young_couples_by_the_author/KtwDAAAAQAAJ</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1840">1840</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+Hablot+Knight+Browne+%28%27PHIZ%27%29">Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('PHIZ')</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1840-Sketches_of_Young_CouplesDickens, Charles. <em>Sketches of Young Couples.</em> <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1840-Sketches_of_Young_Couples">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1840-Sketches_of_Young_Couples</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Book">Book</a>An Urgent Remonstrance, &amp;c. TO THE GENTLEMEN OF ENGLAND, (BEING BACHELORS OR WIDOWERS,) THE REMONSTRANCE OF THEIR FAITHFUL FELLOW-SUBJECT, Sheweth,— 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’s Most Gracious intention of entering into the bonds of wedlock. 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—&quot;It is my intention to ally myself in marriage with Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg and Gotha.&quot; 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. 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’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. That a case has occurred in Camberwell, in which a young lady informed her Papa that &quot;she intended to ally herself in marriage&quot; 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. 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. 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. 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’s Ministers, which clearly appears—not only from Her Majesty’s principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs traitorously getting married while holding office under the Crown; but from Mr. O’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. 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’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. 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. 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’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’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. THE YOUNG COUPLE. There is to be a wedding this morning at the corner house in the terrace. The pastry-cook’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. Miss Emma Fielding is going to be married to young Mr. Harvey. 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. 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—what thoughts of how she would dress on such an occasion, if she were a lady—of how she would dress, if she were only a bride—of how cook would dress, being bridesmaid, conjointly with her sister &quot;in place&quot; at Fulham, and how the clergyman, deeming them so many ladies, would be quite humbled and respectful. What day-dreams of hope and happiness—of life being one perpetual holiday, with no master and no mistress to grant or withhold it—of every Sunday being a Sunday out—of pure freedom as to curls and ringlets, and no obligation to hide fine heads of hair in caps—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! We smile at such things, and so we should, though perhaps for a better reason than commonly presents itself. 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. 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—sight of sights!—her young mistress ready dressed for church. And there, in good truth, when they have stolen up-stairs on tip-toe and edged themselves in at the chamber-door—there is Miss Emma &quot;looking like the sweetest picter,&quot; 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)—and there is Miss Emma’s mamma in tears, and Miss Emma’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—and there too is Miss Emma’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—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’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. 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. In the centre, too, is the mighty charm, the cake, glistening with frosted sugar, and garnished beautifully. 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. 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 he knows, for he’s often winked his eye down the area, which causes Anne to blush and look confused. 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’s being early in the morning, it won’t hurt her: so they shut the door and pour out the wine; and Anne drinking lane’s health, and adding, &quot;and here’s wishing you yours, Mr. John,&quot; drinks it in a great many sips,—Mr. John all the time making jokes appropriate to the occasion. 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. By this time a carriage has driven up to convey the bride to church, and Anne of number six prolonging the process of &quot;cleaning her door,&quot; has the satisfaction of beholding the bride and bridesmaids, and the papa and mamma, hurry into the same and drive rapidly off. 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. 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. Miss Emma’s papa is at the top of the table; Miss Emma’s mamma at the bottom; and beside the latter are Miss Emma herself and her husband,—admitted on all hands to be the handsomest and most interesting young couple ever known. 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’s, reported to possess unheard-of riches, and to have expressed vast testamentary intentions respecting her favourite niece and new nephew. 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. 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. 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. Of these, one is a little fellow of six or eight years old, brother to the bride,—and the other a girl of the same age, or something younger, whom he calls &quot;his wife.&quot; 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’s own coquettishness. 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. 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! 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. 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. 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. 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’s faces beaming farewell in every queer variety of its expression. 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. 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. 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. 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 &quot;never see in all her life such a—oh such a angel of a gentleman as Mr. Harvey&quot;—and the other, that she &quot;can’t tell how it is, but it don’t seem a bit like a work-a-day, or a Sunday neither—it’s all so unsettled and unregular.&quot; THE FORMAL COUPLE. The formal couple are the most prim, cold, immovable, and unsatisfactory people on the face of the earth. 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. Everything with the formal couple resolves itself into a matter of form. They don’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,—not due to your position, but to theirs. If one of a friend’s children die, the formal couple are as sure and punctual in sending to the house as the undertaker; if a friend’s family be increased, the monthly nurse is not more attentive than they. 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. 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. 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. 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. &quot;What kind of funeral was it?&quot; says the formal lady, when he returns home. &quot;Oh!&quot; replies the formal gentleman, &quot;there never was such a gross and disgusting impropriety; there were no feathers.&quot; &quot;No feathers!&quot; cries the lady, as if on wings of black feathers dead people fly to Heaven, and, lacking them, they must of necessity go elsewhere. Her husband shakes his head; and further adds, that they had seed-cake instead of plum-cake, and that it was all white wine. &quot;All white wine!&quot; exclaims his wife. &quot;Nothing but sherry and madeira,&quot; says the husband. &quot;What! no port?&quot; &quot;Not a drop.&quot; No port, no plums, and no feathers! &quot;You will recollect, my dear,&quot; says the formal lady, in a voice of stately reproof, &quot;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. 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 there again.&quot; &quot;My dear,&quot; replies the formal gentleman, &quot;I never will.&quot; 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’s feelings are made of, and what their notions of propriety can be! 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. 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. 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. 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. Perhaps this is their chief reason for absenting themselves almost entirely from places of public amusement. They go sometimes to the Exhibition of the Royal Academy;—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. 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—and very likely dried also—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. It was at supper-time that this gentleman came out in full force. We—being of a grave and quiet demeanour—had been chosen to escort the formal lady down-stairs, and, sitting beside her, had a favourable opportunity of observing her emotions. We have a shrewd suspicion that, in the very beginning, and in the first blush—literally the first blush—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’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’s mother,—certain we are that then the formal lady took the alarm, and recoiled from the old gentleman as from a hoary profligate. Still she bore it; she fanned herself with an indignant air, but still she bore it. 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. 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. THE LOVING COUPLE. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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—for by her own count she has never since grown five years older—to be a perfect model of wedded felicity. &quot;You would suppose,&quot; says the romantic lady, &quot;that they were lovers only just now engaged. Never was such happiness! They are so tender, so affectionate, so attached to each other, so enamoured, that positively nothing can be more charming!&quot; &quot;Augusta, my soul,&quot; says Mr. Leaver. &quot;Augustus, my life,&quot; replies Mrs. Leaver. &quot;Sing some little ballad, darling,&quot; quoth Mr. Leaver. &quot;I couldn’t, indeed, dearest,&quot; returns Mrs. Leaver. &quot;Do, my dove,&quot; says Mr. Leaver. &quot;I couldn’t possibly, my love,&quot; replies Mrs. Leaver; &quot;and it’s very naughty of you to ask me.&quot; &quot;Naughty, darling!&quot; cries Mr. Leaver. &quot;Yes, very naughty, and very cruel,&quot; returns Mrs. Leaver, &quot;for you know I have a sore throat, and that to sing would give me great pain. You’re a monster, and I hate you. Go away!&quot; Mrs. Leaver has said &quot;go away,&quot; 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! 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. 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. 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. 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. 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—as indeed it did. 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. It was at this time that we first recognised Mr. Leaver. 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, &quot;Pull away, number two—give it her, number two—take a longer reach, number two—now, number two, sir, think you’re winning a boat.&quot; 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. Nor was the general consternation diminished at this instant by the same gentleman (in the performance of an accidental aquatic feat, termed &quot;catching a crab&quot;) plunging suddenly backward, and displaying nothing of himself to the company, but two violently struggling legs. Mrs. Leaver shrieked again several times, and cried piteously—&quot;Is he dead? Tell me the worst. Is he dead?&quot; Now, a moment’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, &quot;Is he dead? is he dead?&quot; and still everybody else cried—&quot;No, no, no,&quot; 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. Mr. Leaver then exclaimed, &quot;Augustus, my child, come to me;&quot; and Mr. Leaver said, &quot;Augusta, my love, compose yourself, I am not injured.&quot; But Mrs. Leaver cried again more piteously than before, &quot;Augustus, my child, come to me;&quot; 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. Reluctantly, Mr. Leaver went, and laid himself down at Mrs. Leaver’s feet, and Mrs. Leaver stooping over him, said, &quot;Oh Augustus, how could you terrify me so?&quot; and Mr. Leaver said, &quot;Augusta, my sweet, I never meant to terrify you;&quot; and Mrs. Leaver said, &quot;You are faint, my dear;&quot; and Mr. Leaver said, &quot;I am rather so, my love;&quot; and they were very loving indeed under Mrs. Leaver’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. Mrs. Starling, who was one of the party, was perfectly delighted with this scene, and frequently murmured half-aside, &quot;What a loving couple you are!&quot; or &quot;How delightful it is to see man and wife so happy together!&quot; 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! To all this we answered &quot;Certainly,&quot; or &quot;Very true,&quot; or merely sighed, as the case might be. At every new act of the loving couple, the widow’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. 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. At dinner, too, Mr. Leaver would steal Mrs. Leaver’s tongue, and Mrs. Leaver would retaliate upon Mr. Leaver’s fowl; and when Mrs. Leaver was going to take some lobster salad, Mr. Leaver wouldn’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. 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. 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. This Mrs. Leaver’s feelings could not brook, even in jest, and consequently, exclaiming aloud, &quot;He loves me not, he loves me not!&quot; 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. 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. 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—an opinion which the widow subsequently confirmed. 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. 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’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. 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. Very few of the party missed the loving couple; and the few who did, heartily congratulated each other on their disappearance. THE CONTRADICTORY COUPLE. 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? The contradictory couple agree in nothing but contradiction. They return home from Mrs. Bluebottle’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: &quot;What a very extraordinary thing it is,&quot; says he, &quot;that you will contradict, Charlotte!&#039; &quot;I contradict!&quot; cries the lady, &quot;but that’s just like you.&quot; &quot;What’s like me?&quot; says the gentleman sharply. &quot;Saying that I contradict you,&quot; replies the lady. &quot;Do you mean to say that you do not contradict me?&quot; retorts the gentleman; &quot;do you mean to say that you have not been contradicting me the whole of this day? Do you mean to tell me now, that you have not?&quot; &quot;I mean to tell you nothing of the kind,&quot; replies the lady quietly; &quot;when you are wrong, of course I shall contradict you.&quot; 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. 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—and does so. &quot;I do believe,&quot; he says, taking the spoon out of his glass, and tossing it on the table, &quot;that of all the obstinate, positive, wrong-headed creatures that were ever born, you are the most so, Charlotte.&quot; &quot;Certainly, certainly, have it your own way, pray. You see how much I contradict you,&quot; rejoins the lady. &quot;Of course, you didn’t contradict me at dinner-time—oh no, not you!&quot; says the gentleman. &quot;Yes, I did,&quot; says the lady. &quot;Oh, you did,&quot; cries the gentleman; &quot;you admit that?&quot; &quot;If you call that contradiction, I do,&quot; the lady answers; &quot;and I say again, Edward, that when I know you are wrong, I will contradict you. I am not your slave.&quot; &quot;Not my slave!&quot; repeats the gentleman bitterly; &quot;and you still mean to say that in the Blackburns’ new house there are not more than fourteen doors, including the door of the wine-cellar!&quot; &quot;I mean to say,&quot; retorts the lady, beating time with her hair-brush on the palm of her hand, &quot;that in that house there are fourteen doors and no more.&quot; &quot;Well then—&quot; cries the gentleman, rising in despair, and pacing the room with rapid strides. &quot;By G-, this is enough to destroy a man’s intellect, and drive him mad!&quot; By and by the gentleman comes-to a little, and passing his hand gloomily across his forehead, reseats himself in his former chair. There is a long silence, and this time the lady begins. &quot;I appealed to Mr. Jenkins, who sat next to me on the sofa in the drawing-room during tea—&quot; &quot;Morgan, you mean,&quot; interrupts the gentleman. &quot;I do not mean anything of the kind,&quot; answers the lady. &quot;Now, by all that is aggravating and impossible to bear,&quot; cries the gentleman, clenching his hands and looking upwards in agony, &quot;she is going to insist upon it that Morgan is Jenkins!&quot; &quot;Do you take me for a perfect fool?&quot; exclaims the lady; &quot;do you suppose I don’t know the one from the other? Do you suppose I don’t know that the man in the blue coat was Mr. Jenkins?&quot; &quot;Jenkins in a blue coat!&quot; cries the gentleman with a groan; &quot;Jenkins in a blue coat! a man who would suffer death rather than wear anything but brown!&quot; &quot;Do you dare to charge me with telling an untruth?&quot; demands the lady, bursting into tears. &quot;I charge you, ma’am,&quot; retorts the gentleman, starting up, &quot;with being a monster of contradiction, a monster of aggravation, a—a—a—Jenkins in a blue coat!—what have I done that I should be doomed to hear such statements!&quot; 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, &quot;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!&quot; If the contradictory couple are blessed with children, they are not the less contradictory on that account. 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. 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, &quot;Yes, she should think she was, for Mrs. Parsons is a very tall lady indeed; quite a giantess.&quot; &quot;For Heaven’s sake, Charlotte,&quot; cries her husband, &quot;do not tell the child such preposterous nonsense. Six feet high!&quot; &quot;Well,&quot; replies the lady, &quot;surely I may be permitted to have an opinion; my opinion is, that she is six feet high—at least six feet.&quot; &quot;Now you know, Charlotte,&quot; retorts the gentleman sternly, &quot;that that is not your opinion—that you have no such idea—and that you only say this for the sake of contradiction.&quot; &quot;You are exceedingly polite,&quot; his wife replies; &quot;to be wrong about such a paltry question as anybody’s height, would be no great crime; but I say again, that I believe Mrs. Parsons to be six feet—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.&quot; This taunt disposes the gentleman to become violent, but he cheeks himself, and is content to mutter, in a haughty tone, &quot;Six feet—ha! ha! Mrs. Parsons six feet!&quot; and the lady answers, &quot;Yes, six feet. I am sure I am glad you are amused, and I’ll say it again—six feet.&quot; 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’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. 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. 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. 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. 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. THE COUPLE WHO DOTE UPON THEIR CHILDREN. The couple who dote upon their children have usually a great many of them: six or eight at least. The children are either the healthiest in all the world, or the most unfortunate in existence. 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’ friends. The couple who dote upon their children recognise no dates but those connected with their births, accidents, illnesses, or remarkable deeds. They keep a mental almanack with a vast number of Innocents’ days, all in red letters. 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. 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. 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. 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. As we have already intimated, the children of this couple can know no medium. They are either prodigies of good health or prodigies of bad health; whatever they are, they must be prodigies. Mr. Whiffler must have to describe at his office such excruciating agonies constantly undergone by his eldest boy, as nobody else’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. His children must be, in some respect or other, above and beyond the children of all other people. 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. But perhaps this may be an extreme case, and one not justly entitled to be considered as a precedent of general application. 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. 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. The slightest remark, however harmless in itself, will awaken slumbering recollections of the twins. It is impossible to steer clear of them. They will come uppermost, let the poor man do what he may. 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. Nothing can keep down the twins. &quot;It’s a very extraordinary thing, Saunders,&quot; says Mr. Whiffler to the visitor, &quot;but—you have seen our little babies, the—the—twins?&quot; The friend’s heart sinks within him as he answers, &quot;Oh, yes—often.&quot; &quot;Your talking of the Pyramids,&quot; says Mr. Whiffler, quite as a matter of course, &quot;reminds me of the twins. It’s a very extraordinary thing about those babies—what colour should you say their eyes were?&quot; &quot;Upon my word,&quot; the friend stammers, &quot;I hardly know how to answer&quot;—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. &quot;You wouldn’t say they were red, I suppose?&quot; says Mr. Whiffler. The friend hesitates, and rather thinks they are; but inferring from the expression of Mr. Whiffler’s face that red is not the colour, smiles with some confidence, and says, &quot;No, no! very different from that.&quot; &quot;What should you say to blue?&quot; says Mr. Whiffler. The friend glances at him, and observing a different expression in his face, ventures to say, &quot;I should say they were blue—a decided blue.&quot; &quot;To be sure!&quot; cries Mr. Whiffler, triumphantly, &quot;I knew you would! But what should you say if I was to tell you that the boy’s eyes are blue and the girl’s hazel, eh?&quot; &quot;Impossible!&quot; exclaims the friend, not at all knowing why it should be impossible. &quot;A fact, notwithstanding,&quot; cries Mr. Whiffler; &quot;and let me tell you, Saunders, that’s not a common thing in twins, or a circumstance that’ll happen every day.&quot; 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’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’s if he had heard it anywhere. 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’s wit and Dick’s wit, from which it appears that Dick’s humour is of a lively turn, while Tom’s style is the dry and caustic. 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. 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. As the whole eight are screaming, shouting, or kicking—some influenced by a ravenous appetite, some by a horror of the stranger, and some by a conflict of the two feelings—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. At length Mrs. Whiffler is heard to say, &quot;Mr. Saunders, shall I give you some pudding?&quot; A breathless silence ensues, and sixteen small eyes are fixed upon the guest in expectation of his reply. A wild shout of joy proclaims that he has said &quot;No, thank you.&quot; Spoons are waved in the air, legs appear above the table-cloth in uncontrollable ecstasy, and eighty short fingers dabble in damson syrup. 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’s eyes, or Dick’s chin, or Ned’s nose, or Mary Anne’s hair, or Emily’s figure, or little Bob’s calves, or Fanny’s mouth, or Carry’s head, as the case may be. 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. 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. 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 &quot;is a naughty beast;&quot; and Dick, who having drunk his father’s wine when he was looking another way, is found to be intoxicated and is carried out, very limp and helpless. Mr. Whiffler and his friend are left alone together, but Mr. Whiffler’s thoughts are still with his family, if his family are not with him. &quot;Saunders,&quot; says he, after a short silence, &quot;if you please, we’ll drink Mrs. Whiffler and the children.&quot; Mr. Saunders feels this to be a reproach against himself for not proposing the same sentiment, and drinks it in some confusion. &quot;Ah!&quot; Mr. Whiffler sighs, &quot;these children, Saunders, make one quite an old man.&quot; Mr. Saunders thinks that if they were his, they would make him a very old man; but he says nothing. &quot;And yet,&quot; pursues Mr. Whiffler, &quot;what can equal domestic happiness? what can equal the engaging ways of children! Saunders, why don’t you get married?&quot; 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. &quot;I am glad, however,&quot; says Mr. Whiffler, &quot;that you are a bachelor,—glad on one account, Saunders; a selfish one, I admit. Will you do Mrs. Whiffler and myself a favour?&quot; Mr. Saunders is surprised—evidently surprised; but he replies, &quot;with the greatest pleasure.&quot; &quot;Then, will you, Saunders,&quot; says Mr. Whiffler, in an impressive manner, &quot;will you cement and consolidate our friendship by coming into the family (so to speak) as a godfather?&quot; &quot;I shall be proud and delighted,&quot; replies Mr. Saunders: &quot;which of the children is it? really, I thought they were all christened; or—&quot; &quot;Saunders,&quot; Mr. Whiffler interposes, &quot;they are all christened; you are right. The fact is, that Mrs. Whiffler is—in short, we expect another.&quot; &quot;Not a ninth!&quot; cries the friend, all aghast at the idea. &quot;Yes, Saunders,&quot; rejoins Mr. Whiffler, solemnly, &quot;a ninth. Did we drink Mrs. Whiffler’s health? Let us drink it again, Saunders, and wish her well over it!&quot; Doctor Johnson used to tell a story of a man who had but one idea, which was a wrong one. 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. They relate the clever things their offspring say or do, and weary every company with their prolixity and absurdity. Mr. Whiffler takes a friend by the button at a street corner on a windy day to tell him a bon mot of his youngest boy’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. In such cases the sins of the fathers indeed descend upon the children; for people soon come to regard them as predestined little bores. 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. 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. 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. Couples who dote upon their children, therefore, are best avoided. THE COOL COUPLE. 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. 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. They never seek each other’s society, are never elevated and depressed by the same cause, and have nothing in common. 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. 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. If they enter into conversation, it is usually of an ironical or recriminatory nature. 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, &quot;Well, I am sure, Charles! I hope you’re comfortable.&quot; To which the gentleman replies, &quot;Oh yes, he’s quite comfortable—quite.&quot; &quot;There are not many married men, I hope,&quot; returns the lady, &quot;who seek comfort in such selfish gratifications as you do.&quot; &quot;Nor many wives who seek comfort in such selfish gratifications as you do, I hope,&quot; retorts the gentleman. &quot;Whose fault is that?&quot; demands the lady. The gentleman becoming more sleepy, returns no answer. &quot;Whose fault is that?&quot; the lady repeats. 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’s gratification or pleasure beyond her own fireside as she. 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, &quot;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!&quot; She supposes her papa knew what her disposition was—he had known her long enough—he ought to have been acquainted with it, but what can she do? 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. &quot;Then come, Louisa,&quot; says the gentleman, waking up as suddenly as he fell asleep, &quot;stop at home this evening, and so will I.&quot; &quot;I should be sorry to suppose, Charles, that you took a pleasure in aggravating me,&quot; replies the lady; &quot;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.&quot; &quot;Ah! there it is!&quot; says the gentleman, shrugging his shoulders, &quot;I knew that perfectly well. I knew you couldn’t devote an evening to your own home. Now all I have to say, Louisa, is this—recollect that I was quite willing to stay at home, and that it’s no fault of mine we are not oftener together.&quot; With that the gentleman goes away to keep an old appointment at his club, and the lady hurries off to dress for Mrs. Mortimer’s; and neither thinks of the other until by some odd chance they find themselves alone again. But it must not be supposed that the cool couple are habitually a quarrelsome one. Quite the contrary. These differences are only occasions for a little self-excuse,—nothing more. 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. When they meet in society, the cool couple are the best-bred people in existence. The lady is seated in a corner among a little knot of lady friends, one of whom exclaims, &quot;Why, I vow and declare there is your husband, my dear!&quot; &quot;Whose?—mine?&quot; she says, carelessly. &quot;Ay, yours, and coming this way too.&quot; &quot;How very odd!&quot; says the lady, in a languid tone, &quot;I thought he had been at Dover.&quot; 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. &quot;What a strange creature you are!&quot; cries his wife; &quot;and what on earth brought you here, I wonder?&quot; &quot;I came to look after you, of course,&quot; rejoins her husband. 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. 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. 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,—&quot;I am sure I never interfere with him, and why should he interfere with me? 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. It’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.&quot; 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. Thus a great many cool couples go on until they are cold couples, and the grave has closed over their folly and indifference. 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. THE PLAUSIBLE COUPLE. The plausible couple have many titles. They are &quot;a delightful couple,&quot; an &quot;affectionate couple,&quot; &quot;a most agreeable couple,&quot; &quot;a good-hearted couple,&quot; and &quot;the best-natured couple in existence.&quot; 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. &quot;But is it really possible to please the world!&quot; says some doubting reader. It is indeed. Nay, it is not only very possible, but very easy. The ways are crooked, and sometimes foul and low. What then? 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. 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 and woman, or, in other words, a plausible couple, playing into each other’s hands, and acting in concert, have a manifest advantage. 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. The plausible couple are the most ecstatic people living: the most sensitive people—to merit—on the face of the earth. Nothing clever or virtuous escapes them. They have microscopic eyes for such endowments, and can find them anywhere. The plausible couple never fawn—oh no! They don’t even scruple to tell their friends of their faults. 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. &quot;We never flatter, my dear Mrs. Jackson,&quot; say the plausible couple; &quot;we speak our minds. Neither you nor Mr. Jackson have faults enough. It may sound strangely, but it is true. You have not faults enough. You know our way,—we must speak out, and always do. Quarrel with us for saying so, if you will; but we repeat it,—you have not faults enough!&quot; The plausible couple are no less plausible to each other than to third parties. They are always loving and harmonious. The plausible gentleman calls his wife &quot;darling,&quot; and the plausible lady addresses him as &quot;dearest.&quot; If it be Mr. and Mrs. Bobtail Widger, Mrs. Widger is &quot;Lavinia, darling,’ and Mr. Widger is &quot;Bobtail, dearest.&quot; Speaking of each other, they observe the same tender form. Mrs. Widger relates what &quot;Bobtail&quot; said, and Mr. Widger recounts what &quot;darling&quot; thought and did. 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—she must not tell you in what terms, or you will take her for a flatterer. You admit a knowledge of the Clickits; the plausible lady immediately launches out in their praise. She quite loves the Clickits. Were there ever such true-hearted, hospitable, excellent people—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? &quot;As who, darling?&quot; cries Mr. Widger, from the opposite side of the table. &quot;The Clickits, dearest,&quot; replies Mrs. Widger. &quot;Indeed you are right, darling,&quot; Mr. Widger rejoins; &quot;the Clickits are a very high-minded, worthy, estimable couple.&quot; 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. &quot;You know the Clickits, Mrs. Jackson?&quot; he says, addressing the lady of the house. &quot;No, indeed; we have not that pleasure,&quot; she replies. &quot;You astonish me!&quot; exclaims Mr. Widger: &quot;not know the Clickits! why, you are the very people of all others who ought to be their bosom friends. You are kindred beings; you are one and the same thing:—not know the Clickits! Now will you know the Clickits? Will you make a point of knowing them? Will you meet them in a friendly way at our house one evening, and be acquainted with them?&quot; Mrs. Jackson will be quite delighted; nothing would give her more pleasure. &quot;Then, Lavinia, my darling,&quot; says Mr. Widger, &quot;mind you don’t lose sight of that; now, pray take care that Mr. and Mrs. Jackson know the Clickits without loss of time. Such people ought not to be strangers to each other.&quot; 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. 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. 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;—Fithers, it is to be observed, being present and within hearing, and Slummery elsewhere. Is Mrs. Tabblewick really as beautiful as people say? 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. 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’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,—very like our friend, in fact, in the form of the features,—but in point of expression, and soul, and figure, and air altogether—oh dear! 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. 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. &quot;Oh dear!&quot; cries the plausible lady, &quot;you cannot think how often Bobtail and I have talked about poor Mrs. Finching—she is such a dear soul, and was so anxious that the baby should be a fine child—and very naturally, because she was very much here at one time, and there is, you know, a natural emulation among mothers—that it is impossible to tell you how much we have felt for her.&quot; &quot;Is it weak or plain, or what?&quot; inquires the other. &quot;Weak or plain, my love,&quot; returns the plausible lady, &quot;it’s a fright—a perfect little fright; you never saw such a miserable creature in all your days. Positively you must not let her see one of these beautiful dears again, or you’ll break her heart, you will indeed.—Heaven bless this child, see how she is looking in my face! can you conceive anything prettier than that? If poor Mrs. Finching could only hope—but that’s impossible—and the gifts of Providence, you know—What did I do with my pocket-handkerchief!&quot; What prompts the mother, who dotes upon her children, to comment to her lord that evening on the plausible lady’s engaging qualities and feeling heart, and what is it that procures Mr. and Mrs. Bobtail Widger an immediate invitation to dinner? THE NICE LITTLE COUPLE. 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. 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. Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup are the nice little couple in question. Mr. Chirrup has the smartness, and something of the brisk, quick manner of a small bird. Mrs. Chirrup is the prettiest of all little women, and has the prettiest little figure conceivable. 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. She is a condensation of all the domestic virtues,—a pocket edition of the young man’s best companion,—a little woman at a very high pressure, with an amazing quantity of goodness and usefulness in an exceedingly small space. 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—if, in the presence of ladies, we may be allowed the expression—and of corresponding robustness. Nobody knows all this better than Mr. Chirrup, though he rather takes on that he don’t. 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. 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. Moreover, Mr. Chirrup has a particularly mild and bird-like manner of calling Mrs. Chirrup &quot;my dear;&quot; and—for he is of a jocose turn—of cutting little witticisms upon her, and making her the subject of various harmless pleasantries, which nobody enjoys more thoroughly than Mrs. Chirrup herself. 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—all of which circumstances combine to show the secret triumph and satisfaction of Mr. Chirrup’s soul. We have already had occasion to observe that Mrs. Chirrup is an incomparable housewife. 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. She is, besides, a cunning worker in muslin and fine linen, and a special hand at marketing to the very best advantage. 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. 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. To Mrs. Chirrup the resolving a goose into its smallest component parts is a pleasant pastime—a practical joke—a thing to be done in a minute or so, without the smallest interruption to the conversation of the time. 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. The dish is set upon the table, the cover is removed; for an instant, and only an instant, you observe that Mrs. Chirrup’s attention is distracted; she smiles, but heareth not. You proceed with your story; meanwhile the glittering knife is slowly upraised, both Mrs. Chirrup’s wrists are slightly but not ungracefully agitated, she compresses her lips for an instant, then breaks into a smile, and all is over. 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! To dine with Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup is one of the pleasantest things in the world. Mr. Chirrup has a bachelor friend, who lived with him in his own days of single blessedness, and to whom he is mightily attached. Contrary to the usual custom, this bachelor friend is no less a friend of Mrs. Chirrup’s, and, consequently, whenever you dine with Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup, you meet the bachelor friend. 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’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. 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’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. However, this is no business of Mr. Chirrup’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. 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. 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 good night, 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. 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’t know, but as a general rule,—strengthened like all other rules by its exceptions,—we hold that little people are sprightly and good-natured. 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. THE EGOTISTICAL COUPLE. Egotism in couples is of two kinds.—It is our purpose to show this by two examples. 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. There is no outward sign by which an egotistical couple may be known and avoided. They come upon you unawares; there is no guarding against them. No man can of himself be forewarned or forearmed against an egotistical couple. The egotistical couple have undergone every calamity, and experienced every pleasurable and painful sensation of which our nature is susceptible. You cannot by possibility tell the egotistical couple anything they don’t know, or describe to them anything they have not felt. They have been everything but dead. Sometimes we are tempted to wish they had been even that, but only in our uncharitable moments, which are few and far between. 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. The inquiry was of course touching the lady’s health, and the answer happened to be, that she had not been very well. &quot;Oh, my dear!&quot; said the egotistical lady, &quot;don’t talk of not being well. We have been in such a state since we saw you last!&quot;—The lady of the house happening to remark that her lord had not been well either, the egotistical gentleman struck in: &quot;Never let Briggs complain of not being well—never let Briggs complain, my dear Mrs. Briggs, after what I have undergone within these six weeks. He doesn’t know what it is to be ill, he hasn’t the least idea of it; not the faintest conception.&quot;—&quot;My dear,&quot; interposed his wife smiling, &quot;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.&quot;—&quot;My love,&quot; returned the egotistical gentleman, in a low and pious voice, &quot;you mistake me;—I feel grateful—very grateful. I trust our friends may never purchase their experience as dearly as we have bought ours; I hope they never may!&quot; 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. 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. 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. &quot;Who, my dear?&quot; returned the egotistical lady, &quot;why Sir Chipkins, of course; how can you ask! Don’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?&quot; &quot;To be sure, I remember that,&quot; said the egotistical gentleman, &quot;but are you quite certain that didn’t apply to the other anecdote about the Emperor of Austria and the pump?&quot; &quot;Upon my word then, I think it did,&quot; replied his wife. &quot;To be sure it did,&quot; said the egotistical gentleman, &quot;it was Slang’s story, I remember now, perfectly.&quot; However, it turned out, a few seconds afterwards, that the egotistical gentleman’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’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. 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. 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’s grandfather sat upon his right hand and was the first man who collared him; and that the egotistical lady’s aunt, sitting within a few boxes of the royal party, was the only person in the audience who heard his Majesty exclaim, &quot;Charlotte, Charlotte, don’t be frightened, don’t be frightened; they’re letting off squibs, they’re letting off squibs.&quot; 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—&quot;It’s the House of Lords!&quot; 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’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—slightly casting up his eyes to the top of the Monument—&quot;There’s a boy up there, my dear, reading a Bible. It’s very strange. I don’t like it.—In five seconds afterwards, Sir,&quot; says the egotistical gentleman, bringing his hands together with one violent clap—&quot;the lad was over!&quot; 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. Mr. and Mrs. Sliverstone are an egotistical couple of another class, for all the lady’s egotism is about her husband, and all the gentleman’s about his wife. For example:—Mr. Sliverstone is a clerical gentleman, and occasionally writes sermons, as clerical gentlemen do. 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. 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. So you are led up stairs—still on tip-toe—to the door of a little back room, in which, as the lady informs you in a whisper, Mr. Sliverstone always writes. 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. At first he is too much absorbed to be roused by this intrusion; but presently looking up, says faintly, &quot;Ah!&quot; and pointing to his desk with a weary and languid smile, extends his hand, and hopes you’ll forgive him. 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’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. Unto this Mr. Sliverstone replies firmly, that &quot;It must be done;&quot; which agonizes Mrs. Sliverstone still more, and she goes on to tell you that such were Mr. Sliverstone’s labours last week—what with the buryings, marryings, churchings, christenings, and all together,—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. Mr. Sliverstone, who has been listening and smiling meekly, says, &quot;Not quite so bad as that, not quite so bad!&quot; he admits though, on cross-examination, that he was 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. This sentiment communicates new impulse to Mrs. Sliverstone, who launches into new praises of Mr. Sliverstone’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—&quot;Not seventy-two christenings that week, my dear. Only seventy-one, only seventy-one.&quot; 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? Is it he alone who toils and suffers? What has she gone through, he should like to know? What does she go through every day for him and for society? 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. 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. The more hearers they have, the more egotistical the couple become, and the more anxious they are to make believers in their merits. Perhaps this is the worst kind of egotism. It has not even the poor excuse of being spontaneous, but is the result of a deliberate system and malice aforethought. Mere empty-headed conceit excites our pity, but ostentatious hypocrisy awakens our disgust. THE COUPLE WHO CODDLE THEMSELVES. Mrs. Merrywinkle’s maiden name was Chopper. She was the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Chopper. Her father died when she was, as the play-books express it, &quot;yet an infant;&quot; 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. Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle are a couple who coddle themselves; and the venerable Mrs. Chopper is an aider and abettor in the same. Mr. Merrywinkle is a rather lean and long-necked gentleman, middle-aged and middle-sized, and usually troubled with a cold in the head. Mrs. Merrywinkle is a delicate-looking lady, with very light hair, and is exceedingly subject to the same unpleasant disorder. The venerable Mrs. Chopper—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—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, &quot;That’s my complaint.&quot; Indeed, the absence of authentic information upon the subject of this complaint would seem to be Mrs. Chopper’s greatest ill, as in all other respects she is an uncommonly hale and hearty gentlewoman. 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. 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. Mr. Merrywinkle’s leaving home to go to business on a damp or wet morning is a very elaborate affair. 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. Besides these precautions, he winds a thick shawl round his throat, and blocks up his mouth with a large silk handkerchief. 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. 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, &quot;has really got to that pitch that it is quite unbearable.&quot; 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. If anybody happens to call, Mrs. Merrywinkle opines that they must assuredly be mad, and her first salutation is, &quot;Why, what in the name of goodness can bring you out in such weather? You know you must catch your death.&quot; 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. 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’s name is inseparably connected with his complaints, and his complaints are inseparably connected with Mrs. Merrywinkle’s; and when these are done with, Mrs. Chopper, who has been biding her time, cuts in with the chronic disorder—a subject upon which the amiable old lady never leaves off speaking until she is left alone, and very often not then. But Mr. Merrywinkle comes home to dinner. 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. 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. Now, the dinner is always a good one, the appetites of the diners being delicate, and requiring a little of what Mrs. Merrywinkle calls &quot;tittivation;&quot; 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 &quot;to keep that draught out,&quot; 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. Supper, coming after dinner, should consist of some gentle provocative; and therefore the tittivating art is again in requisition, and again—done honour to by Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle, still comforted and abetted by Mrs. Chopper. 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. 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. 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. 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,—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,—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. THE OLD COUPLE. 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. Is this the lightsome pair whose wedding was so merry, and have the young couple indeed grown old so soon! It seems but yesterday—and yet what a host of cares and griefs are crowded into the intervening time which, reckoned by them, lengthens out into a century! How many new associations have wreathed themselves about their hearts since then! The old time is gone, and a new time has come for others—not for them. They are but the rusting link that feebly joins the two, and is silently loosening its hold and dropping asunder. It seems but yesterday—and yet three of their children have sunk into the grave, and the tree that shades it has grown quite old. One was an infant—they wept for him; the next a girl, a slight young thing too delicate for earth—her loss was hard indeed to bear. The third, a man. That was the worst of all, but even that grief is softened now. It seems but yesterday—and yet how the gay and laughing faces of that bright morning have changed and vanished from above ground! Faint likenesses of some remain about them yet, but they are very faint and scarcely to be traced. The rest are only seen in dreams, and even they are unlike what they were, in eyes so old and dim. One or two dresses from the bridal wardrobe are yet preserved. They are of a quaint and antique fashion, and seldom seen except in pictures. White has turned yellow, and brighter hues have faded. Do you wonder, child? The wrinkled face was once as smooth as yours, the eyes as bright, the shrivelled skin as fair and delicate. It is the work of hands that have been dust these many years. 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? Let yonder peevish bachelor, racked by rheumatic pains, and quarrelling with the world, let him answer to the question. He recollects something of a favourite playmate; her name was Lucy—so they tell him. He is not sure whether she was married, or went abroad, or died. It is a long while ago, and he don’t remember. Is nothing as it used to be; does no one feel, or think, or act, as in days of yore? Yes. There is an aged woman who once lived servant with the old lady’s father, and is sheltered in an alms-house not far off. 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. 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. 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—quite happy. If ever her attachment to her old protectors were disturbed by fresher cares and hopes, it has long since resumed its former current. It has filled the void in the poor creature’s heart, and replaced the love of kindred. 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. Does she remember the marriage of great-grandmamma? Ay, that she does, as well—as if it was only yesterday. You wouldn’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’d wish to see. She recollects she took a friend of hers up-stairs to see Miss Emma dressed for church; her name was—ah! she forgets the name, but she remembers that she was a very pretty girl, and that she married not long afterwards, and lived—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. Dear, dear, in Lambeth workhouse! And the old couple—have they no comfort or enjoyment of existence? 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—how the old gentleman chuckles over boyish feats and roguish tricks, and tells long stories of a &quot;barring-out&quot; 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—especially when he kissed the master’s niece. 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. So the old gentleman gets no further, and what the schoolmaster’s niece said afterwards (which he is always going to tell) is lost to posterity. The old gentleman is eighty years old, to-day—&quot;Eighty years old, Crofts, and never had a headache,&quot; he tells the barber who shaves him (the barber being a young fellow, and very subject to that complaint). &quot;That’s a great age, Crofts,&quot; says the old gentleman. &quot;I don’t think it’s sich a wery great age, Sir,&quot; replied the barber. &quot;Crofts,&quot; rejoins the old gentleman, &quot;you’re talking nonsense to me. Eighty not a great age?&quot; &quot;It’s a wery great age, Sir, for a gentleman to be as healthy and active as you are,&quot; returns the barber; &quot;but my grandfather, Sir, he was ninety-four.&quot; &quot;You don’t mean that, Crofts?&quot; says the old gentleman. &quot;I do indeed, Sir,&quot; retorts the barber, &quot;and as wiggerous as Julius Cæsar, my grandfather was.&quot; The old gentleman muses a little time, and then says, &quot;What did he die of, Crofts?&quot; &quot;He died accidentally, Sir,&quot; returns the barber; &quot;he didn’t mean to do it. He always would go a running about the streets—walking never satisfied his spirit—and he run against a post and died of a hurt in his chest.&quot; The old gentleman says no more until the shaving is concluded, and then he gives Crofts half-a-crown to drink his health. He is a little doubtful of the barber’s veracity afterwards, and telling the anecdote to the old lady, affects to make very light of it—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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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’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. The old couple’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’t come at all easily out of small pockets. 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’ll be de’ed if he doesn’t think he looks younger than he did ten years ago. 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—the glasses being filled, and everybody ready to drink the toast—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. 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! The old couple sit side by side, and the old time seems like yesterday indeed. 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. CONCLUSION. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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—how much of it may have been lost already, and how much more in danger of vanishing every day—are questions too weighty for discussion here, but well deserving a little serious consideration from all young couples nevertheless. 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. 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. 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’s nature to that of tens of thousands of her humble subjects, and guards in her woman’s heart one secret store of tenderness, whose proudest boast shall be that it knows no Royalty save Nature’s own, and no pride of birth but being the child of heaven! 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— GOD BLESS THEM.18400101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_Young_Couples/1840-Sketches_of_Young_Couples.pdf
157https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/157<em>Sketches of Young Gentlemen</em><em>Sketches of Young Gentlemen.</em> London: Chapman and Hall, 1838.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em> <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102287701">https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102287701</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1838">1838</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+Hablot+Knight+Browne+%28%22PHIZ%22%29">Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne (&quot;PHIZ&quot;)</a>Google digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<em>Sketches of Young Gentlemen</em> (1838) was a joking response to Rev. Edward Caswell, or “QUIZ’s” recent effort <em>Sketches of Young Ladies</em> (1838), which is referenced throughout Dickens's rejoinder.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1838-Sketches_of_Young_GentlemenDickens, Charles. <em>Sketches of Young Gentlemen</em> (1838). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/shortstories/1838-Sketches_of_Young_Gentlemen">https://www.dickenssearch.com/shortstories/1838-Sketches_of_Young_Gentlemen</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Book">Book</a>TO THE YOUNG LADIES OF THE United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; ALSO THE YOUNG LADIES OF THE PRINCIPALITY OF WALES, AND LIKEWISE THE YOUNG LADIES RESIDENT IN THE ISLES OF Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, and Sark, THE HUMBLE DEDICATION OF THEIR DEVOTED ADMIRER, Sheweth,— That your Dedicator has perused, with feelings of virtuous indignation, a work purporting to be &quot;Sketches of Young Ladies;&quot; written by Quiz, illustrated by Phiz, and published in one volume, square twelvemo. 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. 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 are animals, still he humbly submits that it is not polite to call you so. 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. 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. 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. 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 &quot;Sketches of Young Ladies,&quot; your Dedicator ventures to produce another work, square twelvemo, entitled &quot;Sketches of Young Gentlemen,&quot; of which he now solicits your acceptance and approval. 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,—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. 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’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. And your Dedicator shall ever pray, &amp;c. THE BASHFUL YOUNG GENTLEMAN. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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—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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. From this moment we perceived, in the phraseology of the fancy, that it was &quot;all up&quot; with the bashful young gentleman, and so indeed it was. 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. 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’s coat, and the footman’s hat. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. &quot;Well, Mr. Hopkins!&quot; cries the young lady, &quot;why, we heard she was bled yesterday evening, and have been perfectly miserable about her.&quot; &quot;Oh, ah,&quot; says the young gentleman, &quot;so she was. Oh, she’s very ill, very ill indeed.&quot; 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, &quot;Good morning, good morning.&quot; 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. 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. 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. &quot;Miss Lambert, let me introduce Mr. Hopkins for the next quadrille.&quot; Miss Lambert inclines her head graciously. Mr. Hopkins bows, and his fair conductress disappears, leaving Mr. Hopkins, as he too well knows, to make himself agreeable. 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. Meanwhile, the young lady, after several inspections of her bouquet, 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 him. In this comfortable condition he remains until it is time to &quot;stand up,&quot;when murmuring a &quot;Will you allow me?&quot; 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. A married bashful gentleman—for these bashful gentlemen do get married sometimes; how it is ever brought about, is a mystery to us—a married bashful gentleman either causes his wife to appear bold by contrast, or merges her proper importance in his own insignificance. Bashful young gentlemen should be cured, or avoided. 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. THE OUT-AND-OUT YOUNG GENTLEMAN. Out-and-out young gentlemen may be divided into two classes—those who have something to do, and those who have nothing. 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. 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 &quot;make that what’s-a-name a regular bang-up sort of thing.&quot; 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. 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. He smokes at all hours, of course, and swears considerably. The out-and-out young gentleman is employed in a city counting-house or solicitor’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. 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. 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. 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. 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 &quot;devilish fine girls,&quot; and that they really thought the youngest would have fainted, which was the only thing wanted to render the joke complete. 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. Sometimes, however, on a birth-day or at Christmas time, he cannot very well help accompanying them to a party at some old friend’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’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 &quot;coming off&quot; at that very instant. As the out-and-out young gentleman is by no means at his ease in ladies’ society, he shrinks into a corner of the drawing-room when they reach the friend’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. 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’t very well be off coming; to which the other replies, that that’s just his case—&quot;and I’ll tell you what,&quot; continues the out-and-outer in a whisper, &quot;I should like a glass of warm brandy and water just now,&quot;— &quot;Or a pint of stout and a pipe,&quot; suggests the other out-and-outer. 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’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 &quot;Mr. Warmint Blake,&quot; who upon divers occasions has distinguished himself in a manner that would not have disgraced the fighting man, and who—having been a pretty long time about town—had the honour of once shaking hands with the celebrated Mr. Thurtell himself. 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—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. 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 &quot;both Mr. Blake and Mr. Dummins are very nice sort of young men in their way, only they are eccentric persons, and unfortunately rather too wild!&quot; 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. 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. 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. THE VERY FRIENDLY YOUNG GENTLEMAN. We know—and all people know—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. 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. 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. Let us illustrate our meaning by an example, which is the shortest mode and the clearest. We encountered one day, by chance, an old friend of whom we had lost sight for some years, and who—expressing a strong anxiety to renew our former intimacy—urged us to dine with him on an early day, that we might talk over old times. We readily assented, adding, that we hoped we should be alone. &quot;Oh, certainly, certainly,&quot; said our friend, &quot;not a soul with us but Mincin.&quot; &quot;And who is Mincin?’ was our natural inquiry. &quot;O don’t mind him,&quot; replied our friend, &quot;he’s a most particular friend of mine, and a very friendly fellow you will find him;&quot; and so he left us. 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 fire-place, and gave us to understand that it was Mr. Mincin, of whom he had spoken. It required no great penetration on our part to discover at once that Mr. Mincin was in every respect a very friendly young gentleman. &quot;I am delighted,&quot; said Mincin, hastily advancing, and pressing our hand warmly between both of his, &quot;I am delighted, I am sure, to make your acquaintance—(here he smiled)—very much delighted indeed—(here he exhibited a little emotion)—I assure you that I have looked forward to it anxiously for a very long time:&quot; 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. 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. Who the deuce, he should like to know, did they suppose cared about them? that struck him as being the best of it. The lady of the house appeared shortly afterwards, and Mr. Mincin’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. Upon the lady’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. During the meal, he devoted himself to complimenting everybody, not forgetting himself, so that we were an uncommonly agreeable quartette. &quot;I’ll tell you what, Capper,&quot; said Mr. Mincin to our host, as he closed the room door after the lady had retired, &quot;you have very great reason to be fond of your wife. Sweet woman, Mrs. Capper, sir!&quot; &quot;Nay, Mincin—I beg,&quot; interposed the host, as we were about to reply that Mrs. Capper unquestionably was particularly sweet. &quot;Pray, Mincin, don’t.&quot; &quot;Why not?&quot; exclaimed Mr. Mincin, &quot;why not? Why should you feel any delicacy before your old friend—our old friend, if I may be allowed to call you so, sir; why should you, I ask?&quot; We of course wished to know why he should also, upon which our friend admitted that Mrs. Capper was a very sweet woman, at which admission Mr. Mincin cried &quot;Bravo!&quot; and begged to propose Mrs. Capper with heartfelt enthusiasm, whereupon our host said, &quot;Thank you, Mincin,&quot; with deep feeling; and gave us, in a low voice, to understand, that Mincin had saved Mrs. Capper’s cousin’s life no less than fourteen times in a year and a half, which he considered no common circumstance—an opinion to which we most cordially subscribed. Now that we three were left to entertain ourselves with conversation, Mr. Mincin’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. 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—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. Finally, our friend having emptied his glass, said, &quot;God bless you, Mincin,&quot;—and Mr. Mincin and he shook hands across the table with much affection and earnestness. 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 éclat. 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. 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! 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. 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. 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. 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. If anybody’s self-love is to be flattered, Mr. Mincin is at hand. If anybody’s overweening vanity is to be pampered, Mr. Mincin will surfeit it. What wonder that people of all stations and ages recognise Mr. Mincin’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! And who would not have the reputation of the very friendly young gentleman? THE MILITARY YOUNG GENTLEMAN. 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. We cannot think so lightly of them as to suppose that the mere circumstance of a man’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 they 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—much larger than epaulettes. Neither do the twopenny post-office boys, if the result of our inquiries be correct, find any peculiar favour in woman’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. 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. 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’s livery as with the young gentlemen whose heads are turned by it. For &quot;heads&quot; we had written &quot;brains;&quot; but upon consideration, we think the former the more appropriate word of the two. These young gentlemen may be divided into two classes—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. We will take this latter description of military young gentlemen first. The whole heart and soul of the military young gentleman are concentrated in his favourite topic. 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 &quot;crack regiments,&quot; and the &quot;crack&quot; gentlemen who compose them, of whose mightiness and grandeur he is never tired of telling. 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 &quot;cracked&quot; regiments would be an improvement upon &quot;crack,&quot; 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. 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. 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 day-time, 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. We were not much surprised at the discovery that it was our friend, the military young gentleman, but we were 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. 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 &quot;that was not a glorious spectacle,&quot; and proceeded to give us a detailed account of the weight of every article of the spectacle’s trappings, from the man’s gloves to the horse’s shoes. 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. 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. 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. He wears his undress uniform, which somewhat mars the glory of his outward man; but still how great, how grand, he is! 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! The lion is sleeping: only think if an enemy were in sight, how soon he’d whip it out of the scabbard, and what a terrible fellow he would be! 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. They stop to talk. See how the flaxen-haired young gentleman with the weak legs—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. Well may we inquire—not in familiar jest, but in respectful earnest—if you call that nothing. Oh! if some encroaching foreign power—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’t he tremble a little! And then, at the Theatre at night, when the performances are by command of Colonel Fitz-Sordust and the officers of the garrison—what a splendid sight it is! 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. 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—but for an old-fashioned kind of manly dignity in their looks and bearing—might be common hard-working soldiers for anything they take the pains to announce to the contrary! 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’t care to show it just now. Very well done indeed! 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. 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. 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. THE POLITICAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN. Once upon a time—not in the days when pigs drank wine, but in a more recent period of our history—it was customary to banish politics when ladies were present. 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. But as this good custom in common with many others has &quot;gone out,&quot; 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. If the political young gentleman be resident in a country town (and there are 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. 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. 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. 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. 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’t, which is quite a sufficient reason for him to say it is, and to stick to it. Perhaps his greatest topic of all, though, is the people. 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, &quot;Here’s your precious people!&quot; 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 &quot;No&quot; and &quot;Shame&quot; till he is hoarse, and then inquires with a sneer what you think of popular moderation now; 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 the other people, with whom, of course, they have no possible connexion. 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—always laughing heartily at some other public, and never at themselves. 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. 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. 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. 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’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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. THE DOMESTIC YOUNG GENTLEMAN. Let us make a slight sketch of our amiable friend, Mr. Felix Nixon. We are strongly disposed to think, that if we put him in this place, he will answer our purpose without another word of comment. 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. He wears India-rubber 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. The two chief subjects of Felix’s discourse, are himself and his mother, both of whom would appear to be very wonderful and interesting persons. As Felix and his mother are seldom apart in body, so Felix and his mother are scarcely ever separate in spirit. If you ask Felix how he finds himself to-day, he prefaces his reply with a long and minute bulletin of his mother’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. 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. She never will forget his fury that night, Never! 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 had seen him, at which Felix smiling darkly and clenching his right fist, she exclaims, &quot;Goodness gracious!&quot; 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—it being something more than three years since the offence was committed—reluctantly concedes, and his mother, shaking her head prophetically, fears with a sigh that his spirit will lead him into something violent yet. 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’clock in the morning reading French, and how his mother used to say, &quot;Felix, you will make yourself ill, I know you will;&quot; and how he used to say, &quot;Mother, I don’t care—I will do it;&quot; 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—only one night more—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’t answer for the consequences. The recital of these and many other moving perils of the like nature, constantly harrows up the feelings of Mr. Nixon’s friends. 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’s and Q’s, for he is very particular, and terribly severe upon young ladies. 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’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 him, 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. 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 &quot;cheers but not inebriates,&quot; 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. 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. 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. Finally, after half a tumblerful of warm sherry and water, he gallantly puts on his goloshes over his slippers, and telling Miss Thompson’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 &quot;Very well, Mr. Felix,&quot; and trip into the passage with a laugh more musical than any flute that was ever played. 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. 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. THE CENSORIOUS YOUNG GENTLEMAN. 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. Young ladies mildly call him a &quot;sarcastic&quot; young gentleman, or a &quot;severe&quot; young gentleman. We, who know better, beg to acquaint them with the fact, that he is merely a censorious young gentleman, and nothing else. 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. 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—&quot;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’t find it out!&quot; 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. As young ladies are generally—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. &quot;I wonder,&quot; exclaims the eldest Miss Greenwood, laying down her work to turn up the lamp, &quot;I wonder whether Mr. Fairfax will ever be married.&quot; &quot;Bless me, dear,’ cries Miss Marshall, &quot;what ever made you think of him?&quot; &quot;Really I hardly know,&quot; replies Miss Greenwood; &quot;he is such a very mysterious person, that I often wonder about him.&quot; &quot;Well, to tell you the truth,’ replies Miss Marshall, &quot;and so do I.&quot; 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 &quot;a horror,&quot; draws down all the opposition of the others, which having been expressed in a great many ejaculatory passages, such as &quot;Well, did I ever!&quot;—and &quot;Lor, Emily, dear!&quot; 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; &quot;and I am quite sure,&quot; adds the worthy lady, &quot;he always means a great deal more than he says.&quot; 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! &quot;Well, it really is curious,&quot; cries ma, &quot;we were at that very moment talking about you.&quot; &quot;You did me great honour,&quot; replies Mr. Fairfax;&quot;‘may I venture to ask what you were saying?&quot; &quot;Why, if you must know,&quot; returns the eldest girl, &quot;we were remarking what a very mysterious man you are.&quot; &quot;Ay, ay!&quot; observes Mr. Fairfax, &quot;Indeed!&quot; 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, &quot;Oh, dear, no,&quot; in a tone, obviously intended to mean, &quot;You have me there,&quot; and which gives them to understand that they have hit the right nail on the very centre of its head. When the conversation ranges from the mystery overhanging the censorious young gentleman’s behaviour, to the general topics of the day, he sustains his character to admiration. He considers the new tragedy well enough for a new tragedy, but Lord bless us—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. &quot;But is not Mr. So-and-so’s performance truly charming?&quot; inquires a young lady. &quot;Charming!&quot; replies the censorious young gentleman. &quot;Oh, dear, yes, certainly; very charming—oh, very charming indeed.&quot; 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. Of music, pictures, books, and poetry, the censorious young gentleman has an equally fine conception. As to men and women, he can tell all about them at a glance. &quot;Now let us hear your opinion of young Mrs. Barker,&quot; says some great believer in the powers of Mr. Fairfax, &quot;but don’t be too severe.&quot; &quot;I never am severe,&quot; replies the censorious young gentleman. &quot;Well, never mind that now. She is very lady-like, is she not?&quot; &quot;Lady-like!&quot; repeats the censorious young gentleman (for he always repeats when he is at a loss for anything to say). &quot;Did you observe her manner? Bless my heart and soul, Mrs. Thompson, did you observe her manner?—that’s all I ask.&quot; &quot;I thought I had done so,&quot; rejoins the poor lady, much perplexed; &quot;I did not observe it very closely perhaps.&quot; &quot;Oh, not very closely,&quot; rejoins the censorious young gentleman, triumphantly. &quot;Very good; then I did. Let us talk no more about her.&quot; 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’s manner. THE FUNNY YOUNG GENTLEMAN. 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. We were all seated round a blazing fire which crackled pleasantly as the guests talked merrily and the urn steamed cheerily—for, being an old-fashioned party, there was an urn, and a teapot besides—when there came a postman’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. 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. 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—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. 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. 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’t make that fellow Griggins leave off, he would be the death of him, he knew. 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, &quot;Oh! capital, capital!&quot; as loud as any of them. 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. This ceremony over, he avowed his intention of sitting in somebody’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. At this novel jest we all roared once more. &quot;You should consider yourself highly honoured, sir,&quot; said we. &quot;Sir,&quot; replied Mr. Griggins, &quot;you do me proud.&quot; Here everybody laughed again; and the stout gentleman by the fire whispered in our ear that Griggins was making a dead set at us. 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’s fish, and looking over their hands in the most comical manner. 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. 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 &quot;impertinence,&quot; and a &quot;rascal,&quot; and to state the number of his lodgings in an angry tone—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. At this terrible threat the young gentleman became calm, and the young lady, overcome by the revulsion of feeling, instantaneously fainted. Mr. Griggins’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 that high (something smaller than a nutmeg-grater), he had never beheld him in such excellent cue. When the round game and several games at blind man’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. We observed that several young gentlemen—including the young gentleman with the pale countenance—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’s allowing it, and that they couldn’t bear it, and had no patience with such impertinence. 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. Indeed, upon the whole, it struck us that among the ladies he seemed rather more popular than before! 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. How he drank out of other people’s glasses, and ate of other people’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’s good-humour was restored but the child’s;—to tell these and a hundred other things ever so briefly, would occupy more of our room and our readers’ patience, than either they or we can conveniently spare. Therefore we change the subject, merely observing that we have offered no description of the funny young gentleman’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. THE THEATRICAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN. All gentlemen who love the drama—and there are few gentlemen who are not attached to the most intellectual and rational of all our amusements—do not come within this definition. As we have no mean relish for theatrical entertainments ourself, we are disinterestedly anxious that this should be perfectly understood. The theatrical young gentleman has early and important information on all theatrical topics. &quot;Well,&quot; says he, abruptly, when you meet him in the street, &quot;here’s a pretty to-do. Flimkins has thrown up his part in the melodrama at the Surrey.&quot;—&quot;And what’s to be done?’ you inquire with as much gravity as you can counterfeit. &quot;Ah, that’s the point,&quot; replies the theatrical young gentleman, looking very serious; &quot;Boozle declines it; positively declines it. From all I am told, I should say it was decidedly in Boozle’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. It’s a fine part, too—excellent business, I’m told. 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. Don’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.&quot; 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. The theatrical young gentleman, from often frequenting the different theatrical establishments, has pet and familiar names for them all. Thus Covent-Garden is the garden, Drury-Lane the lane, the Victoria the vic, and the Olympic the pic. 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. In the same manner he prefixes Christian names when he mentions actors, as Charley Young, Jemmy Buckstone, Fred. Yates, Paul Bedford. When he is at a loss for a Christian name, the word &quot;old&quot; applied indiscriminately answers quite as well: as old Charley Matthews at Vestris’s, old Harley, and old Braham. 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. 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. The theatrical young gentleman has a great reverence for all that is connected with the stage department of the different theatres. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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—they both do it occasionally) one of the most interesting feats in the whole range of scenic illusion. 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. 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. 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. 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,—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. The theatrical young gentleman is a great advocate for violence of emotion and redundancy of action. 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. 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’s head—soft music playing all the while. Upon these, and other points of a similar kind, the theatrical young gentleman is a great critic indeed. 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. 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. 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. THE POETICAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN. 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. These were poetical young gentlemen. 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. We know a poetical young gentleman—a very poetical young gentleman. 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. 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. 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’s imagination is at some extraordinary work or other, you may take her word for it. 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. 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. 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—not of disgust, but admiration. &quot;Heavens!&quot; cried the poetical young gentleman, &quot;how grand; how great!&quot; 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. &quot;Upon whom!&quot; exclaimed the poetical young gentleman in a frenzy of poetry, &quot;Upon whom should they be bestowed but upon the murderer!&quot;—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. We held our peace, and meekly signified our indisposition to controvert these opinions—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. This was a stern mystic flight of the poetical young gentleman. In his milder and softer moments he occasionally lays down his neckcloth, and pens stanzas, which sometimes find their way into a Lady’s Magazine, or the &quot;Poets’ Corner&quot; of some country newspaper; or which, in default of either vent for his genius, adorn the rainbow leaves of a lady’s album. These are generally written upon some such occasions as contemplating the Bank of England by midnight, or beholding Saint Paul’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. The poetical young gentleman is fond of quoting passages from his favourite authors, who are all of the gloomy and desponding school. 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. 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. When the poetical young gentleman makes use of adjectives, they are all superlatives. Everything is of the grandest, greatest, noblest, mightiest, loftiest; or the lowest, meanest, obscurest, vilest, and most pitiful. He knows no medium: for enthusiasm is the soul of poetry; and who so enthusiastic as a poetical young gentleman? &quot;Mr. Milkwash,&quot; says a young lady as she unlocks her album to receive the young gentleman’s original impromptu contribution, &quot;how very silent you are! I think you must be in love.&quot; &quot;Love!&quot; cries the poetical young gentleman, starting from his seat by the fire and terrifying the cat who scampers off at full speed, &quot;Love! that burning, consuming passion; that ardour of the soul, that fierce glowing of the heart. Love! The withering, blighting influence of hope misplaced and affection slighted. Love did you say! Ha! ha! ha!&quot; 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. THE &quot;THROWING-OFF&quot; YOUNG GENTLEMAN. There is a certain kind of impostor—a bragging, vaunting, puffing young gentleman—against whom we are desirous to warn that fairer part of the creation, to whom we more peculiarly devote these our labours. 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. We had been urging all the absurdities of his conduct and conversation, and dwelling upon the impossibilities he constantly recounted—to which indeed we had not scrupled to prefix a certain hard little word of one syllable and three letters—when our fair friend, unable to maintain the contest any longer, reluctantly cried, &quot;Well; he certainly has a habit of throwing-off, but then—&quot; &quot;What then? Throw him off yourself,&quot; said we. 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. 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. 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’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, &quot;and—and—everything upon the same magnificent scale&quot; says the throwing-off young gentleman, &quot;princely; quite princely. Ah!&quot; And he sighs as if mourning over the fallen fortunes of his noble house. 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—that is could 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. 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—although she is a very fine girl, he was so situated at that time that he couldn’t possibly encourage the—&quot;but it’s of no use talking about it!&quot; he adds, interrupting himself. &quot;She has got over it now, and I firmly hope and trust is happy.&quot; 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. There is another great characteristic of the throwing-off young gentleman, which is, that he &quot;happens to be acquainted&quot; with a most extraordinary variety of people in all parts of the world. 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—may we say it—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. 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. 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. &quot;Did you ever see a more lovely blue than this flower, Mr. Caveton?&quot; asks a young lady who, truth to tell, is rather smitten with the throwing-off young gentleman. &quot;Never,&quot; he replies, bending over the object of admiration, &quot;never but in your eyes.&quot; &quot;Oh, Mr. Caveton,&quot; cries the young lady, blushing of course. &quot;Indeed I speak the truth,&quot; replies the throwing-off young gentleman, ‘I never saw any approach to them. I used to think my cousin’s blue eyes lovely, but they grow dim and colourless beside yours.&quot; &quot;Oh! a beautiful cousin, Mr. Caveton!&quot; replies the young lady, with that perfect artlessness which is the distinguishing characteristic of all young ladies; &quot;an affair, of course.&quot; &quot;No; indeed, indeed you wrong me,&quot; rejoins the throwing-off young gentleman with great energy. &quot;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. I love her! Think not so meanly of me, Miss Lowfield, I beseech, as to suppose that title, lands, riches, and beauty, can influence my choice. The heart, the heart, Miss Lowfield.&quot; 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’s relations are all immensely rich, and that he is hopelessly beloved by title, lands, riches, and beauty. 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. 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. 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. Ladies, ladies, the throwing-off young gentlemen are often swindlers, and always fools. So pray you avoid them. THE YOUNG LADIES’ YOUNG GENTLEMAN. This young gentleman has several titles. Some young ladies consider him &quot;a nice young man,&quot; others &quot;a fine young man,&quot; others &quot;quite a lady’s man,&quot; others &quot;a handsome man,&quot; others &quot;a remarkably good-looking young man.&quot; With some young ladies he is &quot;a perfect angel,&quot; and with others &quot;quite a love.&quot; He is likewise a charming creature, a duck, and a dear. The young ladies’ young gentleman has usually a fresh colour and very white teeth, which latter articles, of course, he displays on every possible opportunity. 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 sandy, is not considered an objection. If his head and face be large, his nose prominent, and his figure square, he is an uncommonly fine young man, and worshipped accordingly. 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. There was a great party got up by some party-loving friends of ours last summer, to go and dine in Epping Forest. 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’ young gentleman, whom we were very anxious to have an opportunity of meeting. This determined us, and we went. 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—and to start from the residence of the projectors, Woburn-place, Russell-square, at half-past ten precisely. 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. 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’ young gentleman. &quot;I cannot imagine,&quot; said the mama, &quot;what has become of Mr. Balim—always so punctual, always so pleasant and agreeable. I am sure I can-not think.&quot; 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 &quot;Dear Mr. Balim!&quot; and one young lady, more adventurous than the rest, proposed that an express should be straightway sent to dear Mr. Balim’s lodgings. This, however, the papa resolutely opposed, observing, in what a short young lady behind us termed &quot;quite a bearish way,&quot; that if Mr. Balim didn’t choose to come, he might stop at home. At this all the daughters raised a murmur of &quot;Oh pa!&quot; 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—for which impertinent suggestion she was summarily ejected from the room by her eldest sister. 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 &quot;Where have you been, you naughty creature?&quot; 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. 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’s repeated protestations that he couldn’t think of it. 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. 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,—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. 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, &quot;according,&quot; as one married lady observed, &quot;to the immemorial custom, which was half the diversion of gipsy parties.&quot; 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’ young gentleman. We were no sooner fairly off, than the young ladies’ young gentleman hummed a fragment of an air, which induced a young lady to inquire whether he had danced to that the night before. &quot;By Heaven, then, I did,&quot; replied the young gentleman, &quot;and with a lovely heiress; a superb creature, with twenty thousand pounds.&quot; &quot;You seem rather struck,&quot; observed another young lady. &quot; &#039;Gad she was a sweet creature,&quot; returned the young gentleman, arranging his hair. &quot;Of course she was struck too?&quot; inquired the first young lady. &quot;How can you ask, love?&quot; interposed the second; &quot;Could she fail to be?&quot; &quot;Well, honestly I think she was,&quot; observed the young gentleman. At this point of the dialogue, the young lady who had spoken first, and who sat on the young gentleman’s right, struck him a severe blow on the arm with a rosebud, and said he was a vain man—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. 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. 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. 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. We dined rather more comfortably than people usually do under such circumstances, nothing having been left behind but the corkscrew and the bread. The married gentlemen were unusually thirsty, which they attributed to the heat of the weather; the little boys ate to inconvenience; mamas were very jovial, and their daughters very fascinating; and the attendants being well-behaved men, got exceedingly drunk at a respectful distance. 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. His conversation, too, was exceedingly brilliant. In fact, one elderly lady assured us, that in the course of a little lively badinage on the subject of ladies’ dresses, he had evinced as much knowledge as if he had been born and bred a milliner. 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’ young gentleman among them. 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. The young ladies’ 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—or perhaps a calf would be a better simile—adorned for the sacrifice. 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. What charming fellows these young ladies’ young gentlemen are! Ducks, dears, loves, angels, are all terms inadequate to express their merit. They are such amazingly, uncommonly, wonderfully, nice men. CONCLUSION. 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—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. Here we are at a loss. 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’ young gentleman. 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. 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. &quot;The grand affair of your life will be, to gain and preserve the esteem of your husband. Neither good-nature nor virtue will suffer him to esteem 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. 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.&quot; 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. 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. These offers may be forwarded to the Publishers, Messrs. Chapman and Hall, one hundred and eighty-six, Strand, London; to whom all pieces of plate and other testimonials of approbation from the young ladies generally, are respectfully requested to be addressed.18380101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_Young_Gentlemen/1838-Sketches_of_Young_Gentlemen.pdf
140https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/140No. I 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>Atlantic Monthly</em>)Published in the <em>Atlantic Monthly, </em>vol. 21 (January 1868), pp. 118-123.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em> <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b000555786">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b000555786</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1868-01">1868-01</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=50&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=No.I+%27George+Silverman%27s+Explanation%27+%28%3Cem%3EATYR%3C%2Fem%3E%29">No.I 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>ATYR</em>)</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1868-01_George_Silvermans_Explanation_1Dickens, Charles. 'George Silverman's Explanation' (January 1868). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-01_George_Silvermans_Explanation_1">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-01_George_Silvermans_Explanation_1</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAtlantic+Monthly%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Atlantic Monthly</em></a>FIRST CHAPTER. It happened in this wise: — But, sitting with my pen in my hand looking at those words again, without descrying any hint in them of the words that should follow, it comes into my mind that they have an abrupt appearance. They may serve, however, if I let them remain, to suggest how very difficult I find it to begin to explain my Explanation. An uncouth phrase: and yet I do not see my way to a better. SECOND CHAPTER. It happened in this wise: — But, looking at those words, and comparing them with my former opening, I find they are the selfsame words repeated. This is the more surprising to me, because I employ them in quite a new connection. For indeed I declare that my intention was to discard the commencement I first had in my thoughts, and to give the preference to another of an entirely different nature, dating my explanation from an anterior period of my life. I will make a third trial, without erasing this second failure, protesting that it is not my design to conceal any of my infirmities, whether they be of head or heart. THIRD CHAPTER. Not as yet directly aiming at how it came to pass, I will come upon it by degrees. The natural manner, after all, for God knows that is how it came upon me! My parents were in a miserable condition of life, and my infant home was a cellar in Preston. I recollect the sound of Father’s Lancashire clogs on the street pavement above, as being different in my young hearing from the sound of all other clogs; and I recollect that, when Mother came down the cellar-steps, I used tremblingly to speculate on her feet having a good or an ill-tempered look,—on her knees,—on her waist,—until finally her face came into view and settled the question. From this it will be seen that I was timid, and that the cellar-steps were steep, and that the doorway was very low. Mother had the gripe and clutch of Poverty upon her face, upon her figure, and not least of all upon her voice. Her sharp and high-pitched words were squeezed out of her, as by the compression of bony fingers on a leathern bag; and she had a way of rolling her eyes about and about the cellar, as she scolded, that was gaunt and hungry. Father, with his shoulders rounded, would sit quiet on a three-legged stool, looking at the empty grate, until she would pluck the stool from under him, and bid him go bring some money home. Then he would dismally ascend the steps; and I, holding my ragged shirt and trousers together with a hand (my only braces), would feint and dodge from Mother’s pursuing grasp at my hair. A worldly little devil was Mother’s usual name for me. Whether I cried for that I was in the dark, or for that it was cold, or for that I was hungry, or whether I squeezed myself into a warm corner when there was a fire, or ate voraciously when there was food, she would still say, &quot;O, you worldly little devil!&quot; And the sting of it was, that I quite well knew myself to be a worldly little devil. Worldly as to wanting to be housed and warmed, worldly as to wanting to be fed, worldly as to the greed with which I inwardly compared how much I got of those good things with how much Father and Mother got, when, rarely, those good things were going. Sometimes they both went away seeking work, and then I would be locked up in the cellar for a day or two at a time. I was at my worldliest then. Left alone, I yielded myself up to a worldly yearning for enough of anything (except misery), and for the death of Mother’s father, who was a machine-maker at Birmingham, and on whose decease, I had heard Mother say, she would come into a whole courtful of houses &quot;if she had her rights.&quot; Worldly little devil, I would stand about, musingly fitting my cold bare feet into cracked bricks and crevices of the damp cellar floor,—walking over my grandfather’s body, so to speak, into the courtful of houses, and selling them for meat and drink, and clothes to wear. At last a change came down into our cellar. The universal change came down even as low as that,—so will it mount to any height on which a human creature can perch,—and brought other changes with it. We had a heap of I don’t know what foul litter in the darkest corner, which we called &quot;the bed.&quot; For three days Mother lay upon it without getting up, and then began at times to laugh. If I had ever heard her laugh before, it had been so seldom that the strange sound frightened me. It frightened Father, too; and we took it by turns to give her water. Then she began to move her head from side to side, and sing. After that, she getting no better, Father fell a laughing and a singing, and then there was only I to give them both water, and they both died. FOURTH CHAPTER. When I was lifted out of the cellar by two men, of whom one came peeping down alone first, and ran away and brought the other, I could hardly bear the light of the street. I was sitting in the roadway, blinking at it, and at a ring of people collected around me, but not close to me, when, true to my character of worldly little devil, I broke silence by saying, &quot;I am hungry and thirsty!&quot; &quot;Does he know they are dead?&quot; asked one of another. &quot;Do you know your father and mother are both dead of fever?&quot; asked a third of me, severely. &quot;I don’t know what it is to be dead. I supposed it meant that, when the cup rattled against their teeth and the water spilt over them. I am hungry and thirsty.&quot; That was all I had to say about it. The ring of people widened outward from the inner side as I looked around me; and I smelt vinegar, and what I know to be camphor, thrown in towards where I sat. Presently some one put a great vessel of smoking vinegar on the ground near me, and then they all looked at me in silent horror as I ate and drank of what was brought for me. I knew at the time they had a horror of me, but I couldn’t help it. I was still eating and drinking, and a murmur of discussion had begun to arise respecting what was to be done with me next, when I heard a cracked voice somewhere in the ring say, &quot;My name is Hawkyard, Mr. Verity Hawkyard, of West Bromwich.&quot; Then the ring split in one place; and a yellow-faced, peak-nosed gentleman, clad all in iron-gray to his gaiters, pressed forward with a policeman and another official of some sort. He came forward close to the vessel of smoking vinegar; from which he sprinkled himself carefully, and me copiously. &quot;He had a grandfather at Birmingham, this young boy, who is just dead too,&quot; said Mr. Hawkyard. I turned my eyes upon the speaker, and said in a ravening manner, &quot;Where’s his houses?&quot; &quot;Hah! Horrible worldliness on the edge of the grave,&quot; said Mr. Hawkyard, casting more of the vinegar over me, as if to get my devil out of me. &quot;I have undertaken a slight—a very slight—trust in behalf of this boy; quite a voluntary trust: a matter of mere honour, if not of mere sentiment: still I have taken it upon myself, and it shall be (O, yes, it shall be!) discharged.&quot; The bystanders seemed to form an opinion of this gentleman much more favourable than their opinion of me. &quot;He shall be taught,&quot; said Mr. Hawkyard, &quot;(O, yes, he shall be taught!) but what is to be done with him for the present? He may be infected. He may disseminate infection.&quot; The ring widened considerably. &quot;What is to be done with him?&quot; He held some talk with the two officials. I could distinguish no word save &quot;Farm-house.&quot; There was another sound several times repeated, which was wholly meaningless in my ears then, but which I knew afterwards to be &quot;Hoghton Towers.&quot; &quot;Yes,&quot; said Mr. Hawkyard. &quot;I think that sounds promising; I think that sounds hopeful. And he can be put by himself in a Ward, for a night or two, you say?&quot; It seemed to be the police-officer who had said so; for it was he who replied, Yes. It was he, too, who finally took me by the arm, and walked me before him through the streets, into a whitewashed room in a bare building, where I had a chair to sit in, a table to sit at, an iron bedstead and good mattress to lie upon, and a rug and blanket to cover me. Where I had enough to eat too, and was shown how to clean the tin porringer in which it was conveyed to me, until it was as good as a looking-glass. Here, likewise, I was put in a bath, and had new clothes brought to me; and my old rags were burnt, and I was camphored and vinegared, and disinfected in a variety of ways. When all this was done,—I don’t know in how many days or how few, but it matters not,—Mr. Hawkyard stepped in at the door, remaining close to it, and said, &quot;Go and stand against the opposite wall, George Silverman. As far off as you can. That’ll do. How do you feel?&quot; I told him that I didn’t feel cold, and didn’t feel hungry, and didn’t feel thirsty. That was the whole round of human feelings, as far as I knew, except the pain of being beaten. &quot;Well,&quot; said he, &quot;you are going, George, to a healthy farm-house to be purified. Keep in the air there as much as you can. Live an out-of-door life there, until you are fetched away. You had better not say much—in fact, you had better be very careful not to say anything—about what your parents died of, or they might not like to take you in. Behave well, and I’ll put you to school; (O, yes, I’ll put you to school!), though I am not obligated to do it. I am a servant of the Lord, George, and I have been a good servant to him (I have!) these five-and-thirty years. The Lord has had a good servant in me, and he knows it.&quot; What I then supposed him to mean by this, I cannot imagine. As little do I know when I began to comprehend that he was a prominent member of some obscure denomination or congregation, every member of which held forth to the rest when so inclined, and among whom he was called Brother Hawkyard. It was enough for me to know, on that day in the Ward, that the farmer’s cart was waiting for me at the street corner. I was not slow to get into it, for it was the first ride I ever had in my life. It made me sleepy, and I slept. First, I stared at Preston streets as long as they lasted, and, meanwhile I may have had some small dumb wondering within me whereabouts our cellar was. But I doubt it. Such a worldly little devil was I, that I took no thought who would bury Father and Mother, or where they would be buried, or when. The question whether the eating and drinking by day, and the covering by night, would be as good at the farm-house as at the Ward superseded those questions. The jolting of the cart on a loose stony road awoke me, and I found that we were mounting a steep hill, where the road was a rutty by-road through a field. And so, by fragments of an ancient terrace, and by some rugged outbuildings that had once been fortified, and passing under a ruined gateway we came to the old farm-house in the thick stone wall outside the old quadrangle of Hoghton Towers. Which I looked at like a stupid savage; seeing no specialty in; seeing no antiquity in; assuming all farm-houses to resemble it; assigning the decay I noticed to the one potent cause of all ruin that I knew,—Poverty; eyeing the pigeons in their flights, the cattle in their stalls, the ducks in the pond, and the fowls pecking about the yard, with a hungry hope that plenty of them might be killed for dinner while I stayed there; wondering whether the scrubbed dairy vessels drying in the sunlight could be goodly porringers out of which the master ate his belly-filling food, and which he polished when he had done, according to my Ward experience; shrinkingly doubtful whether the shadows, passing over that airy height on the bright spring day were not something in the nature of frowns; sordid, afraid, unadmiring, a small Brute to shudder at. To that time I had never had the faintest impression of beauty. I had had no knowledge whatever that there was anything lovely in this life. When I had occasionally slunk up the cellar steps into the street, and glared in at shop-windows, I had done so with no higher feelings than we may suppose to animate a mangy young dog or wolf-cub. It is equally the fact that I had never been alone, in the sense of holding unselfish converse with myself. I had been solitary often enough, but nothing better. Such was my condition when I sat down to my dinner that day, in the kitchen of the old farm-house. Such was my condition when I lay on my bed in the old farm-house that night, stretched out opposite the narrow mullioned window, in the cold light of the moon, like a young Vampire. FIFTH CHAPTER. What do I know of Hoghton Towers? Very little, for I have been gratefully unwilling to disturb my first impressions. A house, centuries old, on high ground a mile or so removed from the road between Preston and Blackburn, where the first James of England, in his hurry to make money by making Baronets, perhaps made some of those remunerative dignitaries. A house, centuries old, deserted and falling to pieces, its woods and gardens long since grass-land or ploughed up, the Rivers Ribble and Darwen glancing below it, and a vague haze of smoke, against which not even the supernatural prescience of the first Stuart could foresee a Counterblast, hinting at Steam Power, powerful in two distances. What did I know then of Hoghton Towers? When I first peeped in at the gate of the lifeless quadrangle, and started from the mouldering statue becoming visible to me like its Guardian Ghost; when I stole round by the back of the farm-house, and got in among the ancient rooms, many of them with their floors and ceilings falling, the beams and rafters hanging dangerously down, the plaster dropping as I trod, the oaken panels stripped away, the windows half walled up, half broken; when I discovered a gallery commanding the old kitchen, and looked down between balustrades upon a massive old table and benches, fearing to see I know not what dead-alive creatures come in and seat themselves, and look up with I know not what dreadful eyes, or lack of eyes, at me; when all over the house I was awed by gaps and chinks where the sky stared sorrowfully at me, where the birds passed, and the ivy rustled, and the stains of winter-weather blotched the rotten floors; when down at the bottom of dark pits of staircase, into which the stairs had sunk, green leaves trembled, butterflies fluttered, and bees hummed in and out through the broken door-ways; when encircling the whole ruin were sweet scents and sights of fresh green growth and ever-renewing life, that I had never dreamed of,—I say, when I passed into such clouded perception of these things as my dark soul could compass, what did I know then of Hoghton Towers? I have written that the sky stared sorrowfully at me. Therein have I anticipated the answer. I knew that all these things looked sorrowfully at me. That they seemed to sigh or whisper, not without pity for me: &quot;Alas! poor worldly little devil!&quot; There were two or three rats at the bottom of one of the smaller pits of broken staircase when I craned over and looked in. They were scuffling for some prey that was there. And, when they started and hid themselves close together in the dark, I thought of the old life (it had grown old already) in the cellar. How not to be this worldly little devil? How not to have a repugnance towards myself as I had towards the rats? I hid in a corner of one of the smaller chambers, frightened at myself, and crying (it was the first time I had ever cried for any cause not purely physical), and I tried to think about it. One of the farm-ploughs came into my range of view just then; and it seemed to help me as it went on with its two horses up and down the field so peacefully and quietly. There was a girl of about my own age in the farm-house family, and she sat opposite to me at the narrow table at meal-times. It had come into my mind at our first dinner that she might take the fever from me. The thought had not disquieted me then; I had only speculated how she would look under the altered circumstances, and whether she would die. But it came into my mind now, that I might try to prevent her taking the fever, by keeping away from her. I knew I should have but scrambling board if I did; so much the less worldly and less devilish the deed would be, I thought. From that hour, I withdrew myself at early morning into secret corners of the ruined house, and remained hidden there until she went to bed. At first, when meals were ready, I used to hear them calling me; and then my resolution weakened. But I strengthened it again by going farther off into the ruin, and getting out of hearing. I often watched for her at the dim windows; and, when I saw that she was fresh and rosy, felt much happier. Out of this holding her in my thoughts, to the humanising of myself, I suppose some childish love arose within me. I felt in some sort dignified by the pride of protecting her, by the pride of making the sacrifice for her. As my heart swelled with that new feeling, it insensibly softened about Mother and Father. It seemed to have been frozen before, and now to be thawed. The old ruin and all the lovely things that haunted it were not sorrowful for me only, but sorrowful for Mother and Father as well. Therefore did I cry again, and often too. The farm-house family conceived me to be of a morose temper, and were very short with me; though they never stinted me in such broken fare as was to be got out of regular hours. One night when I lifted the kitchen latch at my usual time, Sylvia (that was her pretty name) had but just gone out of the room. Seeing her ascending the opposite stairs, I stood still at the door. She had heard the clink of the latch, and looked round. &quot;George,&quot; she called to me in a pleased voice, &quot;to-morrow is my birthday, and we are to have a fiddler, and there’s a party of boys and girls coming in a cart, and we shall dance. I invite you. Be sociable for once, George.&quot; &quot;I am very sorry, miss,&quot; I answered, &quot;but I—but, no; I can’t come.&quot; &quot;You are a disagreeable, ill-humoured lad,&quot; she returned disdainfully, &quot;and I ought not to have asked you. I shall never speak to you again.&quot; As I stood with my eyes fixed on the fire after she was gone, I felt that the farmer bent his brows upon me. &quot;Eh, lad!&quot; said he, &quot;Sylvy’s right. You’re as moody and broody a lad as never I set eyes on yet!&quot; I tried to assure him that I meant no harm; but he only said coldly, &quot;Maybe not, maybe not. There! Get thy supper, get thy supper, and then thou canst sulk to thy heart’s content again.&quot; Ah! If they could have seen me next day in the ruin, watching for the arrival of the cart full of merry young guests; if they could have seen me at night, gliding out from behind the ghostly statue, listening to the music and the fall of dancing feet, and watching the lighted farm-house windows from the quadrangle when all the ruin was dark; if they could have read my heart as I crept up to bed by the back way, comforting myself with the reflection, &quot;They will take no hurt from me,&quot;—they would not have thought mine a morose or an unsocial nature! It was in these ways that I began to form a shy disposition; to be of a timidly silent character under misconstruction; to have an inexpressible, perhaps a morbid, dread of ever being sordid or worldly. It was in these ways that my nature came to shape itself to such a mould, even before it was affected by the influences of the studious and retired life of a poor scholar.18680101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._I_George_Silverman_s_Explanation_[Atlantic_Monthly]/1868-01_George_Silvermans_Explanation_No1.pdf
229https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/229No. I, 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'<span>Published in&nbsp;</span><em>Household Words</em><span>, Vol. XVI, No. 393, 3 October 1857, pp. 313-319.</span>Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins<em>Dickens Journals Online, </em><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-313.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-313.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1857-10-03">1857-10-03</a><span>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a><span>. A</span><span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1857-10-03-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No1Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins. No.I 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'.<span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig.&nbsp;</span>Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1857-10-03-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No1">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1857-10-03-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No1</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>In the autumn month of September, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, wherein these presents bear date, two idle apprentices, exhausted by the long hot summer and the long hot work it had brought with it, ran away from their employer. They were bound to a highly meritorious lady (named Literature), of fair credit and repute, though, it must be acknowledged, not quite so highly esteemed in the City as she might be. This is the more remarkable, as there is nothing against the respectable lady in that quarter, but quite the contrary; her family having rendered eminent service to many famous citizens of London. It may be sufficient to name Sir William Walworth, Lord Mayor under King Richard the Second, at the time of Wat Tyler&#039;s insurrection, and Sir Richard Whittington: which latter distinguished man and magistrate was doubtless indebted to the lady&#039;s family for the gift of his celebrated cat. There is also strong reason to suppose that they rang the Highgate bells for him with their own hands. The misguided young men who thus shirked their duty to the mistress from whom they had received many favors, were actuated by the low idea of making a perfectly idle trip, in any direction. They had no intention of going anywhere, in particular; they wanted to see nothing, they wanted to know nothing, they wanted to learn nothing, they wanted to do nothing. They wanted only to be idle. They took to themselves (after HOGARTH), the names of Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis Goodchild; but, there was not a moral pin to choose between them, and they were both idle in the last degree. Between Francis and Thomas, however, there was this difference of character: Goodchild was laboriously idle, and would take upon himself any amount of pains and labour to assure himself that he was idle; in short, had no better idea of idleness than that it was useless industry. Thomas Idle, on the other hand, was an idler of the unmixed Irish or Neapolitan type; a passive idler, a born-and-bred idler, a consistent idler, who practised what he would have preached if he had not been too idle to preach; a one entire and perfect chrysolite of idleness. The two idle apprentices found themselves, within a few hours of their escape, walking down into the North of England. That is to say, Thomas was lying in a meadow, looking at the railway trains as they passed over a distant viaduct—which was his idea of walking down into the North; while Francis was walking a mile due South against time—which was his idea of walking down into the North. In the meantime the day waned, and the milestones remained unconquered. &quot;Tom,&quot; said Goodchild, &quot;The sun is getting low. Up, and let us go forward!&quot; &quot;Nay,&quot; quoth Thomas Idle, &quot;I have not done with Annie Laurie yet.&quot; And he proceeded with that idle but popular ballad, to the effect that for the bonnie young person of that name he would &quot;lay him doon and dee,&quot;— equivalent, in prose, to lay him down and die. &quot;What an ass that fellow was!&quot; cried Goodchild, with the bitter emphasis of contempt. &quot;Which fellow? &quot; asked Thomas Idle. &quot;The fellow in your song. Lay him doon and dee! Finely he&#039;d show off before the girl by doing that. A Sniveller! Why couldn&#039;t he get up, and punch somebody&#039;s head!&quot; &quot;Whose?&quot; asked Thomas Idle. &quot;Anybody&#039;s. Everybody&#039;s would be better than nobody&#039;s! If I fell into that state of mind about a girl, do you think I&#039;d lay me doon and dee? No, sir,&quot; proceeded Goodchild, with a disparaging assumption of the Scottish accent, &quot;I&#039;d get me oop and peetch into somebody. Wouldn&#039;t you ?&quot; &quot;I wouldn&#039;t have anything to do with her,&quot; yawned Thomas Idle. &quot;Why should I take the trouble?&quot; &quot;It&#039;s no trouble Tom, to fall in love,&quot; said Goodchild, shaking his head. &quot;It&#039;s trouble enough to fall out of it, once you&#039;re in it,&quot; retorted Tom. &quot;So I keep out of it altogether. It would be better for you, if you did the same.&quot; Mr. Goodchild, who is always in love with somebody, and not unfrequently with several objects at once, made no reply. He heaved a sigh of the kind which is termed by the lower orders &quot;a bellowser,&quot; and then, heaving Mr. Idle on his feet (who was not half so heavy as the sigh), urged him northward. These two had sent their personal baggage on by train: only retaining, each a knapsack. Idle now applied himself to constantly regretting the train, to tracking it through the intricacies of Bradshaw&#039;s Guide, and finding out where it was now—and where now—and where now—and to asking what was the use of walking, when you could ride at such a pace as that. Was it to see the country? If that was the object, look at it out of carriage-windows. There was a great deal more of it to be seen there, than here. Besides, who wanted to see the country? Nobody. And, again, who ever did walk? Nobody. Fellows set off to walk, but they never did it. They came back and said they did, but they didn&#039;t. Then why should he walk? He wouldn&#039;t walk. He swore it by this milestone! It was the fifth from London, so far had they penetrated into the North. Submitting to the powerful chain of argument, Goodchild proposed a return to the Metropolis, and a falling back upon Euston Square Terminus. Thomas assented with alacrity, and so they walked down into the North by the next morning&#039;s express, and carried their knapsacks in the luggage-van. It was like all other expresses, as every express is and must be. It bore through the harvested country, a smell like a large washing-day, and a sharp issue of steam as from a huge brazen tea-urn. The greatest power in nature and art combined, it yet glided over dangerous heights in the sight of people looking up from fields and roads, as smoothly and unreally as a light miniature plaything. Now, the engine shrieked in hysterics of such intensity, that it seemed desirable that the men who had her in charge should hold her feet, slap her hands, and bring her to; now, burrowed into tunnels with a stubborn and undemonstrative energy so confusing that the train seemed to be flying back into leagues of darkness. Here, were station after station, swallowed up by the press without stopping; here, stations where it fired itself in like a volley of cannon-balls, swooped away four country-people with nosegays and three men of business with portmanteaus, and fired itself off again, bang, bang, bang! At long intervals were uncomfortable refreshment rooms, made more uncomfortable by the scorn of Beauty towards Beast, the public (but to whom she never relented, as Beauty did in the story, towards the other Beast), and where sensitive stomachs were fed, with a contemptuous sharpness occasioning indigestion. Here, again, were stations with nothing going but a bell, and wonderful wooden razors set aloft on great posts, shaving the air. In these fields, the horses, sheep, and cattle were well used to the thundering meteor, and didn&#039;t mind; in those, they were all set scampering together, and a herd of pigs scoured after them. The pastoral country darkened, became coaly, became smoky, became infernal, got better, got worse, improved again, grew rugged, turned romantic; was a wood, a stream, a chain of hills, a gorge, a moor, a cathedral town, a fortified place, a waste. Now, miserable black dwellings, a black canal, and sick black towers of chimneys; now, a trim garden, where the flowers were bright and fair; now, a wilderness of hideous altars all a-blaze; now, the water meadows with their fairy rings; now, the mangy patch of unlet building ground outside the stagnant town, with the larger ring where the Circus was last week. The temperature changed, the dialect changed, the people changed, faces got sharper, manner got shorter, eyes got shrewder and harder; yet all so quickly, that the spruce guard in the London uniform and silver lace, had not yet rumpled his shirt-collar, delivered half the dispatches in his shining little pouch, or read his newspaper. Carlisle! Idle and Goodchild had got to Carlisle. It looked congenially and delightfully idle. Something in the way of public amusement had happened last month, and something else was going to happen before Christmas; and, in the meantime there was a lecture on India for those who liked it—which Idle and Goodchild did not. Likewise, by those who liked them, there were impressions to be bought of all the vapid prints, going and gone, and of nearly all the vapid books. For those who wanted to put anything in missionary boxes, here were the boxes. For those who wanted the Reverend Mr. Podgers (artist&#039;s proofs, thirty shillings), here was Mr. Podgers to any amount. Not less gracious and abundant, Mr. Codgers, also of the vineyard, but opposed to Mr. Podgers, brotherly tooth and nail. Here, were guide-books to the neighbouring antiquities, and eke the Lake country, in several dry and husky sorts; here, many physically and morally impossible heads of both sexes, for young ladies to copy, in the exercise of the art of drawing; here, further, a large impression of Mr. SPURGEON, solid as to the flesh, not to say even something gross. The working young men of Carlisle were drawn up, with their hands in their pockets, across the pavements, four and six abreast, and appeared (much to the satisfaction of Mr. Idle) to have nothing else to do. The working and growing young women of Carlisle, from the age of twelve upwards, promenaded the streets in the cool of the evening, and rallied the said young men. Sometimes the young men rallied the young women, as in the case of a group gathered round an accordion-player, from among whom a young man advanced behind a young woman for whom he appeared to have a tenderness, and hinted to her that he was there and playful, by giving her (he wore clogs) a kick. On market morning, Carlisle woke up amazingly, and became (to the two Idle Apprentices) disagreeably and reproachfully busy. There were its cattle market, its sheep market, and its pig market down by the river, with raw-boned and shock-headed Rob Roys hiding their Lowland dresses beneath heavy plaids, prowling in and out among the animals, and flavouring the air with fumes of whiskey. There was its corn market down the main street, with hum of chaffering over open sacks. There was its general market in the street too, with heather brooms on which the purple flower still flourished, and heather baskets primitive and fresh to behold. With women trying on clogs and caps at open stalls, and &quot;Bible stalls&quot; adjoining. With &quot;Doctor Mantle&#039;s Dispensary for the cure of all Human Maladies and no charge for advice,&quot; and with Doctor Mantle&#039;s &quot;Laboratory of Medical, Chemical, and Botanical Science&quot;—both healing institutions established on one pair of trestles, one board, and one sun-blind. With the renowned phrenologist from London, begging to be favoured (at sixpence each) with the company of clients of both sexes, to whom, on examination of their heads, he would make revelations &quot;enabling him or her to know themselves.&quot; Through all these bargains and blessings, the recruiting serjeant watchfully elbowed his way, a thread of War in the peaceful skein. Likewise on the walls were printed hints that the Oxford Blues might not be indisposed to hear of a few fine active young men; and that whereas the standard of that distinguished corps is full six feet, &quot;growing lads of five feet eleven&quot; need not absolutely despair of being accepted. Scenting the morning air more pleasantly than the buried majesty of Denmark did, Messrs. Idle and Goodchild rode away from Carlisle at eight o&#039;clock one forenoon, bound for the village of Heske, Newmarket, some fourteen miles distant. Goodchild (who had already begun to doubt whether he was idle: as his way always is when he has nothing to do), had read of a certain black old Cumberland hill or mountain, called Carrock, or Carrock Fell; and had arrived at the conclusion that it would be the culminating triumph of Idleness to ascend the same. Thomas Idle, dwelling on the pains inseparable from that achievement, had expressed the strongest doubts of the expediency, and even of the sanity, of the enterprise; but Goodchild had carried his point, and they rode away. Up hill and down hill, and twisting to the right, and twisting to the left, and with old Skiddaw (who has vaunted himself a great deal more than his merits deserve; but that is rather the way of the Lake country), dodging the apprentices in a picturesque and pleasant manner. Good, weather-proof, warm, peasant houses, well white-limed, scantily dotting the road. Clean children coming out to look, carrying other clean children as big as themselves. Harvest still lying out and much rained upon; here and there, harvest still unreaped. Well cultivated gardens attached to the cottages, with plenty of produce forced out of their hard soil. Lonely nooks, and wild; but people can be born, and married, and buried in such nooks, and can live and love, and be loved, there as elsewhere, thank God! (Mr. Goodchild&#039;s remark.) By-and-by, the village. Black, coarse-stoned, rough-windowed houses; some with outer staircases, like Swiss houses; a sinuous and stony gutter winding up hill and round the corner, by way of street. All the children running out directly. Women pausing in washing, to peep from doorways and very little windows. Such were the observations of Messrs. Idle and Goodchild, as their conveyance stopped at the village shoemaker&#039;s. Old Carrock gloomed down upon it all in a very ill-tempered state; and rain was beginning. The village shoemaker declined to have anything to do with Carrock. No visitors went up Carrock. No visitors came there at all. Aa&#039; the world ganged awa&#039; yon. The driver appealed to the Innkeeper. The Inn-keeper had two men working in the fields, and one of them should be called in, to go up Carrock as guide. Messrs. Idle and Goodchild, highly approving, entered the Innkeeper&#039;s house, to drink whiskey and eat oakcake. The Innkeeper was not idle enough—was not idle at all, which was a great fault in him—but was a fine specimen of a north- country man, or any kind of man. He had a ruddy cheek, a bright eye, a well-knit frame, an immense hand, a cheery outspeaking voice, and a straight, bright, broad look. He had a drawing-room, too, up-stairs, which was worth a visit to the Cumberland Fells. (This was Mr. Francis Goodchild&#039;s opinion, in which Mr. Thomas Idle did not concur.) The ceiling of this drawing-room was so crossed and re-crossed by beams of unequal lengths, radiating from a centre in a corner, that it looked like a broken star-fish. The room was comfortably and solidly furnished with good mahogany and horsehair. It had a snug fire-side, and a couple of well-curtained windows, looking out upon the wild country behind the house. What it most developed was, an unexpected taste for little ornaments and nick-nacks, of which it contained a most surprising number. They were not very various, consisting in great part of waxen babies with their limbs more or less mutilated, appealing on one leg to the parental affections from under little cupping-glasses; but, Uncle Tom was there, in crockery, receiving theological instructions from Miss Eva, who grew out of his side like a wen, in an exceedingly rough state of profile propagandism. Engravings of Mr. Hunt&#039;s country-boy, before and after his pie were on the wall, divided by a highly coloured nautical piece, the subject of which had all her colors (and more) flying, and was making great way through a sea of a regular pattern, like a lady&#039;s collar. A benevolent elderly gentleman of the last century, with a powdered head, kept guard, in oil and varnish, over a most perplexing piece of furniture on a table; in appearance between a driving seat and an angular knife-box, but, when opened, a musical instrument of tinkling wires, exactly like David&#039;s harp packed for travelling. Everything became a nick-nack in this curious room. The copper tea-kettle, burnished up to the highest point of glory, took his station on a stand of his own at the greatest possible distance from the fire-place, and said, &quot;By your leave, not a kittle, but a bijou.&quot; The Staffordshire-ware butter-dish with the cover on, got upon a little round occasional table in a window, with a worked top, and announced itself to the two chairs accidentally placed there, as an aid to polite conversation, a graceful trifle in china to be chatted over by callers, as they airily trifled away the visiting moments of a butterfly existence, in that rugged old village on the Cumberland Fells. The very footstool could not keep the floor, but got upon the sofa, and therefrom proclaimed itself, in high relief of white and liver-colored wool, a favourite spaniel coiled up for repose. Though, truly, in spite of its bright glass eyes, the spaniel was the least successful assumption in the collection: being perfectly flat, and dismally suggestive of a recent mistake in sitting down, on the part of some corpulent member of the family. There were books, too, in this room; books on the table, books on the chimney-piece, books in an open press in the corner. Fielding was there, and Smollett was there, and Steele and Addison were there, in dispersed volumes; and there were tales of those who go down to the sea in ships, for windy nights; and there was really a choice of good books for rainy days or fine. It was so very pleasant to see these things in such a lonesome by-place—so very agreeable to find these evidences of a taste, however homely, that went beyond the beautiful cleanliness and trimness of the house—so fanciful to imagine what a wonder the room must be to the little children born in the gloomy village—what grand impressions of it those of them who became wanderers over the earth would carry away; and how, at distant ends of the world, some old voyagers would die, cherishing the belief that the finest apartment known to men was once in the Hesket-Newmarket Inn, in rare old Cumberland—it was such a charmingly lazy pursuit to entertain these rambling thoughts over the choice oat-cake and the genial whiskey, that Mr. Idle and Mr. Goodchild never asked themselves how it came to pass that the men in the fields were never heard of more, how the stalwart landlord replaced them without explanation, how his dog-cart came to be waiting at the door, and how everything was arranged without the least arrangement, for climbing to old Carrock&#039;s shoulders, and standing on his head. Without a word of inquiry, therefore, The Two Idle Apprentices drifted out resignedly into a fine, soft, close, drowsy, penetrating rain; got into the landlord&#039;s light dog-cart, and rattled off, through the village, for the foot of Carrock. The journey at the outset was not remarkable. The Cumberland road went up and down like other roads; the Cumberland curs burst out from backs of cottages and barked like other curs, and the Cumberland peasantry stared after the dog-cart amazedly, as long as it was in sight, like the rest of their race. The approach to the foot of the mountain resembled the approaches to the feet of most other mountains all over the world. The cultivation gradually ceased, the trees grew gradually rare, the road became gradually rougher, and the sides of the mountain looked gradually more and more lofty, and more and more difficult to get up. The dog-cart was left at a lonely farm-house. The landlord borrowed a large umbrella, and, assuming in an instant the character of the most cheerful and adventurous of guides, led the way to the ascent. Mr. Goodchild looked eagerly at the top of the mountain, and, feeling apparently that he was now going to be very lazy indeed, shone all over wonderfully to the eye, under the influence of the contentment within and the moisture without. Only in the bosom of Mr. Thomas Idle did Despondency now hold her gloomy state. He kept it a secret; but he would have given a very handsome sum, when the ascent began, to have been back again at the inn. The sides of Carrock looked fearfully steep, and the top of Carrock was hidden in mist. The rain was falling faster and faster. The knees of Mr. Idle—always weak on walking excursions—shivered and shook with fear and damp. The wet was already penetrating through the young man&#039;s outer coat to a bran new shooting-jacket, for which he had reluctantly paid the large sum of two guineas on leaving town; he had no stimulating refreshment about him but a small packet of clammy gingerbread nuts; he had nobody to give him an arm, nobody to push him gently behind, nobody to pull him up tenderly in front, nobody to speak to who really felt the difficulties of the ascent, the dampness of the rain, the denseness of the mist, and the unutterable folly of climbing, undriven, up any steep place in the world, when there is level ground within reach to walk on instead. Was it for this that Thomas had left London? London, where there are nice short walks in level public gardens,with benches of repose set up at convenient distances for weary travellers—London, where rugged stone is humanely pounded into little lumps for the road, and intelligently shaped into smooth slabs for the pavement! No! it was not for the laborious ascent of the crags of Carrock that Idle had left his native city and travelled to Cumberland. Never did he feel more disastrously convinced that he had committed a very grave error in judgment than when he found himself standing in the rain at the bottom of a steep mountain, and knew that the responsibility rested on his weak shoulders of actually getting to the top of it. The honest landlord went first, the beaming Goodchild followed, the mournful Idle brought up the rear. From time to time, the two foremost members of the expedition changed places in the order of march; but the rearguard never altered his position. Up the mountain or down the mountain, in the water or out of it, over the rocks, through the bogs, skirting the heather, Mr. Thomas Idle was always the last, and was always the man who had to be looked after and waited for. At first the ascent was delusively easy: the sides of the mountain sloped gradually, and the material of which they were composed was a soft spongy turf, very tender and pleasant to walk upon. After a hundred yards or so, however, the verdant scene and the easy slope disappeared, and the rocks began. Not noble, massive rocks, standing upright, keeping a certain regularity in their positions, and possessing, now and then, flat tops to sit upon, but little, irritating, comfortless rocks, littered about anyhow by Nature; treacherous, disheartening rocks of all sorts of small shapes and small sizes, bruisers of tender toes and trippers-up of wavering feet. When these impediments were passed, heather and slough followed. Here the steepness of the ascent was slightly mitigated; and here the exploring party of three turned round to look at the view below them. The scene of the moorland and the fields was like a feeble water-colour drawing half sponged out. The mist was darkening, the rain was thickening, the trees were dotted about like spots of faint shadow, the division-lines which mapped out the fields were all getting blurred together, and the lonely farm- house where the dog-cart had been left, loomed spectral in the grey light like the last human dwelling at the end of the habitable world. Was this a sight worth climbing to see? Surely—surely not! Up again—for the top of Carrock is not reached yet. The landlord, just as good-tempered and obliging as he was at the bottom of the mountain. Mr. Goodchild brighter in the eyes and rosier in the face than ever; full of cheerful remarks and apt quotations; and walking with a springiness of step wonderful to behold. Mr. Idle, farther and farther in the rear, with the water squeaking in the toes of his boots, with his two-guinea shooting-jacket clinging damply to his aching sides, with his over-coat so full of rain, and standing out so pyramidically stiff, in consequence, from his shoulders downwards, that he felt as if he was walking in a gigantic extinguisher—the despairing spirit within him representing but too aptly the candle that had just been put out. Up and up and up again, till a ridge is reached, and the outer edge of the mist on the summit of Carrock is darkly and drizzlingly near. Is this the top ? No, nothing like the top. It is an aggravating peculiarity of all mountains, that, although they have only one top when they are seen (as they ought always to be seen) from below, they turn out to have a perfect eruption of false tops whenever the traveller is sufficiently ill-advised to go out of his way for the purpose of ascending them. Carrock is but a trumpery little mountain of fifteen hundred feet, and it presumes to have false tops, and even precipices, as if it was Mont Blanc. No matter; Goodchild enjoys it, and will go on; and Idle, who is afraid of being left behind by himself, must follow. On entering the edge of the mist, the landlord stops, and says he hopes that it will not get any thicker. It is twenty years since he last ascended Carrock, and it is barely possible, if the mist increases, that the party may be lost on the mountain. Goodchild hears this dreadful intimation, and is not in the least impressed by it. He marches for the top that is never to be found, as if he was them Wandering Jew, bound to go on for ever, in defiance of everything. The landlord faithfully accompanies him. The two, to the dim eye of Idle, far below,look in the exaggerative mist, like a pair of friendly giants, mounting the steps of some invisible castle together. Up and up, and then down a little, and then up, and then along a strip of level ground, and then up again. The wind, a wind unknown in the happy valley, blows keen and strong; the rain-mist gets impenetrable; a dreary little cairn of stones appears. The landlord adds one to the heap, first walking all round the cairn as if he were about to perform an incantation, then dropping the stone on to the top of the heap with the gesture of a magician adding an ingredient to a cauldron in full bubble. Goodchild sits down by the cairn as if it was his study-table at home; Idle, drenched and panting, stands up with his back to the wind, ascertains distinctly that this is the top at last, looks round with all the little curiosity that is left in him, and gets, in return, a magnificent view of—Nothing! The effect of this sublime spectacle on the minds of the exploring party is a little injured by the nature of the direct conclusion to which the sight of it points—the said conclusion being that the mountain mist has actually gathered round them, as the landlord feared it would. It now becomes imperatively necessary to settle the exact situation of the farm-house in the valley at which the dog-cart has been left, before the travellers attempt to descend. While the landlord is endeavouring to make this discovery in his own way, Mr. Goodchild plunges his hand under his wet coat, draws out a little red morocco-case, opens it, and displays to the view of his companions a neat pocket-compass. The north is found, the point at which the farm-house is situated is settled, and the descent begins. After a little downward walking, Idle (behind as usual) sees his fellow-travellers turn aside sharply—tries to follow them—loses them in the mist—is shouted after, waited for, recovered—and then finds that a halt has been ordered, partly on his account, partly for the purpose of again consulting the compass. The point in debate is settled as before between Goodchild and the landlord, and the expedition moves on, not down the mountain, but marching straight forward round the slope of it. The difficulty of following this new route is acutely felt by Thomas Idle. He finds the hardship of walking at all, greatly increased by the fatigue of moving his feet straight forward along the side of a slope, when their natural tendency, at every step, is to turn off at a right angle, and go straight down the declivity. Let the reader imagine himself to be walking along the roof of a barn, instead of up or down it, and he will have an exact idea of the pedestrian difficulty in which the travellers had now involved themselves. In ten minutes more Idle was lost in the distance again, was shouted for, recovered as before; found Goodchild repeating his observation of the compass, and remonstrated warmly against the sideway route that his companions persisted in following. It appeared to the uninstructed mind of Thomas that when three men want to get to the bottom of a mountain, their business is to walk down it; and he put this view of the case, not only with emphasis, but even with some irritability. He was answered from the scientific eminence of the compass on which his companions were mounted, that there was a frightful chasm somewhere near the foot of Carrock, called The Black Arches, into which the travellers were sure to march in the mist, if they risked continuing the descent from the place where they had now halted. Idle received this answer with the silent respect which was due to the commanders of the expedition, and followed along the roof of the barn, or rather the side of the mountain, reflecting upon the assurance which he received on starting again, that the object of the party was only to gain &quot;a certain point,&quot; and, this haven attained, to continue the descent afterwards until the foot of Carrock was reached. Though quite unexceptionable as an abstract form of expression, the phrase &quot;a certain point&quot; has the disadvantage of sounding rather vaguely when it is pronounced on unknown ground, under a canopy of mist much thicker than a London fog. Nevertheless, after the compass, this phrase was all the clue the party had to hold by, and Idle clung to the extreme end of it as hopefully as he could. More sideway walking, thicker and thicker mist, all sorts of points reached except the &quot;certain point;&quot; third loss of Idle, third shouts for him, third recovery of him, third consultation of compass. Mr. Goodchild draws it tenderly from his pocket, and prepares to adjust it on a stone. Something falls on the turf—it is the glass. Something else drops immediately after—it is the needle. The compass is broken, and the exploring party is lost! It is the practice of the English portion of the human race to receive all great disasters in dead silence. Mr. Goodchild restored the useless compass to his pocket without saying a word, Mr. Idle looked at the landlord, and the landlord looked at Mr. Idle. There was nothing for it now but to go on blindfold, and trust to the chapter of chances. Accordingly, the lost travellers moved forward, still walking round the slope of the mountain, still desperately resolved to avoid the Black Arches, and to succeed in reaching the &quot;certain point.&quot; A quarter of an hour brought them to the brink of a ravine, at the bottom of which there flowed a muddy little stream. Here another halt was called, and another consultation took place. The landlord, still clinging pertinaciously to the idea of reaching the &quot;point,&quot; voted for crossing the ravine and going on round the slope of the mountain. Mr. Goodchild, to the great relief of his fellow-traveller, took another view of the case, and backed Mr. Idle&#039;s proposal to descend Carrock at once, at any hazard—the rather as the running stream was a sure guide to follow from the mountain to the valley. Accordingly, the party descended to the rugged and stony banks of the stream; and here again Thomas lost ground sadly, and fell far behind his travelling companions. Not much more than six weeks had elapsed since he had sprained one of his ancles, and he began to feel this same ancle getting rather weak when he found himself among the stones that were strewn about the running water. Goodchild and the landlord were getting farther and farther ahead of him. He saw them cross the stream and disappear round a projection on its banks. He heard them shout the moment after as a signal that they had halted and were waiting for him. Answering the shout, he mended his pace, crossed the stream where they had crossed it, and was within one step of the opposite bank, when his foot slipped on a wet stone, his weak ankle gave a twist outwards, a hot, rending, tearing pain ran through it at the same moment, and down fell the idlest of the Two Idle Apprentices, crippled in an instant. The situation was now, in plain terms, one of absolute danger. There lay Mr. Idle writhing with pain, there was the mist as thick as ever, there was the landlord as completely lost as the strangers whom he was conducting, and there was the compass broken in Goodchild&#039;s pocket. To leave the wretched Thomas on unknown ground was plainly impossible; and to get him to walk with a badly sprained ankle seemed equally out of the question. However, Goodchild (brought back by his cry for help) bandaged the ankle with a pocket-handkerchief, and assisted by the landlord, raised the crippled Apprentice to his legs, offered him a shoulder to lean on, and exhorted him for the sake of the whole party to try if he could walk. Thomas, assisted by the shoulder on one side, and a stick on the other, did try, with what pain and difficulty those only can imagine who have sprained an ankle and have had to tread on it afterwards. At a pace adapted to the feeble hobbling of a newly-lamed man, the lost party moved on, perfectly ignorant whether they were on the right side of the mountain or the wrong, and equally uncertain how long Idle would be able to contend with the pain in his ancle, before he gave in altogether and fell down again, unable to stir another step. Slowly and more slowly, as the clog of crippled Thomas weighed heavily and more heavily on the march of the expedition, the lost travellers followed the windings of the stream, till they came to a faintly-marked cart-track, branching off nearly at right angles, to the left. After a little consultation it was resolved to follow this dim vestige of a road in the hope that it might lead to some farm or cottage, at which Idle could be left in safety. It was now getting on towards the afternoon, and it was fast becoming more than doubtful whether the party, delayed in their progress as they now were, might not be overtaken by the darkness before the right route was found, and be condemned to pass the night on the mountain, without bit or drop to comfort them, in their wet clothes. The cart-track grew fainter and fainter, until it was washed out altogether by another little stream, dark, turbulent, and rapid. The landlord suggested, judging by the colour of the water, that it must be flowing from one of the lead mines in the neighbourhood of Carrock; and the travellers accordingly kept by the stream for a little while, in the hope of possibly wandering towards help in that way. After walking forward about two hundred yards, they came upon a mine indeed, but a mine, exhausted and abandoned; a dismal, ruinous place, with nothing but the wreck of its works and buildings left to speak for it. Here, there were a few sheep feeding. The landlord looked at them earnestly, thought he recognised the marks on them—then thought he did not—finally gave up the sheep in despair—and walked on, just as ignorant of the whereabouts of the party as ever. The march in the dark, literally as well as metaphorically in the dark, had now been continued for three-quarters of an hour from the time when the crippled Apprentice had met with his accident. Mr. Idle, with all the will to conquer the pain in his ankle, and to hobble on, found the power rapidly failing him, and felt that another ten minutes at most would find him at the end of his last physical resources. He had just made up his mind on this point, and was about to communicate the dismal result of his reflections to his companions, when the mist suddenly brightened, and began to lift straight ahead. In another minute, the landlord, who was in advance, proclaimed that he saw a tree. Before long, other trees appeared—then a cottage—then a house beyond the cottage, and a familiar line of road rising behind it. Last of all, Carrock itself loomed darkly into view, far away to the right hand. The party had not only got down the mountain without knowing how, but had wandered away from it in the mist, without knowing why—away, far down on the very moor by which they had approached the base of Carrock that morning. The happy lifting of the mist, and the still happier discovery that the travellers had groped their way, though by a very round-about direction, to within a mile or so of the part of the valley in which the farm-house was situated, restored Mr. Idle&#039;s sinking spirits and reanimated his failing strength. While the landlord ran off to get the dog-cart, Thomas was assisted by Goodchild to the cottage which had been the first building seen when the darkness brightened, and was propped up against the garden-wall, like an artist&#039;s lay-figure waiting to be forwarded, until the dog-cart should arrive from the farm-house below. In due time—and a very long time it seemed to Mr. Idle—the rattle of wheels was heard, and the crippled Apprentice was lifted into his seat. As the dog-cart was driven back to the inn, the landlord related an anecdote which he had just heard at the farm-house, of an unhappy man who had been lost, like his two guests and himself, on Carrock; who had passed the night there alone; who had been found the next morning, &quot;scared and starved;&quot; and who never went out afterwards, except on his way to the grave. Mr. Idle heard this sad story, and derived at least one useful impression from it. Bad as the pain in his ankle was, he contrived to bear it patiently, for he felt grateful that a worse accident had not befallen him in the wilds of Carrock.18571003https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._I_The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices/1857-10-03-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No1.pdf
144https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/144No. I, <em>Holiday Romance, </em>'Introductory Romance. From the Pen of William Tinkling, Esquire'Published in <em>Our Young Folks,</em> vol. 4, no.1 (January 1868), pp. 1-7. Edited by J.T. Trowbridge and Lucy Larcom.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em> <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000052381508">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000052381508</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=01-1868">01-1868</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+John+Gilbert">Illustrated by John Gilbert</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1868-01_No1_Holiday_Romance_William_TinklingDickens, Charles. 'Introductory Romance. From the Pen of William Tinkling, Esquire' (January 1868). <em>Holiday Romance. Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-01_No1_Holiday_Romance_William_Tinkling">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-01_No1_Holiday_Romance_William_Tinkling</a>.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-01_William_Tinkling_A_Holiday_Romance_1"></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EOur+Young+Folks%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Our Young Folks</em></a>IN FOUR PARTS PART I. INTRODUCTORY ROMANCE. FROM THE PEN OF WILLIAM TINKLING ESQUIRE.* This beginning-part is not made out of anybody’s head, you know. It’s real. You must believe this beginning-part more than what comes after, else you won’t understand how what comes after came to be written. You must believe it all, but you must believe this most, please. I am the Editor of it. Bob Redforth (he’s my cousin, and shaking the table on purpose) wanted to be the Editor of it, but I said he shouldn’t because he couldn’t. He has no idea of being an Editor. Nettie Ashford is my Bride. We were married in the right-hand closet in the corner of the dancing-school where first we met, with a ring (a green one) from Wilkingwater’s toy-shop. I owed for it out of my pocket-money. When the rapturous ceremony was over, we all four went up the lane and let off a cannon (brought loaded in Bob Redforth’s waistcoat pocket) to announce our Nuptials. It flew right up when it went off, and turned over. Next day, Lieutenant Colonel Robin Redforth was united, with similar ceremonies, to Alice Rainbird. This time, the cannon burst with a most terrific explosion, and made a puppy bark. My peerless Bride was, at the period of which we now treat, in captivity at Miss Grimmer’s. Drowvey and Grimmer is the partnership, and opinion is divided which is the greatest Beast. The lovely Bride of the Colonel was also immured in the Dungeons of the same establishment. A vow was entered into, between the Colonel and myself that we would cut them out on the following Wednesday when walking two and two. Under the desperate circumstances of the case, the active brain of the Colonel, combining with his lawless pursuit (he is a Pirate), suggested an attack with fireworks. This however, from motives of humanity, was abandoned as too expensive. Lightly armed with a paper-knife buttoned up under his jacket, and waving the dreaded black flag at the end of a cane, the Colonel took command of me at 2 P.M. on the eventful and appointed day. He had drawn out the plan of attack on a piece of paper which was rolled up round a hoop-stick. He showed it to me. My position and my full-length portrait (but my real ears don’t stick out horizontal) was behind a corner-lamp-post, with written orders to remain there till I should see Miss Drowvey fall. The Drowvey who was to fall was the one in spectacles, not the one with the large lavender bonnet. At that signal I was to rush forth, seize my Bride, and fight my way to the lane. There, a junction would be effected between myself and the Colonel, and putting our Brides behind us, between ourselves and the palings, we were to conquer or die. The enemy appeared—approached. Waving his black flag, the Colonel attacked. Confusion ensued. Anxiously I awaited my signal, but my signal came not. So far from falling, the hated Drowvey in spectacles appeared to me to have muffled the Colonel’s head in his outlawed banner, and to be pitching into him with a parasol. The one in the lavender bonnet also performed prodigies of valour with her fists on his back. Seeing that all was for the moment lost, I fought my desperate way hand to hand to the lane. Through taking the back road, I was so fortunate as to meet nobody, and arrived there uninterrupted. It seemed an age ere the Colonel joined me. He had been to the jobbing-tailor’s to be sewn up in several places, and attributed our defeat to the refusal of the detested Drowvey to fall. Finding her so obstinate he had said to her, &quot;Die recreant!&quot; but had found her no more open to reason on that point than the other. My blooming Bride appeared, accompanied by the Colonel’s Bride, at the Dancing School next day. What? Was her face averted from me? Hah? Even so. With a look of scorn, she put into my hand a bit of paper, and took another partner. On the paper was pencilled, &quot;Heavens! Can I write the word! Is my husband a Cow.&quot; In the first bewilderment of my heated brain, I tried to think what slanderer could have traced my family to the ignoble animal mentioned above. Vain were my endeavors. At the end of that dance I whispered the Colonel to come into the cloak-room, and I showed him the note. &quot;There is a syllable wanting,&quot; said he, with a gloomy brow. &quot;Hah! What syllable?&quot; was my inquiry. &quot;She asks, Can she write the word? And no; you see she couldn’t,&quot; said the Colonel, pointing out the passage. &quot;And the word was?&quot; said I. &quot;Cow—cow—coward,&quot; hissed the Pirate-Colonel in my ear, and gave me back the note. Feeling that I must for ever tread the earth a branded boy —person I mean—or that I must clear up my honor, I demanded to be tried by a Court-Martial. The Colonel admitted my right to be tried. Some difficulty was found in composing the court, on account of the Emperor of France’s aunt refusing to let him come out. He was to be the President. Ere yet we had appointed a substitute, he made his escape over the back-wall, and stood among us, a free monarch. The court was held on the grass by the pond. I recognized, in a certain Admiral among my judges, my deadliest foe. A cocoa-nut had given rise to language that I could not brook. But confiding in my innocence, and also in the knowledge that the President of the United States (who sat next him) owed me a knife, I braced myself for the ordeal. It was a solemn spectacle that court. Two executioners with pinafores reversed led me in. Under the shade of an umbrella I perceived my Bride, supported by the Bride of the Pirate-Colonel. The President (having reproved a little female ensign for tittering, on a matter of Life or Death) called upon me to plead, &quot;Coward or no Coward, Guilty or not Guilty?&quot; I pleaded in a firm tone, &quot;No Coward and not Guilty. (The little female ensign being again reproved by the President for misconduct, mutinied, left the court, and threw stones.) My implacable enemy, the Admiral, conducted the case against me. The Colonel’s Bride was called to prove that I had remained behind the corner-lamp-post during the engagement. I might have been spared the anguish of my own Bride’s being also made a witness to the same point, but the Admiral knew where to wound me. Be still, my soul, no matter. The Colonel was then brought forward with his evidence. It was for this point that I had saved myself up, as the turning-point of my case. Shaking myself free of my guards —who had no business to hold me, the stupids! unless I was found Guilty,—I asked the Colonel what he considered the first duty of a soldier? Ere he could reply, the President of the United States rose and informed the court that my foe the Admiral had suggested &quot;Bravery,&quot; and that prompting a witness wasn’t fair. The President of the court immediately ordered the Admiral’s mouth to be filled with leaves, and tied up with string. I had the satisfaction of seeing the sentence carried into effect before the proceedings went further. I then took a paper from my trousers-pocket, and asked: &quot;What do you consider, Colonel Redforth, the first duty of a soldier? Is it obedience?&quot; &quot;It is,&quot; said the Colonel. &quot;Is that paper—please to look at it—in your hand?&quot; &quot;It is,&quot; said the Colonel. &quot;Is it a military sketch?&quot; &quot;It is,&quot; said the Colonel. &quot;Of an engagement?&quot; &quot;Quite so,&quot; said the Colonel. &quot;Of the late engagement?&quot; &quot;Of the late engagement.&quot; &quot;Please to describe it, and then hand it to the President of the Court.&quot; From that triumphant moment my sufferings and my dangers were at an end. The court rose up and jumped, on discovering that I had strictly obeyed orders. My foe, the Admiral, who though muzzled was malignant yet, contrived to suggest that I was dishonored by having quitted the field. But the Colonel himself had done as much, and gave his opinion, upon his word and honour as a Pirate, that when all was lost the field might be quitted without disgrace. I was going to be found &quot;No Coward and Not Guilty,&quot; and my blooming Bride was going to be publicly restored to my arms in a procession, when an unlooked for event disturbed the general rejoicing. This was no other than the Emperor of France’s aunt catching hold of his hair. The proceedings abruptly terminated, and the court tumultuously dissolved. It was when the shades of the next evening but one were beginning to fall, ere yet the silver beams of Luna touched the earth, that four forms might have been descried slowly advancing towards the weeping willow on the borders of the pond, the now deserted scene of the day before yesterday’s agonies and triumphs. On a nearer approach, and by a practised eye, these might have been identified as the forms of the Pirate-Colonel with his Bride, and of the day before yesterday’s gallant prisoner with his Bride. On the beauteous faces of the Nymphs, dejection sat enthroned. All four reclined under the willow for some minutes without speaking, till at length the Bride of the Colonel poutingly observed, &quot;It’s of no use pretending any more, and we had better give it up.&quot; &quot;Hah!&quot; exclaimed the Pirate. &quot;Pretending?&quot; &quot;Don’t go on like that; you worry me,&quot; returned his Bride. The lovely Bride of Tinkling echoed the incredible declaration. The two warriors exchanged stony glances. &quot;If,&quot; said the Bride of the Pirate-Colonel, &quot;grown-up people WON’T do what they ought to do, and WILL put us out, what comes of our pretending?&quot; &quot;We only get into scrapes,&quot; said the Bride of Tinkling. &quot;You know very well,&quot; pursued the Colonel’s Bride, &quot;that Miss Drowvey wouldn’t fall. You complained of it yourself. And you know how disgracefully the court-martial ended. As to our marriage; would my people acknowledge it at home?&quot; &quot;Or would my people acknowledge ours?&quot; said the bride of Tinkling. Again the two warriors exchanged stony glances. &quot;If you knocked at the door and claimed me, after you were told to go away,&quot; said the Colonel’s Bride, &quot;you would only have your hair pulled, or your ears, or your nose.&quot; &quot;If you persisted in ringing at the bell and claiming Me,&quot; said the Bride of Tinkling to that gentleman, &quot;you would have things dropped on your head from the window over the handle, or you would be played upon by the garden-engine.&quot; &quot;And at your own homes,&quot; resumed the Bride of the Colonel, &quot;it would be just as bad. You would be sent to bed, or something equally undignified. Again, how would you support us?&quot; The Pirate-Colonel replied in a courageous voice, &quot;By rapine!&quot; But his Bride retorted, &quot;Suppose the grown-up people wouldn’t be rapined?&quot; Then, said the colonel, they should pay the penalty in Blood. But suppose they should object, retorted his bride, and wouldn’t pay the penalty in Blood or anything else? A mournful silence ensued. &quot;Then do you no longer love me, Alice?&quot; asked the Colonel. &quot;Redforth! I am ever thine,&quot; returned his Bride. &quot;Then do you no longer love me, Nettie?&quot; asked the present writer. &quot;Tinkling! I am ever thine,&quot; returned my Bride. We all four embraced. Let me not be misunderstood by the giddy. The Colonel embraced his own Bride, and I embraced mine. But two times two make four. &quot;Nettie and I,&quot; said Alice mournfully, &quot;have been considering our position. The grown-up people are too strong for us. They make us ridiculous. Besides, they have changed the times. William Tinkling’s baby brother was christened yesterday. What took place? Was any king present? Answer, William.&quot; I said No, unless disguised as great-uncle Chopper. &quot;Any queen?&quot; There had been no queen that I knew of at our house. There might have been one in the kitchen; but I didn’t think so, or the servants would have mentioned it. &quot;Any fairies?&quot; None that were visible. &quot;We had an idea among us, I think,&quot; said Alice, with a melancholy smile, &quot;we four, that Miss Grimmer would prove to be the wicked fairy, and would come in at the christening with her crutch-stick, and give the child a bad gift? Was there anything of that sort? Answer, William.&quot; I said that Ma had said afterwards (and so she had), that great-uncle Chopper’s gift was a shabby one; but she hadn’t said a bad one. She had called it shabby, electrotyped, second-hand, and below his income. &quot;It must be the grown-up people who have changed all this,&quot; said Alice. &quot;We couldn’t have changed it, if we had been so inclined, and we never should have been. Or perhaps Miss Grimmer is a wicked fairy after all, and won’t act up to it because the grown-up people have persuaded her not to. Either way, they would make us ridiculous if we told them what we expected.&quot; &quot;Tyrants!&quot; muttered the Pirate-Colonel. &quot;Nay, my Redforth,&quot; said Alice, &quot;say not so. Call not names, my Redforth, or they will apply to pa.&quot; &quot;Let ’em,&quot; said the Colonel. &quot;I don&#039;t care! Who’s he?&quot; Tinkling here undertook the perilous task of remonstrating with his lawless friend, who consented to withdraw the moody expressions above quoted. &quot;What remains for us to do?&quot; Alice went on in her mild, wise way. &quot;We must educate, we must pretend in a new manner, we must wait.&quot; The Colonel clenched his teeth,—four out in front, and a piece off another, and he had been twice dragged to the door of a dentist-despot, but had escaped from his guards. &quot;How educate? How pretend in a new manner? How wait?&quot; &quot;Educate the grown-up people,&quot; replied Alice. &quot;We part to-night. Yes, Redforth!&quot;—for the Colonel tucked up his cuffs,—&quot;part to-night! Let us, in these next Holidays now going to begin, throw our thoughts into something educational for the grown-up people, hinting to them how things ought to be. Let us veil our meaning under a mask of romance; you, I, and Nettie. William Tinkling being the plainest and quickest writer shall copy out. Is it agreed?&quot; The Colonel answered sulkily, &quot;I don’t mind!&quot; He then asked, &quot;How about pretending?&quot; &quot;We will pretend,&quot; said Alice, &quot;that we are children; not that we are those grown-up people who won’t help us out as they ought, and who understand us so badly.&quot; The Colonel, still much dissatisfied, growled, &quot;How about waiting?&quot; &quot;We will wait,&quot; answered little Alice, taking Nettie’s hand in hers, and looking up to the sky, &quot;we will wait—ever constant and true—till the times have got so changed as that everything helps us out, and nothing makes us ridiculous, and the fairies have come back. We will wait—ever constant and true—till we are eighty, ninety, or one hundred. And then the fairies will send us children, and we will help them out, poor pretty little creatures, if they pretend ever so much.&quot; &quot;So we will, dear,&quot; said Nettie Ashford, taking her round the waist with both arms and kissing her. &quot;And now if my husband will go and buy some cherries for us, I have got some money.&quot; In the friendliest manner I invited the Colonel to go with me; but he so far forgot himself as to acknowledge the invitation by kicking out behind, and then lying down on his stomach on the grass, pulling it up and chewing it. When I came back, however, Alice had nearly brought him out of his vexation, and was soothing him by telling him how soon we should all be ninety. As we sat under the willow-tree and ate the cherries (fair, for Alice shared them out), we played at being ninety. Nettie complained that she had a bone in her old back and it made her hobble, and Alice sang a song in an old woman’s way, but it was very pretty, and we were all merry. At least I don’t know about merry exactly, but all comfortable. There was a most tremendous lot of cherries, and Alice always had with her some neat little bag or box or case, to hold things. In it that night was a tiny wine-glass. So Alice and Nettie said they would make some cherry-wine to drink our love at parting. Each of us had a glassful, and it was delicious, and each of us drank the toast, &quot;Our love at parting.&quot; The Colonel drank his wine last, and it got into my head directly that it got into his directly. Anyhow his eyes rolled immediately after he had turned the glass upside down, and he took me on one side and proposed in a hoarse whisper that we should &quot;Cut ‘em out still.&quot; &quot;How did he mean?&quot; I asked my lawless friend. &quot;Cut our Brides out,&quot; said the Colonel, &quot;and then cut our way, without going down a single turning, Bang to the Spanish Main!&quot; We might have tried it, though I didn’t think it would answer; only we looked round and saw that there was nothing but moonlight under the willow-tree, and that our pretty pretty wives were gone. We burst out crying. The colonel gave in second, and came to first; but he gave in strong. We were ashamed of our red eyes, and hung about for half an hour to whiten them. Likewise a piece of chalk round the rims, I doing the Colonel’s, and he mine, but afterwards found in the bedroom looking-glass not natural, besides inflammation. Our conversation turned on being ninety. The Colonel told me he had a pair of boots that wanted soling and heeling, but he thought it hardly worth while to mention it to his father, as he himself should so soon be ninety, when he thought shoes would be more convenient. The Colonel also told me with his hand upon his hip that he felt himself already getting on in life, and turning rheumatic. And I told him the same. And when they said at our house at supper (they are always bothering about something) that I stooped, I felt so glad! This is the end of the beginning-part that you were to believe most. *Aged Eight.18680101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._I_Holiday_Romance_Introductory_Romance._From_the_Pen_of_William_Tinkling_Esquire/1868-01_No1_Holiday_Romance_William_Tinkling.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._I_Holiday_Romance_Introductory_Romance._From_the_Pen_of_William_Tinkling_Esquire/1868-01_No1_Holiday_Romance_William_Tinkling_Illustration_Part1.pdf
141https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/141No. II 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>Atlantic Monthly</em>)Published in the <em>Atlantic Monthly, </em>vol.21 (February 1868), pp. 145-149.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust</em>, <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b000555786">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b000555786</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1861-02">1861-02</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=50&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=No.II+%27George+Silverman%27s+Explanation%27+%28%3Cem%3EATYR%3C%2Fem%3E%29">No.II 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>ATYR</em>)</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1868-02_George_Silvermans_Explanation_2Dickens, Charles. No. II, 'George Silverman's Explanation' (February 1868). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-02_George_Silvermans_Explanation_2">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-02_George_Silvermans_Explanation_2</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAtlantic+Monthly%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Atlantic Monthly</em></a>SIXTH CHAPTER Brother Hawkyard (as he insisted on my calling him) put me to school, and told me to work my way. &quot;You are all right, George,&quot; he said. &quot;I have been the best servant the Lord has had in his service for this five-and-thirty year, (O, I have!) and he knows the value of such a servant as I have been to him, (O, yes, he does!) and he’ll prosper your schooling as a part of my reward. That’s what he’ll do, George. He’ll do it for me.&quot; From the first I could not like this familiar knowledge of the ways of the sublime inscrutable Almighty, on Brother Hawkyard’s part. As I grew a little wiser and still a little wiser, I liked it less and less. His manner, too, of confirming himself in a parenthesis,—as if, knowing himself, he doubted his own word,—I found distasteful. I cannot tell how much these dislikes cost me, for I had a dread that they were worldly. As time went on, I became a Foundation-Boy on a good Foundation, and I cost Brother Hawkyard nothing. When I had worked my way so far, I worked yet harder, in the hope of ultimately getting a presentation to College and a Fellowship. My health has never been strong (some vapor from the Preston cellar cleaves to me I think), and what with much work and some weakness, I came again to be regarded—that is, by my fellow-students—as unsocial. All through my time as a Foundation-Boy I was within a few miles of Brother Hawkyard’s congregation, and whenever I was what we called a Leave-Boy on a Sunday, I went over there at his desire. Before the knowledge became forced upon me that outside their place of meeting these Brothers and Sisters were no better than the rest of the human family, but on the whole were, to put the case mildly, as bad as most, in respect of giving short weight in their shops, and not speaking the truth, — I say, before this knowledge became forced upon me, their prolix addresses, their inordinate conceit, their daring ignorance, their investment of the Supreme Ruler of Heaven and Earth with their own miserable meannesses and littlenesses greatly shocked me. Still, as their term for the frame of mind that could not perceive them to be in an exalted state of Grace was the &quot;worldly&quot; state, I did for a time suffer tortures under my inquiries of myself whether that young worldly-devilish spirit of mine could secretly be lingering at the bottom of my non-appreciation. Brother Hawkyard was the popular expounder in this assembly, and generally occupied the platform (there was a little platform with a table on it, in lieu of a pulpit) first, on a Sunday afternoon. He was by trade a drysalter. Brother Gimblet, an elderly man with a crabbed face, a large dog’s-eared shirt-collar, and a spotted blue neckerchief reaching up behind to the crown of his head, was also a drysalter, and an expounder. Brother Gimblet professed the greatest admiration for Brother Hawkyard, but (I had thought more than once) bore him a jealous grudge. Let whosoever may peruse these lines kindly take the pains here to read twice my solemn pledge, that what I write of the language and customs of the congregation in question I write scrupulously, literally, exactly, from the life and the truth. On the first Sunday after I had won what I had so long tried for, and when it was certain that I was going up to college, Brother Hawkyard concluded a long exhortation thus:— &quot;Well, my friends and fellow-sinners, now I told you when I began, that I didn’t know a word of what I was going to say to you, (and no, I did not!) but that it was all one to me, because I knew the Lord would put into my mouth the words I wanted.&quot; (&quot;That’s it!&quot; from Brother Gimblet.) &quot;And he did put into my mouth the words I wanted.&quot; ( (&quot;So he did!&quot; from Brother Gimblet.) &quot;And why?&quot; (&quot;Ah, let’s have that!&quot; from Brother Gimblet.) &quot;Because I have been his faithful servant for five-and-thirty years, and because he knows it. For five-and-thirty years! And he knows it, mind you! I got those words that I wanted on account of my wages. I got ’em from the Lord, my fellow-sinners. Down. I said, &#039;Here’s a heap of wages due; let us have something down, on account.&#039; And I got it down, and I paid it over to you, and you won’t wrap it up in a napkin, nor yet in a towel, nor yet pocketankercher, but you’ll put it out at good interest. Very well. Now, my brothers and sisters and fellow-sinners, I am going to conclude with a question, and I’ll make it so plain (with the help of the Lord, after five-and-thirty years, I should rather hope!) as that the Devil shall not be able to confuse it in your heads. Which he would be overjoyed to do.&quot; (&quot;Just his way. Crafty old blackguard!&quot; from Brother Gimblet.) &quot;And the question is this. Are the angels learned?&quot; (&quot;Not they. Not a bit on it.&quot; From Brother Gimblet, with the greatest confidence.) &quot;Not they. And where’s the proof? Sent ready-made by the hand of the Lord. Why, there’s one among us here now, that has got all the Learning that could be crammed into him. I got him all the Learning that could be crammed into him. His grandfather’&quot;(this I had never heard before) &quot;was a Brother of ours. He was Brother Parksop. That’s what he was. Parksop. Brother Parksop. His worldly name was Parksop, and he was a Brother of this Brotherhood. Then wasn’t he Brother Parksop?&quot; (&quot;Must be. Couldn’t help hisself.&quot; from Brother Gimblet.) &quot;Well, he left that one now here present among us to the care of a Brother-Sinner of his, (and that Brother-Sinner, mind you, was a sinner of a bigger size in his time than any of you, Praise the Lord!) Brother Hawkyard. Me. I got him without fee or reward,—without a morsel of myrrh, or frankincense, nor yet Amber, letting alone the honeycomb,—all the Learning that could be crammed into him. Has it brought him into our Temple, in the spirit? No. Have we had any ignorant Brothers and Sisters that didn’t know round O from crooked S, come in among us meanwhile? Many. Then the Angels are not learned. Then they don’t so much as know their alphabet. And now, my friends and fellow-sinners, having brought it to that, perhaps some Brother present—perhaps you, Brother Gimblet—will pray a bit for us?&quot; Brother Gimblet undertook the sacred function, after having drawn his sleeve across his mouth, and muttered: &quot;Well! I don’t know as I see my way to hitting any of you quite in the right place neither.&quot; He said this with a dark smile, and then began to bellow. What we were specially to be preserved from, according to his solicitations, was despoilment of the orphan, suppression of testamentary intentions on the part of a Father or (say) Grandfather, appropriation of the orphan’s house-property, feigning to give in charity to the wronged one from whom we withheld his due; and that class of sins. He ended with the petition, &quot;Give us peace!&quot; Which, speaking for myself, was very much needed after twenty minutes of his bellowing. Even though I had not seen him when he rose from his knees, steaming with perspiration, glance at Brother Hawkyard, and even though I had not heard Brother Hawkyard’s tone of congratulating him on the vigor with which he had roared, I should have detected a malicious application in this prayer. Unformed suspicions to a similar effect had sometimes passed through my mind in my earlier school-days, and had always caused me great distress; for they were worldly in their nature, and wide, very wide, of the spirit that had drawn me from Sylvia. They were sordid suspicions, without a shadow of proof. They were worthy to have originated in the unwholesome cellar. They were not only without proof, but against proof. For was I not myself a living proof of what Brother Hawkyard had done? And without him, how should I ever have seen the sky look sorrowfully down upon that wretched boy at Hoghton Towers? Although the dread of a relapse into a stage of savage selfishness was less strong upon me as I approached manhood, and could act in an increased degree for myself, yet I was always on my guard against any tendency to such relapse. After getting these suspicions under my feet, I had been troubled by not being able to like Brother Hawkyard’s manner, or his professed religion. So it came about, that, as I walked back that Sunday evening, I thought it would be an act of reparation for any such injury my struggling thoughts had unwillingly done him, if I wrote, and placed in his hands, before going to College, a full acknowledgment of his goodness to me, and an ample tribute of thanks. It might serve as an implied vindication of him against any dark scandal from a rival Brother and Expounder, or from any other quarter. Accordingly, I wrote the document with much care. I may add with much feeling too, for it affected me as I went on. Having no set studies to pursue, in the brief interval between leaving the Foundation and going to Cambridge, I determined to walk out to his place of business and give it into his own hands. It was a winter afternoon when I tapped at the door of his little counting-house, which was at the farther end of his long, low shop. As I did so (having entered by the back yard, where casks and boxes were taken in, and where there was the inscription, &quot;Private Way to the Counting-house&quot;), a shopman called to me from the counter that he was engaged. &quot;Brother Gimblet&quot; (said the shopman, who was one of the Brotherhood) &quot;is with him.&quot; I thought this all the better for my purpose, and made bold to tap again. They were talking in a low tone, and money was passing, for I heard it being counted out. &quot;Who is it?&quot; asked Brother Hawkyard, sharply. &quot;George Silverman,&quot; I answered, holding the door open. &quot;May I come in?&quot; Both Brothers seemed so astounded to see me that I felt shier than usual. But they looked quite cadaverous in the early gaslight, and perhaps that accidental circumstance exaggerated the expression of their faces. &quot;What is the matter?&quot; asked Brother Hawkyard. &quot;Ay! What is the matter?&quot; asked Brother Gimblet. &quot;Nothing at all,&quot; I said, diffidently producing my document. &quot;I am only the bearer of a letter from myself.&quot; &quot;From yourself, George?&quot; cried Brother Hawkyard. &quot;And to you,&quot; said I. &quot;And to me, George?&quot; He turned paler, and opened it hurriedly; but looking over it, and seeing generally what it was, became less hurried, recovered his color, and said, &quot;Praise the Lord!&quot; &quot;That’s it!&quot; cried Brother Gimblet. &quot;Well put! Amen.&quot; Brother Hawkyard then said, in a livelier strain: &quot;You must know, George, that Brother Gimblet and I are going to make our two businesses one. We are going into partnership. We are settling it now. Brother Gimblet is to take one clear half of the profits (O, yes! And he shall have it, he shall have it to the last farthing!)&quot; &quot;D.V.!&quot; said Brother Gimblet, with his right fist firmly clinched on his right leg. &quot;There is no objection,&quot; pursued Brother Hawkyard, &quot;to my reading this aloud, George?&quot; As it was what I expressly desired should be done, after yesterday’s prayer, I more than readily begged him to read it aloud. He did so, and Brother Gimblet listened with a crabbed smile. &quot;It was in a good hour that I came here,&quot; he said, wrinkling up his eyes. &quot;It was in a good hour, likewise, that I was moved yesterday to depict for the terror of evil-doers a character the direct opposite of Brother Hawkyard’s. But it was the Lord that done it. I felt him at it, while I was perspiring.&quot; After that it was proposed by both of them that I should attend the congregation once more, before my final departure. What my shy reserve would undergo, from being expressly preached at and prayed at, I knew beforehand. But I reflected that it would be for the last time, and that it might add to the weight of my letter. It was well known to the Brothers and Sisters that there was no place taken for me in their Paradise; and if I showed this last token of deference to Brother Hawkyard, notoriously in despite of my own sinful inclinations, it might go some little way in aid of my statement that he had been good to me, and that I was grateful to him. Merely stipulating, therefore, that no express endeavour should be made for my conversion,—which would involve the rolling of several Brothers and Sisters on the floor, declaring that they felt all their sins in a heap on their left side, weighing so many pounds avoirdupois, as I knew from what I had seen of those repulsive mysteries,—I promised. Since the reading of my letter, Brother Gimblet had been at intervals wiping one eye with an end of his spotted blue neckerchief, and grinning to himself. It was, however, a habit that Brother had, to grin in an ugly manner even when expounding. I call to mind a delighted snarl with which he used to detail from the platform the torments reserved for the wicked (meaning all human creation except the Brotherhood), as being remarkably hideous. I left the two to settle their articles of partnership, and count money; and I never saw them again but on the following Sunday. Brother Hawkyard died within two or three years, leaving all he possessed to Brother Gimblet, in virtue of a will dated (as I have been told) that very day. Now I was so far at rest with myself, when Sunday came, knowing that I had conquered my own mistrust, and righted Brother Hawkyard in the jaundiced vision of a rival, that I went, even to that coarse chapel, in a less sensitive state than usual. How could I foresee that the delicate, perhaps the diseased, corner of my mind, where I winced and shrunk when it was touched, or was even approached, would be handled as the theme of the whole proceedings? On this occasion it was assigned to Brother Hawkyard to pray, and to Brother Gimblet to preach. The prayer was to open the ceremonies; the discourse was to come next. Brothers Hawkyard and Gimblet were both on the platform; Brother Hawkyard on his knees at the table, unmusically ready to pray; Brother Gimblet sitting against the wall, grinningly ready to preach. &quot;Let us offer up the sacrifice of prayer, my brothers and sisters and fellow-sinners.&quot; Yes. But it was I who was the sacrifice. It was our poor sinful worldly-minded Brother here present who was wrestled for. The now-opening career of this our unawakened Brother might lead to his becoming a minister of what was called The Church. That was what he looked to. The Church. Not the chapel, Lord. The Church. No rectors, no vicars, no archdeacons, no bishops, no archbishops, in the chapel, but, O Lord! many such in the Church. Protect our sinful Brother from his love of lucre. Cleanse from our unawakened Brother’s breast his sin of worldly-mindedness. The prayer said infinitely more in words, but nothing more to any intelligible effect. Then Brother Gimblet came forward, and took (as I knew he would) the text, &quot;My kingdom is not of this world.&quot; Ah! but whose was, my fellow-sinners? Whose? Why, our Brother’s here present was. The only kingdom he had an idea of was of this world. (&quot;That’s it!&quot; from several of the congregation). What did the woman do when she lost the piece of money? Went and looked for it. What should our Brother do when he lost his way? (&quot;Go and look for it,&quot; from a Sister.) Go and look for it. True. But must he look for it in the right direction, or in the wrong? (&quot;In the right,&quot; from a Brother.) There spake the prophets! He must look for it in the right direction, or he couldn’t find it. But he had turned his back upon the right direction, and he wouldn’t find it. Now, my fellow-sinners, to show you the difference betwixt worldly-mindedness and unworldly-mindedness, betwixt kingdoms not of this world and kingdoms of this world, here was a letter wrote by even our worldly-minded Brother unto Brother Hawkyard. Judge, from hearing of it read, whether Brother Hawkyard was the faithful steward that the Lord had in his mind only t’other day, when, in this very place, he drew you the picter of the unfaithful one; for it was him that done it, not me. Don’t doubt that! Brother Gimblet then grinned and bellowed his way through my composition, and subsequently through an hour. The service closed with a hymn, in which the Brothers unanimously roared, and the Sisters unanimously shrieked, at me, that I by wiles of worldly gain was mocked, and they on waters of sweet love were rocked; that I with Mammon struggled in the dark, while they were floating in a second Ark. I went out from all this with an aching heart and a weary spirit; not because I was quite so weak as to consider these narrow creatures interpreters of the Divine majesty and wisdom; but because I was weak enough to feel as though it were my hard fortune to be misrepresented and misunderstood, when I most tried to subdue any risings of mere worldliness within me, and when I most hoped, that, by dint of trying earnestly, I had succeeded.18680201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._II_George_Silverman_s_Explanation_[Atlantic_Monthly]/1868_02_George_Silvermans_Explanation_No2.pdf
145https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/145No. II, <em>Holiday Romance,</em> 'Romance. From the Pen of Miss Alice Rainbird'Published in <em>Our Young Folks,</em> vol. 4, no. 3 (March 1868), pp. 129-136. Edited by J.T. Trowbridge and Lucy Larcom.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em> <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000052381508">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000052381508</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=03-1868">03-1868</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+John+Gilbert">Illustrated by John Gilbert</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1868-03_No2_Holiday_Romance_Alice_RainbirdDickens, Charles. 'Romance. From the Pen of Miss Alice Rainbird' (March 1868). <em>Holiday Romance. Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;<br /><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-03_No2_Holiday_Romance_Alice_Rainbird">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-03_No2_Holiday_Romance_Alice_Rainbird</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EOur+Young+Folks%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Our Young Folks</em></a>PART II. ROMANCE. FROM THE PEN OF MISS ALICE RAINBIRD* There was once a King, and he had a Queen, and he was the manliest of his sex, and she was the loveliest of hers. The King was, in his private profession, Under Government. The Queen’s father had been a medical man out of town. They had nineteen children, and were always having more. Seventeen of these children took care of the baby, and Alicia, the eldest, took care of them all. Their ages varied from seven years to seven months. Let us now resume our story. One day the king was going to the Office, when he stopped at the fishmonger’s to buy a pound and a half of salmon not too near the tail, which the Queen (who was a careful housekeeper) had requested him to send home. Mr. Pickles, the fishmonger, said, &quot;Certainly, sir, is there any other article, Good morning.&quot; The King went on towards the Office in a melancholy mood; for Quarter Day was such a long way off, and several of the dear children were growing out of their clothes. He had not proceeded far, when Mr. Pickles’s errand-boy came running after him, and said, &quot;Sir, you didn’t notice the old lady in our shop.&quot; &quot;What old lady?&quot; inquired the King. &quot;I saw none.&quot; Now the King had not seen any old lady, because this old lady had been invisible to him, though visible to Mr. Pickles’s boy. Probably because he messed and splashed the water about to that degree, and flopped the pairs of soles down in that violent manner, that, if she had not been visible to him, he would have spoilt her clothes. Just then the old lady came trotting up. She was dressed in shot-silk of the richest quality, smelling of dried lavender. &quot;King Watkins the First, I believe?&quot; said the old lady. &quot;Watkins,&quot; replied the King, &quot;is my name.&quot; &quot;Papa, if I am not mistaken, of the beautiful Princess Alicia?&quot; said the old lady. &quot;And of eighteen other darlings,&quot; replied the king. &quot;Listen. You are going to the Office,&quot; said the old lady. It instantly flashed upon the King that she must be a Fairy, or how could she know that? &quot;You are right,&quot; said the old lady, answering his thoughts, &quot;I am the Good Fairy Grandmarina. Attend! When you return home to dinner, politely invite the Princess Alicia to have some of the salmon you bought just now.&quot; &quot;It may disagree with her,&quot; said the King. The old lady became so very angry at this absurd idea, that the King was quite alarmed, and humbly begged her pardon. &quot;We hear a great deal too much about this thing disagreeing and that thing disagreeing,&quot; said the old lady, with the greatest contempt it was possible to express. &quot;Don’t be greedy. I think you want it all yourself.&quot; The King hung his head under this reproof, and said he wouldn’t talk about things disagreeing, any more. &quot;Be good, then,&quot; said the Fairy Grandmarina, &quot;and don’t. When the beautiful Princess Alicia consents to partake of the salmon—as I think she will—you will find she will leave a fish-bone on her plate. Tell her to dry it, and to rub it, and to polish it till it shines like mother-of-pearl, and to take care of it as a present from me.&quot; &quot;Is that all?&quot; asked the King. &quot;Don’t be impatient, sir,&quot; returned the Fairy Grandmarina, scolding him severely. &quot;Don’t catch people short, before they have done speaking. Just the way with you grown-up persons. You are always doing it.&quot; The King again hung his head, and said he wouldn’t do so any more. &quot;Be good, then,&quot; said the Fairy Grandmarina, &quot;and don’t! Tell the Princess Alicia, with my love, that the fish-bone is a magic present which can only be used once; but that it will bring her, that once, whatever she wishes for, PROVIDED SHE WISHES FOR IT AT THE RIGHT TIME. That is the message. Take care of it.&quot; The King was beginning, &quot;Might I ask the reason—?&quot; When the Fairy became absolutely furious. &quot;Will you be good, sir?&quot; she exclaimed, stamping her foot on the ground. &quot;The reason for this, and the reason for that, indeed! You are always wanting the reason. No reason. There! Hoity toity me! I am sick of your grown-up reasons.&quot; The King was extremely frightened by the old lady’s flying into such a passion, and said he was very sorry to have offended her, and he wouldn’t ask for reasons any more. &quot;Be good, then,&quot; said the old lady, &quot;and don’t!&quot; With those words, Grandmarina vanished, and the King went on and on and on, till he came to the office. There he wrote and wrote and wrote, till it was time to go home again. Then he politely invited the Princess Alicia, as the Fairy had directed him, to partake of the salmon. And when she had enjoyed it very much, he saw the fish-bone on her plate, as the Fairy had told him he would, and he delivered the Fairy’s message, and the Princess Alicia took care to dry the bone, and to rub it, and to polish it till it shone like mother-of-pearl. And so, when the Queen was going to get up in the morning, she said, &quot;O, dear me, dear me, my head, my head!&quot; And then she fainted away. The Princess Alicia, who happened to be looking in at the chamber door, asking about breakfast, was very much alarmed when she saw her Royal Mamma in this state, and she rang the bell for Peggy, — which was the name of the Lord Chamberlain. But remembering where the smelling-bottle was, she climbed on a chair and got it, and after that she climbed on another chair by the bedside and held the smelling-bottle to the Queen’s nose, and after that she jumped down and got some water, and after that she jumped up again and wetted the Queen’s forehead, and, in short, when the Lord Chamberlain came in, that dear old woman said to the little Princess, &quot;What a Trot you are! I couldn’t have done it better myself!&quot; But that was not the worst of the good Queen’s illness. O no! She was very ill indeed, for a long time. The Princess Alicia kept the seventeen young Princes and Princesses quiet, and dressed and undressed and danced the baby, and made the kettle boil, and heated the soup, and swept the hearth, and poured out the medicine, and nursed the Queen, and did all that ever she could, and was as busy busy busy as busy could be. For there were not many servants at that Palace for three reasons; because the King was short of money, because a rise in his office never seemed to come, and because quarter-day was so far off that it looked almost as far off and as little as one of the stars. But on the morning when the Queen fainted away, where was the magic fish-bone? Why, there it was in the Princess Alicia’s pocket. She had almost taken it out to bring the Queen to life again, when she put it back, and looked for the smelling-bottle. After the Queen had come out of her swoon that morning, and was dozing, the Princess Alicia hurried up-stairs to tell a most particular secret to a most particularly confidential friend of hers, who was a Duchess. People did suppose her to be a Doll, but she was really a Duchess, though nobody knew it except the Princess. This most particular secret was the secret about the magic fish-bone, the history of which was well known to the Duchess, because the princess told her everything. The Princess kneeled down by the bed on which the Duchess was lying, full-dressed and wide awake, and whispered the secret to her. The Duchess smiled and nodded. People might have supposed that she never smiled and nodded, but she often did, though nobody knew it except the Princess. Then the Princess Alicia hurried down stairs again, to keep watch in the Queen’s room. She often kept watch by herself in the Queen’s room; but every evening, while the illness lasted, she sat there watching with the King. And every evening the King sat looking at her with a cross look, wondering why she never brought out the magic fish-bone. As often as she noticed this, she ran up stairs, whispered the secret to the Duchess over again, and said to the Duchess besides, &quot;They think we children never have a reason or a meaning!&quot; And the Duchess, though the most fashionable Duchess that ever was heard of, winked her eye. &quot;Alicia,&quot; said the King, one evening when she wished him Good Night. &quot;Yes, Papa.&quot; &quot;What is become of the magic fish-bone?&quot; &quot;In my pocket, Papa!&quot; &quot;I thought you had lost it?&quot; &quot;O no, Papa!&quot; &quot;Or forgotten it?&quot; &quot;No, indeed, Papa.&quot; And so another time the dreadful little snapping pug-dog next door made a rush at one of the young Princes as he stood on the steps coming home from school, and terrified him out of his wits, and he put his hand through a pane of glass, and bled bled bled. When the seventeen other young Princes and Princesses saw him bleed bleed bleed, they were terrified out of their wits too, and screamed themselves black in their seventeen faces all at once. But the Princess Alicia put her hands over all their seventeen mouths, one after another, and persuaded them to be quiet because of the sick Queen. And then she put the wounded Prince’s hand in a basin of fresh cold water, while they stared with their twice seventeen are thirty-four, put down four and carry three eyes, and then she looked in the hand for bits of glass, and there were fortunately no bits of glass there. And then she said to two chubby-legged Princes, who were sturdy though small, &quot;Bring me in the Royal rag-bag; I must snip and stitch and cut and contrive.&quot; So these two young Princes tugged at the Royal rag-bag and lugged it in, and the Princess Alicia sat down on the floor with a large pair of scissors and a needle and thread, and snipped and stitched and cut and contrived, and made a bandage and put it on, and it fitted beautifully, and so when it was all done, she saw the King her Papa looking on by the door. &quot;Alicia.&quot; &quot;Yes, Papa.&quot; &quot;What have you been doing?&quot; &quot;Snipping, stitching, cutting, and contriving, Papa.&quot; &quot;Where is the magic fish-bone?&quot; &quot;In my pocket, Papa.&quot; &quot;I thought you had lost it?&quot; &quot;O no, Papa!&quot; &quot;Or forgotten it?&quot; &quot;No, indeed, Papa!&quot; After that, she ran up stairs to the Duchess and told her what had passed, and told her the secret over again, and the Duchess shook her flaxen curls, and laughed with her rosy lips. Well! and so another time the baby fell under the grate. The seventeen young Princes and Princesses were used to it, for they were almost always falling under the grate or down the stairs, but the baby was not used to it yet, and it gave him a swelled face and a black eye. The way the poor little darling came to tumble was, that he was out of the Princess Alicia’s lap just as she was sitting, in a great coarse apron that quite smothered her, in front of the kitchen fire, beginning to peel the turnips for the broth for dinner; and the way she came to be doing that was, that the King’s cook had run away that morning with her own true love, who was a very tall but very tipsy soldier. Then, the seventeen young Princes and Princesses, who cried at everything that happened, cried and roared. But the Princess Alicia (who couldn’t help crying a little herself) quietly called to them to be still, on account of not throwing back the Queen up stairs, who was fast getting well, and said, &quot;Hold your tongues, you wicked little monkeys, every one of you, while I examine baby!&quot; Then she examined baby, and found that he hadn’t broken anything, and she held cold iron to his poor dear eye, and smoothed his poor dear face, and he presently fell asleep in her arms. Then she said to the seventeen Princes and Princesses, &quot;I am afraid to let him down yet, lest he should wake and feel pain, be good, and you shall all be cooks.&quot; They jumped for joy when they heard that, and began making themselves cooks’ caps out of old newspapers. So to one she gave the salt-box, and to one she gave the barley, and to one she gave the herbs, and to one she gave the turnips, and to one she gave the carrots, and to one she gave the onions, and to one she gave the spice-box, till they were all cooks, and all running about at work, she sitting in the middle, smothered in the great coarse apron, nursing baby. By and by the broth was done, and the baby woke up, smiling like an angel, and was trusted to the sedatest Princess to hold, while the other Princes and Princesses were squeezed into a far-off corner to look at the Princess Alicia turning out the saucepan-full of broth, for fear (as they were always getting into trouble) they should get splashed and scalded. When the broth came tumbling out, steaming beautifully, and smelling like a nosegay good to eat, they clapped their hands. That made the baby clap his hands; and that, and his looking as if he had a comic toothache, made all the Princes and Princesses laugh. So the Princess Alicia said, &quot;Laugh and be good, and after dinner we will make him a nest on the floor in a corner, and he shall sit in his nest and see a dance of eighteen cooks.&quot; That delighted the young Princes and Princesses, and they ate up all the broth, and washed up all the plates and dishes, and cleared away, and pushed the table into a corner, and then they in their cooks’ caps, and the Princess Alicia, in the smothering coarse apron that belonged to the cook that had run away with her own true love that was the very tall but very tipsy soldier, danced a dance of eighteen cooks before the angelic baby, who forgot his swelled face and his black eye, and crowed with joy. And so then, once more the Princess Alicia saw King Watkins the First, her father, standing in the doorway looking on, and he said: &quot;What have you been doing, Alicia?&quot; &quot;Cooking and contriving, Papa.&quot; &quot;What else have you been doing, Alicia?&quot; &quot;Keeping the children light-hearted, Papa.&quot; &quot;Where is the magic fish-bone, Alicia?&quot; &quot;In my pocket, Papa.&quot; &quot;I thought you had lost it?&quot; &quot;O no, Papa!&quot; &quot;Or forgotten it?&quot; &quot;No, indeed, Papa.&quot; The King then sighed so heavily, and seemed so low-spirited, and sat down so miserably, leaning his head upon his hand, and his elbow upon the kitchen table pushed away in the corner, that the seventeen Princes and Princesses crept softly out of the kitchen, and left him alone with the Princess Alicia and the angelic baby. &quot;What is the matter, Papa?&quot; &quot;I am dreadfully poor, my child.&quot; &quot;Have you no money at all, Papa?&quot; &quot;None, my child.&quot; &quot;Is there no way of getting any, Papa?&quot; &quot;No way,&quot; said the King. &quot;I have tried very hard, and I have tried all ways.&quot; When she heard those last words, the Princess Alicia began to put her hand into the pocket where she kept the magic fish-bone. &quot;Papa,&quot; said she, &quot;when we have tried very hard, and tried all ways, we must have done our very very best?&quot; &quot;No doubt, Alicia.&quot; &quot;When we have done our very very best, Papa, and that is not enough, then I think the right time must have come for asking help of others.&quot; This was the very secret connected with the magic fish-bone, which she had found out for herself from the good fairy Grandmarina’s words, and which she had so often whispered to her beautiful and fashionable friend, the Duchess. So she took out of her pocket the magic fish-bone, that had been dried and rubbed and polished till it shone like mother-of-pearl; and she gave it one little kiss, and wished it was quarter-day. And immediately it was Quarter-Day, and the King’s quarter’s salary came rattling down the chimney, and bounced into the middle of the floor. But this was not half of what happened, no, not a quarter, for immediately afterwards the good Fairy Grandmarina came riding in, in a carriage and four (Peacocks), with Mr. Pickles’s boy up behind, dressed in silver and gold, with a cocked-hat, powdered hair, pink silk stockings, a jewelled cane, and a nosegay. Down jumped Mr. Pickles’s boy with his cocked-hat in his hand and wonderfully polite (being entirely changed by enchantment), and handed Grandmarina out, and there she stood, in her rich shot-silk smelling of dried lavender, fanning herself with a sparkling fan. &quot;Alicia, my dear,&quot; said this charming old Fairy, &quot;how do you do, I hope I see you pretty well, give me a kiss.&quot; The Princess Alicia embraced her; and then Grandmarina turned to the King, and said rather sharply: &quot;Are you good?&quot; The King said he hoped so. &quot;I suppose you know the reason, now, why my god-Daughter here,&quot; kissing the Princess again, &quot;did not apply to the fish-bone sooner?&quot; said the Fairy. The King made her a shy bow. &quot;Ah! but you didn’t then!&quot; said the Fairy. The king made her a shyer bow. &quot;Any more reasons to ask for?&quot; said the fairy. The King said no, and he was very sorry. &quot;Be good, then,&quot; said the Fairy, &quot;and live happy ever afterwards.&quot; Then Grandmarina waved her fan, and the Queen came in most splendidly dressed, and the seventeen young Princes and Princesses, no longer grown out of their clothes, came in, newly fitted out from top to toe, with tucks in everything to admit of its being let out. After that, the Fairy tapped the Princess Alicia with her fan, and the smothering coarse apron flew away, and she appeared exquisitely dressed, like a little Bride, with a wreath of orange-flowers and a silver veil. After that, the kitchen dresser changed of itself into a wardrobe, made of beautiful woods and gold and looking-glass, which was full of dresses of all sorts, all for her and all exactly fitting her. After that, the angelic baby came in, running alone, with his face and eye not a bit the worse but much the better. Then Grandmarina begged to be introduced to the Duchess, and, when the Duchess was brought down many compliments passed between them. A little whispering took place between the Fairy and the Duchess, and then the Fairy said out loud, &quot;Yes. I thought she would have told you.&quot; Grandmarina then turned to the King and Queen, and said, &quot;We are going in search of Prince Certainpersonio. The pleasure of your company is requested at church in half an hour precisely.&quot; So she and the Princess Alicia got into the carriage, and Mr. Pickles’s boy handed in the Duchess who sat by herself on the opposite seat, and then Mr. Pickles’s boy put up the steps and got up behind, and the Peacocks flew away with their tails spread. Prince Certainpersonio was sitting by himself, eating barley-sugar and waiting to be ninety. When he saw the Peacocks followed by the carriage, coming in at the window, it immediately occurred to him that something uncommon was going to happen. &quot;Prince,&quot; said Grandmarina, &quot;I bring you your Bride.&quot; The moment the Fairy said those words, Prince Certainpersonio’s face left off being sticky, and his jacket and corduroys changed to peach-bloom velvet, and his hair curled, and a cap and feather flew in like a bird and settled on his head. He got into the carriage by the Fairy’s invitation, and there he renewed his acquaintance with the Duchess whom he had seen before. In the church were the Prince’s relations and friends, and the Princess Alicia’s relations and friends, and the seventeen Princes and Princesses, and the baby, and a crowd of the neighbors. The marriage was beautiful beyond expression. The Duchess was bridesmaid, and beheld the ceremony from the pulpit where she was supported by the cushion of the desk. Grandmarina gave a magnificent wedding feast afterwards, in which there was everything and more to eat, and everything and more to drink. The wedding cake was delicately ornamented with white satin ribbons, frosted silver and white lilies, and was forty-two yards round. When Grandmarina had drunk her love to the young couple, and Prince Certainpersonio had made a speech, and everybody had cried, Hip Hip Hip Hurrah! Grandmarina announced to the King and Queen that in future there would be eight Quarter-Days in every year, except in leap-year, when there would be ten. She then turned to Certainpersonio and Alicia, and said, &quot;My dears, you will have thirty-five children, and they will all be good and beautiful. Seventeen of your children will be boys, and eighteen will be girls. The hair of the whole of your children will curl naturally. They will never have the measles, and will have recovered from the whooping-cough before being born.&quot; On hearing such good news, everybody cried out &quot;Hip Hip Hip Hurrah!&quot; again. &quot;It only remains,&quot; said Grandmarina in conclusion, &quot;to make an end of the fish-bone.&quot; So she took it from the hand of the Princess Alicia, and it instantly flew down the throat of the dreadful little snapping pug-dog, next door and choked him, and he expired in convulsions. *Aged Seven.18680301https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._II_Holiday_Romance_Romance._From_the_Pen_of_Miss_Alice_Rainbird/1868-03_No2_Holiday_Romance_Alice_Rainbird.pdf
142https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/142No. III, 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>Atlantic Monthly</em>)Published in the <em>Atlantic Monthly, </em>vol. 21 (March 1868), pp. 277-283.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust</em>, <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b000555786">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b000555786</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1868-03">1868-03</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=50&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=No.III+%27George+Silverman%27s+Explanation%27+%28%3Cem%3EATYR%3C%2Fem%3E%29">No.III 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>ATYR</em>)</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1868-03_George_Silvermans_Explanation_3Dickens, Charles. 'George Silverman's Explanation' (January 1868). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-03_George_Silvermans_Explanation_3">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-03_George_Silvermans_Explanation_3</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAtlantic+Monthly%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Atlantic Monthly</em></a>SEVENTH CHAPTER. MY timidity and my obscurity occasioned me to live a secluded life at College, and to be little known. No relative ever came to visit me, for I had no relative. No intimate friends broke in upon my studies, for I made no intimate friends. I supported myself on my scholarship, and read much. My College time was otherwise not so very different from my time at Hoghton Towers. Knowing myself to be unfit for the noisier stir of social existence, but believing myself qualified to do my duty in a moderate though earnest way, if I could obtain some small preferment in the Church, I applied my mind to the clerical profession. In due sequence I took orders, was ordained, and began to look about me for employment. I must observe that I had taken a good degree, that I had succeeded in winning a good fellowship, and that my means were ample for my retired way of life. By this time I had read with several young men, and the occupation increased my income, while it was highly interesting to me. I once accidentally overheard our greatest Don say, to my boundless joy, &quot;That he heard it reported of Silverman that his gift of quiet explanation, his patience, his amiable temper, and his conscientiousness made him the best of coaches.&quot; May my &quot;gift of quiet explanation&quot; come more seasonably and powerfully to my aid in this present explanation than I think it will! It may be, in a certain degree, owing to the situation of my College rooms (in a corner where the daylight was sobered), but it is in a much larger degree referable to the state of my own mind, that I seem to myself, on looking back to this time of my life, to have been always in the peaceful shade. I can see others in the sunlight; I can see our boats’ crews and our athletic young men on the glistening water, or speckled with the moving lights of sunlit leaves; but I myself am always in the shadow looking on. Not unsympathetically,—GOD forbid!—but looking on, alone, much as I looked at Sylvia from the shadows of the ruined house, or looked at the red gleam shining through the farmer’s windows, and listened to the fall of dancing feet, when all the ruin was dark that night in the quadrangle. I now come to the reason of my quoting that laudation of myself above given. Without such reason, to repeat it would have been mere boastfulness. Among those who had read with me was Mr. Fareway, second son of Lady Fareway, widow of Sir Gaston Fareway, Baronet. This young gentleman’s abilities were much above the average, but he came of a rich family, and was idle and luxurious. He presented himself to me too late, and afterwards came to me too irregularly, to admit of my being of much service to him. In the end I considered it my duty to dissuade him from going up for an examination which he could never pass, and he left College without taking a degree. After his departure, Lady Fareway wrote to me representing the justice of my returning half my fee, as I had been of so little use to her son. Within my knowledge a similar demand had not been made in any other case, and I most freely admit that the justice of it had not occurred to me until it was pointed out. But I at once perceived it, yielded to it, and returned the money. Mr. Fareway had been gone two years or more and I had forgotten him, when he one day walked into my rooms as I was sitting at my books. Said he, after the usual salutations had passed: &quot;Mr. Silverman, my mother is in town here, at the hotel, and wishes me to present you to her.&quot; I was not comfortable with strangers, and I dare say I betrayed that I was a little nervous or unwilling. &quot;For,&quot; said he, without my having spoken, &quot;I think the interview may tend to the advancement of your prospects.&quot; It put me to the blush to think that I should be tempted by a worldly reason, and I rose immediately. Said Mr. Fareway, as we went along, &quot;Are you a good hand at business?&quot; &quot;I think not,&quot; said I. Said Mr. Fareway then, &quot;My mother is.&quot; &quot;Truly?&quot; said I. &quot;Yes. My mother is what is usually called a managing woman. Doesn’t make a bad thing, for instance, even out of the spendthrift habits of my eldest brother abroad. In short, a managing woman. This is in confidence.&quot; He had never spoken to me in confidence, and I was surprised by his doing so. I said I should respect his confidence, of course, and said no more on the delicate subject. We had but a little way to walk, and I was soon in his mother’s company. He presented me, shook hands with me, and left us two (as he said) to business. I saw in my Lady Fareway a handsome, well-preserved lady of somewhat large stature, with a steady glare in her great round dark eyes that embarrassed me. Said my Lady: &quot;I have heard from my son, Mr. Silverman, that you would be glad of some preferment in the Church.&quot; I gave my lady to understand that was so. &quot;I don’t know whether you are aware,&quot; my Lady proceeded, &quot;that we have a presentation to a living? I say we have; but, in point of fact, I have.&quot; I gave my Lady to understand that I had not been aware of this. Said my Lady: &quot;So it is. Indeed, I have two presentations: one, to two hundred a year; one to six. Both livings are in our county,—North Devonshire, as you probably know. The first is vacant. Would you like it?&quot; What with my Lady’s eyes, and what with the suddenness of this proposed gift, I was much confused. &quot;I am sorry it is not the larger presentation,&quot; said my Lady, rather coldly; &quot;though I will not, Mr. Silverman, pay you the bad compliment of supposing that you are, because that would be mercenary,—and mercenary I am persuaded you are not.&quot; Said I, with my utmost earnestness: &quot;Thank you, Lady Fareway, thank you, thank you! I should be deeply hurt if I thought I bore the character.&quot; &quot;Naturally,&quot; said my Lady. &quot;Always detestable, but particularly in a clergyman. You have not said whether you will like the Living?&quot; With apologies for my remissness or indistinctness, I assured my Lady that I accepted it most readily and gratefully. I added that I hoped she would not estimate my appreciation of the generosity of her choice by my flow of words, for I was not a ready man in that respect when taken by surprise or touched at heart. &quot;The affair is concluded,&quot; said my Lady. &quot;Concluded. You will find the duties very light, Mr. Silverman. Charming house; charming little garden, orchard, and all that. You will be able to take pupils. By the bye! No. I will return to the word afterwards. What was I going to mention, when it put me out?&quot; My Lady stared at me, as if I knew. And I didn’t know. And that perplexed me afresh. Said my Lady, after some consideration, &quot;Oh! Of course. How very dull of me! The last incumbent,—least mercenary man I ever saw,—in consideration of the duties being so light and the house so delicious, couldn’t rest, he said, unless I permitted him to help me with my correspondence, accounts, and various little things of that kind; nothing in themselves, but which it worries a lady to cope with. Would Mr. Silverman also like to—? Or shall I—?&quot; I hastened to say that my poor help would be always at her ladyship’s service. &quot;I am absolutely blessed,&quot; said my Lady, casting up her eyes (and so taking them off me for one moment), &quot;in having to do with gentlemen who cannot endure an approach to the idea of being mercenary!&quot; She shivered at the word. &quot;And now as to the pupil.&quot; &quot;The—?&quot; I was quite at a loss. &quot;Mr. Silverman, you have no idea what she is. She is,&quot; said my Lady, laying her touch upon my coat-sleeve, &quot;I do verily believe, the most extraordinary girl in this world. Already knows more Greek and Latin than Lady Jane Grey. And taught herself! Has not yet, remember, derived a moment’s advantage from Mr. Silverman’s classical acquirements. To say nothing of mathematics, which she is bent upon becoming versed in, and in which (as I hear from my son and others) Mr. Silverman’s reputation is so deservedly high!&quot; Under my Lady’s eyes I must have lost the clew, I felt persuaded; and yet I did not know where I could have dropped it. &quot;Adelina,&quot; said my Lady, &quot;is my only daughter. If I did not feel quite convinced that I am not blinded by a mother’s partiality; unless I was absolutely sure that when you know her, Mr. Silverman, you will esteem it a high and unusual privilege to direct her studies,—I should introduce a mercenary element into this conversation, and ask you on what terms—&quot; I entreated my Lady to go no further. My Lady saw that I was troubled, and did me the honour to comply with my request. EIGHTH CHAPTER. Everything in mental acquisition that her brother might have been, if he would, and everything in all gracious charms and admirable qualities that no one but herself could be,—this was Adelina. I will not expatiate upon her beauty. I will not expatiate upon her intelligence, her quickness of perception, her powers of memory, her sweet consideration from the first moment for the slow-paced tutor who ministered to her wonderful gifts. I was thirty then; I am over sixty now; she is ever present to me in these hours as she was in those, bright and beautiful and young, wise and fanciful and good. When I discovered that I loved her, how can I say? In the first day? In the first week? In the first month? Impossible to trace. If I be (as I am) unable to represent to myself any previous period of my life as quite separable from her attracting power, how can I answer for this one detail? Whensoever I made the discovery, it laid a heavy burden on me. And yet, comparing it with the far heavier burden that I afterwards took up, it does not seem to me now to have been very hard to bear. In the knowledge that I did love her, and that I should love her while my life lasted, and that I was ever to hide my secret deep in my own breast, and she was never to find it, there was a kind of sustaining joy or pride or comfort mingled with my pain. But later on,—say, a year later on,—when I made another discovery, then indeed my suffering and my struggle were strong. That other discovery was—? These words will never see the light, if ever, until my heart is dust; until her bright spirit has returned to the regions of which, when imprisoned here, it surely retained some unusual glimpse of remembrance; until all the pulses that ever beat around us shall have long been quiet; until all the fruits of all the tiny victories and defeats achieved in our little breasts shall have withered away. That discovery was, that she loved me. She may have enhanced my knowledge, and loved me for that; she may have over-valued my discharge of duty to her, and loved me for that; she may have refined upon a playful compassion which she would sometimes show for what she called my want of wisdom according to the light of the world’s dark lanterns, and loved me for that; she may—she must—have confused the borrowed light of what I had only learned, with its brightness in its pure, original rays; but she loved me at that time, and she made me know it. Pride of family and pride of wealth put me as far off from her in my Lady’s eyes as if I had been some domesticated creature of another kind. But they could not put me farther from her than I put myself when I set my merits against hers. More than that. They could not put me, by millions of fathoms, half so low beneath her as I put myself when in imagination I took advantage of her noble trustfulness, took the fortune that I knew she must possess in her own right, and left her to find herself, in the zenith of her beauty and genius, bound to poor rusty, plodding Me. No. Worldliness should not enter here, at any cost. If I had tried to keep it out of other ground, how much harder was I bound to try to keep it from this sacred place! But there was something daring in her broad generous character that demanded at so delicate a crisis to be delicately and patiently addressed. After many and many a bitter night (O, I found I could cry for reasons not purely physical, at this pass of my life!) I took my course. My Lady had in our first interview unconsciously overstated the accommodation of my pretty house. There was room in it for only one pupil. He was a young gentleman near coming of age, very well connected, but what is called a poor relation. His parents were dead. The charges of his living and reading with me were defrayed by an uncle, and he and I were to do our utmost together for three years towards qualifying him to make his way. At this time he had entered into his second year with me. He was well-looking, clever, energetic, enthusiastic, bold; in the best sense of the term, a thorough young Anglo-Saxon. I resolved to bring these two together. NINTH CHAPTER. Said I, one night, when I had conquered myself, &quot;Mr. Granville,&quot;—Mr. Granville Wharton his name was,—&quot;I doubt if you have ever yet so much as seen Miss Fareway.&quot; &quot;Well, sir,&quot; returned he, laughing, &quot;you see her so much yourself, that you hardly leave another fellow a chance of seeing her.’&quot; &quot;I am her tutor, you know,&quot; said I. And there the subject dropped for that time. But I so contrived as that they should come together shortly afterwards. I had previously so contrived as to keep them asunder, for while I loved her,—I mean before I had determined on my sacrifice,—a lurking jealousy of Mr. Granville lay within my unworthy breast. It was quite an ordinary interview in the Fareway Park; but they talked easily together for some time: like takes to like, and they had many points of resemblance. Said Mr. Granville to me, when he and I sat at our supper that night: &quot;Miss Fareway is remarkably beautiful, sir, and remarkably engaging. Don’t you think so?&quot; &quot;I think so,&quot; said I. And I stole a glance at him, and saw that he had reddened and was thoughtful. I remember it most vividly, because the mixed feeling of grave pleasure and acute pain that the slight circumstance caused me was the first of a long, long series of such mixed impressions under which my hair turned slowly gray. I had not much need to feign to be subdued, but I counterfeited to be older than I was in all respects (Heaven knows, my heart being all too young the while!), and feigned to be more of a recluse and bookworm than I had really become, and gradually set up more and more of a fatherly manner towards Adelina. Likewise, I made my tuition less imaginative than before; separated myself from my poets and philosophers; was careful to present them in their own light, and me, their lowly servant, in my own shade. Moreover, in the matter of apparel I was equally mindful. Not that I had ever been dapper that way, but that I was slovenly now. As I depressed myself with one hand, so did I labour to raise Mr. Granville with the other; directing his attention to such subjects as I too well knew interested her, and fashioning him (do not deride or misconstrue the expression, unknown reader of this writing, for I have suffered!) into a greater resemblance to myself in my solitary one strong aspect. And gradually, gradually, as I saw him take more and more to these thrown-out lures of mine, then did I come to know better and better that love was drawing him on, and was drawing Her from me. So passed more than another year; every day a year in its number of my mixed impressions of grave pleasure and acute pain; and then, these two, being of age and free to act legally for themselves, came before me hand in hand (my hair being now quite white), and entreated me that I would unite them together. &quot;And indeed, dear Tutor,&quot; said Adelina, &quot;it is but consistent in you that you should do this thing for us, seeing that we should never have spoken together that first time but for you, and that but for you we could never have met so often afterwards.&quot; The whole of which was literally true, for I had availed myself of my many business attendances on, and conferences with, my Lady, to take Mr. Granville to the house, and leave him in the outer room with Adelina. I knew that my Lady would object to such a marriage for her daughter, or to any marriage that was other than an exchange of her for stipulated lands, goods, and moneys. But, looking on the two, and seeing with full eyes that they were both young and beautiful; and knowing that they were alike in the tastes and acquirements that will outlive youth and beauty; and considering that Adelina had a fortune now, in her own keeping; and considering further that Mr. Granville, though for the present poor, was of a good family that had never lived in a cellar in Preston; and believing that their love would endure, neither having any great discrepancy to find out in the other,—I told them of my readiness to do this thing which Adelina asked of her dear Tutor, and to send them forth, Husband and Wife, into the shining world with golden gates that awaited them. It was on a summer morning that I rose before the sun, to compose myself for the crowning of my work with this end. And my dwelling being near to the sea, I walked down to the rocks on the shore, in order that I might behold the sun in his majesty. The tranquillity upon the Deep and on the firmament, the orderly withdrawal of the stars, the calm promise of coming day, the rosy suffusion of the sky and waters, the ineffable splendor that then burst forth, attuned my mind afresh after the discords of the night. Methought that all I looked on said to me, and that all I heard in the sea and in the air said to me, &quot;Be comforted, mortal, that thy life is so short. Our preparation for what is to follow has endured, and shall endure, for unimaginable ages.&quot; I married them. I knew that my hand was cold when I placed it on their hands clasped together; but the words with which I had to accompany the action I could say without faltering, and I was at peace. They being well away from my house and from the place, after our simple breakfast, the time was come when I must do what I had pledged myself to them that I would do,—break the intelligence to my Lady. I went up to the house, and found my Lady in her ordinary business-room. She happened to have an unusual amount of commissions to intrust to me that day, and she had filled my hands with papers before I could originate a word. &quot;My Lady,&quot; — I then began, as I stood beside her table. &quot;Why, what’s the matter?&quot; she said quickly, looking up. &quot;Not much, I would fain hope, after you shall have prepared yourself, and considered a little.&quot; &quot;Prepared myself! And considered a little! You appear to have prepared yourself but indifferently, anyhow, Mr. Silverman.&quot; This, mighty scornfully, as I experienced my usual embarrassment under her stare. Said I, in self-extenuation, once for all: &quot;Lady Fareway, I have but to say for myself that I have tried to do my duty.&quot; &quot;For yourself?&quot; repeated my Lady. &quot;Then there are others concerned, I see. Who are they?&quot; I was about to answer, when she made towards the bell with a dart that stopped me, and said, &quot;Why, where is Adelina?&quot; &quot;Forbear! be calm, my Lady. I married her this morning to Mr. Granville Wharton.&quot; She set her lips, looked more intently at me than ever, raised her right hand, and smote me hard upon the cheek. &quot;Give me back those papers! give me back those papers!&quot; She tore them out of my hands and tossed them on her table. Then seating herself defiantly in her great chair, and folding her arms, she stabbed me to the heart with the unlooked-for reproach: &quot;You worldly wretch!&quot; &quot;Worldly?&quot; I cried. &quot;Worldly!&quot; &quot;This, if you please,&quot; she went on with supreme scorn, pointing me out as if there were some one there to see—&quot;this, if you please, is the disinterested scholar, with not a design beyond his books! This, if you please, is the simple creature whom any one could overreach in a bargain! This, if you please, is Mr. Silverman! Not of this world, not he! He has too much simplicity for this world’s cunning. He has too much singleness of purpose to be a match for this world’s double-dealing. What did he give you for it?&quot; &quot;For what? And who?&quot; &quot;How much,&quot; she asked, bending forward in her great chair, and insultingly tapping the fingers of her right hand on the palm of her left,—&quot;how much does Mr. Granville Wharton pay you for getting him Adelina’s money? What is the amount of your percentage upon Adelina’s fortune? What were the terms of the agreement that you proposed to this boy when you, the Reverend George Silverman, licensed to marry, engaged to put him in possession of this girl? You made good terms for yourself, whatever they were. He would stand a poor chance against your keenness.&quot; Bewildered, horrified, stunned by this cruel perversion, I could not speak. But I trust that I looked innocent, being so. &quot;Listen to me, shrewd hypocrite,&quot; said my Lady, whose anger increased as she gave it utterance, &quot;Attend to my words, you cunning schemer, who have carried this plot through with such a practised double face that I have never suspected you. I had my projects for my daughter; projects for family connection; projects for fortune. You have thwarted them, and overreached me; but I am not one to be thwarted and overreached without retaliation. Do you mean to hold this living another month?&quot; &quot;Do you deem it possible, Lady Fareway, that I can hold it another hour, under your injurious words?&quot; &quot;Is it resigned, then?&quot; &quot;It was mentally resigned, my Lady, some minutes ago.&quot; &quot;Don’t equivocate, sir. Is it resigned?&quot; &quot;Unconditionally and entirely. And I would that I had never, never come near it!&quot; &quot;A cordial response from me to that wish, Mr. Silverman! But take this with you, sir. If you had not resigned it, I would have had you deprived of it. And though you have resigned it, you will not get quit of me as easily as you think for. I will pursue you with this story. I will make this nefarious conspiracy of yours, for money, known. You have made money by it, but you have at the same time made an enemy by it. You will take good care that the money sticks to you; I will take good care that the enemy sticks to you.&quot; Then said I finally, &quot;Lady Fareway, I think my heart is broken. Until I came into this room just now, the possibility of such mean wickedness as you have imputed to me never dawned upon my thoughts. Your suspicions—&quot; &quot;Suspicions! Pah!&quot; said she indignantly. &quot;Certainties.&quot; &quot;Your certainties, my Lady, as you call them, your suspicions, as I call them, are cruel, unjust, wholly devoid of foundation in fact. I can declare no more, except that I have not acted for my own profit or my own pleasure. I have not in this proceeding considered myself. Once again, I think my heart is broken. If I have unwittingly done any wrong with a righteous motive, that is some penalty to pay.&quot; She received this with another and more indignant &quot;Pah!&quot; and I made my way out of her room (I think I felt my way out with my hands, although my eyes were open), almost suspecting that my voice had a repulsive sound, and that I was a repulsive object. There was a great stir made, the Bishop was appealed to, I received a severe reprimand, and narrowly escaped suspension. For years a cloud hung over me, and my name was tarnished. But my heart did not break, if a broken heart involves death; for I lived through it. They stood by me, Adelina and her husband, through it all. Those who had known me at College, and even most of those who had only known me there by reputation, stood by me too. Little by little, the belief widened that I was not capable of what was laid to my charge. At length I was presented to a College-Living in a sequestered place, and there I now pen my Explanation. I pen it at my open window in the summer-time, before me, lying in the churchyard, equal resting-place for sound hearts, wounded hearts, and broken hearts. I pen it for the relief of my own mind, not foreseeing whether or no it will ever have a reader.18680301https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._III_George_Silverman_s_Explanation_[Atlantic_Monthly]/1868-03_George_Silvermans_Explanation_No.3.pdf
146https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/146No. III, <em>Holiday Romance</em>, 'Romance. From the Pen of Lieutenant-Colonel Robin Redforth'Published in <em>Our Young Folks,</em> vol.4, no. 1 (March 1868), pp. 193-200. Edited by J.T. Trowbridge and Lucy Larcom.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em> <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/pt?id=pst.000052381508">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/pt?id=pst.000052381508</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=03-1868">03-1868</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+John+Gilbert">Illustrated by John Gilbert</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1868-03_No3_Holiday_Romance_Lieut_Col_Robin_RedforthDickens, Charles. 'Romance. From the Pen of Lieutenant-Colonel Robin Redforth' (March 1868). <em>Holiday Romance. Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868_03_No3_Holiday_Romance_Lieut_Col_Robin_Redforth">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868_03_No3_Holiday_Romance_Lieut_Col_Robin_Redforth</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EOur+Young+Folks%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Our Young Folks</em></a>PART III. ROMANCE. FROM THE PEN OF LIEUT.-COL. ROBIN REDFORTH* The subject of our present narrative would appear to have devoted himself to the Pirate profession at a comparatively early age. We find him in command of a splendid schooner of one hundred guns loaded to the muzzle, ere yet he had had a party in honor of his tenth birthday. It seems that our hero, considering himself spited by a Latin-Grammar-Master, demanded the satisfaction due from one man of honor to another. Not getting it, he privately withdrew his haughty spirit from such low company, bought a second-hand pocket-pistol, folded up some sandwiches in a paper bag, made a bottle of Spanish liquorice-water, and entered on a career of valor. It were tedious to follow Boldheart (for such was his name) through the commencing stages of his story. Suffice it that we find him bearing the rank of Captain Boldheart, reclining in full uniform on a crimson hearth-rug spread out upon the quarter-deck of his schooner the Beauty, in the China Seas. It was a lovely evening, and as his crew lay grouped about him, he favored them with the following melody: — O landsmen are folly! O Pirates are jolly! O Diddleum Dolly, Di! (Chorus.) Heave yo. The soothing effect of these animated sounds floating over the waters, as the common sailors united their rough voices to take up the rich tones of Boldheart, may be more easily conceived than described. It was under these circumstances that the lookout at the mast-head gave the word, &quot;Whales!&quot; All was now activity. &quot;Where away?&quot; cried Captain Boldheart, starting up. &quot;On the larboard bow, sir,&quot; replied the fellow at the mast-head, touching his hat. For such was the height of discipline on board the Beauty, that even at that height he was obliged to mind it or be shot through the head. &quot;This adventure belongs to me,&quot; said Boldheart. &quot;Boy, my harpoon. Let no man follow&quot;; and leaping alone into his boat, the Captain rowed with admirable dexterity in the direction of the monster. All was now excitement. &quot;He nears him!&quot; said an elderly seaman, following the Captain through his spy-glass. &quot;He strikes him!&quot; said another seaman, a mere stripling, but also with a spy-glass. &quot;He tows him towards us!&quot; said another seaman, a man in the full vigor of life, but also with a spy-glass. In fact, the Captain was seen approaching, with the huge bulk following. We will not dwell on the deafening cries of &quot;Boldheart! Boldheart!&quot; with which he was received, when, carelessly leaping on the quarter-deck, he presented his prize to his men. They afterwards made two thousand four hundred and seventeen pound ten and sixpence by it. Ordering the sails to be braced up, the Captain now stood W.N.W. The Beauty flew rather than floated over the dark blue waters. Nothing particular occurred for a fortnight, except taking, with considerable slaughter, four Spanish galleons, and a Snow from South America, all richly laden. Inaction began to tell upon the spirits of the men. Captain Boldheart called all hands aft, and said, &quot;My lads, I hear there are discontented ones among ye. Let any such stand forth.&quot; After some murmuring, in which the expressions, &quot;Ay, ay, sir,&quot; &quot;Union Jack,&quot; &quot;Avast,&quot; &quot;Starboard,&quot; &quot;Port,&quot; &quot;Bowsprit,&quot; and similar indications of a mutinous undercurrent, though subdued were audible, Bill Boozey, captain of the foretop, came out from the rest. His form was that of a giant, but he quailed under the Captain’s eye. &quot;What are your wrongs?&quot; said the Captain. &quot;Why, d’ye see, Captain Boldheart,&quot; returned the towering mariner, &quot;I’ve sailed man and boy for many a year, but I never yet know’d the milk served out for the ship’s company’s teas to be so sour as ‘t is aboard this craft.&quot; At this moment the thrilling cry, &quot;Man overboard!&quot; announced to the astonished crew that Boozey, in stepping back as the Captain (in mere thoughtfulness) laid his hand upon the faithful pocket-pistol which he wore in his belt, had lost his balance, and was struggling with the foaming tide. All was now stupefaction. But with Captain Boldheart, to throw off his uniform coat regardless of the various rich orders with which it was decorated, and to plunge into the sea after the drowning giant, was the work of a moment. Maddening was the excitement when boats were lowered; intense the joy when the Captain was seen holding up the drowning man with his teeth; deafening the cheering when both were restored to the main deck of the Beauty. And from the instant of his changing his wet clothes for dry ones, Captain Boldheart had no such devoted though humble friend as William Boozey. Boldheart now pointed to the horizon, and called the attention of his crew to the taper spars of a ship lying snug in harbor under the guns of a fort. &quot;She shall be ours at sunrise,&quot; said he. &quot;Serve out a double allowance of grog, and prepare for action.&quot; All was now preparation. When morning dawned after a sleepless night, it was seen that the stranger was crowding on all sail to come out of the harbor and offer battle. As the two ships came nearer to each other, the stranger fired a gun and hoisted Roman colors. Boldheart then perceived her to be the Latin-Grammar Master’s bark. Such indeed she was, and had been tacking about the world in unavailing pursuit, from the time of his first taking to a roving life. Boldheart now addressed his men, promising to blow them up, if he should feel convinced that their reputation required it, and giving orders that the Latin-Grammar-Master should be taken alive. He then dismissed them to their quarters, and the fight began with a broadside from the Beauty. She then veered round and poured in another. The Scorpion (so was the bark of the Latin-Grammar-Master appropriately called) was not slow to return her fire, and a terrific cannonading ensued, in which the guns of the Beauty did tremendous execution. The Latin-Grammar-Master was seen upon the poop in the midst of the smoke and fire, encouraging his men. To do him justice, he was no Craven, though his white hat, his short gray trousers, and his long snuff-colored surtout reaching to his heels, — the self-same coat in which he had spited Boldheart, — contrasted most unfavorably with the brilliant uniform of the latter. At this moment Boldheart, seizing a pike and putting himself at the head of his men, gave the word to board. A desperate conflict ensued in the hammock-nettings,—or somewhere in about that direction,—until the Latin-Grammar-Master, having all his masts gone, his hull and rigging shot through and through, and seeing Boldheart slashing a path towards him, hauled down his flag himself, gave up his sword to Boldheart, and asked for quarter. Scarce had he been put into the captain’s boat, ere the Scorpion went down with all on board. On Captain Boldheart’s now assembling his men, a circumstance occurred. He found it necessary with one blow of his cutlass to kill the Cook, who, having lost his brother in the late action, was making at the Latin-Grammar-Master in an infuriated state, intent on his destruction with a carving-knife. Captain Boldheart then turned to the Latin-Grammar-Master, severely reproaching him with his perfidy, and put it to his crew what they considered that a master who spited a boy deserved? They answered with one voice, &quot;Death.&quot; &quot;It may be so,&quot; said the Captain, &quot;but it shall never be said that Boldheart stained his hour of triumph with the blood of his enemy. Prepare the cutter.&quot; The cutter was immediately prepared. &quot;Without taking your life,&quot; said the Captain, &quot;I must yet for ever deprive you of the power of spiting other boys. I shall turn you adrift in this boat. You will find in her two oars, a compass, a bottle of rum, a small cask of water, a piece of pork, a bag of biscuit, and my Latin grammar. Go! And spite the Natives, if you can find any.&quot; Deeply conscious of this bitter sarcasm, the unhappy wretch was put into the cutter and was soon left far behind. He made no effort to row, but was seen lying on his back with his legs up, when last made out by the ship’s telescopes. A stiff breeze now beginning to blow, Captain Boldheart gave orders to keep her S.S.W., easing her a little during the night by falling off a point or two W. by W., or even by W.S., if she complained much. He then retired for the night, having in truth much need of repose. In addition to the fatigues he had undergone, this brave officer had received sixteen wounds in the engagement, but had not mentioned it. In the morning a white squall came on, and was succeeded by other squalls of various colors. It thundered and lightened heavily for six weeks. Hurricanes then set in for two months. Waterspouts and tornadoes followed. The oldest sailor on board—and he was a very old one—had never seen such weather. The Beauty lost all idea where she was, and the carpenter reported six feet two of water in the hold. Everybody fell senseless at the pumps every day. Provisions now ran very low. Our hero put the crew on short allowance, and put himself on shorter allowance than any man in the ship. But his spirit kept him fat. In this extremity, the gratitude of Boozey, the captain of the foretop whom our readers may remember, was truly affecting. The loving though lowly William repeatedly requested to be killed, and preserved for the Captain’s table. We now approach a change of affairs. One day during a gleam of sunshine and when the weather had moderated, the man at the mast-head—too weak now to touch his hat, besides its having been blown away—called out, &quot;Savages!&quot; All was now expectation. Presently fifteen hundred canoes, each paddled by twenty savages, were seen advancing in excellent order. They were of a light green colour (the Savages were), and sang, with great energy, the following strain: — Choo a choo a choo tooth. Muntch, muntch. Nycey! Choo a choo a choo tooth. Muntch, muntch. Nyce! As the shades of night were by this time closing in, these expressions were supposed to embody this simple people’s views of the Evening Hymn. But it too soon appeared that the song was a translation of &quot;For what we are going to receive,&quot; &amp;c. The chief, imposingly decorated with feathers of lively colors, and having the majestic appearance of a fighting Parrot, no sooner understood (he understood English perfectly) that the ship was the Beauty, Captain Boldheart, than he fell upon his face on the deck, and could not be persuaded to rise until the Captain had lifted him up, and told him he wouldn’t hurt him. All the rest of the savages also fell on their faces with marks of terror, and had also to be lifted up one by one. Thus the fame of the great Boldheart had gone before him, even among these children of nature. Turtles and oysters were now produced in astonishing numbers, and on these and yams the people made a hearty meal. After dinner the Chief told Captain Boldheart that there was better feeding up at the village, and that he would be glad to take him and his officers there. Apprehensive of treachery, Boldheart ordered his boat’s crew to attend him completely armed. And well were it for other commanders if their precautions, but let us not anticipate. When the canoes arrived at the beach, the darkness of the night was illumined by the light of an immense fire. Ordering his boat’s crew (with the intrepid though illiterate William at their head) to keep close and be upon their guard, Boldheart bravely went on, arm in arm with the Chief. But how to depict the Captain’s surprise when he found a ring of savages singing in chorus that barbarous translation of &quot;For what we are going to receive,&quot; &amp;c., which has been given above, and dancing hand in hand round the Latin-Grammar- Master, in a hamper with his head shaved, while two savages floured him, before putting him to the fire to be cooked! Boldheart now took counsel with his officers on the course to be adopted. In the mean time the miserable captive never ceased begging pardon and imploring to be delivered. On the generous Boldheart’s proposal, it was at length resolved that he should not be cooked, but should be allowed to remain raw, on two conditions. Namely, 1. That he should never under any circumstances presume to teach any boy anything any more. 2. That, if taken back to England, he should pass his life in travelling to find out boys who wanted their exercises done, and should do their exercises for those boys for nothing, and never say a word about it. Drawing the sword from its sheath, Boldheart swore him to these conditions on its shining blade. The prisoner wept bitterly, and appeared acutely to feel the errors of his past career. The Captain then ordered his boat’s crew to make ready for a volley, and after firing to re-load quickly. &quot;And expect a score or two on ye to go head over heels,&quot; murmured William Boozey, &quot;for I’m a-looking at ye.&quot; With those words, the derisive though deadly William took a good aim. &quot;Fire!&quot; The ringing voice of Boldheart was lost in the report of the guns and the screeching of the savages. Volley after volley awakened the numerous echoes. Hundreds of savages were killed, hundreds wounded, and thousands ran howling into the woods. The Latin-Grammar-Master had a spare nightcap lent him, and a long-tail coat which he wore hind side before. He presented a ludicrous though pitiable appearance, and serve him right. We now find Captain Boldheart with this rescued wretch on board, standing off for other islands. At one of these, not a cannibal island but a pork and vegetable one, he married (only in fun on his part) the King’s daughter. Here he rested some time, receiving from the natives great quantities of precious stones, gold dust, elephants’ teeth, and sandal wood, and getting very rich. This, too, though he almost every day made presents of enormous value to his men. The ship being at length as full as she could hold of all sorts of valuable things, Boldheart gave orders to weigh the anchor, and turn the Beauty’s head towards England. These orders were obeyed with three cheers, and ere the sun went down full many a hornpipe had been danced on deck by the uncouth though agile William. We next find Captain Boldheart about three leagues off Madeira, surveying through his spy-glass a stranger of suspicious appearance making sail towards him. On his firing a gun ahead of her to bring her to, she ran up a flag, which he instantly recognized as the flag from the mast in the back garden at home. Inferring, from this, that his father had put to sea to seek his long-lost son, the Captain sent his own boat on board the stranger, to inquire if this was so, and, if so, whether his father’s intentions were strictly honorable. The boat came back with a present of greens and fresh meat, and reported that the stranger was The Family, of twelve hundred tons, and had not only the Captain’s father on board, but also his mother, with the majority of his aunts and uncles, and all his cousins. It was further reported to Boldheart that the whole of these relations had expressed themselves in a becoming manner, and were anxious to embrace him and thank him for the glorious credit he had done them. Boldheart at once invited them to breakfast next morning on board the Beauty, and gave orders for a brilliant ball that should last all day. It was in the course of the night that the captain discovered the hopelessness of reclaiming the Latin-Grammar-Master. That thankless traitor was found out as the two ships lay near each other, communicating with The Family by signals, and offering to give up Boldheart. He was hanged at the yard-arm the first thing in the morning, after having it impressively pointed out to him by Boldheart that this was what spiters came to. The meeting between the Captain and his parents was attended with tears. His uncles and aunts would have attended their meeting with tears too, but he wasn’t going to stand that. His cousins were very much astonished by the size of his ship and the discipline of his men, and were greatly overcome by the splendor of his uniform. He kindly conducted them round the vessel, and pointed out everything worthy of notice. He also fired his hundred guns, and found it amusing to witness their alarm. The entertainment surpassed everything ever seen on board ship, and lasted from ten in the morning until seven the next morning. Only one disagreeable incident occurred. Captain Boldheart found himself obliged to put his cousin Tom in irons, for being disrespectful. On the boy’s promising amendment, however, he was humanely released, after a few hours’ close confinement. Boldheart now took his mother down into the great cabin, and asked after the young lady with whom, it was well known to the world, he was in love. His mother replied that the object of his affections was then at school at Margate, for the benefit of sea-bathing (it was the month of September), but that she feared the young lady’s friends were still opposed to the union. Boldheart at once resolved, if necessary, to bombard the town. Taking the command of his ship with this intention, and putting all but fighting men on board The Family, with orders to that vessel to keep in company, Boldheart soon anchored in Margate Roads. Here he went ashore well armed, and attended by his boat’s crew (at their head the faithful though ferocious William), and demanded to see the Mayor, who came out of his office. &quot;Dost know the name of yon ship, Mayor?&quot; asked Boldheart, fiercely. &quot;No,&quot; said the Mayor, rubbing his eyes, which he could scarce believe when he saw the goodly vessel riding at anchor. &quot;She is named the Beauty,&quot; said the Captain. &quot;Hah!&quot; exclaimed the Mayor, with a start. &quot;And you, then, are Captain Boldheart?&quot; &quot;The same.&quot; A pause ensued. The Mayor trembled. &quot;Now, Mayor,&quot; said the Captain, &quot;choose! Help me to my Bride, or be bombarded.&quot; The Mayor begged for two hours’ grace, in which to make inquiries respecting the young lady. Boldheart accorded him but one, and during that one placed William Boozey sentry over him, with a drawn sword and instructions to accompany him wherever he went, and to run him through the body if he showed a sign of playing false. At the end of the hour, the Mayor re-appeared more dead than alive, closely waited on by Boozey more alive than dead. &quot;Captain,&quot; said the Mayor, &quot;I have ascertained that the young lady is going to bathe. Even now she waits her turn for a machine. The tide is low, though rising. I, in one of our town-boats, shall not be suspected. When she comes forth in her bathing-dress into the shallow water from behind the hood of the machine, my boat shall intercept her and prevent her return. Do you the rest.&quot; &quot;Mayor,&quot; returned Captain Boldheart, &quot;thou hast saved thy town.&quot; The Captain then signalled his boat to take him off, and, steering her himself, ordered her crew to row towards the bathing-ground, and there to rest upon their oars. All happened as had been arranged. His lovely bride came forth, the Mayor glided in behind her, she became confused and had floated out of her depth, when, with one skilful touch of the rudder and one quivering stroke from the boat’s crew, her adoring Boldheart held her in his strong arms. There her shrieks of terror were changed to cries of joy. Before the Beauty could get under way, the hoisting of all the flags in the town and harbor, and the ringing of all the bells, announced to the brave Boldheart that he had nothing to fear. He therefore determined to be married on the spot, and signalled for a clergyman and clerk, who came off promptly in a sailing-boat named the Skylark. Another great entertainment was then given on board the Beauty, in the midst of which the Mayor was called out by a messenger. He returned with the news that Government had sent down to know whether Captain Boldheart, in acknowledgment of the great services he had done his country by being a Pirate, would consent to be made a Lieutenant-Colonel. For himself he would have spurned the worthless boon, but his Bride wished it and he consented. Only one thing further happened before the good ship Family was dismissed, with rich presents to all on board. It is painful to record (but such is human nature in some cousins) that Captain Boldheart’s unmannerly Cousin Tom was actually tied up to receive three dozen with a rope’s end &quot;for cheekiness and making game,&quot; when Captain Boldheart’s Lady begged for him and he was spared. The Beauty then refitted, and the Captain and his Bride departed for the Indian Ocean to enjoy themselves forevermore. *Aged Nine.18680301https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._III_Holiday_Romance_Romance._From_the_Pen_of_Lieutenant-Colonel_Robin_Redforth/1868-03_No3_Holiday_Romance_Lieut_Col_Robin_Redforth.pdf
232https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/232No. IV, 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'Published in <em>Household Words</em>, Vol. XVI, No. 394, 24 October 1857, pp. 385-393.Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,<a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-385.html"></a> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-385.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-385.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1857-10-10">1857-10-10</a>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, <a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. Available under CC-BY licence.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1857-10-24-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No4<span>Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins. No.IV 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'.</span><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig.&nbsp;</span><span>Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1857-10-24-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No4">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1857-10-24-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No4</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>When Mr. Goodchild had looked out of the Lancaster Inn-window for two hours on end, with great perseverance, he began to entertain a misgiving that he was growing industrious. He therefore set himself next, to explore the country from the tops of all the steep hills in the neighbourhood. He came back at dinner-time, red and glowing, to tell Thomas Idle what he had seen. Thomas, on his back reading, listened with great composure, and asked him whether he really had gone up those hills, and bothered himself with those views, and walked all those miles? &quot;Because I want to know,&quot; added Thomas, &quot;what you would say of it, if you were obliged to do it?&quot; &quot;It would be different, then,&quot; said Francis. &quot;It would be work, then; now, it&#039;s play.&quot; &quot;Play!&quot; repeated Thomas Idle, utterly repudiating the reply. &quot;Play! Here is a man goes systematically tearing himself to pieces, and putting himself through an incessant course of training, as if he were always under articles to fight a match for the champion&#039;s belt, and he calls it Play! Play!&quot; exclaimed Thomas Idle, scornfully contemplating his one boot in the air. &quot;You can&#039;t play. You don&#039;t know what it is. You make work of everything.&quot; The bright Goodchild amiably smiled. &quot;So you do,&quot; said Thomas.&quot; I mean it. To me you are an absolutely terrible fellow. You do nothing like another man. Where another fellow would fall into a footbath of action or emotion, you fall into a mine. Where any other fellow would be a painted butterfly, you are a fiery dragon. Where another man would stake a sixpence, you stake your existence. If you were to go up in a balloon, you would make for Heaven; and if you were to dive into the depths of the earth, nothing short of the other place would content you. What a fellow you are, Francis!&quot; The cheerful Goodchild laughed. &quot;It&#039;s all very well to laugh, but I wonder you don&#039;t feel it to be serious,&quot; said Idle. &quot;A man who can do nothing by halves appears to me to be a fearful man.&quot; &quot;Tom, Tom,&quot; returned Goodchild, &quot;if I can do nothing by halves, and be nothing by halves, it&#039;s pretty clear that you must take me as a whole, and make the best of me.&quot; With this philosophical rejoinder, the airy Goodchild clapped Mr. Idle on the shoulder in a final manner, and they sat down to dinner. &quot;By the bye,&quot; said Goodchild, &quot;I have been over a lunatic asylum too, since I have been out.&quot; &quot;He has been,&quot; exclaimed Thomas Idle, casting up his eyes, &quot;over a lunatic asylum! Not content with being as great an Ass as Captain Barclay in the pedestrian way, he makes a Lunacy Commissioner of himself—for nothing!&quot; &quot;An immense place,&quot; said Goodchild, &quot;admirable offices, very good arrangements, very good attendants; altogether a remarkable place.&quot; &quot;And what did you see there?&quot; asked Mr. Idle, adapting Hamlet&#039;s advice to the occasion, and assuming the virtue of interest, though he had it not. &quot;The usual thing,&quot; said Francis Goodchild, with a sigh. &quot;Long groves of blighted men-and-women-trees; interminable avenues of hopeless faces; numbers, without the slightest power of really combining for any earthly purpose; a society of human creatures who have nothing in common but that they have all lost the power of being humanly social with one another.&quot; &quot;Take a glass of wine with me,&quot; said Thomas Idle, &quot;and let us be social.&quot; &quot;In one gallery, Tom,&quot; pursued Francis Goodchild, &quot;which looked to me about the length of the Long Walk at Windsor, more or less—&quot; &quot;Probably less,&quot; observed Thomas Idle. &quot;In one gallery, which was otherwise quite clear of patients (for they were all out), there was a poor little dark-chinned, meagre man, with a perplexed brow and a pensive face, stooping low over the matting on the floor, and picking out with his thumb and fore-finger the course of its fibres. The afternoon sun was slanting in at the large end-window, and there were cross patches of light and shade all down the vista, made by the unseen orders were so, in that excellent hotel), the door opened, and One old man stood there. He did not come in, but stood with the door in his hand. &quot;One of the six, Tom, at last!&quot; said Mr. Goodchild, in a surprised whisper.— &quot;Sir, your pleasure?&quot; &quot;Sir, your pleasure?&quot; said the One old man. &quot;I didn&#039;t ring.&quot; &quot;The Bell did,&quot; said the One old man. He said BELL, in a deep strong way, that would have expressed the church Bell. &quot;I had the pleasure, I believe, of seeing you, yesterday?&quot; said Goodchild. &quot;I cannot undertake to say for certain,&quot; was the grim reply of the One old man. &quot;I think you saw me? Did you not?&quot; &quot;Saw you?&quot; said the old man. &quot;O yes, I saw you. But, I see many who never see me.&quot; A chilled, slow, earthy, fixed old man. A cadaverous old man of measured speech. An old man who seemed as unable to wink, as if his eyelids had been nailed to his forehead. An old man whose eyes— two spots of fire—had no more motion than if they had been connected with the back of his skull by screws driven through it, and rivetted and bolted outside, among his grey hair. The night had turned so cold, to Mr. Goodchild&#039;s sensations, that he shivered. He remarked lightly, and half apologetically, &quot;I think somebody is walking over my grave.&quot; &quot;No,&quot; said the weird old man, &quot;there is no one there.&quot; Mr. Goodchild looked at Idle, but Idle lay with his head enwreathed in smoke. &quot;No one there?&quot; said Goodchild. &quot;There is no one at your grave, I assure you,&quot; said the old man. He had come in and shut the door, and he now sat down. He did not bend himself to sit, as other people do, but seemed to sink bolt upright, as if in water, until the chair stopped him. &quot;My friend, Mr. Idle,&quot; said Goodchild, extremely anxious to introduce a third person into the conversation. &quot;I am,&quot; said the old man, without looking at him,&quot; at Mr. Idle&#039;s service.&quot; &quot;If you are an old inhabitant of this place,&quot; Francis Goodchild resumed: &quot;Yes.&quot; —&quot;Perhaps you can decide a point my friend and I were in doubt upon, this morning. They hang condemned criminals at the Castle, I believe?&quot; &quot;I believe so,&quot; said the old man. &quot;Are their faces turned towards that noble prospect?&quot; &quot;Your face is turned,&quot; replied the old man, &quot;to the Castle wall. When you are tied up, you see its stones expanding and contracting violently, and a similar expansion and contraction seem to take place in your own head and breast. Then, there is a rush of fire and an earthquake, and the Castle springs into the air, and you tumble down a precipice.&quot; His cravat appeared to trouble him. He put his hand to his throat, and moved his neck from side to side. He was an old man of a swollen character of face, and his nose was immoveably hitched up on one side, as if by a little hook inserted in that nostril. Mr. Goodchild felt exceedingly uncomfortable, and began to think the night was hot, and not cold. &quot;A strong description, sir,&quot; he observed. &quot;A strong sensation,&quot; the old man rejoined. Again, Mr. Goodchild looked to Mr. Thomas Idle; but, Thomas lay on his back with his face attentively turned towards the One old man, and made no sign. At this time Mr. Goodchild believed that he saw two threads of fire stretch from the old man&#039;s eyes to his own, and there attach themselves. (Mr. Goodchild writes the present account of his experience, and, with the utmost solemnity, protests that he had the strongest sensation upon him of being forced to look at the old man along those two fiery films, from that moment.) &quot;I must tell it to you,&quot; said the old man, with a ghastly and a stony stare. &quot;What?&quot; asked Francis Goodchild. &quot;You know where it took place. Yonder!&quot; Whether he pointed to the room above, or to the room below, or to any room in that old house, or to a room in some other old house in that old town, Mr. Goodchild was not, nor is, nor ever can be, sure. He was confused by the circumstance that the right fore-finger of the One old man seemed to dip itself in one of the threads of fire, light itself, and make a fiery start in the air, as it pointed somewhere. Having pointed somewhere, it went out. &quot;You know she was a Bride,&quot; said the old man. &quot;I know they still send up Bride-cake,&quot; Mr. Goodchild faltered. &quot;This is a very oppressive air.&quot; &quot;She was a Bride,&quot; said the old man. &quot;She was a fair, flaxen-haired, large-eyed girl, who had no character, no purpose. A weak, credulous, incapable, helpless nothing. Not like her mother. No, no. It was her father whose character she reflected. &quot;Her mother had taken care to secure everything to herself, for her own life, when, the father of this girl (a child at that time) died—of sheer helplessness; no other disorder—and then He renewed the acquaintance that had once subsisted between the mother and Him. He had been put aside for the flaxen-haired, large-eyed man (or non-entity) with Money. He could overlook that for Money. He wanted compensation in Money. &quot;So, he returned to the side of that woman the mother, made love to her again, danced attendance on her, and submitted himself to her whims. She wreaked upon him every whim she had, or could invent. He bore it. And the more he bore, the more he wanted compensation in Money, and the more he was resolved to have it. &quot;But, lo! Before he got it, she cheated him. In one of her imperious states, she froze, and never thawed again. She put her hands to her head one night, uttered a cry, stiffened, lay in that attitude certain hours, and died. And he had got no compensation from her in Money, yet. Blight and Murrain on her! Not a penny. &quot;He had hated her throughout that second pursuit, and had longed for retaliation on her. He now counterfeited her signature to an instrument, leaving all she had to leave, to her daughter—ten years old then—to whom the property passed absolutely, and appointing himself the daughter&#039;s Guardian. When He slid it under the pillow of the bed on which she lay, He bent down in the deaf ear of Death, and whispered: &#039;Mistress Pride, I have determined a long time that, dead or alive, you must make me compensation in Money.&#039; &quot;So, now there were only two left. Which two were, He, and the fair flaxen-haired, large-eyed foolish daughter, who afterwards became the Bride. &quot;He put her to school. In a secret, dark, oppressive, ancient house, he put her to school with a watchful and unscrupulous woman. &#039;My worthy lady,&#039; he said,&#039; here is a mind to be formed; will you help me to form it?&#039; She accepted the trust. For which she, too, wanted compensation in Money, and had it. &quot;The girl was formed in the fear of him, and in the conviction, that there was no escape from him. She was taught, from the first, to regard him as her future husband—the man who must marry her— the destiny that overshadowed her—the appointed certainty that could never be evaded. The poor fool was soft white wax in their hands, and took the impression that they put upon her. It hardened with time. It became a part of herself. Inseparable from herself, and only to be torn away from her, by tearing life away from her. &quot;Eleven years she lived in the dark house and its gloomy garden. He was jealous of the very light and air getting to her, and they kept her close. He stopped the wide chimneys, shaded the little windows, left the strong-stemmed ivy to wander where it would over the house-front, the moss to accumulate on the untrimmed fruit-trees in the red-walled garden, the weeds to over-run its green and yellow walks. He surrounded her with images of sorrow and desolation. He caused her to be filled with fears of the place and of the stories that were told of it, and then on pretext of correcting them, to be left in it in solitude, or made to shrink about it in the dark. When her mind was most depressed and fullest of terrors, then, he would come out of one of the hiding-places from which he overlooked her, and present himself as her sole resource. &quot;Thus, by being from her childhood the one embodiment her life presented to her of power to coërce and power to relieve, power to bind and power to loose, the ascendency over her weakness was secured. She was twenty-one years and twenty-one days old, when he brought her home to the gloomy house, his half-witted, frightened, and submissive Bride of three weeks. &quot;He had dismissed the governess by that time— what he had left to do, he could best do alone—and they came back, upon a rainy night, to the scene of her long preparation. &#039;She turned to him upon the threshhold, as the rain was dripping from the porch, and said: &quot;&#039;O sir, it is the Death-watch ticking for me!&#039; &quot;&#039;Well!&#039; he answered. &#039;And if it were?&#039; &quot;&#039;O sir!&#039; she returned to him, &#039;look kindly on me, and be merciful to me! I beg your pardon. I will do anything you wish, if you will only forgive me!&#039; &quot;That had become the poor fool&#039;s constant song: &#039;I beg your pardon,&#039; and &#039;Forgive me!&#039; &quot;She was not worth hating; he felt nothing but contempt for her. But, she had long been in the way, and he had long been weary, and the work was near its end, and had to be worked out. &quot;&#039;You fool,&#039; he said. &#039;Go up the stairs!&#039; &quot;She obeyed very quickly, murmuring, &#039;I will do anything you wish!&#039; When he came into the Bride&#039;s Chamber, having been a little retarded by the heavy fastenings of the great door (for they were alone in the house, and he had arranged that the people who attended on them should come and go in the day), he found her withdrawn to the furthest corner, and there standing pressed against the paneling as if she would have shrunk through it: her flaxen hair all wild about her face, and her large eyes staring at him in vague terror. &quot;&#039;What are you afraid of? Come and sit down by me.&#039; &quot;&#039;I will do anything you wish. I beg your pardon, sir. Forgive me!&#039; Her monotonous tune as usual. &quot;&#039;Ellen, here is a writing that you must write out to-morrow, in your own hand. You may as well be seen by others, busily engaged upon it. When you have written it all fairly, and corrected all mistakes, call in any two people there may be about the house, and sign your name to it before them. Then, put it in your bosom to keep it safe, and when I sit here again to-morrow night, give it to me.&#039; &quot;&#039;I will do it all, with the greatest care. I will do anything you wish.&#039; &quot;&#039;Don&#039;t shake and tremble, then.&#039; &quot;&#039;I will try my utmost not to do it—if you will only forgive me!&#039; &quot;Next day, she sat down at her desk, and did as she had been told. He often passed in and out of the room, to observe her, and always saw her slowly and laboriously writing: repeating to herself the words she copied, in appearance quite mechanically, and without caring or endeavouring to comprehend them, so that she did her task. He saw her follow the directions she had received, in all particulars; and at night, when they were alone again in the same Bride&#039;s Chamber, and he drew his chair to the hearth, she timidly approached him from her distant seat, took the paper from her bosom, and gave it into his hand. &quot;It secured all her possessions to him, in the event of her death. He put her before him, face to face, that he might look at her steadily; and he asked her, in so many plain words, neither fewer nor more, did she know that? &quot;There were spots of ink upon the bosom of her white dress, and they made her face look whiter and her eyes look larger as she nodded her head. There were spots of ink upon the hand with which she stood before him, nervously plaiting and folding her white skirts. &quot;He took her by the arm, and looked her, yet more closely and steadily, in the face. &#039;Now, die! I have done with you.&#039; &quot;She shrunk, and uttered a low, suppressed cry. &quot;&#039;I am not going to kill you. I will not endanger my life for yours. Die!&#039; &quot;He sat before her in the gloomy Bride&#039;s Chamber, day after day, night after night, looking the word at her when he did not utter it. As often as her large unmeaning eyes were raised from the hands in which she rocked her head, to the stern figure, sitting with crossed arms and knitted forehead, in the chair, they read in it, &#039;Die!&#039; When she dropped asleep in exhaustion, she was called back to shuddering consciousness, by the whisper, &#039;Die!&#039; When she fell upon her old entreaty to be pardoned, she was answered, &#039;Die!&#039; When she had out-watched and out-suffered the long night, and the rising sun flamed into the sombre room, she heard it hailed with, &#039;Another day and not dead?—Die!&#039; &quot;Shut up in the deserted mansion, aloof from all mankind, and engaged alone in such a struggle without any respite, it came to this—that either he must die, or she. He knew it very well, and concentrated his strength against her feebleness. Hours upon hours he held her by the arm when her arm was black where he held it, and bade her Die! &quot;It was done, upon a windy morning, before sunrise. He computed the time to be half-past four; but, his forgotten watch had run down, and he could not be sure. She had broken away from him in the night, with loud and sudden cries—the first of that kind to which she had given vent—and he had had to put his hands over her mouth. Since then, she had been quiet in the corner of the paneling where she had sunk down; and he had left her, and had gone back with his folded arms and his knitted forehead to his chair. &quot;Paler in the pale light, more colourless than ever in the leaden dawn, he saw her coming, trailing herself along the floor towards him—a white wreck of hair, and dress, and wild eyes, pushing itself on by an irresolute and bending hand. &quot;&#039;O, forgive me! I will do anything. O, sir, pray tell me I may live!&#039; &quot;&#039;Die!&#039; &quot;&#039;Are you so resolved? Is there no hope for me?&#039; &quot;&#039;Die!&#039; &quot;Her large eyes strained themselves with wonder and fear; wonder and fear changed to reproach; reproach to blank nothing. It was done. He was not at first so sure it was done, but that the morning sun was hanging jewels in her hair—he saw the diamond, emerald, and ruby, glittering among it in little points, as he stood looking down at her—when he lifted her and laid her on her bed. &quot;She was soon laid in the ground. And now they were all gone, and he had compensated himself well. &quot;He had a mind to travel. Not that he meant to waste his Money, for he was a pinching man and liked his Money dearly (liked nothing else, indeed), but, that he had grown tired of the desolate house and wished to turn his back upon it and have done with it. But, the house was worth Money, and Money must not be thrown away. He determined to sell it before he went. That it might look the less wretched and bring a better price, he hired some labourers to work in the overgrown garden; to cut out the dead wood, trim the ivy that drooped in heavy masses over the windows and gables, and clear the walks in which the weeds were growing mid-leg high. &quot;He worked, himself, along with them. He worked later than they did, and, one evening at dusk, was left working alone, with his bill-hook in his hand. One autumn evening, when the Bride was five weeks dead. &quot;&#039;It grows too dark to work longer,&#039; he said to himself, &#039;I must give over for the night.&#039; &quot;He detested the house, and was loath to enter it. He looked at the dark porch waiting for him like a tomb, and felt that it was an accursed house. Near to the porch, and near to where he stood, was a tree whose branches waved before the old bay-window of the Bride&#039;s Chamber, where it had been done. The tree swung suddenly, and made him start. It swung again, although the night was still. Looking up into it, he saw a figure among the branches. &quot;It was the figure of a young man. The face looked down, as his looked up; the branches cracked and swayed; the figure rapidly descended, and slid upon its feet before him. A slender youth of about her age, with long light brown hair. &quot;&#039;What thief are you?&#039; he said, seizing the youth by the collar. &quot;The young man, in shaking himself free, swung him a blow with his arm across the face and throat. They closed, but the young man got from him and stepped back, crying, with great eagerness and horror, &#039;Don&#039;t touch me! I would as lieve be touched by the Devil!&#039; &quot;He stood still, with his bill-hook in his hand, looking at the young man. For, the young man&#039;s look was the counterpart of her last look, and he had not expected ever to see that again. &quot;&#039;I am no thief. Even if I were, I would not have a coin of your wealth, if it would buy me the Indies. You murderer!&#039; &quot;&#039;What!&#039; &quot;&#039;I climbed it,&#039; said the young man, pointing up into the tree, &#039;for the first time, nigh four years ago. I climbed it, to look at her. I saw her. I spoke to her. I have climbed it, many a time, to watch and listen for her. I was a boy, hidden among its leaves, when from that bay-window she gave me this!&#039; &quot;He showed a tress of flaxen hair, tied with a mourning ribbon. &quot;&#039;Her life,&#039; said the young man, &#039;was a life of mourning. She gave me this, as a token of it, and a sign that she was dead to every one but you. If I had been older, if I had seen her sooner, I might have saved her from you. But, she was fast in the web when I first climbed the tree, and what could I do then to break it!&#039; &quot;In saying those words, he burst into a fit of sobbing and crying: weakly at first, then passionately. &quot;&#039;Murderer! I climbed the tree on the night when you brought her back. I heard her, from the tree, speak of the Death-watch at the door. I was three times in the tree while you were shut up with her, slowly killing her. I saw her, from the tree, lie dead upon her bed. I have watched you, from the tree, for proofs and traces of your guilt. The manner of it, is a mystery to me yet, but I will pursue you until you have rendered up your life to the hangman. You shall never, until then, be rid of me. I loved her! I can know no relenting towards you. Murderer, I loved her!&#039; &quot;The youth was bare-headed, his hat having fluttered away in his descent from the tree. He moved towards the gate. He had to pass—Him—to get to it. There was breadth for two old-fashioned carriages abreast; and the youth&#039;s abhorrence, openly expressed in every feature of his face and limb of his body, and very hard to bear, had verge enough to keep itself at a distance in. He (by which I mean the other) had not stirred hand or foot, since he had stood still to look at the boy. He faced round, now, to follow him with his eyes. As the back of the bare light-brown head was turned to him, he saw a red curve stretch from his hand to it. He knew, before he threw the bill-hook, where it had alighted—I say, had alighted, and not, would alight; for, to his clear perception the thing was done before he did it. It cleft the head, and it remained there, and the boy lay on his face. &quot;He buried the body in the night, at the foot of the tree. As soon as it was light in the morning, he worked at turning up all the ground near the tree, and hacking and hewing at the neighbouring bushes and undergrowth. When the laborers came, there was nothing suspicious, and nothing was suspected. &quot;But, he had, in a moment, defeated all his precautions, and destroyed the triumph of the scheme he had so long concerted, and so successfully worked out. He had got rid of the Bride, and had acquired her fortune without endangering his life; but now, for a death by which he had gained nothing, he had evermore to live with a rope around his neck. &quot;Beyond this, he was chained to the house of gloom and horror, which he could not endure. Being afraid to sell it or to quit it, lest discovery should be made, he was forced to live in it. He hired two old people, man and wife, for his servants; and dwelt in it, and dreaded it. His great difficulty, for a long time, was the garden. Whether he should keep it trim, whether he should suffer it to fall into its former state of neglect, what would be the least likely way of attracting attention to it? &quot;He took the middle course of gardening, himself, in his evening leisure, and of then calling the old serving-man to help him; but, of never letting him work there alone. And he made himself an arbour over against the tree, where he could sit and see that it was safe. &quot;As the seasons changed, and the tree changed, his mind perceived dangers that were always changing. In the leafy time, he perceived that the upper boughs were growing into the form of the young man—that they made the shape of him exactly, sitting in a forked branch swinging in the wind. In the time of the falling leaves, he perceived that they came down from the tree, forming tell-tale letters on the path, or that they had a tendency to heap themselves into a church-yard-mound above the grave. In the winter, when the tree was bare, he perceived that the boughs swung at him the ghost of the blow the young man had given, and that they threatened him openly. In the spring, when thesap was mounting in the trunk, he asked himself, were the dried-up particles of blood mounting with it: to make out more obviously this year than last, the leaf-screened figure of the young man, swinging in the wind? &quot;However, he turned his Money over and over, and still over. He was in the dark trade, the gold-dust trade, and most secret trades that yielded great returns. In ten years, he had turned his Money over, so many times, that the traders and shippers who had dealings with him, absolutely did not lie—for once—when they declared that he had increased his fortune, Twelve Hundred Per Cent. &quot;He possessed his riches one hundred years ago, when people could be lost easily. He had heard who the youth was, from hearing of the search that was made after him; but, it died away, and the youth was forgotten. &quot;The annual round of changes in the tree had been repeated ten times since the night of the burial at its foot, when there was a great thunder-storm over this place. It broke at midnight, and raged until morning. The first intelligence he heard from his old serving-man that morning, was, that the tree had been struck by Lightning. &quot;It had been riven down the stem, in a very surprising manner, and the stem lay in two blighted shafts: one resting against the house, and one against a portion of the old red garden-wall in which its fall had made a gap. The fissure went down the tree to a little above the earth, and there stopped. There was great curiosity to see the tree, and, with most of his former fears revived, he sat in his arbour—grown quite an old man—watching the people who came to see it. &quot;They quickly began to come, in such dangerous numbers, that he closed his garden-gate and refused to admit any more. But, there were certain men of science who travelled from a distance to examine the tree, and, in an evil hour, he let them in—Blight and Murrain on them, let them in! &quot;They wanted to dig up the ruin by the roots, and closely examine it, and the earth about it. Never, while he lived! They offered money for it. They! Men of science, whom he could have bought by the gross, with a scratch of his pen! He showed them the garden-gate again, and locked and barred it. &quot;But, they were bent on doing what they wanted to do, and they bribed the old serving-man—a thankless wretch who regularly complained when he received his wages, of being underpaid—and they stole into the garden by night with their lanterns, picks, and shovels, and fell to at the tree. He was lying in a turret-room on the other side of the house (the Bride&#039;s Chamber had been unoccupied ever since), but he soon dreamed of picks and shovels, and got up. &quot;He came to an upper window on that side, whence he could see their lanterns, and them, and the loose earth in a heap which he had himself disturbed and put back, when it was last turned to the air. It was found! They had that minute lighted on it. They were all bending over it. One of them said, &#039;The skull is fractured;&#039; and another,&#039; See here the bones;&#039; and another, &#039;See here the clothes;&#039; and then the first struck in again, and said, &#039;A rusty bill-hook!&#039; &quot;He became sensible, next day, that he was already put under a strict watch, and that he could go nowhere without being followed. Before a week was out, he was taken and laid in hold. The circumstances were gradually pieced together against him, with a desperate malignity, and an appalling ingenuity. But, see the justice of men, and how it was extended to him! He was further accused of having poisoned that girl in the Bride&#039;s Chamber. He, who had carefully and expressly avoided imperilling a hair of his head for her, and who had seen her die of her own incapacity! &quot;There was doubt for which of the two murders he should be first tried; but, the real one was chosen, and he was found Guilty, and cast for Death. Bloodthirsty wretches! They would have made him Guilty of anything, so set they were upon having his life. &quot;His money could do nothing to save him, and he was hanged. I am He, and I was hanged at Lancaster Castle with my face to the wall, a hundred years ago!&quot; At this terrific announcement, Mr. Goodchild tried to rise and cry out. But, the two fiery lines extending from the old man&#039;s eyes to his own, kept him down, and he could not utter a sound. His sense of hearing, however, was acute, and he could hear the clock strike Two. No sooner had he heard the clock strike Two, than he saw before him Two old men! Two. The eyes of each, connected with his eyes by two films of fire: each, exactly like the other: each, addressing him at precisely one and the same instant: each, gnashing the same teeth in the same head, with the same twitched nostril above them, and the same suffused expression around it. Two old men. Differing in nothing, equally distinct to the sight, the copy no fainter than the original, the second as real as the first. &quot;At what time,&quot; said the Two old men, &quot;did you arrive at the door below?&quot; &quot;At Six.&quot; &quot;And there were Six old men upon the stairs!&quot; Mr. Goodchild having wiped the perspiration from his brow, or tried to do it, the Two old men proceeded in one voice, and in the singular number: &quot;I had been anatomised, but had not yet had my skeleton put together and re-hung on an iron hook, when it began to be whispered that the Bride&#039;s Chamber was haunted. It was haunted, and I was there. &quot;We were there. She and I were there. I, in the chair upon the hearth; she, a white wreck again, trailing itself towards me on the floor. But, I was the speaker no more. She was the sole speaker now, and the one word that she said to me from midnight until dawn was, &#039;Live!&#039; &quot;The youth was there, likewise. In the tree outside the window. Coming and going in the moonlight, as the tree bent and gave. He has, ever since, been there; peeping in at me in my torment; revealing to me by snatches, in the pale lights and slatey shadows where he comes and goes, bare-headed—a bill-hook, standing edgewise in his hair. &quot;In the Bride&#039;s Chamber, every night from midnight until dawn—one month in the year excepted, as I am going to tell you—he hides in the tree, and she comes towards me on the floor; always approaching; never coming nearer; always visible as if by moonlight, whether the moon shines or no; always saying, from midnight until dawn, her one word, &#039;Live!&#039; &quot;But, in the month wherein I was forced out of this life—this present month of thirty days—the Bride&#039;s Chamber is empty and quiet. Not so my old dungeon. Not so the rooms where I was restless and afraid, ten years. Both are fitfully haunted then. At One in the morning, I am what you saw me when the clock struck that hour—One old man. At Two in the morning, I am Two old men. At Three, I am Three. By Twelve at noon, I am Twelve old men, One for every hundred per cent of old gain. Every one of the Twelve, with Twelve times my old power of suffering and agony. From that hour until Twelve at night, I, Twelve old men in anguish and fearful foreboding, wait for the coming of the executioner. At Twelve at night, I, Twelve old men turned off, swing invisible outside Lancaster Castle, with Twelve faces to the wall! &quot;When the Bride&#039;s Chamber was first haunted, it was known to me that this punishment would never cease, until I could make its nature, and my story, known to two living men together. I waited for the coming of two living men together into the Bride&#039;s Chamber, years upon years. It was infused into my knowledge (of the means I am ignorant) that if two living men, with their eyes open, could be in the Bride&#039;s Chamber at One in the morning, they would see me sitting in my chair. &quot;At length, the whispers that the room was spiritually troubled, brought two men to try the adventure. I was scarcely struck upon the hearth at midnight (I come there as if the Lightning blasted me into being), when I heard them ascending the stairs. Next, I saw them enter. One of them was a bold, gay, active man, in the prime of life, some five and forty years of age; the other, a dozen years younger. They brought provisions with them in a basket, and bottles. A young woman accompanied them, with wood and coals for the lighting of the fire. When she had lighted it, the bold, gay, active man accompanied her along the gallery outside the room, to see her safely down the staircase, and came back laughing. &quot;He locked the door, examined the chamber, put out the contents of the basket on the table before the fire—little recking of me, in my appointed station on the hearth, close to him—and filled the glasses, and ate and drank. His companion did the same, and was as cheerful and confident as be: though he was the leader. When they had supped, they laid pistols on the table, turned to the fire, and began to smoke their pipes of foreign make. &quot;They had travelled together, and had been much together, and had an abundance of subjects in common. In the midst of their talking and laughing, the younger man made a reference to the leader&#039;s being always ready for any adventure; that one, or any other. He replied in these words: &quot;&#039;Not quite so, Dick; if I am afraid of nothing else, I am afraid of myself.&#039; &quot;His companion seeming to grow a little dull, asked him, in what sense? How? &quot;&#039;Why, thus,&#039; he returned. &#039;Here is a Ghost to be disproved. Well! I cannot, answer for what my fancy might do if I were alone here, or what tricks my senses might play with me if they had me to themselves. But, in company with another man, and especially with you, Dick, I would consent to outface all the Ghosts that were ever told of in the universe.&#039; &quot;&#039;I had not the vanity to suppose that I was of so much importance to-night,&#039; said the other. &quot;&#039;Of so much,&#039; rejoined the leader, more seriously than he had spoken yet, &#039;that I would, for the reason I have given, on no account have undertaken to pass the night here alone.&#039; &quot;It was within a few minutes of One. The head of the younger man had drooped when he made his last remark, and it drooped lower now. &quot;&#039;Keep awake, Dick!&#039; said the leader, gaily. &#039;The small hours are the worst.&#039; &quot;He tried, but his head drooped again. &quot;&#039;Dick!&#039; urged the leader. &#039;Keep awake!&#039; &quot;&#039;I can&#039;t,&#039; he indistinctly muttered. &#039;I don&#039;t know what strange influence is stealing over me. I can&#039;t.&#039; &quot;His companion looked at him with a sudden horror, and I, in my different way, felt a new horror also; for, it was on the stroke of One, and I felt that the secondwatcher was yielding to me, and that the curse was upon me that I must send him to sleep. &quot;&#039;Get up and walk, Dick!&#039; cried the leader. Try!&#039; &quot;It was in vain to go behind the slumberer&#039;s chair and shake him. One o&#039;clock sounded, and I was present to the elder man, and he stood transfixed before me. &quot;To him alone, I was obliged to relate my story, without hope of benefit. To him alone, I was an awful phantom making a quite useless confession. I foresee it will ever be the same. The two living men together will never come to release me. When I appear, the senses of one of the two will be locked in sleep; he will neither see nor hear me; my communication will ever be made to a solitary listener, and will ever be unserviceable. Woe! Woe! Woe!&quot; As the Two old men, with these words, wrung their hands, it shot into Mr. Goodchild&#039;s mind that he was in the terrible situation of being virtually alone with the spectre, and that Mr. Idle&#039;s immoveability was explained by his having been charmed asleep at One o&#039;clock. In the terror of this sudden discovery which produced an indescribable dread, he struggled so hard to get free from the four fiery threads, that he snapped them, after he had pulled them out to a great width. Being then out of bonds, he caught up Mr. Idle from the sofa and rushed down stairs with him. &quot;What are you about, Francis?&quot; demanded Mr. Idle. &quot;My bedroom is not down here. What the deuce are you carrying me at all for? I can walk with a stick now. I don&#039;t want to be carried. Put me down.&quot; Mr. Goodchild put him down in the old hall, and looked about him wildly. &quot;What are you doing? Idiotically plunging at your own sex, and rescuing them or perishing in the attempt?&quot; asked Mr. Idle, in a highly petulant state. &quot;The One old man!&quot; cried Mr. Goodchild, distractedly,—&quot;and the Two old men!&quot; Mr. Idle deigned no other reply than &quot;The One old woman, I think you mean,&quot; as he began hobbling his way back up the staircase, with the assistance of its broad balustrade. &quot;I assure you, Tom,&quot; began Mr. Goodchild, attending at his side, &quot;that since you fell asleep—&quot; &quot;Come, I like that!&quot; said Thomas Idle, &quot;I haven&#039;t closed an eye!&quot; With the peculiar sensitiveness on the subject of the disgraceful action of going to sleep out of bed, which is the lot of all mankind, Mr. Idle persisted in this declaration. The same peculiar sensitiveness impelled Mr. Goodchild, on being taxed with the same crime, to repudiate it with honourable resentment. The settlement of the question of The One old man and The Two old men was thus presently complicated, and soon made quite impracticable. Mr. Idle said it was all Bride-cake, and fragments, newly arranged, of things seen and thought about in the day. Mr. Goodchild said how could that be, when he hadn&#039;t been asleep, and what right could Mr. Idle have to say so, who had been asleep? Mr. Idle said he had never been asleep, and never did go to sleep, and that Mr. Goodchild, as a general rule, was always asleep. They consequently parted for the rest of the night, at their bedroom doors, a little ruffled. Mr. Goodchild&#039;s last words were, that he had had, in that real and tangible old sitting-room of that real and tangible old Inn (he supposed Mr. Idle denied its existence?), every sensation and experience, the present record of which is now within a line or two of completion; and that he would write it out and print it every word. Mr. Idle returned that he might if he liked—and he did like, and has now done it.18571024https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._IV_The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices/1857-10-24-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No4.pdf
147https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/147No. IV, <em>Holiday Romance</em>, 'Romance. From the Pen of Miss Nettie Ashford'Published in <em>Our Young Folks</em>, vol. 4, no. v (May 1868), pp. 257-263. Edited by J.T. Trowbridge and Lucy Larcom.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em> <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000052381508">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000052381508</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1868-05">1868-05</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+John+Gilbert">Illustrated by John Gilbert</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1868-05_No4_Holiday_NettieAshfordDickens, Charles.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EOur+Young+Folks%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Our Young Folks</em></a>PART IV. ROMANCE FROM THE PEN OF MISS NETTIE ASHFORD* There is a country, which I will show you when I get into Maps, where the children have everything their own way. It is a most delightful country to live in. The grown-up people are obliged to obey the children, and are never allowed to sit up to supper, except on their birthdays. The children order them to make jam and jelly and marmalade, and tarts and pies and puddings and all manner of pastry. If they say they won’t, they are put in the corner till they do. They are sometimes allowed to have some, but when they have some, they generally have powders given them afterwards. One of the inhabitants of this country, a truly sweet young creature of the name of Mrs. Orange, had the misfortune to be sadly plagued by her numerous family. Her parents required a great deal of looking after, and they had connections and companions who were scarcely ever out of mischief. So Mrs. Orange said to herself, &quot;I really cannot be troubled with these torments any longer, I must put them all to school.&quot; Mrs. Orange took off her pinafore, and dressed herself very nicely, and took up her baby, and went out to call upon another lady of the name of Mrs. Lemon, who kept a Preparatory Establishment. Mrs. Orange stood upon the scraper to pull at the bell, and gave a Ring-ting-ting. Mrs. Lemon’s neat little housemaid, pulling up her socks as she came along the passage, answered the Ring-ting-ting. &quot;Good morning,&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;Fine day. How do you do? Mrs. Lemon at home?&quot; &quot;Yes, ma’am.&quot; &quot;Will you say Mrs. Orange and baby?&quot; &quot;Yes, ma’am. Walk in.&quot; Mrs. Orange’s baby was a very fine one, and real wax all over. Mrs. Lemon’s baby was leather and bran. However, when Mrs. Lemon came into the drawing-room with her baby in her arms, Mrs. Orange said politely, &quot;Good-morning. Fine day. How do you do? And how is little Tootleum-Boots?&quot; &quot;Well, she is but poorly. Cutting her teeth, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. &quot;O, indeed, ma’am!&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;No fits, I hope?&quot; &quot;No, ma’am.&quot; &quot;How many teeth has she, ma’am?&quot; &quot;Five, ma’am.&quot; &quot;My Emilia, ma’am, has eight,&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;Shall we lay them on the mantel-piece side by side, while we converse?&quot; &quot;By all means, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon.&quot;Hem!&quot; &quot;The first question is, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Orange, —&quot;I don’t bore you?&quot; &quot;Not in the least, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. &quot;Far from it, I assure you.&quot; &quot;Then pray have you,&quot; said Mrs. Orange,&quot;have you any vacancies?&quot; &quot;Yes, ma’am. How many might you require?&quot; &quot;Why, the truth is, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Orange, &quot;I have come to the conclusion that my children,&quot;—O, I forgot to say that they call the grown-up people children in that country,—&quot;that my children are getting positively too much for me. Let me see. Two parents, two intimate friends of theirs, one godfather, two godmothers, and an aunt. Have you as many as eight vacancies?&quot; &quot;I have just eight, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. &quot;Most fortunate! Terms moderate, I think?&quot; &quot;Very moderate, ma’am.&quot; &quot;Diet good, I believe?&quot; &quot;Excellent, ma’am.&quot; &quot;Unlimited?&quot; &quot;Unlimited.&quot; &quot;Most satisfactory! Corporal punishment dispensed with?&quot; &quot;Why, we do occasionally shake,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon, &quot;and we have slapped. But only in extreme cases.&quot; &quot;Could I, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Orange, &quot;could I see the establishment?&quot; &quot;With the greatest of pleasure, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. Mrs. Lemon took Mrs. Orange into the school-room, where there were a number of pupils. &quot;Stand up, children!&quot; said Mrs. Lemon, and they all stood up. Mrs. Orange whispered to Mrs. Lemon, &quot;There is a pale, bald child with red whiskers, in disgrace. Might I ask what he has done?&quot; &quot;Come here, White,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon, &quot;and tell this lady what you have been doing.&quot; &quot;Betting on horses,&quot; said White, sulkily. &quot;Are you sorry for it, you naughty child?&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. &quot;No,&quot; said White. &quot;Sorry to lose, but shouldn’t be sorry to win.&quot; &quot;There’s a vicious boy for you, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. &quot;Go along with you, sir. This is Brown, Mrs. Orange. O, a sad case, Brown’s! Never knows when he has had enough. Greedy. How is your gout, sir?&quot; &quot;Bad,&quot; said Brown. &quot;What else can you expect?&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. &quot;Your stomach is the size of two. Go and take exercise directly. Mrs. Black, come here to me. Now, here is a child, Mrs. Orange, ma’am, who is always at play. She can’t be kept at home a single day together; always gadding about and spoiling her clothes. Play, play, play, play, from morning to night, and to morning again. How can she expect to improve?&quot; &quot;Don’t expect to improve,&quot; sulked Mrs. Black. &quot;Don’t want to.&quot; &quot;There is a specimen of her temper, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. &quot;To see her when she is tearing about, neglecting everything else, you would suppose her to be at least good-humored. But bless you, ma’am, she is as pert and flouncing a minx as ever you met with in all your days!&quot; &quot;You must have a great deal of trouble with them, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;Ah, I have, indeed, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. &quot;What with their tempers, what with their quarrels, what with their never knowing what’s good for them, and what with their always wanting to domineer, deliver me from these unreasonable children!&quot; &quot;Well, I wish you good-morning, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;Well, I wish you good-morning, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. So Mrs. Orange took up her baby and went home, and told the family that plagued her so that they were all going to be sent to school. They said they didn’t want to go to school, but she packed up their boxes, and packed them off. &quot;O dear me, dear me! Rest and be thankful!&quot; said Mrs. Orange, throwing herself back in her little arm-chair. &quot;Those troublesome troubles are got rid of, please the Pigs!&quot; Just then another lady, named Mrs. Alicumpaine, came calling at the street door with a Ring-ting-ting. &quot;My dear Mrs. Alicumpaine,&quot; said Mrs. Orange, &quot;how do you do? Pray stay to dinner. We have but a simple joint of sweet-stuff, followed by a plain dish of bread and treacle, but, if you will take us as you find us, it will be so kind!&quot; &quot;Don’t mention it,&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine. &quot;I shall be too glad. But what do you think I have come for, ma’am? Guess, ma’am.&quot; &quot;I really cannot guess, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;Why, I am going to have a small juvenile party to-night,&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine, &quot;and if you and Mr. Orange and baby would but join us, we should be complete.&quot; &quot;More than charmed, I am sure!&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;So kind of you!&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine. &quot;But I hope the children won’t bore you?&quot; &quot;Dear things! Not at all,&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;I dote upon them.&quot; Mr. Orange here came home from the city, and he came too with a Ring-ting-ting. &quot;James, love,&quot; said Mrs. Orange, &quot;you look tired. What has been doing in the city to-day?&quot; &quot;Trap, bat, and ball, my dear,&quot; said Mr. Orange, &quot;and it knocks a man up.&quot; &quot;That dreadfully anxious city, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Orange to Mrs. Alicumpaine; &quot;so wearing, is it not?&quot; &quot;O, so trying!&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine. &quot;John has lately been speculating in the peg-top ring; and I often say to him at night, &#039;John, is the result worth the wear and tear?&#039;&quot; Dinner was ready by this time: so they sat down to dinner; and while Mr. Orange carved the joint of sweet-stuff, he said, &quot;It’s a poor heart that never rejoices. Jane, go down to the cellar, and fetch a bottle of the Upest Ginger-beer.&quot; At tea-time Mr. and Mrs. Orange, and baby, and Mrs. Alicumpaine, went off to Mrs. Alicumpaine’s house. The children had not come yet, but the ball-room was ready for them, decorated with paper flowers. &quot;How very sweet!&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;The dear things! How pleased they will be!&quot; &quot;I don’t care for children myself,&quot; said Mr. Orange, gaping. &quot;Not for girls?&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine. &quot;Come! You care for girls?&quot; Mr. Orange shook his head and gaped again. &quot;Frivolous and vain, ma’am.&quot; &quot;My dear James,&quot; cried Mrs. Orange, who had been peeping about, &quot;do look here. Here’s the supper for the darlings, ready laid in the room behind the folding-doors. Here’s their little pickled salmon, I do declare! And here’s their little salad, and their little roast beef and fowls, and their little pastry, and their wee, wee, wee champagne!&quot; &quot;Yes, I thought it best, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine, &quot;that they should have their supper by themselves. Our table is in the corner here, where the gentlemen can have their wineglass of negus and their egg-sandwich, and their quiet game at beggar-my-neighbor, and look on. As for us, ma’am, we shall have quite enough to do to manage the company.&quot; &quot;O, indeed, you may say so! Quite enough, ma’am!&quot; said Mrs. Orange. The company began to come. The first of them was a stout boy, with a white top-knot and spectacles. The housemaid brought him in and said, &quot;Compliments, and at what time was he to be fetched?&quot; Mrs. Alicumpaine said, &quot;Not a moment later than ten. How do you do, sir? Go and sit down.&quot; Then a number of other children came; boys by themselves, and girls by themselves, and boys and girls together. They didn’t behave at all well. Some of them looked through quizzing-glasses at others, and said, &quot;Who are those? Don’t know them.&quot; Some of them looked through quizzing-glasses at others, and said, &quot;How do?&quot; Some of them had cups of tea or coffee handed to them by others, and said, &quot;Thanks! Much!&quot; A good many boys stood about, and felt their shirt-collars. Four tiresome fat boys would stand in the door-way and talk about the newspapers, till Mrs. Alicumpaine went to them and said, &quot;My dears, I really cannot allow you to prevent people from coming in. I shall be truly sorry to do it, but, if you put yourself in everybody’s way, I must positively send you home.&quot; One boy, with a beard and a large white waistcoat, who stood straddling on the hearth-rug warming his coat-tails, was sent home. &quot;Highly incorrect, my dear,&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine, handing him out of the room, &quot;and I cannot permit it.&quot; There was a children’s band,—harp, cornet, and piano,—and Mrs. Alicumpaine and Mrs. Orange bustled among the children to persuade them to take partners and dance. But they were so obstinate! For quite a long time they would not be persuaded to take partners and dance. Most of the boys said, &quot;Thanks. Much. But not at present.&quot; And most of the rest of the boys said, &quot;Thanks. Much. But never do.&quot; &quot;Oh! These children are very wearing,&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine to Mrs. Orange. &quot;Dear things! I dote upon them; but they ARE wearing,&quot; said Mrs. Orange to Mrs. Alicumpaine. At last they did begin in a slow and melancholy way to slide about to the music, though even then they wouldn’t mind what they were told, but would have this partner, and wouldn’t have that partner, and showed temper about it. And they wouldn’t smile, no, not on any account they wouldn’t; but when the music stopped, went round and round the room in dismal twos, as if everybody else was dead. &quot;Oh! it’s very hard indeed to get these vexing children to be entertained,&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine to Mrs. Orange. &quot;I dote upon the darlings; but it IS hard,&quot; said Mrs. Orange to Mrs. Alicumpaine. They were trying children, that’s the truth. First, they wouldn’t sing when they were asked, and then, when everybody fully believed they wouldn’t, they would. &quot;If you serve us so any more, my love,&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine to a tall child, with a good deal of white back, in mauve silk trimmed with lace, &quot;it will be my painful privilege to offer you a bed, and to send you to it immediately.&quot; The girls were so ridiculously dressed, too, that they were in rags before supper. How could the boys help treading on their trains? And yet when their trains were trodden on, they often showed temper again, and looked as black, they did! However, they all seemed to be pleased when Mrs. Alicumpaine said, &quot;Supper is ready, children!&quot; And they went crowding and pushing in, as if they had had dry bread for dinner. &quot;How are the children getting on?&quot; said Mr. Orange to Mrs. Orange, when Mrs. Orange came to look after baby. Mrs. Orange had left baby on a shelf near Mr. Orange while he played at beggar-my-neighbor, and had asked him to keep his eye upon her now and then. &quot;Most charmingly, my dear!&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;So droll to see their little flirtations and jealousies! Do come and look!&quot; &quot;Much obliged to you, my dear,&quot; said Mr. Orange, &quot;but I don’t care about children myself.&quot; So Mrs. Orange, having seen that baby was safe, went back without Mr. Orange to the room where the children were having supper. &quot;What are they doing now?&quot; said Mrs. Orange to Mrs. Alicumpaine. &quot;They are making speeches, and playing at Parliament,&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine to Mrs. Orange. On hearing this, Mrs. Orange set off once more back again to Mr. Orange, and said, &quot;James dear, do come. The children are playing at Parliament.&quot; &quot;Thank you, my dear,&quot; said Mr. Orange, &quot;but I don’t care about Parliament myself.&quot; So Mrs. Orange went once again without Mr. Orange to the room where the children were having supper, to see them playing at Parliament. And she found some of the boys crying, &quot;Hear, hear, hear!&quot; while other boys cried &quot;No, no!&quot; and others, &quot;Question!&quot; &quot;Spoke!&quot; and all sorts of nonsense that ever you heard. Then one of those tiresome fat boys who had stopped the door-way told them he was on his legs (as if they couldn’t see that he wasn’t on his head, or on his anything else) to explain, and that, with the permission of his honorable friend, if he would allow him to call him so (another tiresome boy bowed), he would proceed to explain. Then he went on for a long time in a sing-song (whatever he meant!), did this troublesome fat boy, about that he held in his hand a glass, and about that he had come down to that house that night to discharge what he would call a public duty, and about that on the present occasion he would lay his hand (his other hand) upon his heart, and would tell honorable gentlemen that he was about to open the door to general approval. Then he opened the door by saying, &quot;To our hostess!&quot; and everybody else said &quot;To our hostess!&quot; and then there were cheers. Then another tiresome boy started up in sing-song, and then half a dozen noisy and nonsensical boys at once. But at last Mrs. Alicumpaine said, &quot;I cannot have this din. Now, children, you have played at Parliament very nicely, but Parliament gets tiresome after a little while, and it’s time you left off, for you will soon be fetched.&quot; After another dance (with more tearing to rags than before supper), they began to be fetched, and you will be very glad to be told that the tiresome fat boy who had been on his legs was walked off first without any ceremony. When they were all gone, poor Mrs. Alicumpaine dropped upon a sofa and said to Mrs. Orange, &quot;These children will be the death of me at last, ma’am, they will indeed!&quot; &quot;I quite adore them, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Orange, &quot;but they DO want variety.&quot; Mr. Orange got his hat, and Mrs. Orange got her bonnet and her baby, and they set out to walk home. They had to pass Mrs. Lemon’s Preparatory Establishment on their way. &quot;I wonder, James dear,&quot; said Mrs. Orange, looking up at the window, &quot;whether the precious children are asleep!&quot; &quot;I don’t care much whether they are or not, myself,&quot; said Mr. Orange. &quot;James dear!&quot; &quot;You dote upon them, you know,&quot; said Mr. Orange. &quot;That’s another thing.&quot; &quot;I do!&quot; said Mrs. Orange rapturously. &quot;O, I DO!&quot; &quot;I don’t,&quot; said Mr. Orange. &quot;But I was thinking, James love,&quot; said Mrs. Orange, pressing his arm, &quot;whether our dear good kind Mrs. Lemon would like them to stay the holidays with her.&quot; &quot;If she was paid for it, I daresay she would,&quot; said Mr. Orange. &quot;I adore them, James,&quot; said Mrs. Orange; &quot;but SUPPOSE we pay her then!&quot; This was what brought that country to such perfection, and made it such a delightful place to live in; the grown-up people (that would be in other countries) soon left off being allowed any holidays after Mr. and Mrs. Orange tried the experiment; and the children (that would be in other countries) kept them at school as long as ever they lived, and made them do whatever they were told. *Aged half-past six18680501https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._IV_Holiday_Romance_Romance._From_the_Pen_of_Miss_Nettie_Ashford/1868-05_No4_Holiday_Romance_Nettie_Ashford.pdf
233https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/233No. V, 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'Published in <em>Household Words</em><span>, Vol. XVI, No. 397, 31 October 1857, pp. 409-416.</span>Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-409.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-409.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1857-10-31">1857-10-31</a><span>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a><span>. A</span><span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1857-10-31-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No5<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>Two of the many passengers by a certain late Sunday evening train, Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis Goodchild, yielded up their tickets at a little rotten platform (converted into artificial touch-wood by smoke and ashes), deep in the manufacturing bosom of Yorkshire. A mysterious bosom it appeared, upon a damp, dark, Sunday night, dashed through in the train to the music of the whirling wheels, the panting of the engine, and the part-singing of hundreds of third-class excursionists, whose vocal efforts &quot;bobbed arayound&quot; from sacred to profane, from hymns, to our transatlantic sisters the Yankee Gal and Mairy Anne, in a remarkable way. There seemed to have been some large vocal gathering near to every lonely station on the line. No town was visible, no village was visible, no light was visible; but, a multitude got out singing, and a multitude got in singing, and the second multitude took up the hymns, and adopted our transatlantic sisters, and sang of their own egregious wickedness, and of their bobbing arayound, and of how the ship it was ready and the wind it was fair, and they were bayound for the sea, Mairy Anne, until they in their turn became a getting-out multitude, and were replaced by another getting-in multitude, who did the same. And at every station, the getting-in multitude, with an artistic reference to the completeness of their chorus, incessantly cried, as with one voice while scuffling into the carriages, &quot;We mun aa&#039; gang toogither!&quot; The singing and the multitudes had trailed off as the lonely places were left and the great towns were neared, and the way had lain as silently as a train&#039;s way ever can, over the vague black streets of the great gulfs of towns, and among their branchless woods of vague black chimneys. These towns looked, in the cinderous wet, as though they had one and all been on fire and were just put out—a dreary and quenched panorama, many miles long. Thus, Thomas and Francis got to Leeds; of which enterprising and important commercial centre it may be observed with delicacy, that you must either like it very much or not at all. Next day, the first of the Race-Week, they took train to Doncaster. And instantly the character, both of travellers and of luggage, entirely changed, and no other business than race-business any longer existed on the face of the earth. The talk was all of horses and &quot;John Scott.&quot; Guards whispered behind their hands to station-masters, of horses and John Scott. Men in cut-away coats and speckled cravats fastened with peculiar pins, and with the large bones of their legs developed under tight trousers, so that they should look as much as possible like horses&#039; legs, paced up and down by twos at junction-stations, speaking low and moodily of horses and John Scott. The young clergyman in the black strait-waistcoat, who occupied the middle seat of the carriage, expounded in his peculiar pulpit-accent to the young and lovely Reverend Mrs. Crinoline, who occupied the opposite middle-seat, a few passages of rumour relative to &quot;Oartheth, my love, and Mithter John Eth-cott.&quot; A bandy vagabond, with a head like a Dutch cheese, in a fustian stable-suit, attending on a horse-box and going about the platforms with a halter hanging round his neck like a Calais burgher of the ancient period much degenerated, was courted by the best society, by reason of what he had to hint, when not engaged in eating straw, concerning &quot;t&#039;harses and Joon Scott.&quot; The engine-driver himself, as he applied one eye to his large stationary double-eye-glass on the engine, seemed to keep the other open, sideways, upon horses and John Scott. Breaks and barriers at Doncaster station to keep the crowd off; temporary wooden avenues of ingress and egress, to help the crowd on. Forty extra porters sent down for this present blessed Race-Week, and all of them making up their betting-books in the lamp-room or somewhere else, and none of them to come and touch the luggage. Travellers disgorged into an open space, a howling wilderness of idle men. All work but race-work at a stand-still; all men at a stand-still. &quot;Ey my word! Deant ask noon o&#039; us to help wi&#039;t&#039; luggage. Bock your opinion loike a mon. Coom! Dang it, coom, t&#039;harses and Joon Scott!&quot; In the midst of the idle men, all the fly horses and omnibus horses of Doncaster and parts adjacent, rampant, rearing, backing, plunging, shying—apparently the result of their hearing of nothing but their own order and John Scott. Grand Dramatic Company from London for the Race-week. Poses Plastiques in the Grand Assembly Room up the Stable-Yard at seven and nine each evening, for the Race-Week. Grand Alliance Circus in the field beyond the bridge, for the Race-Week. Grand Exhibition of Aztec Lilliputians, important to all who want to be horrified cheap, for the Race-Week. Lodgings, grand and not grand, but all at grand prices, ranging from ten pounds to twenty, for the Grand Race-Week! Rendered giddy enough by these things, Messieurs Idle and Goodchild repaired to the quarters they had secured beforehand, and Mr. Goodchild looked down from the window into the surging street. &quot;By heaven, Tom!&quot; cried he, after contemplating it, &quot;I am in the Lunatic Asylum again, and these are all mad people under the charge of a body of designing keepers!&quot; All through the Race-Week, Mr. Goodchild never divested himself of this idea. Every day he looked out of window, with something of the dread of Lemuel Gulliver looking down at men after he returned home from the horse-country; and every day he saw the Lunatics, horse-mad, betting-mad, drunken-mad, vice-mad, and the designing Keepers always after them. The idea pervaded, like the second colour in shot-silk, the whole of Mr. Goodchild&#039;s impressions. They were much as follows: Monday, mid-day. Races not to begin until to-morrow, but all the mob-Lunatics out, crowding the pavements of the one main street of pretty and pleasant Doncaster, crowding the road, particularly crowding the outside of the Betting Rooms, whooping and shouting loudly after all passing vehicles. Frightened lunatic horses occasionally running away, with infinite clatter. All degrees of men, from peers to paupers, betting incessantly. Keepers very watchful, and taking all good chances. An awful family likeness among the Keepers, to Mr. Palmer and Mr. Thurtell. With some knowledge of expression and some acquaintance with heads (thus writes Mr. Goodchild), I never have seen anywhere, so many repetitions of one class of countenance and one character of head (both evil) as in this street at this time. Cunning, covetousness, secresy, cold calculation, hard callousness and dire insensibility, are the uniform Keeper characteristics. Mr. Palmer passes me five times in five minutes, and, as I go down the street, the back of Mr. Thurtell&#039;s skull is always going on before me. Monday evening. Town lighted up; more Lunatics out than ever; a complete choke and stoppage of the thoroughfare outside the Betting Rooms. Keepers, having dined, pervade the Betting Rooms, and sharply snap at the moneyed Lunatics. Some Keepers flushed with drink, and some not, but all close and calculating. A vague echoing roar of &quot;t&#039;harses &quot; and &quot;t&#039;races&quot; always rising in the air, until midnight, at about which period it dies away in occasional drunken songs and straggling yells. But, all night, some unmannerly drinking-house in the neighbourhood opens its mouth at intervals and spits out a man too drunk to be retained: who there-upon makes what uproarious protest may be left in him, and either falls asleep where he tumbles, or is carried off in custody. Tuesday morning, at daybreak. A sudden rising, as it were out of the earth, of all the obscene creatures, who sell &quot;correct cards of the races.&quot; They may have been coiled in corners, or sleeping on door-steps, and, having all passed the night under the same set of circumstances, may all want to circulate their blood at the same time; but, however that may be, they spring into existence all at once and together, as though a new Cadmus had sown a race-horse&#039;s teeth. There is nobody up, to buy the cards; but, the cards are madly cried. There is no patronage to quarrel for; but, they madly quarrel and fight. Conspicuous among these hyænas, as breakfast-time discloses, is a fearful creature in the general semblance of a man: shaken off his next-to-no legs by drink and devilry, bare-headed and bare-footed, with a great shock of hair like a horrible broom, and nothing on him but a ragged pair of trousers and a pink glazed-calico coat—made on him—so very tight that it is as evident that he could never take it off, as that he never does. This hideous apparition, inconceivably drunk, has a terrible power of making a gong-like imitation of the braying of an ass: which feat requires that he should lay his right jaw in his begrimed right paw, double himself up, and shake his bray out of himself, with much staggering on his next-to-no legs, and much twirling of his horrible broom, as if it were a mop. From the present minute, when he comes in sight holding up his cards to the windows, and hoarsely proposing purchase to My Lord, Your Excellency, Colonel, the Noble Captain, and Your Honorable Worship—from the present minute until the Grand Race-Week is finished, at all hours of the morning, evening, day, and night, shall the town reverberate, at capricious intervals, to the brays of this frightful animal the Gong-Donkey. No very great racing to-day, so no very great amount of vehicles: though there is a good sprinkling, too: from farmers&#039; carts and gigs, to carriages with post-horses and to fours-in-hand, mostly coming by the road from York, and passing on straight through the main street to the Course. A walk in the wrong direction may be a better thing for Mr. Goodchild to-day than the Course, so he walks in the wrong direction. Everybody gone to the races. Only children in the street. Grand Alliance Circus deserted; not one Star-Rider left; omnibus which forms the Pay-Place, having on separate panels Pay here for the Boxes, Pay here for the Pit, Pay here for the Gallery, hove down in a corner and locked up; nobody near the tent but the man on his knees on the grass, who is making the paper balloons for the Star young gentlemen to jump through to-night. A pleasant road, pleasantly wooded. No labourers working in the fields; all gone &quot;t&#039;races.&quot; The few late wenders of their way &quot;t&#039;races,&quot; who are yet left driving on the road, stare in amazement at the recluse who is not going &quot;t&#039;races.&quot; Roadside inn-keeper has gone &quot;t&#039;races.&quot; Turnpike-man has gone &quot;t&#039;races.&quot; His thrifty wife, washing clothes at the toll-house door, is going &quot;t&#039;races&quot; to-morrow. Perhaps there may be no one left to take the toll to-morrow; who knows? Though assuredly that would be neither turnpike-like, nor Yorkshire-like. The very wind and dust seem to be hurrying &quot;t&#039;races,&quot; as they briskly pass the only wayfarer on the road. In the distance, the Railway Engine, waiting at the town-end, shrieks despairingly. Nothing but the difficulty of getting off the Line, restrains that Engine from going &quot;t&#039;races,&quot; too, it is very clear. At night, more Lunatics out than last night and more Keepers. The latter very active at the Betting Rooms, the street in front of which is now impassable. Mr. Palmer as before. Mr. Thurtell as before. Roar and uproar as before. Gradual subsidence as before. Unmannerly drinking house expectorates as before. Drunken negro-melodists, Gong-donkey, and correct cards, in the night. On Wednesday morning, the morning of the great St. Leger, it becomes apparent that there has been a great influx since yesterday, both of Lunatics and Keepers. The families of the tradesmen over the way are no longer within human ken; their places know them no more; ten, fifteen, and twenty guinea-lodgers fill them. At the pastry-cook&#039;s second-floor window, a Keeper is brushing Mr. Thurtell&#039;s hair—thinking it his own. In the wax-chandler&#039;s attic, another Keeper is putting on Mr. Palmer&#039;s braces. In the gunsmith&#039;s nursery, a Lunatic is shaving himself. In the serious stationer&#039;s best sitting-room, three Lunatics are taking a combination-breakfast, praising the (cook&#039;s) devil, and drinking neat brandy in an atmosphere of last midnight&#039;s cigars. No family sanctuary is free from our Angelic messengers—we put up at the Angel—who in the guise of extra waiters for the grand Race-Week, rattle in and out of the most secret chambers of everybody&#039;s house, with dishes and tin covers, decanters, soda-water bottles, and glasses. An hour later. Down the street and up the street, as far as eyes can see and a good deal farther, there is a dense crowd; outside the Betting Rooms it is like a great struggle at a theatre door—in the days of theatres; or at the vestibule of the Spurgeon temple—in the days of Spurgeon. An hour later. Fusing into this crowd, and somehow getting through it, are all kinds of conveyances, and all kinds of foot-passengers; carts, with brick-makers and brick-makeresses jolting up and down on planks; drags, with the needful grooms behind, sitting crossed-armed in the needful manner, and slanting themselves backward from the soles of their boots at the needful angle; postboys, in the shining hats and smart jackets of the olden time, when stokers were not; beautiful Yorkshire horses, gallantly driven by their own breeders and masters. Under every pole, and every shaft, and every horse, and every wheel as it would seem, the Gong-donkey—metallically braying, when not struggling for life, or whipped out of the way. By one o&#039;clock, all this stir has gone out of the streets, and there is no one left in them but Francis Goodchild. Francis Goodchild will not be left in them long; for, he too is on his way &quot;t&#039;races.&quot; A most beautiful sight, Francis Goodchild finds &quot;t&#039;races&quot; to be, when he has left fair Doncaster behind him, and comes out on the free course, with its agreeable prospect, its quaint Red House oddly changing and turning as Francis turns, its green grass, and fresh heath. A free course and an easy one, where Francis can roll smoothly where he will, and can choose between the start, or the coming-in, or the turn behind the brow of the hill, or any out-of-the-way point where he lists to see the throbbing horses straining every nerve, and making the sympathetic earth throb as they come by. Francis much delights to be, not in the Grand Stand, but where he can see it, rising against the sky with its vast tiers of little white dots of faces, and its last high rows and corners of people, looking like pins stuck into an enormous pin-cushion—not quite so symmetrically as his orderly eye could wish, when people change or go away. When the race is nearly run out, it is as good as the race to him to see the flutter among the pins, and the change in them from dark to light, as hats are taken off and waved. Not less full of interest, the loud anticipation of the winner&#039;s name, the swelling, and the final, roar; then, the quick dropping of all the pins out of their places, the revelation of the shape of the bare pin-cushion, and the closing-in of the whole host of Lunatics and Keepers, in the rear of the three horses with bright-coloured riders, who have not yet quite subdued their gallop though the contest is over. Mr. Goodchild would appear to have been by no means free from lunacy himself at &quot;t&#039;races,&quot; though not of the prevalent kind. He is suspected by Mr. Idle to have fallen into a dreadful state concerning a pair of little lilac gloves and a little bonnet that he saw there. Mr Idle asserts, that he did afterwards repeat at the Angel, with an appearance of being lunatically seized, some rhapsody to the following effect: &quot;O little lilac gloves! And O winning little bonnet, making in conjunction with her golden hair quite a Glory in the sunlight round the pretty head, why anything in the world but you and me! Why may not this day&#039;s running—of horses, to all the rest: of precious sands of life to me—be prolonged through an everlasting autumn-sunshine, without a sunset! Slave of the Lamp, or Ring, strike me yonder gallant equestrian Clerk of the Course, in the scarlet coat, motionless on the green grass for ages! Friendly Devil on Two Sticks, for ten times ten thousand years, keep Blink-Bonny jibbing at the post, and let us have no start! Arab drums, powerful of old to summon Genii in the desert, sound of yourselves and raise a troop for me in the desert of my heart, which shall so enchant this dusty barouche (with a conspicuous excise-plate, resembling the Collector&#039;s door-plate at a turnpike), that I, within it, loving the little lilac gloves, the winning little bonnet, and the dear unknown-wearer with the golden hair, may wait by her side for ever, to see a Great St. Leger that shall never be run!&quot; Thursday morning. After a tremendous night of crowding, shouting, drinking-house expectoration, Gong-donkey, and correct cards. Symptoms of yesterday&#039;s gains in the way of drink, and of yesterday&#039;s losses in the way of money, abundant. Money-losses very great. As usual, nobody seems to have won; but, large losses and many losers are unquestionable facts. Both Lunatics and Keepers, in general very low. Several of both kinds look in at the chemist&#039;s while Mr. Goodchild is making a purchase there, to be &quot;picked up.&quot; One red-eyed Lunatic, flushed, faded, and disordered, enters hurriedly and cries savagely, &quot;Hond us a gloss of sal volatile in wather, or soom dommed thing o&#039;thot sart!&quot; Faces at the Betting-Rooms very long, and a tendency to bite nails observable. Keepers likewise given this morning to standing about solitary, with their hands in their pockets, looking down at their boots as they fit them into cracks of the pavement, and then looking up whistling and walking away. Grand Alliance Circus out, in procession; buxom lady-member of Grand Alliance, in crimson riding-habit, fresher to look at, even in her paint under the day sky, than the cheeks of Lunatics or Keepers. Spanish Cavalier appears to have lost yesterday, and jingles his bossed bridle with disgust, as if he were paying. Re-action also apparent at the Guildhall opposite, whence certain pickpockets come out handcuffed together, with that peculiar walk which is never seen under any other circumstances—a walk expressive of going to jail, game, but still of jails being in bad taste and arbitrary, and how would you like it if it was you instead of me, as it ought to be! Mid-day. Town filled as yesterday, but not so full; and emptied as yesterday, but not so empty. In the evening, Angel ordinary where every Lunatic and Keeper has his modest daily meal of turtle, venison, and wine, not so crowded as yesterday, and not so noisy. At night, the theatre. More abstracted faces in it, than one ever sees at public assemblies; such faces wearing an expression which strongly reminds Mr. Goodchild of the boys at school who were &quot;going up next,&quot; with their arithmetic or mathematics. These boys are, no doubt, going up to-morrow with their sums and figures. Mr. Palmer and Mr. Thurtell in the boxes O. P. Mr. Thurtell and Mr. Palmer in the boxes P. S. The firm of Thurtell, Palmer, and Thurtell, in the boxes Centre. A most odious tendency observable in these distinguished gentlemen to put vile constructions on sufficiently innocent phrases in the play, and then to applaud them in a Satyr-like manner. Behind Mr. Goodchild, with a party of other Lunatics and one Keeper, the express incarnation of the thing called a &quot;gent.&quot; A gentleman born; a gent manufactured. A something with a scarf round its neck, and a slipshod speech issuing from behind the scarf; more depraved, more foolish, more ignorant, more unable to believe in any noble or good thing of any kind, than the stupidest Bosjesman. The thing is but a boy in years, and is addled with drink. To do its company justice, even its company is ashamed of it, as it drawls its slang criticisms on the representation, and inflames Mr. Goodchild with a burning ardour to fling it into the pit. Its remarks are so horrible, that Mr. Goodchild, for the moment, even doubts whether that is a wholesome Art, which sets women apart on a high floor before such a thing as this, though as good as its own sisters, or its own mother—whom Heaven forgive for bringing it into the world! But, the consideration that a low nature must make a low world of its own to live in, whatever the real materials, or it could no more exist than any of us could without the sense of touch, brings Mr. Goodchild to reason: the rather, because the thing soon drops its downy chin upon its scarf, and slobbers itself asleep. Friday Morning. Early fights. Gong-donkey, and correct cards. Again, a great set towards the races, though not so great a set as on Wednesday. Much packing going on too, upstairs at the gunsmith&#039;s, the wax-chandler&#039;s, and the serious stationer&#039;s; for there will be a heavy drift of Lunatics and Keepers to London by the afternoon train. The course as pretty as ever; the great pincushion as like a pincushion, but not nearly so full of pins; whole rows of pins wanting. On the great event of the day, both Lunatics and Keepers become inspired with rage; and there is a violent scuffling, and a rushing at the losing jockey, and an emergence of the said jockey from a swaying and menacing crowd, protected by friends, and looking the worse for wear; which is a rough proceeding, though animating to see from a pleasant distance. After the great event, rills begin to flow from the pincushion towards the railroad; the rills swell into rivers; the rivers soon unite into a lake. The lake floats Mr. Goodchild into Doncaster, past the Itinerant personage in black, by the way-side telling him from the vantage ground of a legibly printed placard on a pole that for all these things the Lord will bring him to judgment. No turtle and venison ordinary this evening; that is all over. No Betting at the rooms; nothing there but the plants in pots, which have, all the week, been stood about the entry to give it an innocent appearance, and which have sorely sickened by this time. Saturday. Mr. Idle wishes to know at breakfast, what were those dreadful groanings in his bedroom doorway in the night? Mr. Goodchild answers, Nightmare. Mr. Idle repels the calumny, and calls the waiter. The Angel is very sorry—had intended to explain; but you see, gentlemen, there was a gentleman dined down stairs with two more, and he had lost a deal of money, and he would drink a deal of wine, and in the night he &quot;took the horrors,&quot; and got up; and as his friends could do nothing with him he laid himself down, and groaned at Mr. Idle&#039;s door. &quot;And he DID groan there,&quot; Mr. Idle says; &quot;and you will please to imagine me inside, &#039;taking the horrors&#039; too!&quot; So far, the picture of Doncaster on the occasion of its great sporting anniversary, offers probably a general representation of the social condition of the town, in the past as well as in the present time. The sole local phenomenon of the current year, which may be considered as entirely unprecedented in its way, and which certainly claims, on that account, some slight share of notice, consists in the actual existence of one remarkable individual, who is sojourning in Doncaster, and who, neither directly nor indirectly, has anything at all to do, in any capacity whatever, with the racing amusements of the week. Ranging throughout the entire crowd that fills the town, and including the inhabitants as well as the visitors, nobody is to be found altogether disconnected with the business of the day, excepting this one unparalleled man. He does not bet on the races, like the sporting men. He does not assist the races, like the jockeys, starters, judges, and grooms. He does not look on at the races, like Mr. Goodchild and his fellow-spectators. He does not profit by the races, like the hotel-keepers and the trades-people. He does not minister to the necessities of the races, like the booth-keepers, the postilions, the waiters, and the hawkers of Lists. He does not assist the attractions of the races, like the actors at the theatre, the riders at the circus, or the posturers at the Poses Plastiques. Absolutely and literally, he is the only individual in Doncaster who stands by the brink of the full-flowing race-stream, and is not swept away by it in common with all the rest of his species. Who is this modern hermit, this recluse of the St. Leger-week, this inscrutably ungregarious being, who lives apart from the amusements and activities of his fellow-creatures? Surely, there is little difficulty in guessing that clearest and easiest of all riddles. Who could he be, but Mr. Thomas Idle? Thomas had suffered himself to be taken to Doncaster, just as he would have suffered himself to be taken to any other place in the habitable globe which would guarantee him the temporary possession of a comfortable sofa to rest his ankle on. Once established at the hotel, with his leg on one cushion and his back against another, he formally declined taking the slightest interest in any circumstance whatever connected with the races, or with the people who were assembled to see them. Francis Goodchild, anxious that the hours should pass by his crippled travelling-to the personal appearance of the horse. I protest against the conventional idea of beauty, as attached to that animal. I think his nose too long, his forehead too low, and his legs (except in the case of the cart-horse) ridiculously thin by comparison with the size of his body. Again, considering how big an animal he is, I object to the contemptible delicacy of his constitution. Is he not the sickliest creature in creation? Does any child catch cold as easily as a horse? Does he not sprain his fetlock, for all his appearance of superior strength, as easily as I sprained my ankle? Furthermore, to take him from another point of view, what a helpless wretch he is! No fine lady requires more constant waiting-on than a horse. Other animals can make their own toilette: he must have a groom. You will tell me that this is because we want to make his coat artificially glossy. Glossy! Come home with me, and see my cat,—my clever cat, who can groom herself! Look at your own dog! See how the intelligent creature curry-combs himself with his own honest teeth! Then, again, what a fool the horse is, what a poor, nervous fool! He will start at a piece of white paper in the road as if it was a lion. His one idea, when he hears a noise that he is not accustomed to, is to run away from it. What do you say to those two common instances of the sense and courage of this absurdly overpraised animal? I might multiply them to two hundred, if I chose to exert my mind and waste my breath, which I never do. I prefer coming at once to my last charge against the horse, which is the most serious of all, because it affects his moral character. I accuse him boldly, in his capacity of servant to man, of slyness and treachery. I brand him publickly, no matter how mild he may look about the eyes, or how sleek he may be about the coat, as a systematic betrayer, whenever he can get the chance, of the confidence reposed in him. What do you mean by laughing and shaking your head at me?&quot; &quot;Oh, Thomas, Thomas! &quot; said Goodchild. &quot;You had better give me my hat; you had better let me get you that physic.&quot; &quot;I will let you get anything you like, including a composing draught for yourself,&quot; said Thomas, irritably alluding to his fellow-apprentice&#039;s inexhaustible activity, &quot;if you will only sit quiet for five minutes longer, and hear me out. I say again the horse is a betrayer of the confidence reposed in him; and that opinion, let me add, is drawn from my own personal experience, and is not based on any fanciful theory whatever. You shall have two instances, two overwhelming instances. Let me start the first of these by asking, what is the distinguishing quality which the Shetland Pony has arrogated to himself, and is still perpetually trumpeting through the world by means of popular report and books on Natural History? I see the answer in your face: it is the quality of being Sure-Footed. He professes to have other virtues, such as hardiness and strength, which you may discover on trial; but the one thing which he insists on your believing, when you get on his back, is that he may be safely depended on not to tumble down with you. Very good. Some years ago, I was in Shetland with a party of friends. They insisted on taking me with them to the top of a precipice that overhung the sea. It was a great distance off, but they all determined to walk to it except me. I was wiser then than I was with you at Carrock, and I determined to be carried to the precipice. There was no carriage road in the island, and nobody offered (in consequence, as I suppose, of the imperfectly-civilised state of the country) to bring me a sedan-chair, which is naturally what I should have liked best. A Shetland pony was produced instead. I remembered my Natural History, I recalled popular report, and I got on the little beast&#039;s back, as any other man would have done in my position, placing implicit confidence in the sureness of his feet. And how did he repay that confidence? Brother Francis, carry your mind on from morning to noon. Picture to yourself a howling wilderness of grass and bog, bounded by low stony hills. Pick out one particular spot in that imaginary scene, and sketch me in it, with outstretched arms, curved back, and heels in the air, plunging headforemost into a black patch of water and mud. Place just behind me the legs, the body, and the head of a sure-footed Shetland pony, all stretched flat on the ground, and you will have produced an accurate representation of a very lamentable fact. And the moral device, Francis, of this picture will be to testify that when gentlemen put confidence in the legs of Shetland ponies, they will find to their cost that they are leaning on nothing but broken reeds. There is my first instance—and what have you got to say to that?&quot; &quot;Nothing, but that I want my hat,&quot; answered Goodchild, starting up and walking restlessly about the room. &quot;You shall have it in a minute,&quot; rejoined Thomas. &quot;My second instance &quot;— (Goodchild groaned, and sat down again)—&quot;My second instance is more appropriate to the present time and place, for it refers to a race-horse. Two years ago an excellent friend of mine, who was desirous of prevailing on me to take regular exercise, and who was well enough acquainted with the weakness of my legs to expect no very active compliance with his wishes on their part, offered to make me a present of one of his horses. Hearing that the animal in question, had started in life on the turf, I declined accepting the gift with many thanks; adding, by way of explanation, that I looked on a race-horse as a kind of embodied hurricane, upon which no sane man of my character and companion as lightly as possible, suggested that his sofa should be moved to the window, and that he should amuse himself by looking out at the moving panorama of humanity, which the view from it of the principal street presented. Thomas, however, steadily declined profiting by the suggestion. &quot;The farther I am from the window,&quot; he said, &quot;the better, Brother Francis, I shall be pleased. I have nothing in common with the one prevalent idea of all those people who are passing in the street. Why should I care to look at them ?&quot; &quot;I hope I have nothing in common with the prevalent idea of a great many of them, either,&quot; answered Goodchild, thinking of the sporting gentlemen whom he had met in the course of his wanderings about Doncaster. &quot;But, surely, among all the people who are walking by the house, at this very moment, you may find—&quot; &quot;Not one living creature,&quot; interposed Thomas, &quot;who is not, in one way or another, interested in horses, and who is not, in a greater or less degree, an admirer of them. Now, I hold opinions in reference to these particular members of the quadruped creation, which may lay claim (as I believe) to the disastrous distinction of being unpartaken by any other human being, civilised or savage, over the whole surface of the earth. Taking the horse as an animal in the abstract, Francis, I cordially despise him from every point of view.&quot; &quot;Thomas,&quot; said Goodchild, &quot;confinement to the house has begun to affect your biliary secretions. I shall go to the chemist&#039;s and get you some physic.&quot; &quot;I object,&quot; continued Thomas, quietly possessing himself of his friend&#039;s hat, which stood on a table near him,—&quot;I object, first, habits could be expected to seat himself. My friend replied that, however appropriate my metaphor might be as applied to race-horses in general, it was singularly unsuitable as applied to the particular horse which he proposed to give me. From a foal upwards this remarkable animal had been the idlest and most sluggish of his race. Whatever capacities for speed he might possess he had kept so strictly to himself, that no amount of training had ever brought them out. He had been found hopelessly slow as a racer, and hopelessly lazy as a hunter, and was fit for nothing but a quiet, easy life of it with an old gentleman or an invalid. When I heard this account of the horse, I don&#039;t mind confessing that my heart warmed to him. Visions of Thomas Idle ambling serenely on the back of a steed as lazy as himself, presenting to a restless world the soothing and composite spectacle of a kind of sluggardly Centaur, too peaceable in his habits to alarm anybody, swam attractively before my eyes. I went to look at the horse in the stable. Nice fellow! he was fast asleep with a kitten on his back. I saw him taken out for an airing by the groom. If he had had trousers on his legs I should not have known them from my own, so deliberately were they lifted up, so gently were they put down, so slowly did they get over the ground. From that moment I gratefully accepted my friend&#039;s offer. I went home; the horse followed me—by a slow train. Oh, Francis, how devoutly I believed in that horse! how carefully I looked after all his little comforts! I had never gone the length of hiring a man-servant to wait on myself; but I went to the expense of hiring one to wait upon him. If I thought a little of myself when I bought the softest saddle that could be had for money, I thought also of my horse. When the man at the shop afterwards offered me spurs and a whip, I turned from him with horror. When I sallied out for my first ride, I went purposely unarmed with the means of hurrying my steed. He proceeded at his own pace every step of the way; and when he stopped, at last, and blew out both his sides with a heavy sigh, and turned his sleepy head and looked behind him, I took him home again, as I might take home an artless child who said to me, &quot;If you please, sir, I am tired.&quot; For a week this complete harmony between me and my horse lasted undisturbed. At the end of that time, when he had made quite sure of my friendly confidence in his laziness, when he had thoroughly acquainted himself with all the little weaknesses of my seat (and their name is Legion), the smouldering treachery and ingratitude of the equine nature blazed out in an instant. Without the slightest provocation from me, with nothing passing him at the time but a pony-chaise driven by an old lady, he started in one instant from a state of sluggish depression to a state of frantic high spirits. He kicked, he plunged, he shied, he pranced, he capered fearfully. I sat on him as long as I could, and when I could sit no longer, I fell off. No, Francis! this is not a circumstance to be laughed at, but to be wept over. What would be said of a Man who had requited my kindness in that way? Range over all the rest of the animal creation, and where will you find me an instance of treachery so black as this? The cow that kicks down the milking-pail may have some reason for it; she may think herself taxed too heavily to contribute to the dilution of human tea and the greasing of human bread. The tiger who springs out on me unawares has the excuse of being hungry at the time, to say nothing of the further justification of being a total stranger to me. The very flea who surprises me in my sleep may defend his act of assassination on the ground that I, in my turn, am always ready to murder him when I am awake. I defy the whole body of Natural Historians to move me, logically, off the ground that I have taken in regard to the horse. Receive back your hat, Brother Francis, and go to the chemist&#039;s, if you please; for I have now done. Ask me to take anything you like, except an interest in the Doncaster races. Ask me to look at anything you like, except an assemblage of people all animated by feelings of a friendly and admiring nature towards the horse. You are a remarkably well-informed man, and you have heard of hermits. Look upon me as a member of that ancient fraternity, and you will sensibly add to the many obligations which Thomas Idle is proud to owe to Francis Goodchild.&quot; Here, fatigued by the effort of excessive talking, disputatious Thomas waved one hand languidly, laid his head back on the sofa-pillow, and calmly closed his eyes. At a later period, Mr. Goodchild assailed his travelling companion boldly from the impregnable fortress of common sense. But Thomas, though tamed in body by drastic discipline, was still as mentally unapproachable as ever on the subject of his favourite delusion. The view from the window after Saturday&#039;s breakfast is altogether changed. The tradesmen&#039;s families have all come back again. The serious stationer&#039;s young woman of all work is shaking a duster out of the window of the combination breakfast-room; a child is playing with a doll, where Mr. Thurtell&#039;s hair was brushed; a sanitary scrubbing is in progress on the spot where Mr. Palmer&#039;s braces were put on. No signs of the Races are in the streets, but the tramps and the tumble-down carts and trucks laden with drinking-forms and tables and remnants of booths, that are making their way out of the town as fast as they can. The Angel, which has been cleared for action all the week, already begins restoring every neat and comfortable article of furniture to its own neat and comfortable place. The Angel&#039;s daughters (pleasanter angels Mr. Idle and Mr. Goodchild never saw, nor more quietly expert in their business, nor more superior to the common vice of being above it), have a little time to rest, and to air their cheerful faces among the flowers in the yard. It is market-day. The market looks unusually natural, comfortable, and wholesome; the market-people too. The town seems quite restored, when, hark! a metallic bray—The Gong-donkey! The wretched animal has not cleared off with the rest, but is here, under the window. How much more inconceivably drunk now, how much more begrimed of paw, how much more tight of calico hide, how much more stained and daubed and dirty and dung-hilly, from his horrible broom to his tender toes, who shall say! He cannot even shake the bray out of himself now, without laying his cheek so near to the mud of the street, that he pitches over after delivering it. Now, prone in the mud, and now backing himself up against shop-windows, the owners of which come out in terror to remove him; now, in the drinking-shop, and now in the tobacconist&#039;s, where he goes to buy tobacco, and makes his way into the parlor, and where he gets a cigar, which in half-a-minute he forgets to smoke; now dancing, now dozing, now cursing, and now complimenting My Lord, the Colonel, the Noble Captain, and Your Honorable Worship, the Gong-donkey kicks up his heels, occasionally braying, until suddenly, he beholds the dearest friend he has in the world coming down the street. The dearest friend the Gong-donkey has in the world, is a sort of Jackall, in a dull mangy black hide, of such small pieces that it looks as if it were made of blacking bottles turned inside out and cobbled together. The dearest friend in the world (inconceivably drunk too) advances at the Gong-donkey, with a hand on each thigh, in a series of humorous springs and stops, wagging his head as he comes. The Gong-Donkey regarding him with attention and with the warmest affection, suddenly perceives that he is the greatest enemy he has in the world, and hits him hard in the countenance. The astonished Jackall closes with the Donkey, and they roll over and over in the mud, pummelling one another. A Police Inspector, supernaturally endowed with patience, who has long been looking on from the Guildhall-steps, says to a myrmidon, &quot;Lock &#039;em up! Bring &#039;em in!&quot; Appropriate finish to the Grand Race Week. The Gong-donkey, captive and last trace of it, conveyed into limbo, where they cannot do better than keep him until next Race Week. The Jackall is wanted too, and is much looked for, over the way and up and down. But, having had the good-fortune to be undermost at the time of the capture, he has vanished into air. On Saturday afternoon, Mr. Goodchild walks out and looks at the Course. It is quite deserted; heaps of broken crockery and bottles are raised to its memory; and correct cards and other fragments of paper are blowing about it, as the regulation little paper-books, carried by the French soldiers in their breasts, were seen, soon after the battle was fought, blowing idly about the plains of Waterloo. Where will these present idle leaves be blown by the idle winds, and where will the last of them be one day lost and forgotten? An idle question, and an idle thought; and with it Mr. Idle fitly makes his bow, and Mr. Goodchild his, and thus ends the Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices.18571031https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._V_The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices/1857-10-31-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No5.pdf
224https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/224No.I 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>ATYR</em>)<span>Published in <em>All the Year Round</em></span><em>,<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>vol. XIX, no. 458 (1 February 1868), pp. 120-124.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xix/page-180.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xix/page-180.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1868-02-01">1868-02-01</a><span>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a><span>. A</span><span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=50&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=No.+I+%27George+Silverman%27s+Explanation%27+%28%3Cem%3EAtlantic+Monthly%3C%2Fem%3E%29">No. I 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>Atlantic Monthly</em>)</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1868-02-01-George_Silvermans_Explanation_1_ATYRDickens, Charles. No. I 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>ATYR</em>). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. <a href="Accessed%20[date]. https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-02-01-George_Silvermans_Explanation_1_ATYR">Accessed [date]. https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-02-01-George_Silvermans_Explanation_1_ATYR</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAll+the+Year+Round%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>All the Year Round</em></a>FIRST CHAPTER. It happened in this wise: —But, sitting with my pen in my hand looking at those words again, without descrying any hint in them of the words that should follow, it comes into my mind that they have an abrupt appearance. They may serve, however, if I let them remain, to suggest how very difficult I find it to begin to explain my Explanation. An uncouth phrase: and yet I do not see my way to a better. SECOND CHAPTER. It happened in this wise: —But, looking at those words, and comparing them with my former opening, I find they are the self-same words repeated. This is the more surprising to me, because I employ them in quite a new connexion. For indeed I declare that my intention was to discard the commencement I first had in my thoughts, and to give the preference to another of an entirely different nature, dating my explanation from an anterior period of my life. I will make a third trial, without erasing this second failure, protesting that it is not my design to conceal any of my infirmities, whether they be of head or heart. THIRD CHAPTER. Not as yet directly aiming at how it came to pass, I will come upon it by degrees. The natural manner after all, for GOD knows that is how it came upon me! My parents were in a miserable condition of life, and my infant home was a cellar in Preston. I recollect the sound of Father&#039;s Lancashire clogs on the street pavement above, as being different in my young hearing from the sound of all other clogs; and I recollect that when Mother came down the cellar-steps, I used tremblingly to speculate on her feet having a good or an ill tempered look—on her knees—on her waist—until finally her face came into view and settled the question. From this it will be seen that I was timid, and that the cellar-steps were steep, and that the doorway was very low. Mother had the gripe and clutch of Poverty upon her face, upon her figure, and not least of all upon her voice. Her sharp and high-pitched words were squeezed out of her, as by the compression of bony fingers on a leathern bag, and she had a way of rolling her eyes about and about the cellar, as she scolded, that was gaunt and hungry. Father, with his shoulders rounded, would sit quiet on a three-legged stool, looking at the empty grate, until she would pluck the stool from under him, and bid him go bring some money home. Then he would dismally ascend the steps, and I, holding my ragged shirt and trousers together with a hand (my only braces), would feint and dodge from Mother&#039;s pursuing grasp at my hair. A worldly little devil was Mother&#039;s usual name for me. Whether I cried for that I was in the dark, or for that it was cold, or for that I was hungry, or whether I squeezed myself into a warm corner when there was a fire, or ate voraciously when there was food, she would still say: &quot;O you worldly little devil!&quot; And the sting of it was, that I quite well knew myself to be a worldly little devil. Worldly as to wanting to be housed and warmed, worldly as to wanting to be fed, worldly as to the greed with which I inwardly compared how much I got of those good things with how much Father and Mother got, when, rarely, those good things were going. Sometimes they both went away seeking work, and then I would be locked up in the cellar for a day or two at a time. I was at my worldliest then. Left alone, I yielded myself up to a worldly yearning for enough of anything (except misery), and for the death of Mother&#039;s father, who was a machine-maker at Birmingham, and on whose decease I had heard Mother say she would come into a whole court-full of houses &quot;if she had her rights.&quot; Worldly little devil, I would stand about, musingly fitting my cold bare feet into cracked bricks and crevices of the damp cellar-floor walking over my grandfather&#039;s body, so to speak, into the court-full of houses, and selling them for meat and drink and clothes to wear. At last a change came down into our cellar. The universal change came down even as low as that—so will it mount to any height on which a human creature can perch—and brought other changes with it. We had a heap of I don&#039;t know what foul litter in the darkest corner, which we called &quot;the bed.&quot; For three days Mother lay upon it without getting up, and then began at times to laugh. If I had ever heard her laugh before, it had been so seldom that the strange sound frightened me. It frightened Father, too, and we took it by turns to give her water. Then she began to move her head from side to side, and sing. After that, she getting no better, Father fell a-laughing and a-singing, and then there was only I to give them both water, and they both died. FOURTH CHAPTER. When I was lifted out of the cellar by two men, of whom one came peeping down alone first, and ran away and brought the other, I could hardly bear the light of the street. I was sitting in the roadway, blinking at it, and at a ring of people collected around me, but not close to me, when, true to my character of worldly little devil, I broke silence by saying, &quot;I am hungry and thirsty!&quot; &quot;Does he know they are dead?&quot; asked one of another. &quot;Do you know your father and mother are both dead of fever?&quot; asked a third of me, severely. &quot;I don&#039;t know what it is to be dead. I supposed it meant that, when the cup rattled against their teeth and the water spilt over them. I am hungry and thirsty.&quot; That was all I had to say about it. The ring of people widened outward from the inner side as I looked around me; and I smelt vinegar, and what I now know to be camphor, thrown in towards where I sat. Presently some one put a great vessel of smoking vinegar on the ground near me, and then they all looked at me in silent horror as I ate and drank of what was brought for me. I knew at the time they had a horror of me, but I couldn&#039;t help it. I was still eating and drinking, and a murmur of discussion had begun to arise respecting what was to be done with me next, when I heard a cracked voice somewhere in the ring say: &quot;My name is Hawkyard, Mr. Verity Hawkyard, of West Bromwich.&quot; Then the ring split in one place, and a yellow-faced peak-nosed gentleman, clad all in iron-grey to his gaiters, pressed forward with a policeman and another official of some sort. He came forward close to the vessel of smoking vinegar; from which he sprinkled himself carefully, and me copiously. &quot;He had a grandfather at Birmingham, this young boy: who is just dead, too,&quot; said Mr. Hawkyard. I turned my eyes upon the speaker, and said in a ravening manner: &quot;Where&#039;s his houses?&quot; &quot;Hah! Horrible worldliness on the edge of the grave,&quot; said Mr. Hawkyard, casting more of the vinegar over me, as if to get my devil out of me. &quot;I have undertaken a slight—a ve-ry slight—trust in behalf of this boy; quite a voluntary trust; a matter of mere honour, if not of mere sentiment; still I have taken it upon myself, and it shall be (O yes, it shall be!) discharged.&quot; The bystanders seemed to form an opinion of this gentleman, much more favourable than their opinion of me. &quot;He shall be taught,&quot; said Mr. Hawkyard &quot;(O yes, he shall be taught!); but what is to be done with him for the present? He may be infected. He may disseminate infection.&quot; The ring widened considerably. &quot;What is to be done with him?&quot; He held some talk with the two officials. I could distinguish no word save &quot;Farm-house.&quot; There was another sound several times repeated, which was wholly meaningless in my ears then, but which I knew soon afterwards to be &quot;Hoghton Towers.&quot; &quot;Yes,&quot; said Mr. Hawkyard, &quot;I think that sounds promising. I think that sounds hopeful. And he can be put by himself in a Ward, for a night or two, you say?&quot; It seemed to be the police-officer who had said so, for it was he who replied Yes. It was he, too, who finally took me by the arm and walked me before him through the streets, into a whitewashed room in a bare building, where I had a chair to sit in, a table to sit at, an iron bedstead and good mattress to lie upon, and a rug and blanket to cover me. Where I had enough to eat, too, and was shown how to clean the tin porringer in which it was conveyed to me, until it was as good as a looking-glass. Here, likewise, I was put in a bath, and had new clothes brought to me, and my old rags were burnt, and I was camphored and vinegared, and disinfected in a variety of ways. When all this was done—I don&#039;t know in how many days or how few, but it matters not—Mr. Hawkyard stepped in at the door, remaining close to it, and said: &quot;Go and stand against the opposite wall, George Silverman. As far off as you can. That&#039;ll do. How do you feel?&quot; I told him that I didn&#039;t feel cold, and didn&#039;t feel hungry, and didn&#039;t feel thirsty. That was the whole round of human feelings, as far as I knew, except the pain of being beaten. &quot;Well,&quot; said he, &quot;you are going, George, to a healthy farm-house to be purified. Keep in the air there, as much as you can. Live an out-of-door life there, until you are fetched away. You had better not say much—in fact, you had better be very careful not to say anything—about what your parents died of, or they might not like to take you in. Behave well, and I&#039;ll put you to school (O yes, I&#039;ll put you to school!), though I am not obligated to do it. I am a servant of the Lord, George, and I have been a good servant to him (I have!) these five-and-thirty years. The Lord has had a good servant in me, and he knows it.&quot; What I then supposed him to mean by this, I cannot imagine. As little do I know when I began to comprehend that he was a prominent member of some obscure denomination or congregation, every member of which held forth to the rest when so inclined, and among whom he was called Brother Hawkyard. It was enough for me to know, on that day in the Ward, that the farmer&#039;s cart was waiting for me at the street corner. I was not slow to get into it, for it was the first ride I ever had in my life. It made me sleepy, and I slept. First, I stared at Preston streets as long as they lasted, and, meanwhile, I may have had some small dumb wondering within me whereabouts our cellar was. But I doubt it. Such a worldly little devil was I, that I took no thought who would bury Father and Mother, or where they would be buried, or when. The question whether the eating and drinking by day, and the covering by night, would be as good at the farm-house as at the Ward, superseded those questions. The jolting of the cart on a loose stony road awoke me, and I found that we were mounting a steep hill, where the road was a rutty by-road through a field. And so, by fragments of an ancient terrace, and by some rugged outbuildings that had once been fortified, and passing under a ruined gateway, we came to the old farm-house in the thick stone wall outside the old quadrangle of Hoghton Towers. Which I looked at, like a stupid savage; seeing no speciality in; seeing no antiquity in; assuming all farm-houses to resemble it; assigning the decay I noticed, to the one potent cause of all ruin that I knew—Poverty; eyeing the pigeons in their flights, the cattle in their stalls, the ducks in the pond, and the fowls pecking about the yard, with a hungry hope that plenty of them might be killed for dinner while I stayed there; wondering whether the scrubbed dairy vessels drying in the sunlight could be the goodly porringers out of which the master ate his belly-filling food, and which he polished when he had done, according to my Ward experience; shrinkingly doubtful whether the shadows passing over that airy height on the bright spring day were not something in the nature of frowns; sordid, afraid, unadmiring, a small Brute to shudder at. To that time I had never had the faintest impression of beauty. I had had no knowledge whatever that there was anything lovely in this life. When I had occasionally slunk up the cellar-steps into the street and glared in at shop-windows, I had done so with no higher feelings than we may suppose to animate a mangey young dog or wolf-cub. It is equally the fact that I had never been alone, in the sense of holding unselfish converse with myself. I had been solitary often enough, but nothing better. Such was my condition when I sat down to my dinner, that day, in the kitchen of the old farm-house. Such was my condition when I lay on my bed in the old farm-house that night, stretched out opposite the narrow mullioned window, in the cold light of the moon, like a young Vampire. FIFTH CHAPTER. What do I know, now, of Hoghton Towers? Very little, for I have been gratefully unwilling to disturb my first impressions. A house, centuries old, on high ground a mile or so removed from the road between Preston and Blackburn, where the first James of England in his hurry to make money by making Baronets, perhaps, made some of those remunerative dignitaries. A house, centuries old, deserted and falling to pieces, its woods and gardens long since grass land or ploughed up, the rivers Ribble and Darwen glancing below it, and a vague haze of smoke against which not even the supernatural prescience of the first Stuart could foresee a Counterblast, hinting at Steam Power, powerful in two distances. What did I know, then, of Hoghton Towers? When I first peeped in at the gate of the lifeless quadrangle, and started from the mouldering statue becoming visible to me like its Guardian Ghost; when I stole round by the back of the farm-house and got in among the ancient rooms, many of them with their floors and ceilings falling, the beams and rafters hanging dangerously down, the plaster dropping as I trod, the oaken panels stripped away, the windows half walled up, half broken; when I discovered a gallery commanding the old kitchen, and looked down between balustrades upon a massive old table and benches, fearing to see I know not what dead-alive creatures come in and seat themselves and look up with I know not what dreadful eyes, or lack of eyes, at me; when all over the house I was awed by gaps and chinks where the sky stared sorrowfully at me, where the birds passed, and the ivy rustled, and the stains of winter weather blotched the rotten floors; when down at the bottom of dark pits of staircase into which the stairs had sunk, green leaves trembled, butterflies fluttered, and bees hummed in and out through the broken doorways; when encircling the whole ruin were sweet scents and sights of fresh green growth and ever-renewing life, that I had never dreamed of;—I say, when I passed into such clouded perception of these things as my dark soul could compass, what did I know then of Hoghton Towers? I have written that the sky stared sorrowfully at me. Therein have I anticipated the answer. I knew that all these things looked sorrowfully at me. That they seemed to sigh or whisper, not without pity for me: &quot;Alas! poor worldly little devil!&quot; There were two or three rats at the bottom of one of the smaller pits of broken staircase when I craned over and looked in. They were scuffling for some prey that was there. And when they started and hid themselves, close together in the dark, I thought of the old life (it had grown old already) in the cellar. How not to be this worldly little devil? How not to have a repugnance towards myself as I had towards the rats? I hid in a corner of one of the smaller chambers, frightened at myself and crying (it was the first time I had ever cried for any cause not purely physical), and I tried to think about it. One of the farm-ploughs came into my range of view just then, and it seemed to help me as it went on with its two horses up and down the field so peacefully and quietly. There was a girl of about my own age in the farm-house family, and she sat opposite to me at the narrow table at meal-times. It had come into my mind at our first dinner, that she might take the fever from me. The thought had not disquieted me then; I had only speculated how she would look under the altered circumstances, and whether she would die. But it came into my mind now, that I might try to prevent her taking the fever, by keeping away from her. I knew I should have but scrambling board, if I did; so much the less worldly and less devilish the deed would be, I thought. From that hour I withdrew myself at early morning into secret corners of the ruined house, and remained hidden there until she went to bed. At first, when meals were ready, I used to hear them calling me; and then my resolution weakened. But I strengthened it again, by going further off into the ruin and getting out of hearing. I often watched for her at the dim windows; and, when I saw that she was fresh and rosy, felt much happier. Out of this holding her in my thoughts, to the humanising of myself, I suppose some childish love arose within me. I felt in some sort dignified by the pride of protecting her, by the pride of making the sacrifice for her. As my heart swelled with that new feeling, it insensibly softened about Mother and Father. It seemed to have been frozen before, and now to be thawed. The old ruin and all the lovely things that haunted it were not sorrowful for me only, but sorrowful for Mother and Father as well. Therefore did I cry again, and often too. The farm-house family conceived me to be of a morose temper, and were very short with me: though they never stinted me in such broken fare as was to be got, out of regular hours. One night when I lifted the kitchen latch at my usual time, Sylvia (that was her pretty name) had but just gone out of the room. Seeing her ascending the opposite stairs, I stood still at the door. She had heard the clink of the latch, and looked round. &quot;George,&quot; she called to me, in a pleased voice: &quot;to-morrow is my birthday, and we are to have a fiddler, and there&#039;s a party of boys and girls coming in a cart, and we shall dance. I invite you. Be sociable for once, George.&quot; &quot;I am very sorry, miss,&quot; I answered, &quot;but I—but no; I can&#039;t come.&quot; &quot;You are a disagreeable, ill-humoured lad,&quot; she returned, disdainfully, &quot;and I ought not to have asked you. I shall never speak to you again.&quot; As I stood with my eyes fixed on the fire after she was gone, I felt that the farmer bent his brows upon me. &quot;Eh, lad,&quot; said he, &quot;Sylvy&#039;s right. You&#039;re as moody and broody a lad as never I set eyes on yet!&quot; I tried to assure him that I meant no harm; but he only said, coldly: &quot;Maybe not, maybe not. There! Get thy supper, get thy supper, and then thou canst sulk to thy heart&#039;s content again.&quot; Ah! If they could have seen me next day in the ruin, watching for the arrival of the cart full of merry young guests; if they could have seen me at night, gliding out from behind the ghostly statue, listening to the music and the fall of dancing feet, and watching the lighted farm-house windows from the quadrangle when all the ruin was dark; if they could have read my heart as I crept up to bed by the back way, comforting myself with the reflection, &quot;They will take no hurt from me;&quot; they would not have thought mine a morose or an unsocial nature! It was in these ways that I began to form a shy disposition; to be of a timidly silent character under misconstruction; to have an inexpressible, perhaps a morbid, dread of ever being sordid or worldly. It was in these ways that my nature came to shape itself to such a mould, even before it was affected by the influences of the studious and retired life of a poor scholar.18680201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No.I_George_Silverman_s_Explanation_[ATYR]/1868-02-01-George_Silvermans_Explanation_1_ATYR.pdf
225https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/225No.II 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>ATYR</em>)<span>Published in&nbsp;<em>All the Year Round</em></span><em>,<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>vol. XIX, no. 460 (15 February 1868), pp. 228-231.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xix/page-228.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xix/page-228.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1868-02-15">1868-02-15</a><span>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a><span>. A</span><span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=50&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=No.+II+%27George+Silverman%27s+Explanation%27+%28%3Cem%3EAtlantic+Monthly%3C%2Fem%3E%29">No. II 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>Atlantic Monthly</em>)</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1868-02-15-George_Silvermans_Explanation_2_ATYR<span>Dickens, Charles. No. II 'George Silverman's Explanation' (</span><em>ATYR</em><span>).&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig.&nbsp;</span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/Accessed%20[date].%20https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-02-15-George_Silvermans_Explanation_2_ATYR">Accessed [date]. https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-02-15-George_Silvermans_Explanation_2_ATYR</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAll+the+Year+Round%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>All the Year Round</em></a>SIXTH CHAPTER. Brother Hawkyard (as he insisted on my calling him) put me to school, and told me to work my way. &quot;You are all right, George,&quot; he said. &quot; I have been the best servant the Lord has had in his service, for this five-and-thirty year (O, I have!), and he knows the value of such a servant as I have been to him (O yes he does!), and he&#039;ll prosper your schooling as a part of my reward. That&#039;s what he&#039;ll do, George. He&#039;ll do it for me.&quot; From the first I could not like this familiar knowledge of the ways of the sublime inscrutable Almighty, on Brother Hawkyard&#039;s part. As I grew a little wiser and still a little wiser, I liked it less and less. His manner, too, of confirming himself in a parenthesis: as if, knowing himself, he doubted his own word: I found distasteful. I cannot tell how much these dislikes cost me, for I had a dread that they were worldly. As time went on, I became a Foundation Boy on a good Foundation, and I cost Brother Hawkyard nothing. When I had worked my way so far, I worked yet harder, in the hope of ultimately getting a presentation to College, and a Fellowship. My health has never been strong (some vapour from the Preston cellar cleaves to me I think), and what with much work and some weakness, I came again to be regarded—that is, by my fellow-students—as unsocial. All through my time as a Foundation-Boy, I was within a few miles of Brother Hawkyard&#039;s congregation, and when ever I was what we called a Leave-Boy on a Sunday, I went over there at his desire. Before the knowledge became forced upon me that outside their place of meeting these Brothers and Sisters were no better than the rest of the human family, but on the whole were, to put the case mildly, as bad as most, in respect of giving short weight in their shops, and not speaking the truth: I say, before this knowledge became forced upon me, their prolix addresses, their inordinate conceit, their daring ignorance, their investment of the Supreme Ruler of Heaven and Earth with their own miserable meannesses and littlenesses, greatly shocked me. Still, as their term for the frame of mind that could not perceive them to be in an exalted state of Grace, was the &quot;worldly&quot; state, I did for a time suffer tortures under my inquiries of myself whether that young worldly-devilish spirit of mine could secretly be lingering at the bottom of my non-appreciation. Brother Hawkyard was the popular expounder in this assembly, and generally occupied the platform (there was a little platform with a table on it, in lieu of a pulpit), first, on a Sunday afternoon. He was by trade a drysalter. Brother Gimblet, an elderly man with a crabbed face, a large dog&#039;s-eared shirt collar, and a spotted blue neckerchief reaching up behind to the crown of his head, was also a drysalter, and an expounder. Brother Gimblet professed the greatest admiration for Brother Hawkyard; but (I had thought more than once) bore him a jealous grudge. Let whosoever may peruse these lines kindly take the pains here to read twice, my solemn pledge that what I write of the language and customs of the congregation in question, I write scrupulously, literally, exactly, from the life and the truth. On the first Sunday after I had won what I had so long tried for, and when it was certain that I was going up to College, Brother Hawkyard concluded a long exhortation thus: &quot;Well my friends and fellow-sinners, now I told you when I began, that I didn&#039;t know a word of what I was going to say to you (and No, I did not!) but that it was all one to me, because I knew the Lord would put into my mouth the words I wanted.&quot; (&quot;That&#039;s it!&quot; From Brother Gimblet.) &quot;And he did put into my mouth the words I wanted.&quot; (&quot;So he did!&quot; From Brother Gimblet.) &quot;And why?&quot; (&quot; Ah! Let&#039;s have that!&quot; from Brother Gimblet.) &quot;Because I have been his faithful servant for five-and-thirty years, and because he knows it. For five-and-thirty years! And he knows it, mind you! I got those words that I wanted, on account of my wages. I got &#039;em from the Lord, my fellow-sinners. Down. I said &#039;Here&#039;s a heap of wages due; let us have something down on account.&#039; And I got it down, and I paid it over to you, and you won&#039;t wrap it up in a napkin, nor yet in a towel, not yet in a pockethankercher, but you&#039;ll put it out at good interest. Very well. Now my brothers and sisters and fellow - sinners, I am going to conclude with a question, and I&#039;ll make it so plain (with the help of the Lord, after five-and-thirty years, I should rather hope!) as that the Devil shall not be able to confuse it in your heads. Which he would be overjoyed to do.&quot; (&quot;Just his way. Crafty old blackguard!&quot; from Brother Gimblet.) &quot;And the question is this. Are the Angels learned?&quot; (&quot; Not they. Not a bit on it.&quot; From Brother Gimblet, with the greatest confidence.) &quot;Not they. And where&#039;s the proof? Sent ready-made by the hand of the Lord. Why, there&#039;s one among us here now, that has got all the Learning that can be crammed into him. I got him all the Learning that could be crammed into him. His grandfather&quot; (this I had never heard before) &quot;was a Brother of ours. He was Brother Parksop. That&#039;s what he was. Parksop. Brother Parksop. His worldly name was Parksop, and he was a Brother of this Brotherhood. Then wasn&#039;t he Brother Parksop?&quot; (&quot;Must be. Couldn&#039;t help hisself.&quot; From Brother Gimblet.) &quot;Well. He left that one now here present among us, to the care of a Brother-Sinner of his (and that Brother-Sinner, mind you, was a sinner of a bigger size in his time than any of you, Praise the Lord!), Brother Hawkyard. Me. I got him, without fee or reward—without a morsel of myrrh, or frankinsence, nor yet Amber, letting alone the honeycomb—all the Learning that could be crammed into him. Has it brought him into our Temple, in the spirit? No. Have we had any ignorant Brothers and Sisters that didn&#039;t know round O from crooked S, come in among us meanwhile? Many. Then the Angels are not learned. Then they don&#039;t so much as know their alphabet. And now, my friends and fellow-sinners, having brought it to that, perhaps some Brother present—perhaps you, Brother Gimblet—will pray a bit for us?&quot; Brother Gimblet undertook the sacred function, after having drawn his sleeve across his mouth, and muttered: &quot;Well! I don&#039;t know as I see my way to hitting any of you quite in the right place neither.&quot; He said this with a dark smile, and then began to bellow. What we were specially to be preserved from, according to his solicitations, was despoilment of the orphan, suppression of testamentary intentions on the part of a Father or (say) Grandfather, appropriation of the orphan&#039;s house-property, feigning to give in charity to the wronged one from whom we withheld his due; and that class of sins. He ended with the petition, &quot;Give us peace!&quot; Which, speaking for myself, was very much needed after twenty minutes of his bellowing. Even though I had not seen him when he rose from his knees, steaming with perspiration, glance at Brother Hawkyard; and even though I had not heard Brother Hawkyard&#039;s tone of congratulating him on the vigour with which he had roared; I should have detected a malicious application in this prayer. Unformed suspicions to a similar effect had sometimes passed through my mind in my earlier school-days, and had always caused me great distress, for they were worldly in their nature, and wide, very wide, of the spirit that had drawn me from Sylvia. They were sordid suspicions, without a shadow of proof. They were worthy to have originated in the unwholesome cellar. They were not only without proof, but against proof. For, was I not myself a living proof of what Brother Hawkyard had done? And without him, how should I ever have seen the sky look sorrowfully down upon that wretched boy at Hoghton Towers? Although the dread of a relapse into a state of savage selfishness was less strong upon me as I approached manhood, and could act in an increased degree for myself, yet I was always on my guard against any tendency to such relapse. After getting these suspicions under my feet, I had been troubled by not being able to like Brother Hawkyard&#039;s manner, or his professed religion. So it came about, that as I walked back that Sunday evening, I thought it would be an act of reparation for any such injury my struggling thoughts had unwillingly done him, if I wrote, and placed in his hands before going to College, a full acknowledgment of his goodness to me, and an ample tribute of thanks. It might serve as an implied vindication of him against any dark scandal from a rival Brother, and Expounder, or from any other quarter. Accordingly, I wrote the document with much care. I may add with much feeling, too, for it affected me as I went on. Having no set studies to pursue, in the brief interval between leaving the Foundation and going to Cambridge, I determined to walk out to his place of business and give it into his own hands. It was a winter afternoon when I tapped at the door of his little counting-house, which was at the further end of his long low shop. As I did so (having entered by the back yard, where casks and boxes were taken in, and where there was the inscription &quot;Private Way to the Counting-house&quot;), a shopman called to me from the counter that he was engaged. &quot;Brother Gimblet,&quot; said the shopman (who was one of the Brotherhood), &quot;is with him.&quot; I thought this all the better for my purpose, and made bold to tap again. They were talking in a low tone, and money was passing, for I heard it being counted out. &quot;Who is it?&quot; asked Brother Hawkyard, sharply. &quot;George Silverman,&quot; I answered, holding the door open. &quot;May I come in?&quot; Both Brothers seemed so astounded to see me, that I felt shyer than usual. But they looked quite cadaverous in the early gaslight, and perhaps that accidental circumstance exaggerated the expression of their faces. &quot;What is the matter?&quot; asked Brother Hawkyard. &quot;Aye! What is the matter?&quot; asked Brother Gimblet. &quot;Nothing at all,&quot; I said, diffidently producing my document.&quot; I am only the bearer of a letter from myself.&quot; &quot;From yourself, George?&quot; cried Brother Hawkyard. &quot;And to you,&quot; said I. &quot;And to me, George?&quot; He turned paler, and opened it hurriedly; but looking over it, and seeing generally what it was, became less hurried, recovered his colour, and said: &quot;Praise the Lord!&quot; &quot;That&#039;s it!&quot; cried Brother Gimblet. &quot; Well put! Amen.&quot; Brother Hawkyard then said, in a livelier strain: &quot;You must know, George, that Brother Gimblet and I are going to make our two businesses, one. We are going into partnership. We are settling it now. Brother Gimblet is to take one clear half of the profits. (O yes! And he shall have it, he shall have it to the last farthing!)&quot; &quot;D.V.!&quot; said Brother Gimblet, with his right, fist firmly clenched on his right leg. &quot;There is no objection,&quot; pursued Brother Hawkyard, &quot;to my reading this aloud, George?&quot; As it was what I expressly desired should be done, after yesterday&#039;s prayer, I more than readily begged him to read it aloud. He did so, and Brother Gimblet listened with a crabbed smile. &quot;It was in a good hour that I came here,&quot; he said, wrinkling up his eyes. &quot;It was in a good hour likewise, that I was moved yesterday to depict for the terror of evil-doers, a character the direct opposite of Brother Hawkyard&#039;s. But it was the Lord that done it. I felt him at it, while I was perspiring.&quot; After that, it was proposed by both of them that I should attend the congregation once more, before my final departure. What my shy reserve would undergo from being expressly preached at and prayed at, I knew beforehand. But I reflected that it would be for the last time, and that it might add to the weight of my letter. It was well known to the Brothers and Sisters that there was no place taken for me in their Paradise, and if I showed this last token of deference to Brother Hawkyard, notoriously in despite of my own sinful inclinations, it might go some little way in aid of my statement that he had been good to me, and that I was grateful to him. Merely stipulating, therefore, that no express endeavour should be made for my conversion—which would involve the rolling of several Brothers and Sisters on the floor, declaring that they felt all their sins in a heap on their left side, weighing so many pounds avoirdupoise—as I knew from what I had seen of those repulsive mysteries—I promised. Since the reading of my letter, Brother Gimblet had been at intervals wiping one eye with an end of his spotted blue neckerchief, and grinning to himself. It was, howerer, a habit that Brother had, to grin in an ugly manner even while expounding. I call to mind a delighted snarl with which he used to detail from the platform, the torments reserved for the wicked (meaning all human creation, except the Brotherhood), as being remarkably hideous. I left the two to settle their articles of partnership, and count money; and I never saw them again but on the following Sunday. Brother Hawkyard died within two or three years, leaving all he possessed to Brother Gimblet, in virtue of a will dated (as I have been told) that very day. Now, I was so far at rest with myself when Sunday came, knowing that I had conquered my own mistrust, and righted Brother Hawkyard in the jaundiced vision of a rival, that I went, even to that coarse chapel, in a less sensitive state than usual. How could I foresee that the delicate, perhaps the diseased, corner of my mind, where I winced and shrunk when it was touched or was even approached, would be handled as the theme of the whole proceedings? On this occasion, it was assigned to Brother Hawkyard to pray, and to Brother Gimblet to preach. The prayer was to open the ceremonies; the discourse was to come next. Brothers Hawkyard and Gimblet were both on the platform: Brother Hawkyard on his knees at the table, unmusically ready to pray: Brother Gimblet sitting against the wall, grinningly ready to preach. &quot;Let us offer up the sacrifice of prayer, my brothers and sisters and fellow-sinners.&quot; Yes. But it was I who was the sacrifice. It was our poor sinful worldly-minded Brother here present, who was wrestled for. The now-opening career of this our unawakened Brother might lead to his becoming a minister of what was called The Church. That was what he looked to. The Church. Not the chapel, Lord. The Church. No rectors, no vicars, no archdeacons, no bishops, no archbishops, in the chapel; but, O Lord, many such in the Church! Protect our sinful Brother from his love of lucre. Cleanse from our unawakened Brother&#039;s breast, his sin of worldly-mindedness. The prayer said infinitely more in words, but nothing more to any intelligible effect. Then Brother Gimblet came forward, and took (as I knew he would) the text, My kingdom is not of this world. Ah! But whose was, my fellow-sinners? Whose? Why, our Brother&#039;s here present was. The only kingdom he had an idea of, was of this world. (&quot;That&#039;s it!&quot; from several of the congregation.) What did the woman do, when she lost the piece of money? Went and looked for it. What should our brother do when he lost his way? (&quot;Go and look for it,&quot; from a Sister.) Go and look for it. True. But must he look for it in the right direction, or in the wrong? (&quot;In the right,&quot; from a Brother.) There spake the prophets! He must look for it in the right direction, or he couldn&#039;t find it. But he had turned his back upon the right direction, and he wouldn&#039;t find it. Now, my fellow-sinners, to show you the difference betwixt worldly-mindedness and unworldly-mindedness, betwixt kingdoms not of this world and kingdoms of this world, here was a letter wrote by even our worldly-minded Brother unto Brother Hawkyard. Judge, from hearing of it read, whether Brother Hawkyard was the faithful steward that the Lord had in his mind only t&#039;other day, when, in this very place, he drew you the picter of the unfaithful one. For it was him that done it, not me. Don&#039;t doubt that! Brother Gimblet then grinned and bellowed his way through my composition, and subsequently through an hour. The service closed with a hymn, in which the Brothers unanimously roared, and the Sisters unanimously shrieked, at me, that I by wiles of worldly gain was mock&#039;d, and they on waters of sweet love were rock&#039;d; that I with Mammon struggled in the dark, while they were floating in a second Ark. I went out from all this, with an aching heart and a weary spirit; not because I was quite so weak as to consider these narrow creatures, interpreters of the Divine majesty and wisdom; but because I was weak enough to feel as though it were my hard fortune to be misrepresented and misunderstood, when I most tried to subdue any risings of mere worldliness within me, and when I most hoped that, by dint of trying earnestly, I had succeeded.18680215https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No.II_George_Silverman_s_Explanation_[ATYR]/1868-02-15-George_Silvermans_Explanation_2_ATYR.pdf
230https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/230No.II, 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'<span>Published in&nbsp;</span><em>Household Words</em><span>, Vol. XVI, No. 394, 10 October 1857, pp. 337-349.</span>Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-337.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-337.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1857-10-10">1857-10-10</a><span>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a><span>. A</span><span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1857-10-10-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No2<span>Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins. No.II 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'.</span><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig.&nbsp;</span><span>Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1857-10-10-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No2">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1857-10-10-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No2</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>The dog-cart, with Mr. Thomas Idle and his ankle on the hanging seat behind, Mr. Francis Goodchild and the Innkeeper in front, and the rain in spouts and splashes everywhere, made the best of its way back to the little Inn; the broken moor country looking like miles upon miles of Pre-Adamite sop, or the ruins of some enormous jorum of antediluvian toast-and-water. The trees dripped;the eaves of the scattered cottages dripped; the barren stone-walls dividing the land, dripped; the yelping dogs dripped; carts and waggons under ill-roofed penthouses, dripped; melancholy cocks and hens perching on their shafts, or seeking shelter underneath them, dripped; Mr. Goodchild dripped; Francis Idle dripped; the Innkeeper dripped; the mare dripped; the vast curtains of mist and cloud that passed before the shadowy forms of the hills, streamed water as they were drawn across the landscape. Down such steep pitches that the mare seemed to be trotting on her head, and up such steep pitches that she seemed to have a supplementary leg in her tail, the dog-cart jolted and tilted back to the village. It was too wet for the women to look out, it was too wet even for the children to look out; all the doors and windows were closed, and the only sign of life or motion was in the rain-punctured puddles. Whisky and oil to Thomas Idle&#039;s ankle, and whisky without oil to Francis Goodchild&#039;s stomach, produced an agreeable change in the systems of both: soothing Mr. Idle&#039;s pain, which was sharp before, and sweetening Mr. Goodchild&#039;s temper, which was sweet before. Portmanteaus being then opened and clothes changed, Mr. Goodchild, through having no change of outer garments but broadcloth and velvet, suddenly became a magnificent portent in the Innkeeper&#039;s house, a shining frontispiece to the Fashions for the month, and a frightful anomaly in the Cumberland village. Greatly ashamed of his splendid appearance, the conscious Goodchild quenched it as much as possible, in the shadow of Thomas Idle&#039;s ankle, and in a corner of the little covered carriage that started with them for Wigton- a most desirable carriage for any country, except for its having a flat roof and no sides; which caused the plumps of rain accumulating on the roof to play vigorous games of bagatelle into the interior all the way, and to score immensely. It was comfortable to see how the people coming back in open carts from Wigton market made no more of the rain than if it were sunshine; how the Wigton policeman taking a country walk of half-a-dozen miles (apparently for pleasure), in resplendent uniform, accepted saturation as his normal state; how clerks and schoolmasters in black, loitered along the road without umbrellas, getting varnished at every step; how the Cumberland girls, coming out to look after the Cumberland cows, shook the rain from their eyelashes and laughed it away; and how the rain continued to fall upon all, as it only does fall in hill countries. Wigton market was over, and its bare booths were smoking with rain all down the street. Mr. Thomas Idle, melo-dramatically carried to the Inn&#039;s first floor, and laid upon three chairs (he should have had the sofa, if there had been one), Mr. Goodchild went to the window to take an observation of Wigton, and report what he saw to his disabled companion. &quot;Brother Francis, brother Francis,&quot; cried Thomas Idle. &quot;What do you see from the turret?&quot; &quot;I see,&quot; said Brother Francis, &quot;what I hope and believe to be one of the most dismal places ever seen by eyes. I see the houses with their roofs of dull black, their stained fronts, and their dark-rimmed windows, looking as if they were all in mourning. As every little puff of wind comes down the street, I see a perfect train of rain let off along the wooden stalls in the market-place and exploded against me. I see a very big gas-lamp in the centre which I know, by a secret instinct, will not be lighted to-night. I see a pump, with a trivet underneath its spout whereon to stand the vessels that are brought to be filled with water. I see a man come to pump, and he pumps very hard, but no water follows, and he strolls empty away.&quot; &quot;Brother Francis, brother Francis,&quot; cried Thomas Idle, &quot;what more do you see from the turret, besides the man and the pump, and the trivet and the houses all in mourning and the rain?&quot; &quot;I see,&quot; said Brother Francis, &quot;one, two, three, four, five, linen-drapers&#039; shops in front of me. I see a linen-draper&#039;s shop next door to the right—and there are five more linen- drapers&#039; shops down the corner to the left. Eleven homicidal linen-drapers&#039; shops within a short stone&#039;s throw, each with its hands at the throats of all the rest! Over the small first-floor of one of these linen-drapers&#039; shops appears the wonderful inscription, BANK.&quot; &quot;Brother Francis, brother Francis,&quot; cried Thomas Idle, &#039;&#039;what more do you see from the turret, besides the eleven homicidal linen-drapers&#039; shops, and the wonderful inscription &#039;Bank&#039; on the small first floor, and the man and the pump and the trivet and the houses all in mourning and the rain?&quot; &quot;I see,&quot; said Brother Francis, &quot;the depository for Christian Knowledge, and through the dark vapour I think I again make out Mr. Spurgeon looming heavily. Her Majesty the Queen, God bless her, printed in colours, I am sure I see. I see the Illustrated London News of several weeks ago, and I see a sweetmeat shop—which the proprietor calls a &#039;Salt Warehouse&#039;—with one small female child in a cotton bonnet looking in on tip-toe, oblivious of rain. And I see a watchmaker&#039;s, with only three great pale watches of a dull metal hanging in his window, each in a separate pane.&quot; &quot;Brother Francis, brother Francis,&quot; cried Thomas Idle, &quot;what more do you see of Wigton, besides these objects, and the man and the pump and the trivet and the houses all in mourning and the rain?&quot; &quot;I see nothing more,&quot; said Brother Francis, &quot;and there is nothing more to see, except the curlpaper bill of the theatre, which was opened and shut last week (the manager&#039;s family played all the parts), and the short, square, clunky omnibus that goes to the railway, and leads too rattling a life over the stones to hold together long. O yes! Now, I see two men with their hands in their pockets and their backs towards me.&quot; &quot;Brother Francis, brother Francis,&quot; cried Thomas Idle, &quot;what do you make out from the turret, of the expression of the two men with their hands in their pockets and their backs towards you?&quot; &quot;They are mysterious men,&quot; said brother Francis, &quot;with inscrutable backs. They keep their backs towards me with persistency. If one turns an inch in any direction, the other turns an inch in the same direction, and no more. They turn very stiffly, on a very little pivot, in the middle of the market- place. Their appearance is partly of a mining, partly of a ploughing, partly of a stable, character. They are looking at nothing—very hard. Their backs are slouched, and their legs are curved with much standing about. Their pockets are loose and dog&#039;s-eared, on account of their hands being always in them. They stand to be rained upon, without any movement of impatience or dissatisfaction, and they keep so close together that an elbow of each jostles an elbow of the other, but they never speak. They spit at times, but speak not. I see it growing darker and darker, and still I see them, sole visible population of the place, standing to be rained upon with their backs towards me, and looking at nothing very hard.&quot; &quot;Brother Francis, brother Francis,&quot; cried Thomas Idle, &quot;before you draw down the blind of the turret and come in to have your head scorched by the hot gas, see if you can, and impart to me, something of the expression of those two amazing men.&quot; &quot;The murky shadows,&quot; said Francis Goodchild, &quot;are gathering fast; and the wings of evening, and the wings of coal, are folding over Wigton. Still, they look at nothing very hard, with their backs towards me. Ah! Now, they turn, and I see—&quot; &quot;Brother Francis, brother Francis,&quot; cried Thomas Idle, &quot;tell me quickly what you see of the two men of Wigton!&quot; &quot;I see,&quot; said Francis Goodchild, &quot;that they have no expression at all. And now the town goes to sleep, undazzled by the large unlighted lamp in the market-place; and let no man wake it.&quot; At the close of the next day&#039;s journey, Thomas Idle&#039;s ankle became much swollen and inflamed. There are reasons which will presently explain themselves for not publicly indicating the exact direction in which that journey lay, or the place in which it ended. It was a long day&#039;s shaking of Thomas Idle over the rough roads, and a long day&#039;s getting out and going on before the horses, and fagging up hills, and scouring down hills, on the part of Mr. Goodchild, who in the fatigues of such labours congratulated himself on attaining a high point of idleness. It was at a little town, still in Cumberland, that they halted for the night—a very little town, with the purple and brown moor close upon its one street; a curious little ancient market-cross set up in the midst of it; and the town itself looking, much as if it were a collection of great stones piled on end by the Druids long ago, which a few recluse people had since hollowed out for habitations. &quot;Is there a doctor here?&quot; asked Mr. Goodchild, on his knee, of the motherly landlady of the little Inn: stopping in his examination of Mr. Idle&#039;s ankle, with the aid of a candle. &quot;Ey, my word!&quot; said the landlady, glancing doubtfully at the ankle for herself; &quot;there&#039;s Doctor Speddie.&quot; &quot;Is he a good Doctor?&quot; &quot;Ey!&quot; said the landlady, &quot;I ca&#039; him so. A&#039; cooms efther nae doctor that I ken. Mair nor which, a&#039;s just THE doctor heer.&quot; &quot;Do you think he is at home?&quot; Her reply was, &quot;Gang awa&#039;, Jock, and bring him.&quot; Jock, a white-headed boy, who, under pretence of stirring up some bay salt in a basin of water for the laving of this unfortunate ankle, had greatly enjoyed himself for the last ten minutes in splashing the carpet, set off promptly. A very few minutes had elapsed when he showed the Doctor in, by tumbling against the door before him and bursting it open with his head. &quot;Gently, Jock, gently,&quot; said the doctor as he advanced with a quiet step. &quot;Gentlemen, a good evening. I am sorry that my presence is required here. A slight accident, I hope? A slip and a fall? Yes, yes, yes. Carrock, indeed? Hah! Does that pain you, sir? No doubt, it does. It is the great connecting ligament here, you see, that has been badly strained. Time and rest, sir! They are often the recipe in greater cases,&quot; with a slight sigh, &quot;and often the recipe in small. I can send a lotion to relieve you, but we must leave the cure to time and rest.&quot; This he said, holding Idle&#039;s foot on his knee between his two hands, as he sat over against him. He had touched it tenderly and skilfully in explanation of what he said, and, when his careful examination was completed, softly returned it to its former horizontal position on a chair. He spoke with a little irresolution whenever he began, but afterwards fluently. He was a tall, thin, large-boned, old gentleman, with an appearance at first sight of being hard- featured; but, at a second glance, the mild expression of his face and some particular touches of sweetness and patience about his mouth, corrected this impression and assigned his long professional rides, by day and night, in the bleak hill-weather, as the true cause of that appearance. He stooped very little, though past seventy and very grey. His dress was more like that of a clergyman than a country doctor, being a plain black suit, and a plain white neck-kerchief tied behind like a band. His black was the worse for wear, and there were darns in his coat, and his linen was a little frayed at the hems and edges. He might have been poor—it was likely enough in that out-of-the-way spot-or he might have been a little self-forgetful and eccentric. Anyone could have seen directly, that he had neither wife nor child at home. He had a scholarly air with him, and that kind of considerate humanity towards others which claimed a gentle consideration for himself. Mr. Goodchild made this study of him while he was examining the limb, and as he laid it down, Mr. Goodchild wishes to add that he considers it a very good likeness. It came out in the course of a little conversation, that Doctor Speddie was acquainted with some friends of Thomas Idle&#039;s and had, when a young man, passed some years in Thomas Idle&#039;s birthplace on the other side of England. Certain idle labours, the fruit of Mr. Goodchild&#039;s apprenticeship, also happened to be well known to him. The lazy travellers were thus placed on a more intimate footing with the Doctor than the casual circumstances of the meeting would of themselves have established; and when Doctor Speddie rose to go home, remarking that he would send his assistant with the lotion, Francis Goodchild said that was unnecessary, for, by the Doctor&#039;s leave, he would accompany him, and bring it back. (Having done nothing to fatigue himself for a full quarter of an hour, Francis began to fear that he was not in a state of idleness.) Doctor Speddie politely assented to the proposition of Francis Goodchild, &quot;as it would give him the pleasure of enjoying a few more minutes of Mr. Goodchild&#039;s society than he could otherwise have hoped for,&quot; and they went out together into the village street. The rain had nearly ceased, the clouds had broken before a cool wind from the north-east, and stars were shining from the peaceful heights beyond them. Doctor Speddie&#039;s house was the last house in the place. Beyond it, lay the moor, all dark and lonesome. The wind moaned in a low, dull, shivering manner round the little garden, like a houseless creature that knew the winter was coming. It was exceedingly wild and solitary. &quot;Roses,&quot; said the Doctor, when Goodchild touched some wet leaves overhanging the stone porch; &quot;but they get cut to pieces.&quot; The Doctor opened the door with a key he carried, and led the way into a low but pretty ample hall with rooms on either side. The door of one of these stood open, and the Doctor entered it, with a word of welcome to his guest. It, too, was a low room, half surgery and half parlor, with shelves of books and bottles against the walls, which were of a very dark hue. There was a fire in the grate, the night being damp and chill. Leaning against the chimney-piece looking down into it, stood the Doctor&#039;s Assistant. A man of a most remarkable appearance. Much older than Mr. Goodchild had expected, for he was at least two-and-fifty; but, that was nothing. What was startling in him was his remarkable paleness. His large black eyes, his sunken cheeks, his long and heavy iron-grey hair, his wasted hands, and even, the attenuation of his figure, were at first forgotten in his extraordinary pallor. There was no vestige of color in the man. When he turned his face, Francis Goodchild started as if a stone figure had looked round at him. &quot;Mr. Lorn,&quot; said the Doctor. &quot;Mr. Goodchild.&quot; The Assistant, in a distraught way—as if he had forgotten something—as if he had forgotten everything, even to his own name and himself—acknowledged the visitor&#039;s presence, and stepped further back into the shadow of the wall behind him. But, he was so pale that his face stood out in relief against the dark wall, and really could not be hidden so. &quot;Mr. Goodchild&#039;s friend has met with an accident, Lorn,&quot; said Doctor Speddie. &quot;We want the lotion for a bad sprain.&quot; A pause. &quot;My dear fellow, you are more than usually absent to-night. The lotion for a bad sprain.&quot; &quot;Ah! yes! Directly.&quot; He was evidently relieved to turn away, and to take his white face and his wild eyes to a table in a recess among the bottles. But, though he stood there, compounding the lotion with his back towards them, Goodchild could not, for many moments, withdraw his gaze from the man. When he at length did so, he found the Doctor observing him, with some trouble in his face. &quot;He is absent,&quot; explained the Doctor, in a low voice. &quot;Always absent. Very absent.&quot; &quot;Is he ill?&quot; &quot;No, not ill.&quot; &quot;Unhappy?&quot; &quot;I have my suspicions that he was,&quot; assented the Doctor, &quot;once.&quot; Francis Goodchild could not but observe that the Doctor accompanied these words with a benignant and protecting glance at their subject, in which there was much of the expression with which an attached father might have looked at a heavily afflicted son. Yet, that they were not father and son must have been plain to most eyes. The Assistant, on the other hand, turning presently to ask the Doctor some question, looked at him with a wan smile as if he were his whole reliance and sustainment in life. It was in vain for the Doctor in his easy chair, to try to lead the mind of Mr. Goodchild in the opposite easy chair, away from what was before him. Let Mr. Goodchild do what he would to follow the Doctor, his eyes and thoughts reverted to the Assistant. The Doctor soon perceived it, and, after falling silent, and musing in a little perplexity, said: &quot;Lorn!&quot; &quot;My dear Doctor.&quot; &quot;Would you go to the Inn, and apply that lotion? You will show the best way of applying it, far better than Mr. Goodchild can.&quot; &quot;With pleasure.&quot; The Assistant took his hat, and passed like a shadow to the door. &quot;Lorn!&quot; said the Doctor, calling after him. He returned. &quot;Mr. Goodchild will keep me company till you come home. Don&#039;t hurry. Excuse my calling you back.&quot; &quot;It is not,&quot; said the Assistant, with his former smile, &quot;the first time you have called me back, dear Doctor.&quot; With those words he went away. &quot;Mr. Goodchild,&quot; said Doctor Speddie, in a low voice, and with his former troubled expression of face, &quot;I have seen that your attention has been concentrated on my friend.&quot; &quot;He fascinates me. I must apologise to you, but he has quite bewildered and mastered me.&quot; &quot;I find that a lonely existence and a long secret,&quot; said the Doctor, drawing his chair a little nearer to Mr. Goodchild&#039;s, &quot;become in the course of time very heavy. I will tell you something. You may make what use you will of it, under fictitious names. I know I may trust you. I am the more inclined to confidence to-night, through having been unexpectedly led back, by the current of our conversation at the Inn, to scenes in my early life. Will you please to draw a little nearer?&quot; Mr. Goodchild drew a little nearer, and the Doctor went on thus: speaking, for the most part, in so cautious a voice, that the wind, though it was far from high, occasionally got the better of him. When this present nineteenth century was younger by a good many years than it is now, a certain friend of mine, named Arthur Holliday, happened to arrive in the town of Doncaster, exactly in the middle of the race-week, or, in other words, in the middle of the month of September. He was one of those reckless, rattle-pated, open-hearted, and open-mouthed young gentlemen, who possess the gift of familiarity in its highest perfection, and who scramble carelessly along the journey of life making friends, as the phrase is, wherever they go. His father was a rich manufacturer, and had bought landed property enough in one of the midland counties to make all the born squires in his neighbourhood thoroughly envious of him. Arthur was his only son, possessor in prospect of the great estate and the great business after his father&#039;s death; well supplied with money, and not too rigidly looked after, during his father&#039;s lifetime. Report, or scandal, whichever you please, said that the old gentleman had been rather wild in his youthful days, and that, unlike most parents, he was not disposed to be violently indignant when he found that his son took after him. This may be true or not. I myself only knew the elder Mr. Holliday when he was getting on in years; and then he was as quiet and as respectable a gentleman as ever I met with. Well, one September, as I told you, young Arthur comes to Doncaster, having decided all of a sudden, in his hare-brained way, that he would go to the races. He did not reach the town till towards the close of the evening, and he went at once to see about his dinner and bed at the principal hotel. Dinner they were ready enough to give him; but as for a bed, they laughed when he mentioned it. In the race-week at Doncaster, it is no uncommon thing for visitors who have not bespoken apartments, to pass the night in their carriages at the inn doors. As for the lower sort of strangers, I myself have often seen them, at that full time, sleeping out on the doorsteps for want of a covered place to creep under. Rich as he was, Arthur&#039;s chance of getting a night&#039;s lodging (seeing that he had not written beforehand to secure one) was more than doubtful. He tried the second hotel, and the third hotel, and two of the inferior inns after that; and was met everywhere by the same form of answer. No accommodation for the night of any sort was left. All the bright golden sovereigns in his pocket would not buy him a bed at Doncaster in the race-week. To a young fellow of Arthur&#039;s temperament, the novelty of being turned away into the street, like a penniless vagabond, at every house where he asked for a lodging, presented itself in the light of a new and highly amusing piece of experience. He went on, with his carpet-bag in his hand, applying for a bed at every place of entertainment for travellers that he could find in Doncaster, until he wandered into the outskirts of the town. By this time, the last glimmer of twilight had faded out, the moon was rising dimly in a mist, the wind was getting cold, the clouds were gathering heavily, and there was every prospect that it was soon going to rain. The look of the night had rather a lowering effect on young Holliday&#039;s good spirits. He began to contemplate the houseless situation in which he was placed, from the serious rather than the humorous point of view; and he looked about him, for another public-house to enquire at, with something very like downright anxiety in his mind on the subject of a lodging for the night. The suburban part of the town towards which he had now strayed was hardly lighted at all, and he could see nothing of the houses as he passed them, except that they got progressively smaller and dirtier, the farther he went. Down the winding road before him shone the dull gleam of an oil lamp, the one faint, lonely light that struggled ineffectually with the foggy darkness all round him. He resolved to go on as far as this lamp, and then, if it showed him nothing in the shape of an Inn, to return to the central part of the town and to try if he could not at least secure a chair to sit down on, through the night, at one of the principal Hotels. As he got near the lamp, he heard voices; and, walking close under it, found that it lighted the entrance to a narrow court, on the wall of which was painted a long hand in faded flesh-colour, pointing, with a lean forefinger, to this inscription:— THE TWO ROBINS. Arthur turned into the court without hesitation, to see what The Two Robins could do for him. Four or five men were standing together round the door of the house which was at the bottom of the court, facing the entrance from the street. The men were all listening to one other man, better dressed than the rest, who was telling his audience something, in a low voice, in which they were apparently very much interested. On entering the passage, Arthur was passed by a stranger with a knapsack in his hand, who was evidently leaving the house. &quot;No,&quot; said the traveller with the knap-sack, turning round and addressing himself cheerfully to a fat, sly-looking, bald-headed man, with a dirty white apron on, who had followed him down the passage. &quot;No, Mr. Landlord, I am not easily scared by trifles; but, I don&#039;t mind confessing that I can&#039;t quite stand that.&quot; It occurred to young Holliday, the moment he heard these words, that the stranger had been asked an exorbitant price for a bed at The Two Robins; and that he was unable or unwilling to pay it. The moment his back was turned, Arthur, comfortably conscious of his own well-filled pockets, addressed himself in a great hurry, for fear any other benighted traveller should slip in and forestall him, to the sly-looking landlord with the dirty apron and the bald head. &quot;If you have got a bed to let,&quot; he said, &quot;and if that gentleman who has just gone out won&#039;t pay you your price for it, I will.&quot; The sly landlord looked hard at Arthur. &quot;Will you, sir?&quot; he asked, in a meditative, doubtful way. &quot;Name your price,&quot; said young Holliday, thinking that the landlord&#039;s hesitation sprang from some boorish distrust of him. &quot;Name your price, and I&#039;ll give you the money at once, if you like?&quot; &quot;Are you game for five shillings?&quot; enquired the landlord, rubbing his stubbly double chin, and looking up thoughtfully at the ceiling above him. Arthur nearly laughed in the man&#039;s face; but thinking it prudent to control himself, offered the five shillings as seriously as he could. The sly landlord held out his hand, then suddenly drew it back again. &quot;You&#039;re acting all fair and above-board by me,&quot; he said: &quot;and, before I take your money, I&#039;ll do the same by you. Look here, this is how it stands. You can have a bed all to yourself for five shillings; but you can&#039;t have more than a half-share of the room it stands in. Do you see what I mean, young gentleman?&quot; &quot;Of course I do,&quot; returned Arthur, a little irritably. &quot;You mean that it is a double-bedded room, and that one of the beds is occupied?&quot; The landlord nodded his head, and rubbed his double chin harder than ever. Arthur hesitated, and mechanically moved back a step or two towards the door. The idea of sleeping in the same room with a total stranger, did not present an attractive prospect to him. he felt more than half-inclined to drop his five shillings into his pocket, and to go out into the street once more. &quot;Is it yes, or no?&quot; asked the landlord. &quot;Settle it us quick as you can, because there&#039;s lots of people wanting a bed at Doncaster tonight, besides you.&quot; Arthur looked towards the court, and heard the rain falling heavily in the street outside. He thought he would ask a question or two before he rashly decided on leaving the shelter of The Two Robins. &quot;What sort of a man is it who has got the other bed?&quot; he inquired. &quot;Is he a gentleman? I mean, is he a quiet, well-behaved person?&quot; &quot;The quietest man I ever came across,&quot; said the landlord, rubbing his fat hands stealthily one over the other. &quot;As sober as a judge, and as regular as clock-work in his habits. It hasn&#039;t struck nine, not ten minutes ago, and he&#039;s in his bed already. I don&#039;t know whether that comes up to your notion of a quiet man: it goes a long way ahead of mine, I can tell you.&quot; &quot;Is he asleep, do you think?&quot; asked Arthur. &quot;I know he&#039;s asleep,&quot; returned the landlord. &quot;And what&#039;s more, he&#039;s gone off so fast, that I&#039;ll warrant you don&#039;t wake him. This way, sir,&quot; said the landlord, speaking over young Holiday&#039;s shoulder, as if he was addressing some new guest who was approaching the house. &quot;Here you are,&quot; said Arthur, determined to be beforehand with the stranger, whoever he might be. &quot;I&#039;ll take the bed.&quot; And he handed the five shillings to the landlord, who nodded, dropped the money carelessly into his waistcoat-pocket, and lighted a candle. &quot;Come up and see the room,&quot; said the host of The Two Robins, leading the way to the staircase quite briskly, considering how fat he was. They mounted to the second-floor of the house. The landlord half opened a door, fronting the landing, then stopped, and turned round to Arthur. &quot;It&#039;s a fair bargain, mind, on my side as well as on yours,&quot; he said. &quot;You give me five shillings, I give you in return a clean, comfortable bed; and I warrant, beforehand, that you won&#039;t be interfered with, or annoyed in any way, by the man who sleeps in the same room with you.&quot; Saying those words, he looked hard, for a moment, in young Holliday&#039;s face, and then led the way into the room. It was larger and cleaner than Arthur had expected it would be. The two beds stood parallel with each other—a space of about six feet intervening between them. They were both of the same medium size, and both had the same plain white curtains, made to draw, if necessary, all round them. The occupied bed was the bed nearest the window. The curtains were all drawn round this, except the half curtain at the bottom, on the side of the bed farthest from the window. Arthur saw the feet of the sleeping man raising the scanty clothes into a sharp little eminence, as if he was lying flat on his back. He took the candle, and advanced softly to draw the curtain—stopped half way, and listened for a moment—then turned to the landlord. &quot;He is a very quiet sleeper,&quot; said Arthur. &quot;Yes,&quot; said the landlord, &quot;very quiet.&quot; Young Holliday advanced with the candle, and looked in at the man cautiously. &quot;How pale he is!&quot; said Arthur. &quot;Yes,&quot; returned the landlord, &quot;pale enough, isn&#039;t he?&quot; Arthur looked closer at the man. The bed-clothes were drawn up to his chin, and they lay perfectly still over the region of his chest. Surprised and vaguely startled, as he noticed this, Arthur stooped down closer over the stranger; looked at his ashy, parted lips; listened breathlessly for an instant; looked again at the strangely still face, and the motionless lips and chest; and turned round suddenly on the landlord, with his own cheeks as pale for the moment as the hollow cheeks of the man on the bed. &quot;Come here,&quot; he whispered, under his breath. &quot;Come here, for God&#039;s sake! The man&#039;s not asleep—he is dead!&quot; &quot;You have found that out sooner than I thought you would,&quot; said the landlord composedly. &quot;Yes, he&#039;s dead, sure enough. He died at five o&#039;clock to-day.&quot; &quot;How did he die? Who is he?&quot; asked Arthur, staggered for the moment by the audacious coolness of the answer. &quot;As to who is he,&quot; rejoined the landlord, &quot;I know no more about him than you do. There are his books and letters and things, all sealed up in that brown paper parcel, for the Coroner&#039;s inquest to open tomorrow or next day. He&#039;s been here a week, paying his way fairly enough, and stopping indoors, for the most part, as if he was ailing. My girl brought him up his tea at five to-day; and as he was pouring of it out, he fell down in a faint, or a fit, or a compound of both, for anything I know. We could not bring him to- and I said he was dead. And the doctor couldn&#039;t bring him to- and the doctor said he was dead. And there he is. And the Coroner&#039;s inquest&#039;s coming as soon as it can. And that&#039;s as much as I know about it.&quot; Arthur held the candle close to the man&#039;s lips. The flame still burnt straight up, as steadily as ever. There was a moment of silence; and the rain pattered drearily through it against the panes of the window. &quot;If you haven&#039;t got nothing more to say to me,&quot; continued the landlord, &quot;I suppose I may go. You don&#039;t expect your five shillings back, do you? There&#039;s the bed I promised you, clean and comfortable. There&#039;s the man I warranted not to disturb you, quiet in this world for ever. If you&#039;re frightened to stop alone with him, that&#039;s not my look out. I&#039;ve kept my part of the bargain, and I mean to keep the money. I&#039;m not Yorkshire, myself, young gentleman; but I&#039;ve lived long enough in these parts to have my wits sharpened; and I shouldn&#039;t wonder if you found out the way to brighten up yours, next time you come among us.&quot; With these words, the landlord turned towards the door, and laughed to himself softly, in high satisfaction at his own sharpness. Startled and shocked as he was, Arthur had by this time sufficiently recovered himself to feel indignant at the trick that had been played on him, and at the insolent manner in which the landlord exulted in it. &quot;Don&#039;t laugh,&quot; he said sharply, &quot;till you are quite sure you have got the laugh against me. You shan&#039;t have the five shillings for nothing, my man. I&#039;ll keep the bed.&quot; &quot;Will you?&quot; said the landlord. &quot;Then I wish you a good night&#039;s rest.&quot; With that brief farewell, he went out, and shut the door after him. A good night&#039;s rest! The words had hardly been spoken, the door had hardly been closed, before Arthur half-repented the hasty words that had just escaped him. Though not naturally over-sensitive, and not wanting in courage of the moral as well as the physical sort, the presence of the dead man had an instantaneously chilling effect on his mind when he found himself alone in the room—alone, and bound by his own rash words to stay there till the next morning. An older man would have thought nothing of those words, and would have acted, without reference to them, as his calmer sense suggested. But Arthur was too young to treat the ridicule, even of his inferiors, with contempt—too young not to fear the momentary humiliation of falsifying his own foolish boast, more than he feared the trial of watching out the long night in the same chamber with the dead. &quot;It is but a few hours,&quot; he thought to himself, &quot;and I can get away the first thing in the morning.&quot; He was looking towards the occupied bed as that idea passed through his mind, and the sharp angular eminence made in the clothes by the dead man&#039;s upturned feet again caught his eye. He advanced and drew the curtains, purposely abstaining, as he did so, from looking at the face of the corpse, lest he might unnerve himself at the outset by fastening some ghastly impression of it on his mind. He drew the curtain very gently, and sighed involuntarily as he closed it. &quot;Poor fellow,&quot; he said, almost as sadly as if he had known the man. &quot;Ah, poor fellow!&quot; He went next to the window. The night was black, and he could see nothing from it. The rain still pattered heavily against the glass. He inferred, from hearing it, that the window was at the back of the house; remembering that the front was sheltered from the weather by the court and the buildings over it. While he was still standing at the window—for even the dreary rain was a relief, because of the sound it made; a relief, also, because it moved, and had some faint suggestion, in consequence, of life and companionship in it—while he was standing at the window, and looking vacantly into the black darkness outside, he heard a distant church-clock strike ten. Only ten! How was he to pass the time till the house was astir the next morning? Under any other circumstances, he would have gone down to the public-house parlour, would have called for his grog, and would have laughed and talked with the company assembled as familiarly as if he had known them all his life. But the very thought of whiling away the time in this manner was now distasteful to him. The new situation in which he was placed seemed to have altered him to himself already. Thus far, his life had been the common, trifling, prosaic, surface-life of a prosperous young man, with no troubles to conquer, and no trials to face. He had lost no relation whom he loved, no friend whom he treasured. Till this night, what share he had of the immortal inheritance that is divided amongst us all, had lain dormant within him. Till this night, Death and he had not once met, even in thought. He took a few turns up and down the room—then stopped. The noise made by his boots on the poorly carpeted floor, jarred on his ear. He hesitated a little, and ended by taking the boots off, and walking backwards and forwards noiselessly. All desire to sleep or to rest had left him. The bare thought of lying down on the unoccupied bed instantly drew the picture on his mind of a dreadful mimicry of the position of the dead man. Who was he? What was the story of his past life? Poor he must have been, or he would not have stopped at such a place as The Two Robins Inn—and weakened, probably, by long illness, or he could hardly have died in the manner which the landlord had described. Poor, ill, lonely,—dead in a strange place; dead, with nobody but a stranger to pity him. A sad story: truly, on the mere face of it, a very sad story. While these thoughts were passing through his mind, he had stopped insensibly at the window, close to which stood the foot of the bed with the closed curtains. At first he looked at it absently; then he became conscious that his eyes were fixed on it; and then, a perverse desire took possession of him to do the very thing which he had resolved not to do, up to this time—to look at the dead man. He stretched out his hand towards the curtains; but checked himself in the very act of undrawing them, turned his back sharply on the bed, and walked towards the chimney-piece, to see what things were placed on it, and to try if he could keep the dead man out of his mind in that way. There was a pewter inkstand on the chimney-piece, with some mildewed remains of ink in the bottle. There were two coarse china ornaments of the commonest kind and there was a square of embossed card, dirty and fly-blown, with a collection of wretched riddles printed on it, in all sorts of zig-zag directions, and in variously coloured inks. He took the card, and went away, to read it, to the table on which the candle was placed; sitting down, with his back resolutely turned to the curtained bed. He read the first riddle, the second, the third, ail in one corner of the card—then turned it round impatiently to look at another. Before he could begin reading the riddles printed here, the sound of the church-clock stopped him. Eleven. He had got through an hour of the time, in the room with the dead man. Once more he looked at the card. It was not easy to make out the letters printed on it, in consequence of the dimness of the light which the landlord had left him—a common tallow candle, furnished with a pair of heavy old-fashioned steel snuffers. Up to this time, his mind had been too much occupied to think of the light. He had left the wick of the candle unsnuffed, till it had risen higher than the flame, and had burnt into an odd pent-house shape at the top, from which morsels of the charred cotton fell off, from time to time, in little flakes. He took up the snuffers now, and trimmed the wick. The light brightened directly, and the room became less dismal. Again he turned to the riddles; reading them doggedly and resolutely, now in one corner of the card, now in another. All his efforts, however, could not fix his attention on them. He pursued his occupation mechanically, deriving no sort of impression from what he was reading. It was as if a shadow from the curtained bed had got between his mind and the gaily printed letters—a shadow that nothing could dispel. At last, he gave up the struggle, and threw the card from him impatiently, and took to walking softly up and down the room again. The dead man, the dead man, the hidden dead man on the bed! There was the one persistent idea still haunting him. Hidden! Was it only the body being there, or was it the body being there, concealed, that was preying on his mind? He stopped at the window, with that doubt in him; once more listening to the pattering rain, once more looking out into the black darkness. Still the dead man! The darkness forced his mind back upon itself, and set his memory at work, reviving, with a painfully-vivid distinctness the momentary impression it had received from his first sight of the corpse. Before long the face seemed to be hovering out in the middle of the darkness, confronting him through the window, with the paleness whiter, with the dreadful dull line of light between the imperfectly-closed eyelids broader than he had seen it—with the parted lips slowly dropping farther and farther away from each other—with the features growing larger and moving closer, till they seemed to fill the window and to silence the ram, and to shut out the night. The sound of a voice, shouting below stairs, woke him suddenly from the dream of his own distempered fancy. He recognised it as the voice of the landlord. &quot;Shut up at twelve, Ben,&quot; he heard it say. &quot;I&#039;m off to bed.&quot; He wiped away the damp that had gathered on his forehead, reasoned with himself for a little while, and resolved to shake his mind free of the ghastly counterfeit which still clung to it, by forcing himself to confront, if it was only for a moment, the solemn reality. Without allowing himself an instant to hesitate, he parted the curtains at the foot of the bed, and looked through. There was the sad, peaceful, white face, with the awful mystery of stillness on it, laid back upon the pillow. No stir, no change there! He only looked at it for a moment before he closed the curtains again—but that moment steadied him, calmed him, restored him—mind and body to himself. He returned to his old occupation of walking up and down the room; persevering in it, this time, till the clock struck again. Twelve. As the sound of the clock-bell died away, it was succeeded by the confused noise, down stairs, of the drinkers in the tap-room leaving the house. The next sound, after an interval of silence, was caused by the barring of the door, and the closing of the shutters, at the back of the Inn. Then the silence followed again, and was disturbed no more. He was alone now—absolutely, utterly, alone with the dead man, till the next morning. The wick of the candle wanted trimming again. He took up the snuffers—but paused suddenly on the very point of using them, and looked attentively at the candle—then back, over his shoulder, at the curtained bed—then again at the candle. It had been lighted, for the first time, to show him the way up stairs, and three parts of it, at least, were already consumed. In another hour it would be burnt out. In another hour—unless he called at once to the man who had shut up the Inn, for a fresh candle—he would be left in the dark. Strongly as his mind had been affected since he had entered the room, his unreasonable dread of encountering ridicule, and of exposing his courage to suspicion, had not altogether lost its influence over him, even yet. He lingered irresolutely by the table, waiting till he could prevail on himself to open the door, and call, from the landing, to the man who had shut up the Inn. In his present hesitating frame of mind, it was a kind of relief to gain a few moments only by engaging in the trifling occupation of snuffing the candle. His hand trembled a little, and the snuffers were heavy and awkward to use. When he closed them on the wick, he closed them a hair&#039;s breadth too low. In an instant the candle was out, and the room was plunged in pitch darkness. The one impression which the absence of light immediately produced on his mind, was distrust of the curtained bed—distrust which shaped itself into no distinct idea, but which was powerful enough, in its very vagueness, to bind him down to his chair, to make his heart beat fast, and to set him listening intently. No sound stirred in the room but the familiar sound of the rain against the window, louder and sharper now than he had heard it yet. Still the vague distrust, the inexpressible dread possessed him, and kept him in his chair. He had put his carpet-bag on the table, when he first entered the room; and he now took the key from his pocket, reached out his hand softly, opened the bag, and groped in it for his travelling writing-case, in which he knew that there was a small store of matches. When he had got one of the matches, he waited before he struck it on the coarse wooden table, and listened intently again, without knowing why. Still there was no sound in the room but the steady, ceaseless, rattling sound of the rain. He lighted the candle again, without another moment of delay; and, on the instant of its burning up, the first object in the room that his eyes sought for was the curtained bed. Just before the light had been put out, he had looked in that direction, and had seen no change, no disarrangement of any sort, in the folds of the closely-drawn curtains. When he looked at the bed, now, he saw, hanging over the side of it, a long white hand. It lay perfectly motionless, midway on the side of the bed, where the curtain at the head and the curtain at the foot met. Nothing more was visible. The clinging curtains hid everything but the long white hand. He stood looking at it unable to stir, unable to call out; feeling nothing, knowing nothing; every faculty he possessed gathered up and lost in the one seeing faculty. How long that first panic held him he never could tell afterwards. It might have been only for a moment; it might have been for many minutes together. How he got to the bed—whether he ran to it headlong, or whether he approached it slowly—how he wrought himself up to unclose the curtains and look in, he never has remembered, and never will remember to his dying day. It is enough that he did go to the bed, and that he did look inside the curtains. The man had moved. One of his arms was outside the clothes; his face was turned a little on the pillow; his eyelids were wide open. Changed as to position, and as to one of the features, the face was otherwise, fearfully and wonderfully unaltered. The dead paleness and the dead quiet were on it still. One glance showed Arthur this—one glance, before he flew breathlessly to the door, and alarmed the house. The man whom the landlord called &quot;Ben,&quot; was the first to appear on the stairs. In three words, Arthur told him what had happened, and sent him for the nearest doctor. I, who tell you this story, was then staying with a medical friend of mine, in practice at Doncaster, taking care of his patients for him, during his absence in London; and I, for the time being, was the nearest doctor. They had sent for me from the Inn, when the stranger was taken ill in the afternoon; but I was not at home, and medical assistance was sought for elsewhere. When the man from The Two Robins rang the night-bell, I was just thinking of going to bed. Naturally enough, I did not believe a word of his story about &quot;a dead man who had come to life again.&quot; However, I put on my hat, armed myself with one or two bottles of restorative medicine, and ran to the Inn, expecting to find nothing more remarkable, when I got there, than a patient in a fit. My surprise at finding that the man had spoken the literal truth was almost, if not quite, equalled by my astonishment at finding myself face to face with Arthur Holliday as soon as I entered the bedroom. It was no time then for giving or seeking explanations. We just shook hands amazedly; and then I ordered everybody but Arthur out of the room, and hurried to the man on the bed. The kitchen fire had not been long out. There was plenty of hot water in the boiler, and plenty of flannel to be had. With these, with my medicines, and with such help as Arthur could render under my direction, I dragged the man, literally, out of the jaws of death. In less than an hour from the time when I had been called in, he was alive and talking in the bed on which he had been laid out to wait for the Coroner&#039;s inquest. You will naturally ask me, what had been the matter with him; and I might treat you, in reply, to a long theory, plentifully sprinkled with, what the children call, hard words. I prefer telling you that, in this case, cause and effect could not be satisfactorily joined together by any theory whatever. There are mysteries in life, and the conditions of it, which human science has not fathomed yet; and I candidly confess to you, that, in bringing that man back to existence, I was, morally speaking, groping hap-hazard in the dark. I know (from the testimony of the doctor who attended him in the afternoon) that the vital machinery, so far as its action is appreciable by our senses, had, in this case, unquestionably stopped; and I am equally certain (seeing that I recovered him) that the vital principle was not extinct. When I add, that he had suffered from a long and complicated illness, and that his whole nervous system was utterly deranged, I have told you all I really know of the physical condition of my dead-alive patient at the Two Robins Inn. When he &quot;came to,&quot; as the phrase goes, he was a startling object to look at, with his colourless face, his sunken cheeks, his wild black eyes, and his long black hair. The first question he asked me about himself, when he could speak, made me suspect that I had been called in to a man in my own profession. I mentioned to him my surmise; and he told me that I was right. He said he had come last from Paris, where he had been attached to a hospital. That he had lately returned to England, on his way to Edinburgh, to continue his studies; that he had been taken ill on the journey; and that he had stopped to rest and recover himself at Doncaster. He did not add a word about his name, or who he was: and, of course, I did not question him on the subject. All I inquired, when he ceased speaking, was what branch of the profession he intended to follow. &quot;Any branch,&quot; he said bitterly, &quot;which will put bread into the mouth of a poor man.&quot; At this, Arthur, who had been hitherto watching him in silent curiosity, burst out impetuously in his usual good-humoured way: &quot;My dear fellow!&quot; (everybody was &quot;my dear fellow&quot; with Arthur) &quot;now you have come to life again, don&#039;t begin by being down-hearted about your prospects. I&#039;ll answer for it, I can help you to some capital thing in the medical line or, if I can&#039;t, I know my father can.&quot; The medical student looked at him steadily. &quot;Thank you,&quot; he said coldly. Then added, &quot;May I ask who your father is?&quot; &quot;He&#039;s well enough known all about this part of the country,&quot; replied Arthur. &quot;He is a great manufacturer, and his name is Holliday.&quot; My hand was on the man&#039;s wrist during this brief conversation. The instant the name of Holliday was pronounced I felt the pulse under my fingers flutter, stop, go on suddenly with a bound, and beat afterwards, for a minute or two, at the fever rate. &quot;How did you come here?&quot; asked the stranger, quickly, excitably, passionately almost. Arthur related briefly what had happened from the time of his first taking the bed at the inn. &quot;I am indebted to Mr. Holliday&#039;s son then for the help that has saved my life,&quot; said the medical student, speaking to himself, with a singular sarcasm in his voice. &quot;Come here!&quot; He held out, as he spoke, his long, white, bony right hand. &quot;With all my heart,&quot; said Arthur, taking the hand cordially. &quot;I may confess it now,&quot; he continued, laughing, &quot;Upon my honour, you almost frightened me out of my wits.&quot; The stranger did not seem to listen. His wild black eyes were fixed with a look of eager interest on Arthur&#039;s face, and his long bony fingers kept tight hold of Arthur&#039;s hand. Young Holliday, on his side, returned the gaze, amazed and puzzled by the medical student&#039;s odd language and manners. The two faces were close together; I looked at them; and, to my amazement, I was suddenly impressed by the sense of a likeness between them—not in features, or complexion, but solely in expression. It must have been a strong likeness, or I should certainly not have found it out, for I am naturally slow at detecting resemblances between faces. &quot;You have saved my life,&quot; said the strange man, still looking hard in Arthur&#039;s face, still holding tightly by his hand. &quot;If you had been my own brother, you could not have done more for me than that.&quot; He laid a singularly strong emphasis on those three words &quot;my own brother,&quot; and a change passed over his face as he pronounced them—a change that no language of mine is competent to describe. &quot;I hope I have not done being of service to you yet,&quot; said Arthur. &quot;I&#039;ll speak to my father, as soon as I get home.&quot; &quot;You seem to be fond and proud of your father,&quot; said the medical student. &quot;I suppose, in return, he is fond and proud of you?&quot; &quot;Of course, he is!&quot; answered Arthur, laughing. &quot;Is there anything wonderful in that? Isn&#039;t your father fond—&quot; The stranger suddenly dropped young Holliday&#039;s hand, and turned his face away. &quot;I beg your pardon,&quot; said Arthur. &quot;I hope I have not unintentionally pained you. I hope you have not lost your father?&quot; &quot;I can&#039;t well lose what I have never had,&quot; retorted the medical student, with a harsh mocking laugh. &quot;What you have never had!&quot; The strange man suddenly caught Arthur&#039;shand again, suddenly looked once more hard in his face. &quot;Yes,&quot; he said, with a repetition of the bitter laugh. &quot;You have brought a poor devil back into the world, who has no business there. Do I astonish you? Well! I have a fancy of my own for telling you what men in my situation generally keep a secret. I have no name and no father. The merciful law of Society tells me I am Nobody&#039;s Son! Ask your father if he will be my father too, and help me on in life with the family name.&quot; Arthur looked at me, more puzzled than ever. I signed to him to say nothing, and then laid my fingers again on the man&#039;s wrist. No! In spite of the extraordinary speech that he had just made, he was not, as I had been disposed to suspect, beginning to get light-headed. His pulse, by this time had fallen back to a quiet, slow beat, and his skin was moist and cool. Not a symptom of fever or agitation about him. Finding that neither of us answered him, he turned to me, and began talking of the extraordinary nature of his case, and asking my advice about the future course of medical treatment to which he ought to subject himself. I said the matter required careful thinking over, and suggested that I should submit certain prescriptions to him the next morning. He told me to write them at once, as he would, most likely, be leaving Doncaster, in the morning, before I was up. It was quite useless to represent to him the folly and danger of such a proceeding as this. He heard me politely and patiently, but held to his resolution, without offering any reasons or any explanations, and repeated to me, that if I wished to give him a chance of seeing my prescription, I must write it at once. Hearing this, Arthur volunteered the loan of a travelling writing-case, which, he said, he had with him; and, bringing it to the bed, shook the notepaper out of the pocket of the case forthwith in his usual careless way. With the paper, there fell out on the counterpane of the bed a small packet of sticking-plaster, and a little water-colour drawing of a landscape. The medical student took up the drawing and looked at it. His eye fell on some initials neatly written, in cypher, in one corner. He started, and trembled; his pale face grew whiter than ever; his wild black eyes turned on Arthur, and looked through and through him. &quot;A pretty drawing,&quot; he said, in a remarkably quiet tone of voice. &quot;Ah! and done by such a pretty girl,&quot; said Arthur. &quot;Oh, such a pretty girl! I wish it was not a landscape—I wish it was a portrait of her!&quot; &quot;You admire her very much?&quot; Arthur, half in jest, half in earnest, kissed his hand for answer. &quot;Love at first sight!&quot; he said, putting the drawing away again. &quot;But the course of it doesn&#039;t run smooth. It&#039;s the old story. She&#039;s monopolised as usual. Trammelled by a rash engagement to some poor man who is never likely to get money enough to marry her. It was lucky I heard of it in time, or I should certainly have risked a declaration when she gave me that drawing. Here, doctor! Here is pen, ink, and paper all ready for you.&quot; &quot;When she gave you that drawing? Gave it. Gave it.&quot; He repeated the words slowly to himself, and suddenly closed his eyes. A momentary distortion passed across his face, and I saw one of his hands clutch up the bedclothes and squeeze them hard. I thought he was going to be ill again, and begged that there might be no more talking. He opened his eyes when I spoke, fixed them once more searchingly on Arthur, and said, slowly and distinctly, &quot;You like her, and she likes you. The poor man may die out of your way. Who can tell that she may not give you herself as well as her drawing, after all?&quot; Before young Holliday could answer, he turned to me, and said in a whisper, &quot;Now for the prescription.&quot; From that time, though he spoke to Arthur again, he never looked at him more. When I had written the prescription, he examined it, approved of it, and then us both by abruptly wishing us good night. I offered to sit up with him, and he shook his head. Arthur offered to sit up with him, and he said, shortly, with his face turned away, &quot;No.&quot; I insisted on having somebody left to watch him. He gave way when he found I was determined, and said he would accept the services of the waiter at the inn. &quot;Thank you, both,&quot; he said, as we rose to go. &quot;I have one last favour to ask—not of you, doctor, for I leave you to exercise your professional discretion—but of Mr. Holliday.&quot; His eyes, while he spoke, still rested steadily on me, and never once turned towards Arthur. &quot;I beg that Mr. Holliday will not mention to any one—least of all to his father —the events that have occurred, and the words that have passed, in this room. I entreat him to bury me in his memory, as, but for him, I might have been buried in my grave. I cannot give my reasons for making this strange request. I can only implore him to grant it.&quot; His voice faltered for the first time, and he hid his face on the pillow. Arthur, completely bewildered, gave the required pledge. I took young Holliday away with me, immediately afterwards, to the house of my friend; determining to go back to the inn, and to see the medical student again before he had left in the morning. I returned to the inn at eight o&#039;clock, purposely abstaining from waking Arthur, who was sleeping off the past night&#039;s excitement on one of my friend&#039;s sofas. A suspicion had occurred to me, as soon as I was alone in my bedroom, which made me resolve that Holliday and the stranger whose life he had saved should not meet again, if I could prevent it. I have already alluded to certain reports, or scandals, which I knew of, relating to the early life of Arthur&#039;s father. While I was thinking, in my bed, of what had passed at the Inn—of the change in the student&#039;s pulse when he heard the name of Holliday; of the resemblance of expression that I had discovered between his face and Arthur&#039;s; of the emphasis he had laid on those three words, &quot;my own brother;&quot; and of his incomprehensible acknowledgment of his own illegitimacy—while I was thinking of these things, the reports I have mentioned suddenly flew into my mind, and linked themselves fast to the chain of my previous reflections. Something within me whispered, &quot;It is best that those two young men should not meet again.&quot; I felt it before I slept; I felt it when I woke; and I went as I told you, alone to the Inn the next morning. I had missed my only opportunity of seeing my nameless patient again. He had been gone nearly an hour when I inquired for him. I have now told you everything that I know for certain, in relation to the man whom I brought back to life in the double-bedded room of the Inn at Doncaster. What I have next to add is matter for inference and surmise, and is not, strictly speaking, matter of fact. I have to tell you, first, that the medical student turned out to be strangely and unaccountably right in assuming it as more than probable that Arthur Holliday would marry the young lady who had given him the water-colour drawing of the landscape. That marriage took place a little more than a year after the events occurred which I have just been relating. The young couple came to live in the neighbourhood in which I was then established in practice. I was present at the wedding, and was rather surprised to find that Arthur was singularly reserved with me, both before and after his marriage on the subject of the young lady&#039;s prior engagement. He only referred to it once when we were alone, merely telling me, on that occasion, that his wife had done all that honour and duty required of her in the matter, and that the engagement had been broken off with the full approval of her parents. I never heard more from him than this. For three years he and his wife lived together happily. At the expiration of that time, the symptoms of a serious illness first declared themselves in Mrs. Arthur Holliday. It turned out to be a long, lingering, hopeless malady. I attended her throughout. We had been great friends when she was well, and we became more attached to each other than ever when she was ill. I had many long and interesting conversations with her in the intervals when she suffered least. The result of one of those conversations I may briefly relate, leaving you to draw any inferences from it that you please. The interview to which I refer, occurred shortly before her death. I called one evening, as usual, and found her alone, with a look in her eyes which told me that she had been crying. She only informed me at first, that she had been depressed in spirits; but, by little and little, she became more communicative, and confessed to me that she had been looking over some old letters, which had been addressed to her, before she had seen Arthur, by a man to whom she had been engaged to be married. I asked her how the engagement came to be broken off. She replied that it had not been broken off, but that it had died out in a very mysterious way. The person to whom she was engaged— her first love, she called him—was very poor, and there was no immediate prospect of their being married. He followed my profession, and went abroad to study. They had corresponded regularly, until the time when, as she believed, he had returned to England. From that period she heard no more of him. He was of a fretful, sensitive temperament; and she feared that she might have inadvertently done or said something that offended him. However that might be, he had never written to her again; and, after waiting a year, she had married Arthur. I asked when the first estrangement had begun, and found that the time at which she ceased to hear anything of her first lover exactly corresponded with the time at which I had been called in to my mysterious patient at The Two Robins Inn. A fortnight after that conversation, she died. In course of time, Arthur married again. Of late years, he has lived principally in London, and I have seen little or nothing of him. I have many years to pass over before I can approach to anything like a conclusion of this fragmentary narrative. And even when that later period is reached, the little that I have to say will not occupy your attention for more than a few minutes. Between six and seven years ago, the gentleman to whom I introduced you in this room, came to me, with good professional recommendations, to fill the position of my assistant. We met, not like strangers, but like friends—the only difference between us being, that I was very much surprised to see him, and that he did not appear to be at all surprised to see me. If he was my son, or my brother I believe he could not be fonder of me than he is; but he has never volunteered any confidences since he has been here, on the subject of his past life. I saw something that was familiar to me in his face when we first met; and yet it was also something that suggested the idea of change. I had a notion once that my patient at the Inn might be a natural son of Mr. Holliday&#039;s; I had another idea that he might also have been the man who was engaged to Arthur&#039;s first wife; and I have a third idea, still clinging to me, that Mr. Lorn is the only man in England who could really enlighten me, if he chose, on both those doubtful points. His hair is not black, now, and his eyes are dimmer than the piercing eyes that I remember, but, for all that, he is very like the nameless medical student of my young days—very like him. And, sometimes, when I come home late at night, and find him asleep, and wake him, he looks, in coming to, wonderfully like the stranger at Doncaster, as he raised himself in the bed on that memorable night! The doctor paused. Mr. Goodchild who had been following every word that fell from his lips, up to this time, leaned forward eagerly to ask a question. Before he could say a word, the latch of the door was raised, without any warning sound of footsteps in the passage outside. A long, white, bony hand appeared through the opening, gently pushing the door, which was prevented from working freely on its hinges by a fold in the carpet under it. &quot;That hand! Look at that hand, Doctor!&quot; said Mr. Goodchild, touching him. At the same moment, the doctor looked at Mr. Goodchild, and whispered to him, significantly: &quot;Hush! he has come back.&quot;18571010https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No.II_The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices/1857-10-10-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No2.pdf
226https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/226No.III 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>ATYR</em>)<span>Published in&nbsp;<em>All the Year Round</em></span><em>,<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>vol. XIX, no. 462 (29 February 1868), pp. 276-281.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xix/page-276.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xix/page-276.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1868-02-29">1868-02-29</a><span>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a><span>. A</span><span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=50&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=No.+III%2C+%27George+Silverman%27s+Explanation%27+%28%3Cem%3EAtlantic+Monthly%3C%2Fem%3E%29">No. III, 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>Atlantic Monthly</em>)</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1868-02-29-George_Silvermans_Explanation_3_ATYR<div class="element-set"> <div id="dublin-core-bibliographic-citation" class="element"> <div class="element-text five columns omega"> <p><span>Dickens, Charles. No. III 'George Silverman's Explanation' (</span><em>ATYR</em><span>).&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig.&nbsp;</span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/Accessed%20[date].%20https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-02-29-George_Silvermans_Explanation_3_ATYR">Accessed [date]. https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-02-29-George_Silvermans_Explanation_3_ATYR</a></p> </div> </div> </div> <div class="element-set"> <div id="scripto-transcription" class="element"> <div class="field two columns alpha"></div> </div> </div><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAll+the+Year+Round%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>All the Year Round</em></a>SEVENTH CHAPTER. My timidity and my obscurity occasioned me to live a secluded life at College, and to be little known. No relative ever came to visit me, for I had no relative. No intimate friends broke in upon my studies, for I made no intimate friends. I supported myself on my scholarship, and read much. My College time was otherwise not so very different from my time at Hoghton Towers. Knowing myself to be unfit for the noisier stir of social existence, but believing myself qualified to do my duty in a moderate though earnest way if I could obtain some small preferment in the Church, I applied my mind to the clerical profession. In due sequence I took orders, was ordained, and began to look about me for employment. I must observe that I had taken a good degree, that I had succeeded in winning a good fellowship, and that my means were ample for my retired way of life. By this time I had read with several young men, and the occupation increased my income, while it was highly interesting to me. I once accidentally overheard our greatest Don say, to my boundless joy: &quot;That he heard it reported of Silverman that his gift of quiet explanation, his patience, his amiable temper, and his conscientiousness, made him the best of Coaches.&quot; May my &quot;gift of quiet explanation&quot; come more seasonably and powerfully to my aid in this present explanation than I think it will! It may be, in a certain degree, owing to the situation of my College rooms (in a corner where the daylight was sobered), but it is in a much larger degree referable to the state of my own mind, that I seem to myself, on looking back to this time of my life, to have been always in the peaceful shade. I can see others in the sunlight; I can see our boats&#039; crews and our athletic young men, on the glistening water, or speckled with the moving lights of sunlit leaves; but I myself am always in the shadow looking on. Not unsympathetically—GOD forbid!—but looking on, alone, much as I looked at Sylvia from the shadows of the ruined house, or looked at the red gleam shining through the farmer&#039;s windows, and listened to the fall of dancing feet, when all the ruin was dark, that night in the quadrangle. I now come to the reason of my quoting that laudation of myself above given. Without such reason: to repeat it would have been mere boastfulness. Among those who had read with me, was Mr. Fareway, second son of Lady Fareway, widow of Sir Gaston Fareway, Baronet. This young gentleman&#039;s abilities were much above the average, but he came of a rich family, and was idle and luxurious. He presented himself to me too late, and afterwards came to me too irregularly, to admit of my being of much service to him. In the end I considered it my duty to dissuade him from going up for an examination which he could never pass, and he left College without taking a degree. After his departure, Lady Fareway wrote to me representing the justice of my returning half my fee, as I had been of so little use to her son. Within my knowledge a similar demand had not been made in any other case, and I most freely admit that the justice of it had not occurred to me until it was pointed out. But I at once perceived it, yielded to it, and returned the money. Mr. Fareway had been gone two years or more and I had forgotten him, when he one day walked into my rooms as I was sitting at my books. Said he, after the usual salutations had passed: &quot;Mr. Silverman, my mother is in town here, at the hotel, and wishes me to present you to her.&quot; I was not comfortable with strangers, and I dare say I betrayed that I was a little nervous or unwilling. For said he, without my having spoken: &quot;I think the interview may tend to the advancement of your prospects.&quot; It put me to the blush to think that I should be tempted by a worldly reason, and I rose immediately. Said Mr. Fareway, as we went along: &quot;Are you a good hand at business?&quot; &quot;I think not,&quot; said I. Said Mr. Fareway then: &quot;My mother is.&quot; &quot;Truly?&quot; said I. &quot;Yes. My mother is what is usually called a managing woman. Doesn&#039;t make a bad thing, for instance, even out of the spendthrift habits of my eldest brother abroad. In short, a managing woman. This is in confidence.&quot; He had never spoken to me in confidence, and I was surprised by his doing so. I said I should respect his confidence, of course, and said no more on the delicate subject. We had but a little way to walk, and I was soon in his mother&#039;s company. He presented me, shook hands with me, and left us two (as he said) to business. I saw in my Lady Fareway, a handsome well-preserved lady of somewhat large stature, with a steady glare in her great round dark eyes that embarrassed me. Said my Lady: &quot;I have heard from my son, Mr. Silverman, that you would be glad of some preferment in the Church?&quot; I gave my Lady to understand that was so. &quot;I don&#039;t know whether you are aware,&quot; my Lady proceeded, &quot;that we have a presentation to a Living? I say we have, but in point of fact I have.&quot; I gave my Lady to understand that I had not been aware of this. Said my Lady: &quot;So it is. Indeed, I have two presentations; one, to two hundred a year; one, to six. Both livings are in our county: North Devonshire, as you probably know. The first is vacant. Would you like it?&quot; What with my Lady&#039;s eyes, and what with the suddenness of this proposed gift, I was much confused. &quot;I am sorry it is not the larger presentation,&quot; said my Lady, rather coldly, &quot;though I will not, Mr. Silverman, pay you the bad compliment of supposing that you are, because that would be mercenary. And mercenary I am persuaded you are not.&quot; Said I, with my utmost earnestness: &quot;Thank you, Lady Fareway, thank you, thank you! I should be deeply hurt if I thought I bore the character.&quot; &quot;Naturally,&quot; said my Lady. &quot;Always detestable, but particularly in a clergyman. You have not said whether you would like the Living?&quot; With apologies for my remissness or indistinctness, I assured my Lady that I accepted it most readily and gratefully. I added that I hoped she would not estimate my appreciation of the generosity of her choice by my flow of words, for I was not a ready man in that respect when taken by surprise, or touched at heart. &quot;The affair is concluded,&quot; said my Lady. &quot;Concluded. You will find the duties very light, Mr. Silverman. Charming house; charming little garden, orchard, and all that. You will be able to take pupils. By the bye!—No. I will return to the word afterwards. What was I going to mention, when it put me out?&quot; My Lady stared at me, as if I knew. And I didn&#039;t know. And that perplexed me afresh. Said my Lady, after some consideration: &quot;Oh! Of course. How very dull of me! The last incumbent—least mercenary man I ever saw—in consideration of the duties being so light and the house so delicious, couldn&#039;t rest, he said, unless I permitted him to help me with my correspondence, accounts, and various little things of that kind; nothing in themselves, but which it worries a lady to cope with. Would Mr. Silverman also, like to—? Or shall I—?&quot; I hastened to say that my poor help would be always at her ladyship&#039;s service. &quot;I am absolutely blessed,&quot; said my Lady, casting up her eyes (and so taking them off of me for one moment), &quot;in having to do with gentlemen who cannot endure an approach to the idea of being mercenary!&quot; She shivered at the word. &quot;And now as to the pupil.&quot; &quot;The—?&quot; I was quite at a loss. &quot;Mr. Silverman, you have no idea what she is. She is,&quot; said my Lady, laying her touch upon my coat sleeve, &quot; I do verily believe, the most extraordinary girl in this world. Already knows more Greek and Latin than Lady Jane Grey. And taught herself! Has not yet, remember, derived a moment&#039;s advantage from Mr. Silverman&#039;s classical acquirements. To say nothing of mathematics, which she is bent upon becoming versed in, and in which (as I hear from my son and others) Mr. Silverman&#039;s reputation is so deservedly high!&quot; Under my Lady&#039;s eyes, I must have lost the clue, I felt persuaded; and yet I did not know where I could have dropped it. &quot;Adelina,&quot; said my Lady, &quot;is my only daughter. If I did not feel quite convinced that I am not blinded by a mother&#039;s partiality; unless I was absolutely sure that when you know her, Mr. Silverman, you will esteem it a high and unusual privilege to direct her studies; I should introduce a mercenary element into this conversation, and ask you on what terms—&quot; I entreated my Lady to go no further. My Lady saw that I was troubled, and did me the honour to comply with my request. EIGHTH CHAPTER. Everything in mental acquisition that her brother might have been, if he would; and everything in all gracious charms and admirable qualities that no one but herself could be; this was Adelina. I will not expatiate upon her beauty. I will not expatiate upon her intelligence, her quickness of perception, her powers of memory, her sweet consideration from the first moment for the slow-paced tutor who ministered to her wonderful gifts. I was thirty then; I am over sixty now; she is ever present to me in these hours as she was in those, bright and beautiful and young, wise and fanciful and good. When I discovered that I loved her, how can I say. In the first day? In the first week? In the first month? Impossible to trace. If I be (as I am) unable to represent to myself any previous period of my life as quite separable from her attracting power, how can I answer for this one detail! Whensoever I made the discovery, it laid a heavy burden on me. And yet, comparing it with the far heavier burden that I afterwards took up, it does not seem to me, now, to have been very hard to bear. In the knowledge that I did love her, and that I should love her while my life lasted, and that I was ever to hide my secret deep in my own breast, and she was never to find it, there was a kind of sustaining joy, or pride, or comfort, mingled with my pain. But later on—say a year later on—when I made another discovery, then indeed my suffering and my struggle were strong. That other discovery was—? These words will never see the light, if ever, until my heart is dust; until her bright spirit has returned to the regions of which, when imprisoned here, it surely retained some unusual glimpse of remembrance; until all the pulses that ever beat around us shall have long been quiet; until all the fruits of all the tiny victories and defeats achieved in our little breasts shall have withered away. That discovery was, that she loved me. She may have enhanced my knowledge, and loved me for that; she may have overvalued my discharge of duty to her, and loved me for that; she may have refined upon a playful compassion which she would sometimes show for what she called my want of wisdom according to the light of the world&#039;s dark lanterns, and loved me for that; she may—she must—have confused the borrowed light of what I had only learned, with its brightness in its pure original rays; but she loved me at that time, and she made me know it. Pride of family and pride of wealth put me as far off from her in my Lady&#039;s eyes as if I had been some domesticated creature of another kind. But they could not put me further from her than I put myself when I set my merits against hers. More than that. They could not put me, by millions of fathoms, half so low beneath her as I put myself when in imagination I took advantage of her noble trustfulness, took the fortune that I knew she must possess in her own right, and left her to find herself in the zenith of her beauty and genius, bound to poor rusty plodding Me. No. Worldliness should not enter here, at any cost. If I had tried to keep it out of other ground, how much harder was I bound to try to keep it from this sacred place. But there was something daring in her broad generous character that demanded at so delicate a crisis to be delicately and patiently addressed. After many and many a bitter night (O I found I could cry, for reasons not purely physical, at this pass of my life!) I took my course. My Lady had in our first interview unconsciously over-stated the accommodation of my pretty house. There was room in it for only one pupil. He was a young gentleman near coming of age, very well connected, but what is called a poor relation. His parents were dead. The charges of his living and reading with me were defrayed by an uncle, and he and I were to do our utmost together for three years towards qualifying him to make his way. At this time he had entered into his second year with me. He was well-looking, clever, energetic, enthusiastic, bold; in the best sense of the term, a thorough young Anglo-Saxon. I resolved to bring these two together. NINTH CHAPTER. Said I, one night, when I had conquered myself: &quot;Mr. Granville:&quot; Mr. Granville Wharton his name was: &quot;I doubt if you have ever yet so much as seen Miss Fareway.&quot; &quot;Well, sir,&quot; returned he, laughing, &quot;you see her so much yourself, that you hardly leave another fellow a chance of seeing her.&quot; &quot;I am her tutor, you know,&quot; said I. And there the subject dropped for that time. But I so contrived, as that they should come together shortly afterwards. I had previously so contrived as to keep them asunder, for while I loved her—I mean before I had determined on my sacrifice—a lurking jealousy of Mr. Granville lay within my unworthy breast. It was quite an ordinary interview in the Fareway Park; but they talked easily together for some time; like takes to like, and they had many points of resemblance. Said Mr. Granville to me, when he and I sate at our supper that night: &quot;Miss Fareway is remarkably beautiful, sir, and remarkably engaging. Don&#039;t you think so?&quot;—&quot;I think so,&quot; said I. And I stole a glance at him, and saw that he had reddened and was thoughtful. I remember it most vividly, because the mixed feeling of grave pleasure and acute pain that the slight circumstance caused me, was the first of a long, long series of such mixed impressions under which my hair turned slowly grey. I had not much need to feign to be subdued, but I counterfeited to be older than I was, in all respects (Heaven knows, my heart being all too young the while!), and feigned to be more of a recluse and bookworm than I had really become, and gradually set up more and more of a fatherly manner towards Adelina. Likewise, I made my tuition less imaginative than before; separated myself from my poets and philosophers; was careful to present them in their own light, and me, their lowly servant, in my own shade. Moreover, in the matter of apparel I was equally mindful. Not that I had ever been dapper that way, but that I was slovenly now. As I depressed myself with one hand, so did I labour to raise Mr. Granville with the other; directing his attention to such subjects as I too well knew most interested her, and fashioning him (do not deride or misconstrue the expression, unknown reader of this writing, for I have suffered!) into a greater resemblance to myself in my solitary one strong aspect. And gradually, gradually, as I saw him take more and more to these thrown-out lures of mine, then did I come to know better and better that love was drawing him on, and was drawing Her from me. So passed more than another year; every day a year in its number of my mixed impressions of grave pleasure and acute pain; and then, these two being of age and free to act legally for themselves, came before me, hand in hand (my hair being now quite white), and entreated me that I would unite them together. &quot;And indeed, dear Tutor,&quot; said Adelina, &quot;it is but consistent in you that you should do this thing for us, seeing that we should never have spoken together that first time but for you, and that but for you we could never have met so often afterwards.&quot; The whole of which was literally true, for I had availed myself of my many business attendances on, and conferences with, my Lady, to take Mr. Granville to the house, and leave him in the outer room with Adelina. I knew that my Lady would object to such a marriage for her daughter, or to any marriage that was other than an exchange of her for stipulated lands, goods, and moneys. But, looking on the two, and seeing with full eyes that they were both young and beautiful; and knowing that they were alike in the tastes and acquirements that will outlive youth and beauty; and considering that Adelina had a fortune now, in her own keeping; and considering further that Mr. Granville, though for the present poor, was of a good family that had never lived in a cellar in Preston; and believing that their love would endure, neither having any great discrepancy to find out in the other; I told them of my readiness to do this thing which Adelina asked of her dear Tutor, and to send them forth, Husband and Wife, into the shining world with golden gates that awaited them. It was on a summer morning that I rose before the sun, to compose myself for the crowning of my work with this end. And my dwelling being near to the sea, I walked down to the rocks on the shore, in order that I might behold the sun rise in his majesty. The tranquillity upon the Deep and on the firmament, the orderly withdrawal of the stars, the calm promise of coming day, the rosy suffusion of the sky and waters, the ineffable splendour that then burst forth, attuned my mind afresh after the discords of the night. Methought that all I looked on said to me, and that all I heard in the sea and in the air said to me: &quot;Be comforted, mortal, that thy life is so short. Our preparation for what is to follow, has endured, and shall endure, for unimaginable ages.&quot; I married them. I knew that my hand was cold when I placed it on their hands clasped together; but the words with which I had to accompany the action, I could say without faltering, and I was at peace. They being well away from my house and from the place, after our simple breakfast, the time was come when I must do what I had pledged myself to them that I would do: break the intelligence to my Lady. I went up to the house, and found my Lady in her ordinary business-room. She happened to have an unusual amount of commissions to entrust to me that day, and she had filled my hands with papers before l could originate a word. &quot;My Lady&quot;—I then began, as I stood beside her table. &quot;Why, what&#039;s the matter!&quot; she said, quickly, looking up. &quot;Not much, I would fain hope, after you shall have prepared yourself, and considered a little.&quot; &quot;Prepared myself! And considered a little! You appear to have prepared yourself but indifferently, anyhow, Mr. Silverman.&quot; This, mighty scornfully, as I experienced my usual embarrassment under her stare. Said I, in self-extenuation, once for all: &quot;Lady Fareway, I have but to say for myself that I have tried to do my duty.&quot; &quot;For yourself?&quot; repeated my Lady. &quot;Then there are others concerned, I see. Who are they?&quot; I was about to answer, when she made towards the bell with a dart that stopped me, and said: &quot;Why, where is Adelina!&quot; &quot;Forbear. Be calm, my Lady. I married her this morning to Mr. Granville Wharton.&quot; She set her lips, looked more intently at me than ever, raised her right hand and smote me hard upon the cheek. &quot;Give me back those papers, give me back those papers!&quot; She tore them out of my hands and tossed them on her table. Then seating herself defiantly in her great chair, and folding her arms, she stabbed me to the heart with the unlooked-for reproach: &quot;You worldly wretch!&quot; &quot;Worldly?&quot; I cried. &quot;Worldly!&quot; &quot;This, if you please,&quot; she went on with supreme scorn, pointing me out as if there were some one there to see: &quot;this, if you please, is the disinterested scholar, with not a design beyond his books! This, if you please, is the simple creature whom anyone could overreach in a bargain! This, if you please, is Mr. Silverman! Not of this world, not he! He has too much simplicity for this world&#039;s cunning. He has too much singleness of purpose to be a match for this world&#039;s double-dealing.—What did he give you for it?&quot; &quot;For what? And who?&quot; &quot;How much,&quot; she asked, bending forward in her great chair, and insultingly tapping the fingers of her right hand on the palm of her left: &quot;how much does Mr. Granville Wharton pay you for getting him Adelina&#039;s money? What is the amount of your percentage upon Adelina&#039;s fortune? What were the terms of the agreement that you proposed to this boy when you, the Reverend George Silverman, licensed to marry, engaged to put him in possession of this girl? You made good terms for yourself, whatever they were. He would stand a poor chance against your keenness.&quot; Bewildered, horrified, stunned, by this cruel perversion, I could not speak. But I trust that I looked innocent, being so. &quot;Listen to me, shrewd hypocrite,&quot; said my Lady, whose anger increased as she gave it utterance. &quot;Attend to my words, you cunning schemer who have carried this plot through with such a practised double face that I have never suspected you. I had my projects for my daughter; projects for family connexion; projects for fortune. You have thwarted them, and overreached me; but I am not one to be thwarted and overreached, without retaliation. Do you mean to hold this Living, another month?&quot; &quot;Do you deem it possible, Lady Fareway, that I can hold it another hour, under your injurious words?&quot; &quot;Is it resigned then?&quot; &quot;It was mentally resigned, my Lady, some minutes ago.&quot; &quot;Don&#039;t equivocate, sir. Is it resigned?&quot; &quot;Unconditionally and entirely. And I would that I had never, never, come near it!&quot; &quot;A cordial response from me to that wish, Mr. Silverman! But take this with you, sir. If you had not resigned it, I would have had you deprived of it. And though you have resigned it, you will not get quit of me as easily as you think for. I will pursue you with this story. I will make this nefarious conspiracy of yours, for money, known. You have made money by it, but you have, at the same time, made an enemy by it. You will take good care that the money sticks to you; I will take good care that the enemy sticks to you.&quot; Then said I, finally: &quot;Lady Fareway, I think my heart is broken. Until I came into this room just now, the possibility of such mean wickedness as you have imputed to me, never dawned upon my thoughts. Your suspicions—&quot; &quot;Suspicions. Pah!&quot; said she indignantly. &quot;Certainties.&quot; &quot;Your certainties, my Lady, as you call them; your suspicions, as I call them; are cruel, unjust, wholly devoid of foundation in fact. I can declare no more, except that I have not acted for my own profit or my own pleasure. I have not in this proceeding, considered myself. Once again, I think my heart is broken. If I have unwittingly done any wrong with a righteous motive, that is some penalty to pay.&quot; She received this with another and a more indignant &quot;Pah!&quot; and I made my way out of her room (I think I felt my way out with my hands, although my eyes were open), almost suspecting that my voice had a repulsive sound, and that I was a repulsive object. There was a great stir made, the Bishop was appealed to, I received a severe reprimand, and narrowly escaped suspension. For years a cloud hung over me, and my name was tarnished. But my heart did not break, if a broken heart involves death; for I lived through it. They stood by me, Adelina and her husband, through it all. Those who had known me at College, and even most of those who had only known me there by reputation, stood by me too. Little by little, the belief widened that I was not capable of what was laid to my charge. At length, I was presented to a College-Living in a sequestered place, and there I now pen my Explanation. I pen it at my open window in the summer-time; before me, lying the churchyard, equal resting-place for sound hearts, wounded hearts, and broken hearts. I pen it for the relief of my own mind, not foreseeing whether or no it will ever have a reader.18680229https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No.III_George_Silverman_s_Explanation_[ATYR]/1868-02-29-George_Silvermans_Explanation_3_ATYR.pdf
231https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/231No.III, 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'Published in <em>Household Words,</em> Vol. XVI, No. 394, 17 October 1857, pp. 361-367.Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins<em>Dickens Journals Online, </em><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-361.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-361.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1857-10-17">1857-10-17</a>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> www.djo.org.uk. Available under CC BY licence.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1857-10-17-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No3<span>Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins. No.III 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'.</span><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig.&nbsp;</span><span>Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1857-10-10-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No3">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1857-10-10-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No3</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>The Cumberland Doctor&#039;s mention of Doncaster Races, inspired Mr. Francis Goodchild with the idea of going down to Doncaster to see the races. Doncaster being a good way off, and quite out of the way of the Idle Apprentices (if anything could be out of their way, who had no way), it necessarily followed that Francis perceived Doncaster in the race-week to be, of all possible idlenesses, the particular idleness that would completely satisfy him. Thomas, with an enforced idleness grafted on the natural and voluntary power of his disposition, was not of this mind ; objecting that a man compelled to lie on his back on a floor, a sofa, a table, a line of chairs, or anything he could get to lie upon, was not in racing condition, and that he desired nothing better than to lie where he was, enjoying himself in looking at the flies on the ceiling. But, Francis Goodchild, who had been walking round his companion in a circuit of twelve miles for two days, and had begun to doubt whether it was reserved for him ever to be idle in his life, not only overpowered this objection, but even converted Thomas Idle to a scheme he formed (another idle inspiration), of conveying the said Thomas to the sea-coast, and putting his injured leg under a stream of salt-water. Plunging into this happy conception head-foremost, Mr. Goodchild immediately referred to the county-map, and ardently discovered that the most delicious piece of sea- coast to be found within the limits of England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, The Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands, all summed up together, was Allonby on the coast of Cumberland. There was the coast of Scotland opposite to Allonby, said Mr. Goodchild with enthusiasm; there was a fine Scottish mountain on that Scottish coast; there were Scottish lights to be seen shining across the glorious Channel, and at Allonby itself there was every idle luxury (no doubt), that a watering-place could offer to the heart of idle man. Moreover, said Mr. Goodchild, with his finger on the map, this exquisite retreat was approached by a coach-road, from a railway- station called Aspatria—a name, in a manner, suggestive of the departed glories of Greece, associated with one of the most engaging and most famous of Greek women. On this point, Mr. Goodchild continued at intervals to breathe a vein of classic fancy and eloquence exceedingly irksome to Mr. Idle, until it appeared that the honest English pronunciation of that Cumberland country shortened Aspatria into &quot;Spatter.&quot; After this supplementary discovery, Mr. Goodchild said no more about it. By way of Spatter, the crippled Idle was carried, hoisted, pushed, poked, and packed, into and out of carriages, into and out of beds, into and out of tavern resting-places, until he was brought at length within sniff of the sea. And now, behold the apprentices gallantly riding into Allonby in a one-horse fly, bent upon staying in that peaceful marine valley until the turbulent Doncaster time shall come round upon the wheel, in its turn among what are in sporting registers called the &quot;Fixtures&quot; for the month. &quot;Do you see Allonby ? &quot; asked Thomas Idle. &quot;I don&#039;t see it yet,&quot; said Francis, looking out of window. &quot;It must be there,&quot; said Thomas Idle. &quot;I don&#039;t see it,&quot; returned Francis. &quot;It must be there,&quot; repeated Thomas Idle, fretfully. &quot;Lord bless me!&quot; exclaimed Francis, drawing in his head, &quot;I suppose this is it!&quot; &quot;A watering-place,&quot; retorted Thomas Idle, with the pardonable sharpness of an invalid, &quot;can&#039;t be five gentlemen in straw-hats, on a form on one side of a door, and four ladies in hats and falls, on a form on another side of a door, and three geese in a dirty little brook before them, and a boy&#039;s legs hanging over a bridge (with a boy&#039;s body I suppose on the other side of the parapet), and a donkey running away. What are you talking about?&quot; &quot;Allonby, gentlemen,&quot; said the most comfortable of landladies, as she opened one door of the carriage; &quot;Allonby, gentlemen,&quot; said the most attentive of landlords, as he opened the other. Thomas Idle yielded his arm to the ready Goodchild, and descended from the vehicle. Thomas, now just able to grope his way along, in a doubled-up condition, with the aid of two thick sticks, was no bad embodiment of Commodore Trunnion, or of one of those many gallant Admirals of the stage, who have all ample fortunes, gout, thick-sticks, tempers, wards, and nephews. With this distinguished naval appearance upon him, Thomas made a crab-like progress up a clean little bulk-headed staircase, into a clean little bulk-headed room, where he slowly deposited himself on a sofa, with a stick on either hand of him, looking exceedingly grim. &quot;Francis,&quot; said Thomas Idle, &quot;what do you think of this place?&quot; &quot;I think,&quot; returned Mr. Goodchild, in a glowing way, &quot;it is everything we expected.&quot; &quot;Hah!&quot; said Thomas Idle. &quot;There is the sea,&quot; cried Mr. Goodchild, pointing out of window; &quot;and here,&quot; pointing to the lunch on the table, &quot;are shrimps. Let us— &quot; here Mr. Goodchild looked out of window, as if in search of something, and looked in again,—&quot;let us eat &#039;em.&quot; The shrimps eaten and the dinner ordered, Mr. Goodchild went out to survey the watering-place. As Chorus of the drama without whom Thomas could make nothing of the scenery, he by-and-bye returned, to have the following report screwed out of him. In brief, it was the most delightful place ever seen. &quot;But,&quot; Thomas Idle asked, &quot;where is it?&quot; &quot;It&#039;s what you may call generally up and down the beach, here and there,&quot; said Mr. Goodchild, with a twist of his hand. &quot;Proceed,&quot; said Thomas Idle. It was, Mr. Goodchild went on to say, in cross-examination, what you might call a primitive place. Large? No, it was not large. Who ever expected it would be large? Shape? What a question to ask! No shape. What sort of a street? Why, no street. Shops? Yes, of course (quite indignant). How many? Who ever went into a place to count the shops? Ever so many. Six? Perhaps. A library? Why, of course! (indignant again). Good collection of books? Most likely couldn&#039;t say had seen nothing in it but a pair of scales. Any reading-room? Of course, there was a reading-room. Where? Where! why, over there. Where was over there? Why, there! Let Mr. Idle carry his eye to that bit of waste-ground above high water-mark, where the rank grass and loose stones were most in a litter; and he would see a sort of a long ruinous brick loft, next door to a ruinous brick outhouse, which loft had a ladder outside, to get up by. That was the reading-room, and if Mr. Idle didn&#039;t like the idea of a weaver&#039;s shuttle throbbing under a reading-room, that was his look out. He was not to dictate, Mr. Goodchild supposed (indignant again), to the company. &quot;By-the-bye,&quot; Thomas Idle observed; &quot;the company?&quot; Well! (Mr. Goodchild went on to report) very nice company. Where were they? Why, there they were. Mr. Idle could see the tops of their hats, he supposed. What? Those nine straw hats again, five gentlemen&#039;s and four ladies&#039;? Yes, to be sure. Mr. Goodchild hoped the company were not to be expected to wear helmets, to please Mr. Idle. Beginning to recover his temper at about this point, Mr. Goodchild voluntarily reported that if you wanted to be primitive, you could be primitive here, and that if you wanted to be idle, you could be idle here. In the course of some days, he added, that there were three fishing-boats, but no rigging, and that there were plenty of fishermen who never fished. That they got their living entirely by looking at the ocean. What nourishment they looked out of it to support their strength, he couldn&#039;t say; but, he supposed it was some sort of Iodine. The place was full of their children, who were always upside down on the public buildings (two small bridges over the brook), and always hurting themselves or one another, so that their wailings made more continual noise in the air than could have been got in a busy place. The houses people lodged in, were nowhere in particular, and were in capital accordance with the beach; being all more or less cracked and damaged as its shells were, and all empty—as its shells were. Among them, was an edifice of destitute appearance, with a number of wall-eyed windows in it, looking desperately out to Scotland as if for help, which said it was a Bazaar (and it ought to know), and where you might buy anything you wanted—supposing what you wanted, was a little camp-stool or a child&#039;s wheelbarrow. The brook crawled or stopped between the houses and the sea, and the donkey was always running away, and when he got into the brook he was pelted out with stones, which never hit him, and which always hit some of the children who were upside down on the public buildings, and made their lamentations louder. This donkey was the public excitement of Allonby, and was probably supported at the public expense. The foregoing descriptions, delivered in separate items, on separate days of adventurous discovery, Mr. Goodchild severally wound up, by looking out of window, looking in again, and saying, &quot;But there is the sea, and here are the shrimps—let us eat &#039;em.&quot; There were fine sunsets at Allonby when the low flat beach, with its pools of water and its dry patches, changed into long bars of silver and gold in various states of burnishing, and there were fine viewsl—on fine days—of the Scottish coast. But, when it rained at Allonby, Allonby thrown back upon its ragged self, became a kind of place which the donkey seemed to have found out, and to have his highly sagacious reasons for wishing to bolt from. Thomas Idle observed, too, that Mr. Goodchild, with a noble show of disinterestedness, became every day more ready to walk to Maryport and back, for letters; and suspicions began to harbour in the mind of Thomas, that his friend deceived him, and that Maryport was a preferable place. Therefore, Thomas said to Francis on a day when they had looked at the sea and eaten the shrimps, &quot;My mind misgives me, Goodchild, that you go to Maryport, like the boy in the story-book, to ask it to be idle with you.&quot; &quot;Judge, then,&quot; returned Francis, adopting the style of the story-book, &quot;with what success. I go to a region which is a bit of water-side Bristol, with a slice of Wapping, a seasoning of Wolverhampton, and a garnish of Portsmouth, and I say, &#039;Will you come and be idle with me?&#039; And it answers, &#039;No; for I am a great deal too vaporous, and a great deal too rusty, and a great deal too muddy, and a great deal too dirty altogether; and I have ships to load, and pitch and tar to boil, and iron to hammer, and steam to get up, and smoke to make, and stone to quarry, and fifty other disagreeable things to do, and I can&#039;t be idle with you.&#039; Then I go into jagged up-hill and down-hill streets, where l am in the pastrycook&#039;s shop at one moment, and next moment in savage fastnesses of moor and morass, beyond the confines of civilisation, and I say to those murky and black-dusky streets, &#039;Will you come and be idle with me?&#039; To which they reply, &#039;No, we can&#039;t, indeed, for we haven&#039;t the spirits, and we are startled by the echo of your feet on the sharp pavement, and we have so many goods in our shop-windows which nobody wants, and we have so much to do for a limited public which never comes to us to be done for, that we are altogether out of sorts and can&#039;t enjoy ourselves with any one.&#039; So I go to the Post-office, and knock at the shutter, and I say to the Post-master, &#039;Will you come and be idle with me?&#039; To which he rejoins, &#039;No, I really can&#039;t, for I live, as you may see, in such a very little Post-office, and pass my life behind such a very little shutter, that my hand, when I put it out, is as the hand of a giant crammed through the window of a dwarf&#039;s house at a fair, and I am a mere Post-office anchorite in a cell much too small for him, and I can&#039;t get out, and I can&#039;t get in, and I have no space to be idle in, even if I would.&#039; So, the boy,&quot; said Mr. Goodchild, concluding the tale, &quot;comes back with the letters after all, and lives happy never afterwards.&quot; But it may, not unreasonably, be asked—while Francis Goodchild was wandering hither and thither, storing his mind with perpetual observation of men and things, and sincerely believing himself to be the laziest creature in existence all the time—how did Thomas Idle, crippled and confined to the house, contrive to get through the hours of the day? Prone on the sofa, Thomas made no attempt to get through the hours, but passively allowed the hours to get through him. Where other men in his situation would have read books and improved their minds, Thomas slept and rested his body. Where other men would have pondered anxiously over their future prospects, Thomas dreamed lazily of his past life. The one solitary thing he did, which most other people would have done in his place, was to resolve on making certain alterations and improvements in his mode of existence, as soon as the effects of the misfortune that had overtaken him had all passed away. Remembering that the current of his life had hitherto oozed along in one smooth stream of laziness, occasionally troubled on the surface by a slight passing ripple of industry, his present ideas on the subject of self-reform, inclined him—not as the reader may be disposed to imagine, to project schemes for a new existence of enterprise and exertion—but, on the contrary, to resolve that he would never, if he could possibly help it, be active or industrious again, throughout the whole of his future career. It is due to Mr. Idle to relate that his mind sauntered towards this peculiar conclusion on distinct and logically-producible grounds. After reviewing, quite at his ease, and with many needful intervals of repose, the generally-placid spectacle of his past existence, he arrived at the discovery that all the great disasters which had tried his patience and equanimity in early life, had been caused by his having allowed himself to be deluded into imitating some pernicious example of activity and industry that had been set him by others. The trials to which he here alludes were three in number, and may be thus reckoned up: First, the disaster of being an unpopular and a thrashed boy at school; secondly, the disaster of falling seriously ill; thirdly, the disaster of becoming acquainted with a great bore. The first disaster occurred after Thomas had been an idle and a popular boy at school, for some happy years. One Christmas-time, he was stimulated by the evil example of a companion, whom he had always trusted and liked, to be untrue to himself, and to try for a prize at the ensuing half-yearly examination. He did try, and he got a prize—how, he did not distinctly know at the moment, and cannot remember now. No sooner, however, had the book—Moral Hints to the Young on the Value of Time—been placed in his hands, than the first troubles of his life began. The idle boys deserted him, as a traitor to their cause. The industrious boys avoided him, as a dangerous interloper; one of their number, who had always won the prize on previous occasions, expressing just resentment at the invasion of his privileges by calling Thomas into the play-ground, and then and there administering to him the first sound and genuine thrashing that he had received in his life. Unpopular from that moment, as a beaten boy, who belonged to no side and was rejected by all parties, young Idle soon lost caste with his masters, as he had previously lost caste with his school-fellows. He had forfeited the comfortable reputation ot being the one lazy member of the youthful community whom it was quite hopeless to punish. Never again did he hear the head-master say reproachfully to an industrious boy who had committed a fault, &quot;I might have expected this in Thomas Idle, but it is inexcusable, sir, in you, who know better.&quot; Never more, after winning that fatal prize, did he escape the retributive imposition, or the avenging birch. From that time, the masters made him work, and the boys would not let him play. From that time his social position steadily declined, and his life at school became a perpetual burden to him. So, again, with the second disaster. While Thomas was lazy, he was a model of health. His first attempt at active exertion and his first suffering from severe illness are connected together by the intimate relations of cause and effect. Shortly after leaving school, he accompanied a party of friends to a cricket-field, in his natural and appropriate character of spectator only. On the ground it was discovered that the players fell short of the required number, and facile Thomas was persuaded to assist in making up the complement. At a certain appointed time, he was roused from peaceful slumber in a dry ditch, and placed before three wickets with a bat in his hand. Opposite to him, behind three more wickets, stood one of his bosom friends, filling the situation (as he was informed) of bowler. No words can describe Mr. Idle&#039;s horror and amazement, when he saw this young man—on ordinary occasions, the meekest and mildest of human beings—suddenly contract his eyebrows, compress his lips, assume the aspect of an infuriated savage, run back a few steps, then run forward, and, without the slightest previous provocation, hurl a detestably hard ball with all his might straight at Thomas&#039;s legs. Stimulated to preternatural activity of body and sharpness of eye by the instinct of self preservation, Mr. Idle contrived, by jumping deftly aside at the right moment, and by using his bat (ridiculously narrow as it was for the purpose) as a shield, to preserve his life and limbs from the dastardly attack that had been made on both, to leave the full force of the deadly missile to strike his wicket instead of his leg; and to end the innings, so far as his side was concerned, by being immediately bowled out. Grateful for his escape he was about to return to the dry ditch, when he was peremptorily stopped, and told that the other side was &quot;going in,&quot; and that he was expected to &quot;field.&quot; His conception of the whole art and mystery of &quot;fielding,&quot; may be summed up in the three words of serious advice which he privately administered to himself on that trying occasion—avoid the ball. Fortified by this sound and salutary principle, he took his own course, impervious alike to ridicule and abuse. Whenever the ball came near him, he thought of his shins, and got out of the way immediately. &quot;Catch it!&quot; &quot;Stop it!&quot; &quot;Pitch it up!&quot; were cries that passed by him like the idle wind that he regarded not. He ducked under it, he jumped over it, he whisked himself away from it on either side. Never once, throughout the whole innings did he and the ball come together on anything approaching to intimate terms. The unnatural activity of body which was necessarily called forth for the accomplishment of this result threw Thomas Idle, for the first time in his life, into a perspiration. The perspiration, in consequence of his want of practice in the management of that particular result of bodily activity, was suddenly checked; the inevitable chill succeeded; and that, in its turn, was followed by a fever. For the first time since his birth, Mr. Idle found himself confined to his bed for many weeks together, wasted and worn by a long illness, of which his own disastrous muscular exertion had been the sole first cause. The third occasion on which Thomas found reason to reproach himself bitterly for the mistake of having attempted to be industrious, was connected with his choice of a calling in life. Having no interest in the Church, he appropriately selected the next best profession for a lazy man in England—the Bar. Although the Benchers of the Inns of Court have lately abandoned their good old principles, and oblige their students to make some show of studying, in Mr. Idle&#039;s time no such innovation as this existed. Young men who aspired to the honourable title of barrister were, very properly, not asked to learn anything of the law, but were merely required to eat a certain number of dinners at the table of their Hall, and to pay a certain sum of money; and were called to the Bar as soon as they could prove that they had sufficiently complied with these extremely sensible regulations. Never did Thomas move more harmoniously in concert with his elders and betters than when he was qualifying himself for admission among the barristers of his native country. Never did he feel more deeply what real laziness was in all the serene majesty of its nature, than on the memorable day when he was called to the bar, after having carefully abstained from opening his law-books during his period of probation, except to fall asleep over them. How he could ever again have become industrious, even for the shortest period, after that great reward conferred upon his idleness, quite passes his comprehension. The kind benchers did everything they could to show him the folly of exerting himself. They wrote out his probationary exercise for him, and never expected him even to take the trouble of reading it through when it was written. They invited him, with seven other choice spirits as lazy as himself, to come and be called to the bar, while they were sitting over their wine and fruit after dinner. They put his oaths of allegiance, and his dreadful official denunciations of the Pope and the Pretender so gently into his mouth, that he hardly knew how the words got there. They wheeled all their chairs softly round from the table, and sat surveying the young barristers with their backs to their bottles, rather than stand up, or adjourn to hear the exercises read. And when Mr. Idle and the seven unlabouring neophytes, ranged in order, as a class, with their backs considerately placed against a screen, had begun, in rotation, to read the exercises which they had not written, even then, each Bencher, true to the great lazy principle of the whole proceeding, stopped each neophyte before he had stammered through his first line, and bowed to him, and told him politely that he was a barrister from that moment. This was all the ceremony. It was followed by a social supper, and by the presentation, in accordance with ancient custom, of a pound of sweetmeats and a bottle of Madeira, offered in the way of needful refreshment, by each grateful neophyte to each beneficent Bencher. It may seem inconceivable that Thomas should ever have forgotten the great do-nothing principle instilled by such a ceremony as this; but it is, nevertheless, true, that certain designing students of industrious habits found him out, took advantage of his easy humour, persuaded him that it was discreditable to be a barrister and to know nothing whatever about the law, and lured him, by the force of their own evil example, into a conveyancer&#039;s chambers, to make up for lost time, and to qualify himself for practice at the Bar. After a fortnight of self- delusion, the curtain fell from his eyes; heresumed his natural character, and shut up his books. But the retribution which had hitherto always followed his little casual errors of industry followed them still. He could get away from the conveyancer&#039;s chambers, but he could not get away from one of the pupils, who had taken a fancy to him,—a tall, serious, raw-boned, hard-working, disputatious pupil, with ideas of his own about reforming the Law of Real Property, who has been the scourge of Mr. Idle&#039;s existence ever since the fatal day when he fell into the mistake of attempting to study the law. Before that time his friends were all sociable idlers like himself. Since that time the burden of bearing with a hard-working young man has become part of his lot in life. Go where he will now, he can never feel certain that the raw-boned pupil is not affectionately waiting for him round a corner, to tell him a little more about the Law of Real Property, Suffer as he may under the infliction, he can never complain, for he must always remember, with unavailing regret, that he has his own thoughtless industry to thank for first exposing him to the great social calamity of knowing a bore. These events of his past life, with the significant results that they brought about, pass drowsily through Thomas Idle&#039;s memory, while he lies alone on the sofa at Allonby and elsewhere, dreaming away the time which his fellow-apprentice gets through so actively out of doors. Remembering the lesson of laziness which his past disasters teach, and bearing in mind also the fact that he is crippled in one leg because he exerted himself to go up a mountain, when he ought to have known that his proper course of conduct was to stop at the bottom of it, he holds now, and will for the future firmly continue to hold, by his new resolution never to be industrious again, on any pretence whatever, for the rest of his life. The physical results of his accident have been related in a previous chapter. The moral results now stand on record; and, with the enumeration of these, that part of the present narrative which is occupied by the Episode of The Sprained Ankle may now perhaps be considered, in all its aspects, as finished and complete. &quot;How do you propose that we get through, this present afternoon and evening?&quot; demanded Thomas Idle, after two or three hours of the foregoing reflections at Allonby. Mr. Goodchild faultered, looked out of window, looked in again, and said, as he had so often said before, &quot;There is the sea, and here are the shrimps;—let us eat &#039;em!&quot; But, the wise donkey was at that moment in the act of bolting: not with the irresolution of his previous efforts which had been wanting in sustained force of character, but with real vigor of purpose: shaking the dust off his mane and hind-feet at Allonby, and tearing away from it, as if he had nobly made up his mind that he never would be taken alive. At sight of this inspiring spectacle, which was visible from his sofa, Thomas Idle stretched his neck and dwelt upon it rapturously. &quot;Francis Goodchild,&quot; he then said, turning to his companion with a solemn air, &quot; this is a delightful little Inn, excellently kept by the most comfortable of landladies and the most attentive of landlords, but—the donkey&#039;s right!&quot; &quot;The words, &quot;There is the sea, and here are the—,&quot; again trembled on the lips of Goodchild, unaccompanied however by any sound. &quot;Let us instantly pack the portmanteaus,&quot; said Thomas Idle, &quot; pay the bill, and order a fly out, with instructions to the driver to follow the donkey!&quot; Mr. Goodchild, who had only wanted encouragement to disclose the real state of his feelings, and who had been pining beneath his weary secret, now burst into tears, and confessed that he thought another day in the place would be the death of him. So, the two idle apprentices followed the donkey until the night was far advanced. Whether he was recaptured by the town-council, or is bolting at this hour through the United Kingdom, they know not. They hope he may be still bolting; if so, their best wishes are with him. It entered Mr. Idle&#039;s head, on the borders of Cumberland, that there could be no idler place to stay at, except by snatches of a few minutes each, than a railway station. &quot; An intermediate station on a line—a junction—anything of that sort,&quot; Thomas suggested. Mr. Goodchild approved of the idea as eccentric, and they journeyed on and on, until they came to such a station where there was an Inn. &quot;Here,&quot; said Thomas, &quot; we may be luxuriously lazy; other people will travel for us, as it were, and we shall laugh at their folly.&quot; It was a Junction-Station, where the wooden razors before mentioned shaved the air very often, and where the sharp electric-telegraph bell was in a very restless condition. All manner of cross-lines of rails came zig-zaging into it, like a Congress of iron vipers; and, a little way out of it, a pointsman in an elevated signal-box was constantly going through the motions of drawing immense quantities of beer at a public-house bar. In one direction, confused perspectives of embankments and arches were to be seen from the platform; in the other, the rails soon disentangled themselves into two tracks, and shot away under a bridge, and curved round a corner. Sidings were there, in which empty luggage- vans and cattle-boxes often butted against each other as if they couldn&#039;t agree; and warehouses were there, in which great quantities of goods seemed to have taken the veil (of the consistency of tarpaulin), and to have retired from the world without any hope of getting back to it. Refreshment-rooms were there; one, for the hungry and thirsty Iron Locomotives where their coke and water were ready, and of good quality, for they were dangerous to play tricks with; the other, for the hungry and thirsty human Locomotives, who might take what they could get, and whose chief consolation was provided in the form of three terrific urns or vases of white metal, containing nothing, each forming a breastwork for a defiant and apparently much-injured woman. Established at this Station, Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis Goodchild resolved to enjoy it. But, its contrasts were very violent, and there was also an infection in it. First, as to its contrasts. They were only two, but they were Lethargy and Madness. The Station was either totally unconscious, or wildly raving. By day, in its unconscious state, it looked as if no life could come to it,—as if it were all rust, dust, and ashes—as if the last train for ever, had gone without issuing any Return-Tickets—as if the last Engine had uttered its last shriek and burst. One awkward shave of the air from the wooden razor, and everything changed. Tight office-doors flew open, panels yielded, books, newspapers, travelling-caps and wrappers broke out of brick walls, money chinked, conveyances oppressed by nightmares of luggage came careering into the yard, porters started up from secret places, ditto the much-injured women, the shining bell, who lived in a little tray on stilts by himself, flew into a man&#039;s hand and clamoured violently. The pointsman aloft in the signal-box made the motions of drawing, with some difficulty, hogsheads of beer. Down Train! More beer. Up Train! More beer. Cross Junction Train! More beer. Cattle Train! More beer. Goods Train! Simmering, whistling, trembling, rumbling, thundering. Trains on the whole confusion of intersecting rails, crossing one another, bumping one another, hissing one another, backing to go forward, tearing into distance to come close. People frantic. Exiles seeking restoration to their native carriages, and banished to remoter climes. More beer and more bell. Then, in a minute, the Station relapsed into stupor as the stoker of the Cattle Train, the last to depart, went gliding out of it, wiping the long nose of his oil-can with a dirty pocket-handkerchief. By night, in its unconscious state, the station was not so much as visible. Something in the air, like an enterprising chemist&#039;s established in business on one of the boughs of Jack&#039;s beanstalk, was all that could be discerned of it under the stars. In a moment it would break out, a constellation of gas. In another moment, twenty rival chemists, on twenty rival beanstalks, carne into existence. Then, the Furies would be seen, waving their lurid torches up and down the confused perspectives of embankments and arches—would be heard, too, wailing and shrieking. Then, the Station would be full of palpitating trains, as in the day; with the heightening difference that they were not so clearly seen as in the day, whereas the station walls, starting forward under the gas, like a hippopotamus&#039;s eyes, dazzled the human locomotives with the sauce-bottle, the cheap music, the bedstead, the distorted range of buildings where the patent safes are made, the gentleman in the rain with the registered umbrella, the lady returning from the ball with the registered respirator, and all their other embellishments. And now, the human locomotives, creased as to their countenances and purblind as to their eyes, would swarm forth in a heap, addressing themselves to the mysterious urns and the much-injured women; while the iron locomotives, dripping fire and water, shed their steam about plentifully, making the dull oxen in their cages, with heads depressed, and foam hanging from their mouths as their red looks glanced fearfully at the surrounding terrors, seem as though they had been drinking at half-frozen waters and were hung with icicles. Through the same steam would be caught glimpses of their fellow-travellers, the sheep, getting their white kid faces together, away from the bars, and stuffing the interstices with trembling wool. Also, down among the wheels, of the man with the sledge-hammer, ringing the axles of the fast night-train; against whom the oxen have a misgiving that he is the man with the pole-axe who is to come by-and-bye, and so the nearest of them try to back, and get a purchase for a thrust at him through the bars. Suddenly, the bell would ring, the steam would stop with one hiss and a yell, the chemists on the beanstalks would be busy, the avenging Furies would bestir themselves, the fast night-train would melt from eye and ear, the other trains going their ways more slowly would be heard faintly rattling in the distance like old-fashioned watches running down, the sauce-bottle and cheap music retired from view, even the bedstead went to bed, and there was no such visible thing as the Station to vex the cool wind in its blowing, or perhaps the autumn lightning, as it found out the iron rails. The infection of the Station was this:—When it was in its raving state, the Apprentices found it impossible to be there, without labouring under the delusion that they were in a hurry. To Mr. Goodchild, whose ideas of idleness were so imperfect, this was no unpleasant hallucination, and accordingly that gentleman went through great exertions in yielding to it, and running up and down the platform, jostling everybody, under the impression that he had a highly important mission somewhere, and had not a moment to lose. But, to Thomas Idle, this contagion was so very unacceptable an incident of the situation, that he struck on the fourth day, and requested to be moved. &quot;This place fills me with a dreadful sensation,&quot; said Thomas, &quot;of having something to do. Remove me, Francis.&quot; &quot;Where would you like to go next? &quot; was the question of the ever-engaging Goodchild. &quot;I have heard there is a good old Inn at Lancaster, established in a fine old house: an Inn where they give you Bride-cake every day after dinner,&quot; said Thomas Idle. &quot; Let us eat Bride-cake without the trouble of being married, or of knowing anybody in that ridiculous dilemma.&quot; Mr. Goodchild, with a lover&#039;s sigh, assented. They departed from the Station in a violent hurry (for which, it is unnecessary to observe, there was not the least occasion), and were delivered at the fine old house at Lancaster, on the same night. It is Mr. Goodchild&#039;s opinion, that if a visitor on his arrival at Lancaster could be accommodated with a pole which would push the opposite side of the street some yards farther off, it would be better for all parties. Protesting against being required to live in a trench, and obliged to speculate all day upon what the people can possibly be doing within a mysterious opposite window, which is a shop-window to look at, but not a shop-window in respect of its offering nothing for sale and declining to give any account whatever of itself, Mr. Goodchild concedes Lancaster to be a pleasant place. A place dropped in the midst of a charming landscape, a place with a fine ancient fragment of castle, a place of lovely walks, a place possessing staid old houses richly fitted with old Honduras mahagony, which has grown so dark with time that it seems to have got something of a retrospective mirror-quality into itself, and to show the visitor, in the depths of its grain, through all its polish, the hue of the wretched slaves who groaned long ago under old Lancaster merchants. And Mr. Goodchild adds that the stones of Lancaster do sometimes whisper, even yet, of rich men passed away—upon whose great prosperity some of these old doorways frowned sullen in the brightest weather—that their slave-gain turned to curses, as the Arabian Wizard&#039;s money turned to leaves, and that no good ever came of it, even unto the third and fourth generations, until it was wasted and gone. It was a gallant sight to behold, the Sunday procession of the Lancaster elders to Church—all in black, and looking fearfully like a funeral without the Body—under the escort of Three Beadles. &quot;Think,&quot; said Francis, as he stood at the Inn window, admiring, &quot;of being taken to the sacred edifice by three Beadles! I have, in my early time, been taken out of it by one Beadle; but, to be taken into it by three, O Thomas, is a distinction I shall never enjoy!&quot;18571017https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No.III_The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices/1857-10-17-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No3.pdf