I wonder whether those little silver pencil-cases with a movable
almanac at the butt-end are still favourite implements with boys, and
whether pedlars still hawk them about the country? Are there pedlars
and hawkers still, or are rustics and children grown too sharp to deal
with them? Those pencil-cases, as far as my memory serves me, were not
of much use. The screw, upon which the movable almanac turned, was
constantly getting loose. The 1 of the table would work from its
moorings, under Tuesday or Wednesday, as the case might be, and you
would find, on examination, that Th. or W. was the 23-1/2 of the month
(which was absurd on the face of the thing), and in a word your
cherished pencil-case an utterly unreliable time-keeper. Nor was this
a matter of wonder. Consider the position of a pencil-case in a boy's
pocket. You had hardbake in it; marbles, kept in your purse when the
money was all gone; your mother's purse, knitted so fondly and
supplied with a little bit of gold, long since--prodigal little
son!--scattered amongst the swine--I mean amongst brandy-balls, open
tarts, three-cornered puffs, and similar abominations. You had a top
and string; a knife; a piece of cobbler's wax; two or three bullets; a
"Little Warbler"; and I, for my part, remember, for a considerable
period, a brass-barrelled pocket-pistol (which would fire beautifully,
for with it I shot off a button from Butt Major's jacket);--with all
these things, and ever so many more, clinking and rattling in your
pockets, and your hands, of course, keeping them in perpetual
movement, how could you expect your movable almanac not to be twisted
out of its place now and again--your pencil-case to be bent--your
liquorice water not to leak out of your bottle over the cobbler's wax,
your bull's eyes not to ram up the lock and barrel of your pistol, and
so forth?
In the month of June, thirty-seven years ago, I bought one of those
pencil-cases from a boy whom I shall call Hawker, and who was in my
form. Is he dead? Is he a millionaire? Is he a bankrupt now? He was an
immense screw at school, and I believe to this day that the value of
the thing for which I owed and eventually paid three-and-sixpence, was
in reality not one-and-nine.
I certainly enjoyed the case at first a good deal, and amused myself
with twiddling round the movable calendar. But this pleasure wore off.
The jewel, as I said, was not paid for, and Hawker, a large and
violent boy, was exceedingly unpleasant as a creditor. His constant
remark was, "When are you going to pay me that three-and-sixpence?
What sneaks your relations must be! They come to see you. You go out
to them on Saturdays and Sundays, and they never give you anything!
Don't tell _me_, you little humbug!" and so forth. The truth is that
my relations were respectable; but my parents were making a tour in
Scotland; and my friends in London, whom I used to go and see, were
most kind to me, certainly, but somehow never tipped me. That term, of
May to August 1823, passed in agonies, then, in consequence of my debt
to Hawker. What was the pleasure of a calendar pencil-case in
comparison with the doubt and torture of mind occasioned by the sense
of the debt, and the constant reproach in that fellow's scowling eyes
and gloomy coarse reminders? How was I to pay off such a debt out of
sixpence a week? ludicrous! Why did not some one come to see me, and
tip me? Ah! my dear sir, if you have any little friends at school, go
and see them, and do the natural thing by them. You won't miss the
sovereign. You don't know what a blessing it will be to them. Don't
fancy they are too old--try 'em. And they will remember you, and bless
you in future days; and their gratitude shall accompany your dreary
after life; and they shall meet you kindly when thanks for kindness
are scant. Oh mercy! shall I ever forget that sovereign you gave me,
Captain Bob? or the agonies of being in debt to Hawker? In that very
term, a relation of mine was going to India. I actually was fetched
from school in order to take leave of him. I am afraid I told Hawker
of this circumstance. I own I speculated upon my friend's giving me a
pound. A pound? Pooh! A relation going to India, and deeply affected
at parting from his darling kinsman, might give five pounds to the
dear fellow!... There was Hawker when I came back--of course there he
was. As he looked in my scared face, his turned livid with rage. He
muttered curses, terrible from the lips of so young a boy. My
relation, about to cross the ocean to fill a lucrative appointment,
asked me with much interest about my progress at school, heard me
construe a passage of Eutropius, the pleasing Latin work on which I
was then engaged; gave me a God bless you, and sent me back to school;
upon my word of honour, without so much as a half-crown! It is all
very well, my dear sir, to say that boys contract habits of expecting
tips from their parents' friends, that they become avaricious, and so
forth. Avaricious! fudge! Boys contract habits of tart and toffee
eating, which they do not carry into after life. On the contrary, I
wish I _did_ like 'em. What raptures of pleasure one could have now
for five shillings, if one could but pick it off the pastry-cook's
tray! No. If you have any little friends at school, out with your
half-crowns, my friend, and impart to those little ones the little
fleeting joys of their age.
Well, then. At the beginning of August 1823, Bartlemytide holidays
came, and I was to go to my parents, who were at Tunbridge Wells. My
place in the coach was taken by my tutor's servants--"Bolt-in-Tun,"
Fleet Street, seven o'clock in the morning was the word. My tutor, the
Reverend Edward P----, to whom I hereby present my best compliments,
had a parting interview with me: gave me my little account for my
governor: the remaining part of the coach-hire; five shillings for my
own expenses; and some five-and-twenty shillings on an old account
which had been over-paid, and was to be restored to my family.
Away I ran and paid Hawker his three-and-six. Ouf! what a weight it
was off my mind! (He was a Norfolk boy, and used to go home from Mrs.
Nelson's "Bell Inn," Aldgate--but that is not to the point.) The next
morning, of course, we were an hour before the time. I and another boy
shared a hackney-coach, two-and-six; porter for putting luggage on
coach, threepence. I had no more money of my own left. Rasherwell, my
companion, went into the "Bolt-in-Tun" coffee-room, and had a good
breakfast. I couldn't: because, though I had five-and-twenty shillings
of my parents' money, I had none of my own, you see.
I certainly intended to go without breakfast, and still remember how
strongly I had that resolution in my mind. But there was that hour to
wait. A beautiful August morning--I am very hungry. There is
Rasherwell "tucking" away in the coffee-room. I pace the street, as
sadly almost as if I had been coming to school, not going thence. I
turn into a court by mere chance--I vow it was by mere chance--and
there I see a coffee-shop with a placard in the window. "Coffee,
Twopence, Round of buttered toast, Twopence." And here am I hungry,
penniless, with five-and-twenty shillings of my parents' money in my
pocket.
What would you have done? You see I had had my money, and spent it in
that pencil-case affair. The five-and-twenty shillings were a
trust--by me to be handed over.
But then would my parents wish their only child to be actually without
breakfast? Having this money and being so hungry, so _very_ hungry,
mightn't I take ever so little? Mightn't I at home eat as much as I
chose?
Well, I went into the coffee-shop, and spent fourpence. I remember the
taste of the coffee and toast to this day--a peculiar, muddy,
not-sweet-enough, most fragrant coffee--a rich, rancid, yet
not-buttered-enough, delicious toast. The waiter had nothing. At any
rate, fourpence, I know, was the sum I spent. And the hunger appeased,
I got on the coach a guilty being.
At the last stage,--what is its name? I have forgotten in
seven-and-thirty years,--there is an inn with a little green and trees
before it; and by the trees there is an open carriage. It is our
carriage. Yes, there are Prince and Blucher, the horses; and my
parents in the carriage. Oh! how I had been counting the days until
this one came! Oh! how happy had I been to see them yesterday! But
there was that fourpence. All the journey down the toast had choked
me, and the coffee poisoned me.
I was in such a state of remorse about the fourpence, that I forgot
the maternal joy and caresses, the tender paternal voice. I pulled out
the twenty-four shillings and eightpence with a trembling hand.
"Here's your money," I gasp out, "which Mr. P---- owes you, all but
fourpence. I owed three-and-sixpence to Hawker out of my money for a
pencil-case, and I had none left, and I took fourpence of yours, and
had some coffee at a shop."