Might it be compatible with Mr. Magsman's inclination and convenience to
enter, as a favor, into a few particulars?
Mr. Magsman entered into the following particulars:
It was a long time ago to begin with--afore lotteries and a deal more was
done away with. Mr. Magsman was looking around for a good pitch, and he
see that house, and he says to himself, "I'll have you if you are to be
had. If money'll get you, I'll have you."
The neighbors cut up rough, and made complaints; but Mr. Magsman don't
know what they all would have had. It was a lovely thing.
First of all, there was the canvas representin' the pictur' of the Giant
in Spanish trunks and a ruff, who was half the height of the house, and
was run up with a line and pulley to a pole of the roof, so that his Ed
was coeval with the parapet.
Then there was the canvas representin' the pictur' of the Albina lady,
showin' her white 'air to the Army and Navy in correct uniform.
Then there was the canvas representin' the pictur' of the Wild Indian
scalpin' a member of some foreign nation.
Similarly, there was the canvas representin' the pictur' of the Wild Ass
of the Prairies--not that we never had no wild asses, nor wouldn't have
had 'em as a gift.
Last there was the canvas representin' the pictur' of the Dwarf, and like
him too (considerin'), with George the Fourth in such a state of
astonishment at him as his Majesty couldn't with his utmost politeness and
stoutness express.
The front of the House was so covered with canvases that there wasn't a
spark of daylight ever visible on that side. "MAGSMAN'S AMUSEMENTS,"
fifteen foot long by two foot high, ran over the front door and parlor
winders. The passage was a arbor of green baize and garden stuff. A
barrel-organ performed there unceasing. And as to respectability--if
threepence ain't respectable, what is?
But the Dwarf is the principal article at present, and he was worth money.
He was wrote up as "Major Tpschoffki, of the Imperial Bulgraderian
Brigade." Nobody couldn't pronounce the name, and it never was intended
anybody should. The public always turned it, as a regular rule, into
Chopski. In the line he was called Chops; partly on that account, and
partly because his real name, if he ever had any real name (which was very
dubious), was Stakes.
He was an uncommon small man, he really was. Certainly not so small as he
was made out to be, but where's your dwarf as is? He was a most uncommon
small man, with a most uncommon large Ed; and what he had inside that Ed
nobody never knowed but himself; even supposin' himself to have ever took
stock of it, which it would have been a stiff job for him to do. The
kindest little man as never growed! You never heard him give a ill name to
a giant. He did allow himself to break out into strong language respectin'
the Fat Lady from Norfolk; but that was an affair of the 'art; and when a
man's 'art has been trifled with by a lady, and the preference giv' to a
Indian, he ain't master of his actions.
He was always in love, of course; every human nat'ral phenomenon is. And
he was always in love with a large woman; I never knowed the dwarf as
could be got to love a small one. Which helps to keep 'em the curiosities
they are.
One sing'lar idea he had in that Ed of his, which must have meant
something, or it wouldn't have been there. It was always his opinion that
he was entitled to property. He never put his name to anything. He had
been taught to write by a young man without any arms, who got his living
with his toes (quite a writing-master _he_ was, and taught scores in the
line), but Chops would have starved to death afore he'd gained a bit of
bread by putting his hand to a paper.
This is the more curious to bear in mind, because he had no property,
except his house and a sarser. When I say his house, I mean the box,
painted and got up outside like a reg'ler six-roomer, that he used to
creep into, with a diamond ring (or quite as good to look at) on his
forefinger, and ring a little bell out of what the public believed to be
the drawing-room winder.
And when I say a sarser, I mean a Cheney sarser in which he made a
collection for himself at the end of every entertainment. His cue for that
he took from me:
"Ladies and gentlemen, the little man will now walk three times round the
Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain."
He had what I consider a fine mind--a poetic mind. His ideas respectin'
his property never come upon him so strong as when he sat upon a
barrel-organ and had the handle turned. Arter the wibration had run
through him a little time, he would screech out:
"Toby, I feel my property coming--grind away! I'm counting my guineas by
thousands, Toby--grind away! Toby, I shall be a man of fortun'! I feel the
mint a jingling in me, Toby, and I'm swelling out into the Bank of
England!"
Such is the influence of music on the poetic mind. Not that he was partial
to any other music but a barrel-organ; on the contrairy, he hated it.
He had a kind of everlasting grudge agin the public; which is a thing you
may notice in many phenomenons that get their living out of it. What riled
him most in the nater of his occupation was that it kep' him out of
society. He was continiwally sayin':
"Toby, my ambition is to go into society. The curse of my position towards
the public is that it keeps me hout of society. This don't signify to a
low beast of a Indian; he ain't formed for society. This don't signify to
a Spotted Baby; _he_ ain't formed for society--I am."
Nobody never could make out what Chops done with his money. He had a good
salary, down on the drum every Saturday as the day came round, besides
having the run of his teeth--and he was a woodpecker to eat--but all
dwarfs are. The sarser was a little income, bringing him in so many
half-pence that he'd carry 'em for a week together, tied up in a
pocket-handkercher.
And yet he never had money. And it couldn't be the Fat Lady from Norfolk,
as was once supposed; because it stands to reason that when you have a
animosity towards a Indian which makes you grind your teeth at him to his
face, and which can hardly hold you from goosing him audible when he's
going through his war-dance--it stands to reason you wouldn't under them
circumstances deprive yourself to support that Indian in the lap of
luxury.
Most unexpected, the mystery came out one day at Egham races. The public
was shy of bein' pulled in, and Chops was ringin' his little bell out of
his drawin'-room winder, and was snarlin' to me over his shoulder as he
kneeled down with his legs out at the back door--for he couldn't be shoved
into his house without kneeling down, and the premises wouldn't
accommodate his legs--was snarlin':
"Here's a precious public for you; why the devil don't they tumble up?"
when a man in the crowd holds up a carrier-pigeon and cries out:
"If there's any person here as has got a ticket, the Lottery's just
draw'd, and the number as has come up for the great prize is three, seven,
forty-two! Three, seven, forty-two!"
I was givin' the man to the furies myself, for calling of the public's
attention--for the public will turn away, at any time, to look at anything
in preference to the thing showed 'em; and if you doubt it, get 'em
together for any individual purpose on the face of the earth, and send
only two people in late and see if the whole company ain't far more
interested in taking particular notice of them two than you--I say I
wasn't best pleased with the man for callin' out, wasn't blessin' him in
my own mind, when I see Chops's little bell fly out of the winder at a old
lady, and he gets up and kicks his box over, exposin' the whole secret,
and he catches hold of the calves of my legs and he says to me:
"Carry me into the wan, Toby, and throw a pail of water over me, or I'm a
dead man, for I'm come into my property!"
Twelve thousand odd hundred pounds was Chops's winnins. He had bought a
half-ticket for the twenty-five thousand prize, and it had come up. The
first use he made of his property was to offer to fight the Wild Indian
for five hundred pound a side, him with a poisoned darnin'-needle and the
Indian with a club; but the Indian being in want of backers to that
amount, it went no further.
Arter he had been mad for a week--in a state of mind, in short, in which,
if I had let him sit on the organ for only two minutes, I believe he would
have bust--but we kept the organ from him--Mr. Chops come round and
behaved liberal and beautiful to all.
He then sent for a young man he knowed, as had a wery genteel appearance
and was a Bonnet at a gaming-booth (most respectable brought up, father
havin' been imminent in the livery-stable line, but unfortunate in a
commercial crisis through paintin' a old gray, ginger-bay, and sellin' him
with a pedigree), and Mr. Chops said this to Bonnet, who said his name was
Normandy, which it wasn't:
"Normandy, I'm going into society. Will you go with me?"
Says Normandy: "Do I understand you, Mr. Chops, to hintimate that the 'ole
of the expenses of that move will be borne by yourself?"
"Correct," says Mr. Chops. "And you shall have a princely allowance too."
The Bonnet lifted Mr. Chops upon a chair to shake hands with him, and
replied in poetry, his eyes seemingly full of tears:
My boat is on the shore,
And my bark is on the sea,
And I do not ask for more,
But I'll go--along with thee.
They went into society, in a chaise and four grays, with silk jackets.
They took lodgings in Pall Mall, London, and they blazed away.
In consequence of a note that was brought to Bartlemy Fair in the autumn
of next year by a servant, most wonderful got up in milk-white cords and
tops, I cleaned myself and went to Pall Mall, one evening app'inted. The
gentlemen was at their wine arter dinner, and Mr. Chops's eyes was more
fixed in that Ed of his than I thought good for him.
There was three of 'em (in company, I mean), and I knowed the third well.
When last met, he had on a white Roman shirt, and a bishop's miter covered
with leopard-skin, and played the clarionet all wrong, in a band, at a
wild-beast show.
This gent took on not to know me, and Mr. Chops said:
"Gentlemen, this is an old friend of former days"; and Normandy looked at
me through a eyeglass, and said, "Magsman, glad to see ye!" which I'll
take my oath, he wasn't.
Mr. Chops, to get him convenient to the table, had his chair on a
throne, much of the form of George Fourth's in the canvas, but he hardly
appeared to me to be King there in any p'int of view, for his two
gentlemen ordered about like emperors. They was all dressed like
May-day--gorgeous!--and as to wine, they swam in all sorts.
I made the round of the bottles, first separate (to say I had done it),
and then tried two of 'em as half-and-half, then t'other two. Altogether,
I passed a pleasant evenin', but with a tendency to feel muddled, until I
considered it good manners to get up and say:
"Mr. Chops, the best of friends must part. I thank you for the wariety of
foreign drains you have stood so 'ansome. I looks towards you in red wine,
and I takes my leave."
Mr. Chops replied:
"If you'll just hitch me out of this over your right arm, Magsman, and
carry me down-stairs, I'll see you out."
I said I couldn't think of such a thing, but he would have it, so I lifted
him off his throne. He smelt strong of Madeary, and I couldn't help
thinking, as I carried him down, that it was like carrying a large bottle
full of wine, with a rayther ugly stopper, a good deal out of proportion.
When I set him on the door-mat in the hall, he kept me close to him by
holding on to my coat-collar, and he whispers:
"I ain't 'appy, Magsman."
"What's on your mind, Mr. Chops?"
"They don't use me well. They ain't grateful to me. They puts me on the
mantel-piece when I won't have in more Champagne-wine, and they locks me
in the sideboard when I won't give up my property."
"Get rid of 'em, Mr. Chops."
"I can't. We're in society together, and what would society say?"
"Come out of society," says I.
"I can't. You don't know what you're talking about. When you have once got
into society, you mustn't come out of it."
"Then, if you'll excuse the freedom, Mr. Chops," was my remark, shaking my
Ed grave, "I think it's a pity you ever went in."
Mr. Chops shook that deep Ed of his to a surprisin' extent, and slapped it
half a dozen times with his hand, and with more wice than I thought were
in him. Then he says:
"You're a good feller, but you don't understand. Good night, go long.
Magsman, the little man will now walk three times around the Cairawan, and
retire behind the curtain."
The last I see of him on that occasion was his tryin', on the extremest
verge of insensibility, to climb up the stairs, one by one, with his hands
and knees. They'd have been much too steep for him if he had been sober;
but he wouldn't be helped.
It warn't long after that, that I read in the newspaper of Mr. Chops's
being presented at court. It was printed:
"It will be recollected"--and I've noticed in my life that it is sure to
be printed that it _will_ be recollected whenever it won't--"that Mr.
Chops is the individual of small stature whose brilliant success in the
last State Lottery attracted so much attention."
"Well," I said to myself, "such is life! He has done it in earnest at
last! He has astonished George the Fourth!"
On account of which I had that canvas new painted, him with a bag of money
in his hand, a presentin' it to George the Fourth, and a lady in ostrich
feathers fallin' in love with him in a bagwig, sword, and buckles correct.
I took the house as is the subject of present inquiries--though not the
honor of being acquainted--and I run Magsman's Amusements in it thirteen
months--sometimes one thing, sometimes another, sometimes nothin'
particular, but always all the canvases outside. One night, when we had
played the last company out, which was a shy company through its raining
heavens hard, I was takin' a pipe in the one pair back, along with the
young man with the toes, which I had taken on for a month (though he never
drawed--except on paper), and I heard a kickin' at the street door.
"Halloa!" I says to the young man, "what's up?"
He rubs his eye-brows with his toes, and he says:
"I can't imagine, Mr. Magsman"--which he never could imagine nothin', and
was monotonous company.
The noise not leavin' off, I laid down my pipe, and I took up a candle,
and I went down and opened the door. I looked out into the street; but
nothin' could I see, and nothin' was I aware of, until I turned round
quick, because some creeter run between my legs into the passage.
There was Mr. Chops!
"Magsman," he says, "take me on the hold terms, and you've got me; if it's
done, say done!"