Upon the deck of the steamer bound from New York to London direct, as
we, my wife and I newly married, were taking a last look at the receding
American shore, there appeared a gentleman who seemed by the cut of his jib
startlingly French. We had under our escort a French governess returning to
Paris. In a twinkle she and this gentleman had struck up an acquaintance,
and much to my displeasure she introduced him to me as "Monsieur Mahoney."
I was somewhat mollified when later we were made acquainted with Madame
Mahoney.
I was not at all preconceived in his favor, nor did Monsieur Mahoney, upon
nearer approach, conciliate my simple taste. In person, manners and apparel
he was quite beyond me. Mrs. Mahoney, however, as we soon called her, was a
dear, whole-souled, traveled, unaffected New England woman. But Monsieur!
Lord! There was no holding him at arm's length. He brooked not resistance.
I was wearing a full beard. He said it would never do, carried me perforce
below, and cut it as I have worn it ever since. The day before we were to
dock he took me aside and said:
"Mee young friend"--he had a brogue which thirty years in Algiers, where he
had been consul, and a dozen in Paris as a gentleman of leisure, had not
wholly spoiled--"Mee young friend, I observe that you are shy of strangers,
but my wife and I have taken a shine to you and the 'Princess'," as he
called Mrs. Watterson, "and if you will allow us, we can be of some sarvis
to you when we get to town."
Certainly there was no help for it. I was too ill of the long crossing to
oppose him. At Blackwall we took the High Level for Fenchurch Street, at
Fenchurch Street a cab for the West End--Mr. Mahoney bossing the job--and
finally, in most comfortable and inexpensive lodgings, we were settled in
Jermyn Street. The Mahoneys were visiting Lady Elmore, widow of a famous
surgeon and mother of the President of the Royal Academy. Thus we were
introduced to quite a distinguished artistic set.
It was great. It was glorious. At last we were in London--the dream of my
literary ambitions. I have since lived much in this wondrous city and in
many parts of it between Hyde Park Corner, the heart of May Fair, to the
east end of Bloomsbury under the very sound of Bow Bells. All the way as
it were from Tyburn Tree that was, and the Marble Arch that is, to Charing
Cross and the Hay Market. This were not to mention casual sojourns along
Piccadilly and the Strand.
In childhood I was obsessed by the immensity, the atmosphere and the
mystery of London. Its nomenclature embedded itself in my fancy; Hounsditch
and Shoreditch, Billingsgate and Blackfriars; Bishopgate, within, and
Bishopgate, without; Threadneedle Street and Wapping-Old-Stairs; the Inns
of Court where Jarndyce struggled with Jarndyce, and the taverns where the
Mark Tapleys, the Captain Costigans and the Dolly Vardens consorted.
Alike in winter fog and summer haze, I grew to know and love it, and those
that may be called its dramatis personae, especially its tatterdemalions,
the long procession led by Jack Sheppard, Dick Turpin and Jonathan Wild
the Great. Inevitably I sought their haunts--and they were not all gone in
those days; the Bull-and-Gate in Holborn, whither Mr. Tom Jones repaired on
his arrival in town, and the White Hart Tavern, where Mr. Pickwick fell in
with Mr. Sam Weller; the regions about Leicester Fields and Russell Square
sacred to the memory of Captain Booth and the lovely Amelia and Becky
Sharp; where Garrick drank tea with Dr. Johnson and Henry Esmond tippled
with Sir Richard Steele. There was yet a Pump Court, and many places along
Oxford Street where Mantalini and De Quincy loitered: and Covent Garden and
Drury Lane. Evans' Coffee House, or shall I say the Cave of Harmony, and
The Cock and the Cheshire Cheese were near at hand for refreshment in the
agreeable society of Daniel Defoe and Joseph Addison, with Oliver Goldsmith
and Dick Swiveller and Colonel Newcome to clink ghostly glasses amid the
punch fumes and tobacco smoke. In short I knew London when it was still Old
London--the knowledge of Temple Bar and Cheapside--before the vandal horde
of progress and the pickaxe of the builder had got in their nefarious work.