“SIR, Blue Dragon Arms, South Shields.
“I have just read in your ‘Household Words’ a pleasant enough account of
the ‘Coal Exchange of London,’ in which my name is mentioned. I suppose
I ought—and therefore I do—consider it a great honour; and what Captain
of a collier-brig would not? So, no more about that, except to thank
you. Same time, mayhap, there may be a trifle or two in the paper to
which I don’t quite subscribe; and, as I seem to be towed astern of the
writer as he works his way on, it seems only fair that I should overhaul
his log in such matters as I don’t agree to, whether so be in respect of
his remarks or reckoning.
“In the first place, the writer says the Coal Exchange is painted as
bright as a coffee-garden or dancing-place on the continent. Well—belike
it is. And what o’ that? Did he wish it to be painted in coal-tar? as if
we didn’t see enough of this at home—whether collier-men or
coal-merchants! I make no doubt he wanted to see all the inside just of
the same colour as your London buildings are on th’ outside—walls, and
towers, and spires, like so many great smoke-jacks. Then as to his taste
in female beauty, he seems more disposed to the pale faces of
novel-writers’ young ladies than such sort of brown and ruddy skins as
some of us think more mettlesome. I confess I do; and so he may rig me
out on this matter as he pleases. Howsomever, I must say that I believe
most people will prefer both the bright ladies, and the bright adornment
of the building, to any mixture of soot and blacking, which has,
hitherto, characterised the taste of my old friends the Londoners. And
it is my advice to the artist, Mr. Sang, just to snap his fingers at the
opposite taste of your writer, which is exactly what I do myself, for
his comparing my ‘hard weather-beaten face’ to the wooden figure of a
ship’s head.
“I remain, respected Sir,
“Yours to command,
“THOMAS OLDCASTLE.”
“P.S. What the writer of these coal-papers says I told him about Buddle
of Wallsend, is all true enough; but why did he tell me, in return, that
his name was ‘Gulliver?’”