I was a free man when I went out of the Court; but I was a beggar—I,
Captain Stubbs, of the bold North-Bungays, did not know where I could
get a bed or a dinner.
As I was marching sadly down Portugal Street, I felt a hand on my
shoulder, and a rough voice which I knew well.
"Vell, Mr. Stobbs, have I not kept my bromise? I told you dem boots
would be your ruin."
I was much too miserable to reply; and only cast up my eyes towards the
roofs of the houses, which I could not see for the tears.
"Vat! you begin to gry and blobber like a shild? you vood marry, vood
you, and noting vood do for you but a vife vid monny—ha, ha—but you vere
de pigeon, and she vas de grow. She has plocked you, too, pretty vell—
eh? ha! ha!"
"Oh, Mr. Stiffelkind," said I, "don't laugh at my misery; she has not
left me a single shilling under heaven. And I shall starve—I do believe
I shall starve." And I began to cry fit to break my heart.
"Starf! stoff and nonsense—you vil never die of starfing—you vil die of
_hanging_, I tink, ho! ho! and it is moch easier vay too." I didn't say
a word, but cried on, till everybody in the street turned round and
stared.
"Come, come," said Stiffelkind, "do not gry, Gaptain Stobbs—it is not
goot for a Gaptain to gry, ha! ha! Dere, come vid me, and you shall have
a dinner, and a bregfast too—vich shall gost you nothing, until you can
bay vid your earnings."
And so this curious old man, who had persecuted me all through my
prosperity, grew compassionate towards me in my ill-luck: and took me
home with him as he promised. "I saw your name among de Insolvents—and I
vowed, you know, to make you repent dem boots. Dere now, it is done and
forgotten, look you. Here, Betty, Bettchen, make de spare bed, and put a
clean knife and fork; Lort Cornvallis is come to dine vid me."
I lived with this strange old man for six weeks. I kept his books, and
did what little I could to make myself useful: carrying about boots and
shoes, as if I had never borne his Majesty's commission. He gave me no
money, but he fed and lodged me comfortably. The men and boys used to
laugh, and call me General, and Lord Cornwallis, and all sorts of
nicknames—and old Stiffelkind made a thousand new ones for me.
One day, I can recollect—one miserable day, as I was polishing on the
trees a pair of boots of Mr. Stiffelkind's manufacture, the old
gentleman came into the shop with a lady on his arm.
"Vere is Gaptain Stobbs," says he; "vere is dat ornament to his
Majesty's service?"
I came in from the back shop, where I was polishing the boots, with one
of them in my hand.
"Look, my dear," says he, "here is an old friend of yours, his
Excellency Lord Cornvallis! Who would have thought such a nobleman vood
turn shoe-black? Gaptain Stobbs, here is your former flame, my dear
niece, Miss Grotty. How could you, Magdalen, ever leaf soch a lof of a
man? Shake hands vid her, Gaptain;—dere, never mind de blacking:" but
Miss drew back.
"I never shake hands with a _shoe-black_," says she, mighty
contemptuous.
"Bah! my lof, his fingers von't soil you. Don't you know he has just
been _vite-vashed_?"
"I wish, uncle," says she, "you would not leave me with such low
people."
"Low, because he cleans boots? de Gaptain prefers _pumps_ to boots, I
tink, ha! ha!"
"Captain, indeed! a nice Captain," says Miss Crutty, snapping her
fingers in my face, and walking away: "a Captain, who has had his nose
pulled? ha! ha!"—And how could I help it? it wasn't by my own _choice_
that that ruffian Waters took such liberties with me; didn't I show how
averse I was to all quarrels by refusing altogether his challenge?—but
such is the world: and thus the people at Stiffelkind's used to tease me
until they drove me almost mad.
At last, he came home one day more merry and abusive than ever.
"Gaptain," says he, "I have goot news for you—a goot place. Your
lortship vil not be able to geep your garridge, but you vil be
gomfortable, and serve his Majesty."
"Serve his Majesty!" says I. "Dearest Mr. Stiffelkind, have you got me a
place under Government?"
"Yes, and someting better still—not only a place, but a uniform—yes,
Gabdain Stobbs, a _red goat_."
"A red coat! I hope you don't think I would demean myself by entering
the ranks of the army? I am a gentleman, Mr. Stiffelkind—I can never—no,
I never."
"No, I know you will never—you are too great a goward, ha! ha!—though
dis is a red goat, and a place where you must give some _hard knocks_
too, ha! ha!—do you gomprehend?—and you shall be a general, instead of a
gabtain—ha! ha!"
"A general in a red coat! Mr. Stiffelkind?"
"Yes, a GENERAL BOSTMAN! ha! ha! I have been vid your old friend,
Bunting, and he has an uncle in the Post-office, and he has got you de
place—eighteen shillings a veek, you rogue, and your goat. You must not
oben any of de letters, you know."
And so it was—I, Robert Stubbs, Esquire, became the vile thing he named—
a general postman!
* * * * *
I was so disgusted with Stiffelkind's brutal jokes, which were now more
brutal than ever, that when I got my place in the Post-office I never
went near the fellow again—for though he had done me a favour in keeping
me from starvation, he certainly had done it in a very rude,
disagreeable manner, and showed a low and mean spirit in _shoving_ me
into such a degraded place as that of postman. But what had I to do? I
submitted to fate, and for three years or more, Robert Stubbs, of the
North-Bungay Fencibles, was——
I wonder nobody recognised me. I lived in daily fear the first year;
but, afterwards, grew accustomed to my situation, as all great men will
do, and wore my red coat as naturally as if I had been sent into the
world only for the purpose of being a letter carrier.
I was first in the Whitechapel district, where I stayed nearly three
years, when I was transferred to Jermyn Street and Duke Street—famous
places for lodgings. I suppose I left a hundred letters at a house in
the latter street, where lived some people who must have recognised me
had they but once chanced to look at me.
You see, that when I left Sloffem, and set out in the gay world, my
mamma had written to me a dozen times at least, but I never answered
her, for I knew she wanted money, and I detest writing. Well, she
stopped her letters, finding she could get none from me: but when I was
in the Fleet, as I told you, I wrote repeatedly to my dear mamma, and
was not a little nettled at her refusing to notice me in my distress,
which is the very time one most wants notice.
Stubbs is not an uncommon name; and though I saw MRS. STUBBS on a little
bright brass plate, in Duke Street, and delivered so many letters to the
lodgers in her house, I never thought of asking who she was, or whether
she was my relation, or not.
One day the young woman who took in the letters had not got change, and
she called her mistress;—an old lady in a poke bonnet came out of the
parlour, and put on her spectacles, and looked at the letter, and
fumbled in her pocket for eight-pence, and apologized to the postman for
keeping him waiting; and when I said, "Never mind, ma'am, it's no
trouble," the old lady gave a start, and then she pulled off her
spectacles, and staggered back; and then she began muttering, as if
about to choke; and then she gave a great screech, and flung herself
into my arms, and roared out, "MY SON! MY SON!"
"Law, mamma," said I, "is that you?" and I sat down on the hall bench
with her, and let her kiss me as much as ever she liked. Hearing the
whining and crying, down comes another lady from upstairs,—it was my
sister Eliza; and down come the lodgers. And the maid gets water, and
what not, and I was the regular hero of the group. I could not stay long
then, having my letters to deliver. But, in the evening, after
mail-time, I went back to my mamma and sister: and, over a bottle of
prime old Port, and a precious good leg of boiled mutton and turnips,
made myself pretty comfortable, I can tell you.