In one of the dirtiest and most gloomy streets leading to the Rue Saint
Denis, in Paris, there stands a tall and ancient house, the lower
portion of which is a large mercer’s shop. This establishment is held to
be one of the very best in the neighbourhood, and has for many years
belonged to an individual on whom we will bestow the name of Ramin.
About ten years ago, Monsieur Ramin was a jovial red-faced man of forty,
who joked his customers into purchasing his goods, flattered the pretty
_grisettes_ outrageously, and now and then gave them a Sunday treat at
the barrier, as the cheapest way of securing their custom. Some people
thought him a careless, good-natured fellow, and wondered how, with his
off-hand ways, he contrived to make money so fast, but those who knew
him well saw that he was one of those who “never lost an opportunity.”
Others declared that Monsieur Ramin’s own definition of his character
was, that he was a “_bon enfant_,” and that “it was all luck.” He
shrugged his shoulders and laughed when people hinted at his deep
scheming in making, and his skill in taking advantage of Excellent
Opportunities.
He was sitting in his gloomy parlour one fine morning in Spring,
breakfasting from a dark liquid honoured with the name of onion soup,
glancing at the newspaper, and keeping a vigilant look on the shop
through the open door, when his old servant Catherine suddenly observed:
“I suppose you know Monsieur Bonelle has come to live in the vacant
apartment on the fourth floor?”
“What!” exclaimed Monsieur Ramin in a loud key.
Catherine repeated her statement, to which her master listened in total
silence.
“Well!” he said, at length, in his most careless tones; “what about the
old fellow?” and he once more resumed his triple occupation of reading,
eating, and watching.
“Why,” continued Catherine, “they say he is nearly dying, and that his
housekeeper, Marguerite, vowed he could never get up-stairs alive. It
took two men to carry him up; and when he was at length quiet in bed,
Marguerite went down to the porter’s lodge and sobbed there a whole
hour, saying, Her poor master, had the gout, the rheumatics, and a bad
asthma; that though he had been got up-stairs, he would never come down
again alive; that if she could only get him to confess his sins and make
his will, she would not mind it so much; but that when she spoke of the
lawyer or the priest, he blasphemed at her like a heathen, and declared
he would live to bury her and every body else.”
Monsieur Ramin heard Catherine with great attention, forgot to finish
his soup, and remained for five minutes in profound rumination, without
so much as perceiving two customers who had entered the shop and were
waiting to be served. When aroused, he was heard to exclaim:
“What an excellent opportunity!”
Monsieur Bonelle had been Ramin’s predecessor. The succession of the
latter to the shop was a mystery. No one ever knew how it was that this
young and poor assistant managed to replace his patron. Some said that
he had detected Monsieur Bonelle in frauds which he threatened to
expose, unless the business were given up to him as the price of his
silence; others averred that, having drawn a prize in the lottery, he
had resolved to set up a fierce opposition over the way, and that
Monsieur Bonelle, having obtained a hint of his intentions, had thought
it most prudent to accept the trifling sum his clerk offered, and avoid
a ruinous competition. Some charitable souls—moved no doubt by Monsieur
Bonelle’s misfortune—endeavoured to console and pump him; but all they
could get from him was the bitter exclamation, “To think I should have
been duped by _him_!” For Ramin had the art, though then a mere youth,
to pass himself off on his master as an innocent provincial lad. Those
who sought an explanation from the new mercer, were still more
unsuccessful. “My good old master,” he said in his jovial way, “felt in
need of repose, and so I obligingly relieved him of all business and
botheration.”
Years passed away; Ramin prospered, and neither thought nor heard of his
“good old master.” The house, of which he tenanted the lower portion,
was offered for sale: he had long coveted it, and had almost concluded
an agreement with the actual owner, when Monsieur Bonelle unexpectedly
stepped in at the eleventh hour, and by offering a trifle more secured
the bargain. The rage and mortification of Monsieur Ramin were extreme.
He could not understand how Bonelle, whom he had thought ruined, had
scraped up so large a sum; his lease was out, and he now felt himself at
the mercy of the man he had so much injured. But either Monsieur Bonelle
was free from vindictive feelings, or those feelings did not blind him
to the expediency of keeping a good tenant; for though he raised the
rent, until Monsieur Ramin groaned inwardly, he did not refuse to renew
the lease. They had met at that period; but never since.
“Well, Catherine,” observed Monsieur Ramin to his old servant, on the
following morning, “How is that good Monsieur Bonelle getting on?”
“I dare say you feel very uneasy about him,” she replied with a sneer.
Monsieur Ramin looked up and frowned.
“Catherine,” said he, dryly, “you will have the goodness, in the first
place, not to make impertinent remarks; in the second place, you will
oblige me by going up-stairs to inquire after the health of Monsieur
Bonelle, and say that I sent you.”
Catherine grumbled, and obeyed. Her master was in the shop, when she
returned in a few minutes, and delivered with evident satisfaction the
following gracious message:
“Monsieur Bonelle desires his compliments to you, and declines to state
how he is; he will also thank you to attend to your own shop, and not to
trouble yourself about his health.”
“How does he look?” asked Monsieur Ramin with perfect composure.
“I caught a glimpse of him, and he appears to me to be rapidly preparing
for the good offices of the undertaker.”
Monsieur Ramin smiled, rubbed his hands, and joked merrily with a
dark-eyed grisette, who was cheapening some ribbon for her cap. That
girl made an excellent bargain that day.
Towards dusk the mercer left the shop to the care of his attendant, and
softly stole up to the fourth story. In answer to his gentle ring, a
little old woman opened the door, and, giving him a rapid look, said
briefly,
“Monsieur is inexorable; he won’t see any doctor whatever.”
She was going to shut the door in his face, when Ramin quickly
interposed, under his breath, with “_I_ am not a doctor.”
She looked at him from head to foot.
“Are you a lawyer?”
“Nothing of the sort, my good lady.”
“Well then, are you a priest?”
“I may almost say, quite the reverse.”
“Indeed you must go away, Master sees no one.”
Once more she would have shut the door; but Ramin prevented her.
“My good lady,” said he in his most insinuating tones, “it is true I am
neither a lawyer, a doctor, nor a priest. I am an old friend, a very old
friend of your excellent master; I have come to see good Monsieur
Bonelle in his present affliction.”
Marguerite did not answer, but allowed him to enter, and closed the door
behind him. He was going to pass from the narrow and gloomy ante-chamber
into an inner room—whence now proceeded a sound of loud coughing—when
the old woman laid her hand on his arm, and raising herself on tiptoe,
to reach his ear, whispered:
“For Heaven’s sake, Sir, since you are his friend, do talk to him; do
tell him to make his will, and hint something about a soul to be saved,
and all that sort of thing: do, Sir!”
Monsieur Ramin nodded and winked in a way that said “I will.” He proved
however his prudence by not speaking aloud; for a voice from within
sharply exclaimed,
“Marguerite, you are talking to some one. Marguerite, I will see neither
doctor nor lawyer; and if any meddling priest dare—”
“It is only an old friend, Sir;” interrupted Marguerite, opening the
inner door.
Her master, on looking up, perceived the red face of Monsieur Ramin
peeping over the old woman’s shoulder, and irefully cried out,
“How dare you bring that fellow here? And you, Sir, how dare you come?”
“My good old friend, there are feelings,” said Ramin, spreading his
fingers over the left pocket of his waistcoat,—“there are feelings,” he
repeated, “that cannot be subdued. One such feeling brought me here. The
fact is, I am a good-natured easy fellow, and I never bear malice. I
never forget an old friend, but love to forget old differences when I
find one party in affliction.”
He drew a chair forward as he spoke, and composedly seated himself
opposite to his late master.
Monsieur Bonelle was a thin old man with a pale sharp face and keen
features. At first he eyed his visitor from the depths of his vast
arm-chair; but, as if not satisfied with this distant view, he bent
forward, and laying both hands on his thin knees, he looked up into
Ramin’s face with a fixed and piercing gaze. He had not, however, the
power of disconcerting his guest.
“What did you come here for?” he at length asked.
“Merely to have the extreme satisfaction of seeing how you are, my good
old friend. Nothing more.”
“Well, look at me—and then go.”
Nothing could be so discouraging: but this was an Excellent Opportunity,
and when Monsieur Ramin _had_ an excellent opportunity in view, his
pertinacity was invincible. Being now resolved to stay, it was not in
Monsieur Bonelle’s power to banish him. At the same time, he had tact
enough to render his presence agreeable. He knew that his coarse and
boisterous wit had often delighted Monsieur Bonelle of old, and he now
exerted himself so successfully as to betray the old man two or three
times into hearty laughter.
“Ramin,” said he, at length, laying his thin hand on the arm of his
guest, and peering with his keen glance into the mercer’s purple face,
“you are a funny fellow, but I know you; you cannot make me believe you
have called just to see how I am, and to amuse me. Come, be candid for
once; what do you want?”
Ramin threw himself back in his chair, and laughed blandly, as much as
to say, “_Can_ you suspect me?”
“I have no shop now out of which you can wheedle me,” continued the old
man; “and surely you are not such a fool as to come to me for money.”
“Money?” repeated the draper, as if his host had mentioned something he
never dreamt of. “Oh, no!”
Ramin saw it would not do to broach the subject he had really come
about, too abruptly, now that suspicion seemed so wide awake—_the_
opportunity had not arrived.
“There is something up, Ramin, I know; I see it in the twinkle of your
eye: but you can’t deceive me again.”
“Deceive _you_?” said the jolly schemer, shaking his head reverentially.
“Deceive a man of your penetration and depth? Impossible! The bare
supposition is flattery. My dear friend,” he continued, soothingly, “I
did not dream of such a thing. The fact is, Bonelle, though they call me
a jovial, careless, rattling dog, I have a conscience; and, somehow, I
have never felt quite easy about the way in which I became your
successor down-stairs. It _was_ rather sharp practice, I admit.”
Bonelle seemed to relent.
“Now for it,” said the Opportunity-hunter to himself.—“By-the-by,”
(speaking aloud,) “this house must be a great trouble to you in your
present weak state? Two of your lodgers have lately gone away without
paying—a great nuisance, especially to an invalid.”
“I tell you I’m as sound as a colt.”
“At all events, the whole concern must be a great bother to you. If I
were you, I would sell the house.”
“And if I were _you_,” returned the landlord, dryly, “I would buy it——”
“Precisely,” interrupted the tenant, eagerly.
“That is, if you could get it. Phoo! I knew you were after something.
Will you give eighty thousand francs for it?” abruptly asked Monsieur
Bonelle.
“Eighty thousand francs!” echoed Ramin. “Do you take me for Louis
Philippe or the Bank of France?”
“Then, we’ll say no more about it—are you not afraid of leaving your
shop so long?”
Ramin returned to the charge, heedless of the hint to depart. “The fact
is, my good old friend, ready money is not my strong point just now. But
if you wish very much to be relieved of the concern, what say you to a
life annuity? I could manage that.”
Monsieur Bonelle gave a short, dry, churchyard cough, and looked as if
his life were not worth an hour’s purchase. “You think yourself
immensely clever, I dare say,” he said. “They have persuaded you that I
am dying. Stuff! I shall bury you yet.”
The mercer glanced at the thin fragile frame, and exclaimed to himself,
“Deluded old gentleman!” “My dear Bonelle,” he continued, aloud, “I know
well the strength of your admirable constitution; but allow me to
observe that you neglect yourself too much. Now, suppose a good sensible
doctor——.”
“Will you pay him?” interrogated Bonelle sharply.
“Most willingly,” replied Ramin, with an eagerness that made the old man
smile. “As to the annuity, since the subject annoys you, we will talk of
it some other time.”
“After you have heard the doctor’s report,” sneered Bonelle.
The mercer gave him a stealthy glance, which the old man’s keen look
immediately detected. Neither could repress a smile: these good souls
understood one another perfectly, and Ramin saw that this was not the
Excellent Opportunity he desired, and departed.
The next day Ramin sent a neighbouring medical man, and heard it was his
opinion that if Bonelle held on for three months longer, it would be a
miracle. Delightful news!
Several days elapsed, and although very anxious, Ramin assumed a
careless air, and did not call upon his landlord, or take any notice of
him. At the end of the week old Marguerite entered the shop to make a
trifling purchase.
“And how are we getting on up-stairs?” negligently asked Monsieur Ramin.
“Worse and worse, my good Sir,” she sighed. “We have rheumatic pains,
which make us often use expressions the reverse of Christian-like, and
yet nothing can induce us to see either the lawyer or the priest; the
gout is getting nearer to our stomach every day, and still we go on
talking about the strength of our constitution. Oh, Sir, if you have any
influence with us, do, pray do, tell us how wicked it is to die without
making one’s will or confessing one’s sins.”
“I shall go up this very evening,” ambiguously replied Monsieur Ramin.
He kept his promise, and found Monsieur Bonelle in bed, groaning with
pain, and in the worst of tempers.
“What poisoning doctor did you send?” he asked, with an ireful glance;
“I want no doctor, I am not ill; I will not follow his prescription; he
forbade me to eat; I _will_ eat.”
“He is a very clever man,” said the visitor. “He told me that never in
the whole course of his experience has he met with what he called so
much ‘resisting power’ as exists in your frame. He asked me if you were
not of a long-lived race.”
“That is as people may judge,” replied Monsieur Bonelle. “All I can say
is, that my grandfather died at ninety, and my father at eighty-six.”
“The doctor owned that you had a wonderfully strong constitution.”
“Who said I hadn’t?” exclaimed the invalid feebly.
“You may rely on it, you would preserve your health better if you had
not the trouble of these vexatious lodgers. Have you thought about the
life annuity?” said Ramin as carelessly as he could, considering how
near the matter was to his hopes and wishes.
“Why, I have scruples,” returned Bonelle, coughing. “I do not wish to
take you in. My longevity would be the ruin of you.”
“To meet that difficulty,” quickly replied the mercer, “we can reduce
the interest.”
“But I must have high interest,” placidly returned Monsieur Bonelle.
Ramin, on hearing this, burst into a loud fit of laughter, called
Monsieur Bonelle a sly old fox, gave him a poke in the ribs, which made
the old man cough for five minutes, and then proposed that they should
talk it over some other day. The mercer left Monsieur Bonelle in the act
of protesting that he felt as strong as a man of forty.
Monsieur Ramin felt in no hurry to conclude the proposed agreement. “The
later one begins to pay, the better,” he said, as he descended the
stairs.
Days passed on, and the negotiation made no way. It struck the observant
tradesman that all was not right. Old Marguerite several times refused
to admit him, declaring her master was asleep: there was something
mysterious and forbidding in her manner that seemed to Monsieur Ramin
very ominous. At length a sudden thought occurred to him: the
housekeeper—wishing to become her master’s heir—had heard his scheme and
opposed it. On the very day that he arrived at this conclusion, he met a
lawyer, with whom he had formerly had some transactions, coming down the
staircase. The sight sent a chill through the mercer’s commercial heart,
and a presentiment—one of those presentiments that seldom deceive—told
him it was too late. He had, however, the fortitude to abstain from
visiting Monsieur Bonelle until evening came; when he went up, resolved
to see him in spite of all Marguerite might urge. The door was
half-open, and the old housekeeper stood talking on the landing to a
middle-aged man in a dark cassock.
“It is all over! The old witch has got the priests at him,” thought
Ramin, inwardly groaning at his own folly in allowing himself to be
forestalled.
“You cannot see Monsieur to-night,” sharply said Marguerite, as he
attempted to pass her.
“Alas! is my excellent friend so very ill?” asked Ramin, in a mournful
tone.
“Sir,” eagerly said the clergyman, catching him by the button of his
coat, “if you are indeed the friend of that unhappy man, do seek to
bring him into a more suitable frame of mind. I have seen many dying
men, but never so much obstinacy, never such infatuated belief in the
duration of life.”
“Then you think he really _is_ dying?” asked Ramin; and, in spite of the
melancholy accent he endeavoured to assume, there was something so
peculiar in his tone, that the priest looked at him very fixedly as he
slowly replied,
“Yes, Sir, I think he is.”
“Ah!” was all Monsieur Ramin said; and as the clergyman had now relaxed
his hold of the button, Ramin passed in spite of the remonstrances of
Marguerite, who rushed after the priest. He found Monsieur Bonelle still
in bed and in a towering rage.
“Oh! Ramin, my friend,” he groaned, “never take a housekeeper, and never
let her know you have any property. They are harpies, Ramin,—harpies!
such a day as I have had; first, the lawyer, who comes to write down ‘my
last testamentary dispositions,’ as he calls them; then the priest, who
gently hints that I am a dying man. Oh, what a day!”
“And _did_ you make your will, my excellent friend?” softly asked
Monsieur Ramin, with a keen look.
“Make my will?” indignantly exclaimed the old man; “make my will? what
do you mean, Sir? do you mean to say I am dying?”
“Heaven forbid!” piously ejaculated Ramin.
“Then why do you ask me if I have been making my will?” angrily resumed
the old man. He then began to be extremely abusive.
When money was in the way, Monsieur Ramin, though otherwise of a violent
temper, had the meekness of a lamb. He bore the treatment of his host
with the meekest patience, and having first locked the door so as to
make sure that Marguerite would not interrupt them, he watched Monsieur
Bonelle attentively, and satisfied himself that the Excellent
Opportunity he had been ardently longing for had arrived. “He is going
fast,” he thought; “and unless I settle the agreement to-night, and get
it drawn up and signed to-morrow, it will be too late.”
“My dear friend,” he at length said aloud, on perceiving that the old
gentleman had fairly exhausted himself and was lying panting on his
back, “you are indeed a lamentable instance of the lengths to which the
greedy lust of lucre will carry our poor human nature. It is really
distressing to see Marguerite, a faithful, attached servant, suddenly
converted into a tormenting harpy by the prospect of a legacy! Lawyers
and priests flock around you like birds of prey, drawn hither by the
scent of gold! Oh, the miseries of having delicate health combined with
a sound constitution and large property!”
“Ramin,” groaned the old man, looking inquiringly into his visitor’s
face, “you are again going to talk to me about that annuity—I know you
are!”
“My excellent friend, it is merely to deliver you from a painful
position.”
“I am sure, Ramin, you think in your soul I am dying,” whimpered
Monsieur Bonelle.
“Absurd, my dear Sir. Dying? I will prove to you that you have never
been in better health. In the first place you feel no pain.”
“Excepting from rheumatism,” groaned Monsieur Bonelle.
“Rheumatism! who ever died of rheumatism? and if that be all——”
“No, it is not all,” interrupted the old man with great irritability;
“what would you say to the gout getting higher and higher up every day?”
“The gout is rather disagreeable, but if there is nothing else——”
“Yes, there is something else,” sharply said Monsieur Bonelle. “There is
an asthma that will scarcely let me breathe, and a racking pain in my
head that does not allow me a moment’s ease. But if you think I am
dying, Ramin, you are quite mistaken.”
“No doubt, my dear friend, no doubt; but in the meanwhile, suppose we
talk of this annuity. Shall we say one thousand francs a year.”
“What?” asked Bonelle, looking at him very fixedly.
“My dear friend, I mistook; I meant two thousand francs per annum,”
hurriedly rejoined Ramin.
Monsieur Bonelle closed his eyes, and appeared to fall into a gentle
slumber. The mercer coughed; the sick man never moved.
“Monsieur Bonelle.”
No reply.
“My excellent friend.”
Utter silence.
“Are you asleep?”
A long pause.
“Well, then, what do you say to three thousand?”
Monsieur Bonelle opened his eyes.
“Ramin,” said he, sententiously, “you are a fool; the house brings me in
four thousand as it is.”
This was quite false, and the mercer knew it; but he had his own reasons
for wishing to seem to believe it true.
“Good Heavens!” said he, with an air of great innocence, “who could have
thought it, and the lodgers constantly running away. Four thousand?
Well, then, you shall have four thousand.”
Monsieur Bonelle shut his eyes once more, and murmured “The mere
rental—nonsense!” He then folded his hands on his breast, and appeared
to compose himself to sleep.
“Oh, what a sharp man of business he is!” Ramin said, admiringly: but
for once omnipotent flattery failed in its effect: “So acute!” continued
he, with a stealthy glance at the old man, who remained perfectly
unmoved. “I see you will insist upon making it the other five hundred
francs.”
Monsieur Ramin said this as if five thousand five hundred francs had
already been mentioned, and was the very summit of Monsieur Bonelle’s
ambition. But the ruse failed in its effect; the sick man never so much
as stirred.
“But, my dear friend,” urged Monsieur Ramin in a tone of feeling
remonstrance, “there is such a thing as being too sharp, too acute. How
can you expect that I shall give you more when your constitution is so
good, and you are to be such a long liver?”
“Yes, but I may be carried off one of those days,” quietly observed the
old man, evidently wishing to turn the chance of his own death to
account.
“Indeed, and I hope so,” muttered the mercer, who was getting very
ill-tempered.
“You see,” soothingly continued Bonelle, “you are so good a man of
business, Ramin, that you will double the actual value of the house in
no time. I am a quiet, easy person, indifferent to money; otherwise this
house would now bring me in eight thousand at the very least.”
“Eight thousand!” indignantly exclaimed the mercer. “Monsieur Bonelle,
you have no conscience. Come now, my dear friend, do be reasonable. Six
thousand francs a year (I don’t mind saying six) is really a very
handsome income for a man of your quiet habits. Come, be reasonable.”
But Monsieur Bonelle turned a deaf ear to reason, and closed his eyes
once more. What between opening and shutting them for the next quarter
of an hour, he at length induced Monsieur Ramin to offer him seven
thousand francs.
“Very well, Ramin, agreed,” he quietly said; “you have made an
unconscionable bargain.” To this succeeded a violent fit of coughing.
As Ramin unlocked the door to leave, he found old Marguerite, who had
been listening all the time, ready to assail him with a torrent of
whispered abuse for duping her “poor dear innocent old master into such
a bargain.” The mercer bore it all very patiently; he could make
allowances for her excited feelings, and only rubbed his hands and bade
her a jovial good evening.
The agreement was signed on the following day, to the indignation of old
Marguerite, and the mutual satisfaction of the parties concerned.
Every one admired the luck and shrewdness of Ramin, for the old man
every day was reported worse; and it was clear to all that the first
quarter of the annuity would never be paid. Marguerite, in her wrath,
told the story as a grievance to every one: people listened, shook their
heads, and pronounced Monsieur Ramin to be a deuced clever fellow.
A month elapsed. As Ramin was coming down one morning from the attics,
where he had been giving notice to a poor widow who had failed in paying
her rent, he heard a light step on the stairs. Presently a sprightly
gentleman, in buoyant health and spirits, wearing the form of Monsieur
Bonelle, appeared. Ramin stood aghast.
“Well, Ramin,” gaily said the old man, “how are you getting on? Have you
been tormenting the poor widow up-stairs? Why, man, we must live and let
live!”
“Monsieur Bonelle,” said the mercer, in a hollow tone; “may I ask where
are your rheumatics?”
“Gone, my dear friend,—gone.”
“And the gout that was creeping higher and higher every day,” exclaimed
Monsieur Ramin, in a voice of anguish.
“It went lower and lower, till it disappeared altogether,” composedly
replied Bonelle.
“And your asthma——”
“The asthma remains, but asthmatic people are proverbially long-lived.
It is, I have been told, the only complaint that Methuselah was troubled
with.” With this Bonelle opened his door, shut it, and disappeared.
Ramin was transfixed on the stairs; petrified with intense
disappointment, and a powerful sense of having been duped. When he was
discovered, he stared vacantly, and raved about an Excellent Opportunity
of taking his revenge.
The wonderful cure was the talk of the neighbourhood, whenever Monsieur
Bonelle appeared in the streets, jauntily flourishing his cane. In the
first frenzy of his despair, Ramin refused to pay; he accused every one
of having been in a plot to deceive him; he turned off Catherine and
expelled his porter; he publicly accused the lawyer and priest of
conspiracy; brought an action against the doctor, and lost it. He had
another brought against him for violently assaulting Marguerite in which
he was cast in heavy damages. Monsieur Bonelle did not trouble himself
with useless remonstrances, but, when his annuity was refused, employed
such good legal arguments, as the exasperated mercer could not possibly
resist.
Ten years have elapsed, and MM. Ramin and Bonelle still live on. For a
house which would have been dear at fifty thousand francs, the draper
has already handed over seventy thousand.
The once red-faced, jovial Ramin is now a pale haggard man, of sour
temper and aspect. To add to his anguish, he sees the old man thrive on
that money which it breaks his heart to give. Old Marguerite takes a
malicious pleasure in giving him an exact account of their good cheer,
and in asking him if he does not think Monsieur looks better and better
every day. Of one part of this torment Ramin might get rid, by giving
his old master notice to quit, and no longer having him in his house.
But this he cannot do; he has a secret fear that Bonelle would take some
Excellent Opportunity of dying without his knowledge, and giving some
other person an Excellent Opportunity of personating him, and receiving
the money in his stead.
The last accounts of the victim of Excellent Opportunities represent him
as being gradually worn down with disappointment. There seems every
probability of his being the first to leave the world; for Bonelle is
heartier than ever.
REVIEW OF A POPULAR PUBLICATION.
IN THE SEARCHING STYLE.
THE BANK NOTE. _Oblong Octavo._ London, 1850. _The Governor and
Company of the Bank of England. Price, from Five to One Thousand
Pounds._
The object of this popular but expensive pocket companion, is not
wholly dissimilar from that of its clever and cheaper contemporary
“Notes and Queries.” As the latter is a “medium of intercommunication
for literary men,” so the former is a medium of intercommunication for
commercial men; and surely there is no work with which so many queries
are constantly connected as the Bank Note. Nothing in existence is so
assiduously inquired for; nothing in nature so perseveringly sought.
This is not to be wondered at; for in whatever light we view it, to
whatever test we bring it, whether we read it backwards or forwards,
from left to right, or from right to left; or whether we make it a
transparency to prove its substantial genuineness and worth, who can
deny that the Bank Note is a most valuable work?—a publication, in
short, without which no gentleman’s pocket can be complete?
Few can rise from a critical examination of the literary contents of
this narrow sheet, without being forcibly struck with the power,
combined with the exquisite fineness of the writing. It strikes
conviction at once. It dispels all doubts, and relieves all
objections. There is a pithy terseness in the construction of the
sentences; a downright, direct, straightforward, coming to the point,
which would be wisely imitated in much of the contemporaneous
literature that constantly obtains currency (though not as much). Here
we have no circumlocution, no discursive pedantry, no smell of the
lamp; the figures, though wholly derived from the East (being Arabic
numerals), are distinct and full of purpose; and if the writing
abounds in flourishes, which it does, these are not rhetorical, but
boldly graphic: struck with a nervous decision of style, which,
instead of obscuring the text and meaning, convinces the reader that
he who traced them when promising to pay the sum of five, ten, twenty,
thirty, forty, fifty, one hundred, or a thousand pounds, means
honestly and instantly to keep his word: that he _will_ pay it to
bearer on demand, without one moment’s hesitation.
Strictly adapted for utility, yet the dulcet is not wholly overlooked;
for, besides figures and flourishes, the graces of art are shed over
this much-prized publication. The figure of Britannia is no slavish
reproduction of any particular school whatever. She sits upon her
scroll of state utterly inimitable and alone. She is hung up in one
corner of the page, the sole representative of the P. R. F. P., or
pre-reissue-of-the-fourpenny-piece, school. Neither, if judged by the
golden rule of our greatest bard, is the work wholly deficient in
another charm. As we have just explained, its words are few: brevity
is the soul of wit. And we fearlessly put it to the keenest
appreciator of good things, whether a Bank Note (say for a hundred) is
not the best joke conceivable—except, indeed, a Bank Note for a
thousand.
A critical analysis of a work of this importance cannot be complete
without going deeply into the subject. Reviewing is, alas, too often
mere surface-work; for seldom do we find the critic going below the
superficies, or extending his scrutiny beyond the letter-press. We
shall, however, set a bright example of profundity, and having
discharged our duty to the face of the Bank Note, shall proceed to
penetrate below it: having analysed the print, we shall now speak of
the paper.
The late Mr. Cobbett, to express his idea of the intrinsic
worthlessness of these sheets, in comparison with the prices at which
they pass current, was wont to designate Bank Notes as “Rags.” It may,
indeed, be said of them that, “Rags they were, and to tinder they
return;” for they are born of shreds of linen, and, ten years after
death, are converted in bonfires into the finest of known tinder. It
may be considered a curious fact by those who wear shirts, and a
painful, because hopeless one, by those who make them, that the refuse
or cuttings of linen forms, with a slight admixture of cotton, the
pabulum or pulp of Bank Note Paper. Machinery has made no inroads on
this branch of paper-making. The pulp is kept so well mixed in a large
vat, that the fibrous material presents the appearance of a huge
cauldron of milk. Into this the paper-maker dips his mould, which is a
fine wire sieve, having round its edge, a slight mahogany frame,
called the “Deckel,” which confines the pulp to the dimensions of the
mould. This dip is quite a feat of dexterity, for on it depends the
thickness and evenness of the sheet of paper. The water-mark, or, more
properly, the wire-mark, is obtained by twisting wires to the desired
form or design, and stitching them on the face of the mould; therefore
the design is above the level face of the mould, by the thickness of
the wires it is composed of. Hence, the pulp in settling down on the
mould, must of necessity be thinner on the wire design than on other
parts of the sheet. When the water has run off through the sieve-like
face of the mould, the new-born sheet of paper is transferred to a
blanket; this operation is called “couching,” and is effected by
pressing the mould gently but firmly on the blanket, when the spongy
sheet clings to the cloth. Sizing is a subsequent process, and, when
dry, the water-mark is plainly discernible, being, of course,
transparent where the substance is thinnest. The paper is then made up
into reams of five hundred sheets each, ready for press. The
water-mark in the notes of the Bank of England is secured to that
Establishment by a special Act of Parliament. Indeed, imitation of
anything whatever connected with a Bank Note is an extremely hazardous
feat.
A scrupulous examination of this curious piece of paper, implants a
thorough conviction that it is a very superior article—in short,
unique. There is nothing like it in the world of sheets. Tested by the
touch, it gives out a crisp, crackling, sharp, sound—a note
essentially its own—a music which resounds from no other quires. To
the eye it shows a colour belonging neither to blue-wove nor
yellow-wove, nor to cream-laid, but a white, like no other white,
either in paper and pulp. The rough fringiness of three of its edges
are called the “deckled” edges, being the natural boundary of the pulp
when first moulded; the fourth is left smooth by the knife, which
eventually cuts the two notes in twain. It is so thin that, when
printed, there is much difficulty in making erasures; yet it is so
strong that a “water-leaf” (a leaf before the application of size)
will support thirty-six pounds; and, with the addition of one grain of
size, half a hundred weight, without tearing; yet the quantity of
fibre of which it consists, is no more than eighteen grains and a
half.
The process of engraving the Bank Note is peculiar. Its general design
is remarkably plain—steel plates are used, and are engraved in a
manner somewhat analogous to that employed in the Mint for the
production of the coin, except that heavy pressure is used instead of
a blow. The form of the Note is divided into four or five sections,
each engraved on steel dies which are hardened. Steel rollers, or
mills, are obtained from these dies, and each portion of the Note is
impressed on a steel plate to be printed from by the mills until the
whole form is complete.
By means of a very ingenious machine, the engraving on the plates when
worn by long printing is repaired by the same mills, and thus perfect
identity of form is permanently secured. The merits of this system are
due to the late Mr. Oldham, and the many improvements introduced not
only into this, but into the printing department, are the work of his
son and successor, Mr. Thomas Oldham, the present chief engraver to
the Bank of England. The plate—always with a pair of notes upon it—is
now ready for the press; for it contains all the literary part of the
work, except the date, the number, and the cashier’s signature.
We must now review the manner of printing. Before passing through the
press, all paper must be damped that it may readily absorb ink; and
Bank Note paper is not exempt from this law; but the process by which
it is complied with is an ingenious exception to the ordinary modes.
The sheets are put into an iron chamber which is exhausted of air;
water is then admitted, and forces itself through every pore at the
rate of thirty thousand sheets, or double notes, per minute!
In a long gallery that looks like a chamber of the Inquisition with
self-acting racks, stands a row of plate-printing presses worked by
steam. Every time a sheet passes through them they emit a soft “click”
like a ship’s capstan creaking in a whisper. By this sound they
announce to all whom it may concern that they have printed two Bank
Notes. They are tell-tales, and keep no secrets; for, not content with
stating the fact aloud, each press moves, by means of a chain, an
index of numerals at the end of the room; so that the chief of the
department can see at any hour of the day how many each press has
printed. To take an impression of a note plate “on the sly,” is
therefore impossible. By a clever invention of Mr. Oldham the
impression returns to the printer when made, instead of remaining on
the opposite side of the press, after it has passed through the
rollers, as of old. The plates are heated, for inking, over steam
boxes instead of charcoal fires.
When a ream, consisting of five hundred sheets or one thousand notes,
have been printed, they are placed in a tray which is inserted in a
sort of shelf-trap that shuts up with a spring. No after-abstraction
can, therefore, take place. One such repository is over the index
appertaining to each press, and at the end of the day it can at once
be seen whether the number of sheets corresponds with the numerals of
the tell-tale. Any sort of mistake can thus be readily detected. The
average number of “promises to pay” printed per diem is thirty
thousand.
As we cannot allow the dot over an _i_, or the cross of a _t_ to
escape the focus of our critical microscope, we now proceed to apply
it to the Bank Ink. Like the liquid of Messrs. Day and Martin, this
inestimable composition, with half the usual labour, produces the most
brilliant jet-black, fully equal to the highest Japan varnish, and is
warranted to keep in any climate. It is made from the charred husks of
Rhenish grapes after their juice has been expressed and bottled for
exportation to the dinner-tables of half the world. When mixed with
pure linseed oil, carefully prepared by boiling and burning, the
vinous refuse produces a species of blacks so tenacious that they
obstinately refuse to be emancipated from the paper when once enslaved
to it by the press. It is so intensely nigritious that, compared with
it, all other blacks are musty browns; and pale beside it. If the word
of a printer’s devil may be taken, it is many degrees darker than the
streams of Erebus. Can deeper praise be awarded?
The note is, when plate-printed, two processes distant from
negotiable; the first being the numbering and dating—and here we must
point out the grand distinction which exists between the publication
which we have the satisfaction of stating, now lies before us (but it
is only a “Five”) and ordinary prints. When the types for this
miscellany, for instance, are once set up, every copy struck off from
them by the press is precisely similar. On the contrary, of those
emitted from the Bank presses _no two are alike_. They differ either
in date, in number, or in denomination. This difference constitutes a
grand system of check, extending over every stage of every Bank Note’s
career—a system which records its completion and issue, tracks it
through its public adventures, recognises it when it returns to the
Bank, from among hundreds of thousands of companions, and finally
enables the proper officers to pounce upon it, in case of inquiry, at
any official half hour for ten years after it has returned in
fulfilment of its “promise to pay,” To promise an explanation of what
must appear so complicated a plan, may seem to the reader like a
threat of prolixity. But he may read on in security; the system is as
simple as the alphabet.
Understand then, that the dates of Bank Notes are arbitrary, and bear
no reference to the day of issue. At the beginning of the official
year (February) the Directors settle what dates each of the eleven
denominations of Bank Notes shall bear during the ensuing twelve
months, taking care to apportion to each sort of note a separate date.
The table of dates is then handed to the proper officer, who prints
accordingly. The five-pound Note which now rejoices our eyes is, for
example, dated February the 2nd, 1850; we therefore know that there is
no genuine note in existence, for any other sum, which bears that
date; and if a note for ten, twenty, fifty, hundred, &c., having “2nd
Feb., 1850,” upon it were to be offered to us or to a Bank Clerk, we
or he would, without a shadow of further evidence, impound it as a
forgery.
Now, as to the numbering:—It is a rule that of every date and
denomination, one hundred thousand Notes—no more and no less—shall be
completed and issued at one time. We know, therefore, that our
solitary five is one of a hundred thousand other fives, each bearing a
different number—from 1[2] to 100,000—but all dated 2nd Feb., 1850.
The numbers are printed on each Note by means of a letter-press, the
types of which change with each pull of the press. For the first Note,
the press is set at “00001,” and when that is printed, the “1,” by the
mere act of impression, retires to make room for “2,” which impresses
itself on the next Note, and so on up to “100,000.” The system has
been applied to the stamping of railway tickets. The date, being
required for the whole series, is of course immovable. After this has
been done, the autograph of a cashier is only requisite to render the
Note worth the value inscribed on it, in gold.
Footnote 2:
To prevent fraudulent additions of numerals, less than five figures
are never used. When units, tens, &c., are required, they are
preceded by cyphers. “One” is therefore expressed on a Bank Note
thus:—“00001.”
While the printers are at work, manufacturing each series of Notes,
the account-book makers are getting-up a series of ledgers so exactly
to correspond, that the books of themselves, without the stroke of a
pen, are a record of the existence of the Note. The book in which the
birth of our own especial and particular “Five” is registered, is
legibly inscribed,
“Fives, Feb. 2, 1850.”
When you open a page, you find it to consist of a series of horizontal
and perpendicular lines, like the pattern of a pair of shepherd’s
plaid inexpressibles, variegated with columns of numerals; these
figures running on regularly from No. 1, on the top of the first page,
to No. 100,000 at the bottom of the last. It must therefore be obvious
to the meanest capacity that the mere existence of that book, with its
arbitrary date and series of numbers, corresponding to the like series
of Notes, is a sufficient record of the existence and issue of the
latter. The return of each Note after its public travels, is recorded
in the square opposite to its number. Each page of the book contains
two hundred squares and numbers; consequently, whatever number a Note
may bear, the Clerk who has to register its safe return from a long
round of public circulation, knows at once on which page of the book
to pounce for its own proper and particular square. In that he inserts
the date of its return—not at full length, but in cypher. “S” in red
ink means 1850, and the months are indicated by one of the letters of
the word AMBIDEXTROUS, with the date in numerals. Our only, and
therefore favourite, five is numbered 31177. Should it chance to
finish its travels in the Accountant’s Office on the 6th of August
next, it will be narrowly inspected (for fear of forgery) and
defaced—a Clerk will then turn at once to the book lettered “Fives,
Feb. 2,” and so exactly will he know which page to open, and where the
square numbered 31177 is situated, that he could point to it
blindfold. He will write in it “6 t,” which means 6th August; that
being the eighth month in the year, and “t” the eighth letter in the
chosen word.
The intermediate history of a Bank Note is soon told.
Nineteen-twentieths are issued to Bankers or known houses of business.
If Glynn’s, or Smith’s, or any other banking firm, require a hundred
ten-pound Notes, the Clerk who issues them makes a memorandum showing
the number of the Notes so issued, and the name of the party to whom
they have been handed—an easy process, because Notes being new,[3] are
always given out in regular series, and the first and last Note that
makes the sum required need only be recorded. Most Bankers make
similar memoranda when notes pass out of their hands; and the public,
as each Note circulates among them, frequently sign the name of the
last holder. When an unknown person presents a Note for gold at the
Bank of England, he is required to write his name and address on it,
and if the sum be very large, it is not paid without inquiry. By these
expedients, a stolen, lost, or forged note can often be traced from
hand to hand up to its advent.
Footnote 3:
The Bank ceased to re-issue its Notes since 1835.
The average periods which each denomination of London Notes remain in
circulation has been calculated, and is shown by the following
ACCOUNT OF THE
NUMBER OF DAYS
A BANK NOTE
ISSUED IN
LONDON REMAINS
IN
CIRCULATION:—
£5 72·7 days
10 77·0 „
20 57·4 „
30 18·9 „
40 13·7 „
50 38·8 „
100 29·4 „
200 12·7 „
300 10·6 „
500 11·8 „
1000 11·1 „
The exceptions to these averages are few, and, therefore, remarkable.
The time during which some Notes remain unpresented are reckoned by
the century. On the 27th of September, 1845, a fifty pound Note was
presented bearing date 20th January, 1743. Another for ten pounds,
issued on the 19th November, 1762, was not paid till the 20th April,
1843. There is a legend extant, of the eccentric possessor of a
thousand pound Note, who kept it framed and glazed for a series of
years, preferring to feast his eyes on it, to putting the amount it
represented out at interest. It was converted into gold, however,
without a day’s loss of time by his heirs, on his demise. Stolen and
lost Notes are generally long absentees. The former usually make their
appearance soon after some great horse-race, or other sporting event,
altered or disguised so as to deceive Bankers, to whom the Bank of
England furnishes a list of the numbers and dates of stolen Notes. In
a Chapter on Forgery, which we are preparing, the reader will see some
singular facts on this point.
Mr. Francis, in his “History of the Bank of England,” tells a curious
story about a bank post bill, which was detained during thirty years
from presentation and payment. It happened in the year 1740:—“One of
the Directors, a very rich man, had occasion for 30,000_l._, which he
was to pay as the price of an estate be had just bought; to facilitate
the matter, he carried the sum with him to the Bank and obtained for
it a Bank bill. On his return home, he was suddenly called out upon
particular business; he threw the Note carelessly on the chimney, but
when he came back a few minutes afterwards to lock it up, it was not
to be found. No one had entered the room; he could not therefore
suspect any person. At last, after much ineffectual search, he was
persuaded that it had fallen from the chimney into the fire. The
Director went to acquaint his colleagues with the misfortune that had
happened to him; and as he was known to be a perfectly honourable man
he was readily believed. It was only about four-and-twenty hours from
the time that he had deposited his money; they thought, therefore,
that it would be hard to refuse his request for a second bill. He
received it upon giving an obligation to restore the first bill, if it
should ever be found, or to pay the money himself, if it should be
presented by any stranger. About thirty years afterwards (the Director
having been long dead, and his heirs in possession of his fortune), an
unknown person presented the lost bill at the Bank, and demanded
payment. It was in vain that they mentioned to this person the
transaction by which that bill was annulled; he would not listen to
it; he maintained that it had come to him from abroad, and insisted
upon immediate payment. The Note was payable to bearer; and the thirty
thousand pounds were paid him. The heirs of the Director would not
listen to any demands of restitution; and the Bank was obliged to
sustain the loss. It was discovered afterwards that an architect
having purchased the Director’s house, had taken it down, in order to
build another upon the same spot, had found the Note in a crevice of
the chimney, and made his discovery an engine for robbing the Bank.”
[Illustration: ‘Illustration]
Carelessness, equal to that recorded above, is not at all uncommon,
and gives the Bank enormous profit, against which the loss of a mere
thirty thousand pound is but a trifle. Bank Notes have been known to
light pipes, to wrap up snuff, to be used as curl-papers; and British
tars, mad with rum and prize-money, have not unfrequently, in time of
war, made sandwiches of them, and eaten them between bread-and-butter.
In the forty years between the years 1792 and 1812 there were
out-standing Notes (presumed to have been lost or destroyed) amounting
to one million, three hundred and thirty odd thousand pounds; every
shilling of which was clear profit to the Bank.
The superannuation, death, and burial of a Bank of England Note is a
story soon told. The returned Notes, or promises performed, are kept
in “The Library” for ten years, and then burnt in an iron cage in one
of the Bank yards.
A few words on the history and general appearance of the Bank of
England Note will conclude our criticism.
The strong principle to insure the detection of forgery is uniformity;
hence, from the very first Note issued by the Bank, to that, the
merits of which we are now discussing, the same general design has
been preserved,—only that the execution has been from time to time
improved; except, we are bound to add, that of the signatures, some of
which are still as illegible as ever. Originally, Notes were granted
more in the form of Bank post-bills,—that is, not nominally to a
member of the establishment, but really to the party applying for
them, and for any sum he might require. If it suited his convenience,
he presented his Note several times, drawing such lesser sums as he
might require; precisely as if it were a letter of credit, after the
manner of the Sailor mentioned in the latest edition of Joe Miller.
Jack, somehow or other, got possession of a fifty pound Note; the sum
was so dazzlingly enormous that he had not the heart, on presenting it
for payment, to demand the whole sum at once, for fear of breaking the
Bank. So, leaning confidentially over the counter, he whispered to the
cashier, that he wouldn’t be hard upon ’em. He knew times were
bad,—so, as it was all the same to him, he would take five sovereigns
now, and the rest at so much a week. In like manner, the fac-simile on
the opposite page, while it presents a specimen of one of the earliest
Bank Notes in existence, shows that the holder took the amount as Jack
proposed;—by instalments. It was granted to Mr. Thomas Powell, on the
19th of December, 1699, for five hundred and fifty-five pounds. His
first draft was one hundred and thirty-one pounds, ten shillings, and
one penny; the second “in gould,” three hundred and sixty; the third,
sixty-three pounds, nine shillings, and elevenpence, when the note was
retained by the Bank as having been fully honoured.
With this curious specimen of the ancient Bank of England Note, we
take leave of the modern ones—only, however, for a short time. In a
week or two, we shall change the topic (as we have previously
intimated) to one closely bearing upon it. Circumstances, however,
demand that we should change the subject of it at a much earlier date.
INNOCENCE AND CRIME.
AN ANECDOTE.
A benevolent old gentleman—the late Mr. Harcourt Brown of Beech
Hall—was plodding his way home to his hotel from a ramble in the
suburbs of London; and having made a bold attempt at “a short cut,”
soon found himself lost in a maze of squalid streets, leading one into
the other, and apparently leading no where else. He inquired his way
in vain. From the first person, he received a coarse jest; from
another, a look of vacant stupidity; a third eyed him in dogged
silence. He stepped with one foot into several wretched little shops;
but the people really seemed to know nothing beyond the next street or
alley, except one man, a dealer in tripe, of a strange, earthy colour,
who called over his shoulder, “Oh, you’re miles out o’ your way!” The
only exception to the general indifference, rudeness and stupidity,
was a thin sallow-cheeked man, who had a fixed smile on his face, and
spoke in rather an abject cringing tone of obsequiousness, and even
walked up one street and down a second to show Mr. Brown the way. But
it soon became evident that he knew nothing about the matter, and he
slunk away with the same fixed unmeaning smile.
In this state of affairs Mr. Brown buttoned up his coat, and manfully
resolved to work his way out of this filthy locality by walking
straight forward.
Trudging onward at a smart pace, the worthy gentleman presently heard
the sound of sobbing and crying, and behind the boards of a shed at
the side of a ruined hovel he saw a girl of some nine or ten years of
age, clasping and unclasping her hands in a paroxysm of grief and
apprehension. “Oh, what _shall_ I do?—what _shall_ I do?” sobbed the
child.
She started with terror as Mr. Brown approached, and hid her head in
the folds of her little apron; but on being assured by the mild voice
of Mr. Brown that he had no thought of hurting her, she ventured to
look up. She had soft blue eyes, flaxen hair of silvery glossiness,
pretty features; and, notwithstanding the stain of tears down a cheek
which had a smear of brickdust upon it, had a most innocent and
prepossessing face.
“What is the matter, my little girl?” inquired Mr. Brown.
The child turned one shoulder half round, and displayed the red and
purple marks of blows from a whip or stick.
“What cruel wretch has done this?” asked Mr. Brown. “Tell me, child;
tell me directly.”
“It was mother,” sobbed the child.
“Ah—I’m sorry to hear this. Perhaps you have been naughty?”
“Yes, Sir;” answered the child.
“Poor child,” ejaculated Mr. Brown; “but you will not be naughty
again. What was your offence. Come, tell me?”
“I shook it, Sir; oh, yes, it’s quite true; I did shake it very much.”
“What did you shake?” inquired Mr. Brown.
“I shook the doll, Sir.”
“The doll! Oh, you mean you shook the baby; that, certainly was
naughty of you;” said Mr. Brown.
“No, Sir; it was not the baby I shook—it was the doll; and I’m afraid
to go home—mother will be sure to beat me again.”
An impulse of benevolence led Mr. Brown’s hand to search for his
purse. Had he tried the wrong pocket? His purse was on the other side.
No, it was not—it must be in this inner pocket. Where _is_ Mr. Brown’s
purse? It is not in any of his pockets! He tries them all over again.
And his pocket-book!—chiefly of memorandums, but also having a few
bank notes. This is gone too—and his silk handkerchief—both his
handkerchiefs!—also his silver-gilt snuff-box, filled with rappee only
five minutes before he left the hotel this morning—he is certain he
had it when he came out—but it is certainly gone! Every single thing
he had in his pockets is gone.
The child also—now _she_ is gone! Mr. Brown looks around him, and
yonder he sees the poor child flying with frequent looks behind of
terror,—and now a shrill and frightful voice causes him to start.
Turning in that direction, the sudden flight of the little girl is
immediately explained. Over the rubbish and refuse, at a swift, wild
pace, courses a fiendish woman, with a savage eye and open mouth, her
cheeks hollow, her teeth projecting, her thin hair flying like a bit
of diseased mane over her half-naked shoulder; she has a stick in her
hand, with which she constantly threatens the flying child, whom her
execrations follow yet more swiftly than her feet.
Mr. Brown remained watching them till they were out of sight. He once
more searched all his pockets, but they were all empty. He called to
mind the man with the fixed smile on his hollow cadaverous cheek, and
several other faces of men whom he had casually noticed in the course
of the last half hour, thinking what a pity it was that something
could not be done for them. He now began to think it was a very great
pity that something had not _already_ been done for them or with them,
for they had certainly “done” him. Poor Mr. Brown!
Some six or seven months after this most disagreeable adventure, it
chanced that Mr. Brown was going over the prison at Coldbath Fields,
accompanied by the Governor. As they entered one of the wards, the
voice of a child sobbing, attracted the ears of our philanthropist. In
answer to his inquiries, the Governor informed him that it was a child
of about eleven years of age, who had been detected in the act of
picking a lady’s pocket in one of the most crowded thoroughfares.
On a few kind words being spoken to her, she looked up; and in the
blue eye, glossy flaxen hair, and pretty features, Mr. Brown at once
recognised the little girl who had “shaken the doll.”
“This child is an innocent creature!” cried he, turning to the
Governor, “the victim of ignorance and cruel treatment at home. I
recollect her well. Her mother had beaten her most shamefully; and the
last glimpse I had of her was in her flight from a still more savage
assault. And for what crime do you suppose?”
“For not picking pockets expertly, I dare say:” replied the Governor.
“Nothing of the sort!” exclaimed Mr. Brown. “Would you believe it,
Sir; it was for nothing more than a childish bit of pretence-anger
with her doll, on which occasion she gave the doll a good shaking.
Mere pretence, you know.”
“My dear Sir,” said the Governor, smiling, “I fancy I am right, after
all. She was beaten for not being expert in the study and practice of
pocket-picking at home. You are not, perhaps, aware that the lesson
consists in picking the pockets of a figure which is hung up in the
room, in such a way that the least awkwardness of touch makes it
shake, and rings a little bell attached to it. This figure is called
the ‘doll.’ Those who ring the bell, shake it in emptying its pockets,
are punished according to the mind and temper of the instructor.”
“Good heavens!” ejaculated Mr. Brown, “to what perfection must the art
be brought! Then it is all accounted for. The sallow gentleman with
the fixed smile must have been master of the craft of not shaking the
doll, when he took my purse, pocket-book, snuff-box, and both
handkerchiefs from me, without my feeling so much as the motion of the
air!”
* * * * *
Monthly Supplement of “HOUSEHOLD WORDS,”
Conducted by CHARLES DICKENS.
_Price 2d., Stamped, 3d._,
THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE
OF
CURRENT EVENTS.
_The Number, containing a history of the past month, was issued with
the Magazines._
------------------------------------------------------------------------