Alonzo loves--Alonzo loves! and whom?
His grandmother! O hide me gracious tomb!
[_Her Grace faints away._
Such acting as Tom Bulbul’s I never saw. Tom lisps atrociously, and
uttered the passage, “You athk me if I thuffer,” in the most absurd way.
Miss Clapperclaw says he acted pretty well, and that I only joke about
him because I am envious, and wanted to act a part myself.--I envious
indeed!
But of all the assemblies, feastings, junkettings, déjeunes, soirées,
conversaziones, dinner-parties, in Our Street, I know of none pleasanter
than the banquets at Tom Fairfax’s; one of which this enormous
provision-consumer gives seven times a-week. He lives in one of the
little houses of the old Waddilove Street quarter, built long before
Pocklington Square and Pocklington Gardens and the Pocklington family
itself had made their appearance in this world.
Tom, though he has a small income, and lives in a small house, yet sits
down one of a party of twelve to dinner every day of his life; these
twelve consisting of Mrs. Fairfax, the nine Misses Fairfax, and Master
Thomas Fairfax--the son and heir to twopence-halfpenny a-year.
It is awkward just now to go and beg pot-luck from such a family as
this; because, though a guest is always welcome, we are thirteen at
table--an unlucky number, it is said. This evil is only temporary, and
will be remedied presently, when the family will be thirteen _without_
the occasional guest, to judge from all appearances.
Early in the morning Mrs. Fairfax rises, and cuts bread and butter from
six o’clock till eight; during which time the nursery operations upon
the nine little graces are going on. We only see a half dozen of them at
this present moment, and in the present authentic picture, the remainder
dwindling off upon little chairs by their mamma.
The two on either side of Fairfax are twins--awarded to him by singular
good fortune; and he only knows Nancy from Fanny
[Illustration: THE HAPPY FAMILY.]
by having a piece of tape round the former’s arm. There is no need to
give you the catalogue of the others. She, in the pinafore in front, is
Elizabeth, goddaughter to Miss Clapperclaw, who has been very kind to
the whole family; that young lady with the ringlets is engaged by the
most solemn ties to the present writer, and it is agreed that we are to
be married as soon as she is as tall as my stick.
If his wife has to rise early to cut the bread and butter, I warrant
Fairfax must be up betimes to earn it. He is a clerk in a Government
Office; to which duty he trudges daily, refusing even twopenny
omnibuses. Every time he goes to the shoemaker’s he has to order eleven
pairs of shoes, and so can’t afford to spare his own. He teaches the
children Latin every morning, and is already thinking when Tom shall he
inducted into that language. He works in his garden for an hour before
breakfast. His work over by three o’clock, he tramps home at four, and
exchanges his dapper coat for that dressing-gown in which he appears
before you,--a ragged but honourable garment in which he stood
(unconsciously) to the present designer.
Which is the best, his old coat or Sir John’s bran new one? Which is the
most comfortable and becoming, Mrs. Fairfax’s black velvet gown, (which
she has worn at the Pocklington Square parties these twelve years, and
in which I protest she looks like a queen), or that new robe which the
milliner has has just brought home to Mrs. Bumpsher’s, and into which
she will squeeze herself on Christmas day?
Miss Clapperclaw says that we are all so charmingly contented with
ourselves that not one of us would change with his neighbour; and so,
rich and poor, high and low, one person is about as happy as another in
Our Street.