MY PRESCRIPTIONS VERY EFFECTIVE AND PALATABLE, BUT I LOSE MY PATIENT--
THE FEUD EQUAL TO THAT OF THE MONTAGUES AND THE CAPULETS--RESULTS
DIFFERENT--MERCUTIO COMES OFF UNHURT.
The next day I sent Timothy to purchase some highly rectified white
brandy, which I coloured with a blue tincture, and added to it a small
proportion of the essence of cinnamon, to disguise the smell; a dozen
large vials, carefully tied up and sealed, were despatched to her abode.
She now seldom called unless it was early in the morning; I made
repeated visits to her house to receive money, but no longer to make
love. One day I requested permission to be present at their meeting,
and to this she gave immediate consent; indeed we were on the most
intimate terms, and when she perceived that I no longer attempted to
play the fool, I was permitted to remain for hours with her in
conversation. She had, as she told me she intended, re-enamelled and
painted her face, but knowing what beauty was concealed underneath, I no
longer felt any disgust.
Timothy was very much pleased at his share of this arrangement, as he
seldom brought her the medicine without pocketing half-a-crown.
For two or three months everything went on very satisfactorily; but one
evening, Timothy, who had been sent with the basket of vials for Miss
Judd's assistance, returned in great consternation, informing me that
the house was empty. He had inquired of the neighbours, and from the
accounts given, which were very contradictory, it appeared that the
rival prophetess had marched up at the head of her proselytes the
evening before, had obtained entrance, and that a desperate contention
had been the result. That the police had been called in, and all
parties had been lodged in the watch-house; that the whole affair was
being investigated by the magistrates, and that it was said that Miss
Judd and all her coadjutors would be sent to the Penitentiary. This was
quite enough to frighten two boys like us; for days afterwards we
trembled when people came into the shop, expecting to be summoned and
imprisoned. Gradually, however, our fears were dismissed, but I never
from that time heard anything more of Miss Aramathea Judd.
After this affair, I adhered steadily to my business, and profiting by
the advice given me by that young person, improved rapidly in my
profession, as well as in general knowledge; but my thoughts, as usual,
were upon one subject--my parentage, and the mystery hanging over it.
My eternal reveries became at last so painful, that I had recourse to
reading to drive them away, and subscribing to a good circulating
library, I was seldom without a book in my hand. By this time I had
been nearly two years and a half with Mr Cophagus, when an adventure
occurred which I must attempt to describe with all the dignity with
which it ought to be invested.
This is a world of ambition, competition, and rivalry. Nation rivals
nation, and flies to arms, cutting the throats of a few thousands on
each side till one finds that it has the worst of it. Man rivals man,
and hence detraction, duels, and individual death. Woman rivals woman,
and hence loss of reputation and position in high, and loss of hair, and
fighting with pattens in low life. Are we then to be surprised that
this universal passion, undeterred by the smell of drugs and poisonous
compounds, should enter into apothecaries' shops? But two streets--two
very short streets from our own--was situated the single-fronted shop of
Mr Ebenezer Pleggit. Thank Heaven, it was only single-fronted; there,
at least, we had the ascendency over them. Upon other points, our
advantages were more equally balanced. Mr Pleggit had two large
coloured bottles in his windows more than we had; but then we had two
horses, and he had only one. He tied over the corks of his bottles with
red-coloured paper; we covered up the lips of our vials with delicate
blue. It certainly was the case--for though an enemy I'll do him
justice--that, after Mr Brookes had left us, Mr Pleggit had two
shopmen, and Mr Cophagus only one; but then that one was Mr Japhet
Newland; besides, one of his assistants had only one eye, the other
squinted horribly, so if we measured by eyes, I think the advantage was
actually on our side; and, as far as ornament went, most decidedly; for
who would not prefer putting on his chimney-piece one handsome, elegant
vase, than two damaged, ill-looking pieces of crockery? Mr Pleggit had
certainly a gilt mortar and pestle over his door, which Mr Cophagus had
omitted when he furnished his shop; but then the mortar had a great
crack down the middle, and the pestle had lost its knob. And let me ask
those who have been accustomed to handle it, what is a pestle without a
knob? On the whole, I think, with the advantage of having two fronts,
like Janus, we certainly had the best of the comparison; but I shall
leave the impartial to decide.
All I can say is, that the feuds of the rival houses were most bitter--
the hate intense--the mutual scorn unmeasurable. Did Mr Ebenezer
Pleggit meet Mr Phineas Cophagus in the street, the former immediately
began to spit as if he had swallowed some of his own vile adulterated
drugs; and in rejoinder, Mr Cophagus immediately raised the cane from
his nose high above his forehead in so threatening an attitude as almost
to warrant the other swearing the peace against him, muttering, "Ugly
puppy--knows nothing--um--patients die--and so on."
It may be well supposed that this spirit of enmity extended through the
lower branches of the rival houses--the assistants and I were at deadly
feud; and this feud was even more deadly between the boys who carried
out the medicines, and whose baskets might, in some measure, have been
looked upon as the rival ensigns of the parties, they themselves
occupying the dangerous and honourable post of standard bearers.
Timothy, although the kindest-hearted fellow in the world, was as good a
hater as Dr Johnson himself could have wished to meet with; and when
sometimes his basket was not so well filled as usual, he would fill it
up with empty bottles below, rather than that the credit of the house
should be suspected, and his deficiencies create a smile of scorn in the
mouth of his red-haired antagonist, when they happened to meet going
their rounds. As yet, no actual collision had taken place between
either the principals or the subordinates of the hostile factions; but
it was fated that this state of quiescence should no longer remain.
Homer has sung the battles of gods, demigods, and heroes; Milton the
strife of angels. Swift has been great in his Battle of the Books; but
I am not aware that the battle of the vials has as yet been sung; and it
requires a greater genius than was to be found in those who portrayed
the conflicts of heroes, demigods, gods, angels, or books, to do
adequate justice to the mortal strife which took place between the
lotions, potions, draughts, pills, and embrocations. I must tell the
story as well as I can, leaving it as an outline for a future epic.
Burning with all the hate which infuriated the breasts of the two houses
of Capulet and Montagu, hate each day increasing from years of "biting
thumbs" at each other, and yet no excuse presenting itself for an
affray, Timothy Oldmixon--for on such an occasion it would be a sin to
omit his whole designation--Timothy Oldmixon, I say, burning with hate
and eager with haste, turning a corner of the street with his basket
well filled with medicines hanging on his left arm, encountered, equally
eager in his haste, and equally burning in his hate, the red-haired
Mercury of Mr Ebenezer Pleggit. Great was the concussion of the
opposing baskets, dire was the crash of many of the vials, and dreadful
was the mingled odour of the abominations which escaped, and poured
through the wicker interstices. Two ladies from Billingsgate, who were
near, indulging their rhetorical powers, stopped short. Two tom-cats,
who were on an adjacent roof, just fixing their eyes of enmity, and
about to fix their claws, turned their eyes to the scene below. Two
political antagonists stopped their noisy arguments. Two dustmen ceased
to ring their bells; and two little urchins eating cherries from the
crowns of their hats, lost sight of their fruit, and stood aghast with
fear. They met, and met with such violence, that they each rebounded
many paces; but like stalwart knights, each kept his basket and his
feet. A few seconds to recover breath; one withering, fiery look from
Timothy, returned by his antagonist, one flash of the memory in each to
tell them that they each had the _la_ on their side, and "Take that!"
was roared by Timothy, planting a well-directed blow with his dexter and
dexterous hand upon the sinister and sinisterous eye of his opponent.
"Take that!" continued he, as his adversary reeled back; "take that, and
be damned to you, for running against a _gentleman_."
He of the rubicund hair had retreated, because so violent was the blow
he could not help so doing, and we all must yield to fate. But it was
not from fear. Seizing a vile potation that was labelled "To be taken
immediately," and hurling it with demoniacal force right on the chops of
the courageous Timothy, "Take that!" cried he with a rancorous yell.
This missile, well-directed as the spears of Homer's heroes, came full
upon the bridge of Timothy's nose, and the fragile glass shivering,
inflicted divers wounds upon his physiognomy, and at the same time
poured forth a dark burnt-sienna-coloured balsam, to heal them, giving
pain unutterable. Timothy, disdaining to lament the agony of his
wounds, followed the example of his antagonist, and hastily seizing a
similar bottle of much larger dimensions, threw it with such force that
it split between the eyes of his opponent. Thus with these dreadful
weapons did they commence the mortal strife.
The lovers of _good order_, or at least of fair play, gathered round the
combatants, forming an almost impregnable ring, yet of sufficient
dimensions to avoid the missiles. "_Go it, red-head_!" "_Bravo!
white-apron_!" resounded on every side. Draughts now met draughts in
their passage through the circumambient air, and exploded like shells
over a besieged town. Bolusses were fired with the precision of cannon
shot, pill-boxes were thrown with such force that they burst like grape
and cannister, while acids and alkalies hissed, as they neutralised each
other's power, with all the venom of expiring snakes. "Bravo!
white-apron!" "Red-head for ever!" resounded on every side as the
conflict continued with unabated vigour. The ammunition was fast
expending on both sides, when Mr Ebenezer Pleggit, hearing the noise,
and perhaps smelling his own drugs, was so unfortunately rash and so
unwisely foolhardy as to break through the sacred ring, advancing from
behind with uplifted cane to fell the redoubtable Timothy, when a
mixture of his own, hurled by his own red-haired champion, caught him in
his open mouth, breaking against his only two remaining front teeth,
extracting them as the discharged liquid ran down his throat, and
turning him as sick as a dog. He fell, was taken away on a shutter, and
it was some days before he was again to be seen in his shop, dispensing
those medicines which, on this fatal occasion, he would but too gladly
have dispensed with.
Reader, have you not elsewhere read in the mortal fray between knights,
when the casque has been beaten off, the shield lost, and the sword
shivered, how they have resorted to closer and more deadly strife, with
their daggers raised on high? Thus it was with Timothy: his means had
failed, and disdaining any longer to wage a distant combat, he closed
vigorously with his panting enemy, overthrew him in the first struggle,
seizing from his basket the only weapons which remained, one single
vial, and one single box of pills. As he sat upon his prostrate foe,
first he forced the box of pills into his gasping mouth, and then with
the lower end of the vial he drove it down his throat, as a gunner rams
home the wad and shot into a thirty-two pound carronade. Choked with
the box, the fallen knight held up his hands for quarter; but Timothy
continued until the end of the vial, breaking out the top and bottom of
the pasteboard receptacle, forty-and-eight of antibilious pills rolled
in haste down Red-head's throat. Timothy then seized his basket, and
amid the shouts of triumph, walked away. His fallen-crested adversary
coughed up the remnants of the pasteboard, once more breathed, and was
led disconsolate to the neighbouring pump; while Timothy regained our
shop with his blushing honours thick upon him.
But I must drop the vein heroical. Mr Cophagus, who was at home when
Timothy returned, was at first very much inclined to be wroth at the
loss of so much medicine; but when he heard the story, and the finale,
he was so pleased at Tim's double victory over Mr Pleggit and his
messenger, that he actually put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out
half-a-crown.
Mr Pleggit, on the contrary, was anything but pleased; he went to a
lawyer, and commenced an action for assault and battery, and all the
neighbourhood did nothing but talk about the affray which had taken
place, and the action at law which it was said would take place in the
ensuing term.
But with the exception of this fracas, which ended in the action not
holding good, whereby the animosity was increased, I have little to
recount during the remainder of the time I served under Mr Cophagus. I
had been more than three years with him when my confinement became
insupportable. I had but one idea, which performed an everlasting cycle
in my brain--Who was my father? And I should have abandoned the
profession to search the world in the hope of finding my progenitor, had
it not been that I was without the means. Latterly, I had hoarded up
all I could collect; but the sum was small, much too small for the
proposed expedition. I became melancholy, indifferent to the business,
and slovenly in my appearance, when a circumstance occurred which put an
end to my further dispensing medicines, and left me a free agent.