I am the boy at Mugby. That's about what _I_ am.
You don't know what I mean? What a pity! But I think you do. I think
you must. Look here. I am the boy at what is called The Refreshment
Room at Mugby Junction, and what's proudest boast is, that it never yet
refreshed a mortal being.
Up in a corner of the Down Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, in the
height of twenty-seven cross draughts (I've often counted 'em while they
brush the First-Class hair twenty-seven ways), behind the bottles, among
the glasses, bounded on the nor'west by the beer, stood pretty far to the
right of a metallic object that's at times the tea-urn and at times the
soup-tureen, according to the nature of the last twang imparted to its
contents which are the same groundwork, fended off from the traveller by
a barrier of stale sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and lastly
exposed sideways to the glare of Our Missis's eye--you ask a Boy so
sitiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby, for anything to drink;
you take particular notice that he'll try to seem not to hear you, that
he'll appear in a absent manner to survey the Line through a transparent
medium composed of your head and body, and that he won't serve you as
long as you can possibly bear it. That's me.
What a lark it is! We are the Model Establishment, we are, at Mugby.
Other Refreshment Rooms send their imperfect young ladies up to be
finished off by our Missis. For some of the young ladies, when they're
new to the business, come into it mild! Ah! Our Missis, she soon takes
that out of 'em. Why, I originally come into the business meek myself.
But Our Missis, she soon took that out of _me_.
What a delightful lark it is! I look upon us Refreshmenters as ockipying
the only proudly independent footing on the Line. There's Papers, for
instance,--my honourable friend, if he will allow me to call him so,--him
as belongs to Smith's bookstall. Why, he no more dares to be up to our
Refreshmenting games than he dares to jump a top of a locomotive with her
steam at full pressure, and cut away upon her alone, driving himself, at
limited-mail speed. Papers, he'd get his head punched at every
compartment, first, second, and third, the whole length of a train, if he
was to ventur to imitate my demeanour. It's the same with the porters,
the same with the guards, the same with the ticket clerks, the same the
whole way up to the secretary, traffic-manager, or very chairman. There
ain't a one among 'em on the nobly independent footing we are. Did you
ever catch one of them, when you wanted anything of him, making a system
of surveying the Line through a transparent medium composed of your head
and body? I should hope not.
You should see our Bandolining Room at Mugby Junction. It's led to by
the door behind the counter, which you'll notice usually stands ajar, and
it's the room where Our Missis and our young ladies Bandolines their
hair. You should see 'em at it, betwixt trains, Bandolining away, as if
they was anointing themselves for the combat. When you're telegraphed,
you should see their noses all a-going up with scorn, as if it was a part
of the working of the same Cooke and Wheatstone electrical machinery. You
should hear Our Missis give the word, "Here comes the Beast to be Fed!"
and then you should see 'em indignantly skipping across the Line, from
the Up to the Down, or Wicer Warsaw, and begin to pitch the stale pastry
into the plates, and chuck the sawdust sangwiches under the glass covers,
and get out the--ha, ha, ha!--the sherry,--O my eye, my eye!--for your
Refreshment.
It's only in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which, of
course, I mean to say Britannia) that Refreshmenting is so effective, so
'olesome, so constitutional a check upon the public. There was a
Foreigner, which having politely, with his hat off, beseeched our young
ladies and Our Missis for "a leetel gloss host prarndee," and having had
the Line surveyed through him by all and no other acknowledgment, was a-
proceeding at last to help himself, as seems to be the custom in his own
country, when Our Missis, with her hair almost a-coming un-Bandolined
with rage, and her eyes omitting sparks, flew at him, cotched the
decanter out of his hand, and said, "Put it down! I won't allow that!"
The foreigner turned pale, stepped back with his arms stretched out in
front of him, his hands clasped, and his shoulders riz, and exclaimed:
"Ah! Is it possible, this! That these disdaineous females and this
ferocious old woman are placed here by the administration, not only to
empoison the voyagers, but to affront them! Great Heaven! How arrives
it? The English people. Or is he then a slave? Or idiot?" Another
time, a merry, wideawake American gent had tried the sawdust and spit it
out, and had tried the Sherry and spit that out, and had tried in vain to
sustain exhausted natur upon Butter-Scotch, and had been rather extra
Bandolined and Line-surveyed through, when, as the bell was ringing and
he paid Our Missis, he says, very loud and good-tempered: "I tell Yew
what 'tis, ma'arm. I la'af. Theer! I la'af. I Dew. I oughter ha'
seen most things, for I hail from the Onlimited side of the Atlantic
Ocean, and I haive travelled right slick over the Limited, head on
through Jeerusalemm and the East, and likeways France and Italy, Europe
Old World, and am now upon the track to the Chief Europian Village; but
such an Institution as Yew, and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's
solid and liquid, afore the glorious Tarnal I never did see yet! And if
I hain't found the eighth wonder of monarchical Creation, in finding Yew
and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, all as
aforesaid, established in a country where the people air not absolute Loo-
naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a Nip and Frizzle to the
innermostest grit! Wheerfur--Theer!--I la'af! I Dew, ma'arm. I la'af!"
And so he went, stamping and shaking his sides, along the platform all
the way to his own compartment.
I think it was her standing up agin the Foreigner as giv' Our Missis the
idea of going over to France, and droring a comparison betwixt
Refreshmenting as followed among the frog-eaters, and Refreshmenting as
triumphant in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which, of
course, I mean to say agin, Britannia). Our young ladies, Miss Whiff,
Miss Piff, and Mrs. Sniff, was unanimous opposed to her going; for, as
they says to Our Missis one and all, it is well beknown to the hends of
the herth as no other nation except Britain has a idea of anythink, but
above all of business. Why then should you tire yourself to prove what
is already proved? Our Missis, however (being a teazer at all pints)
stood out grim obstinate, and got a return pass by Southeastern Tidal, to
go right through, if such should be her dispositions, to Marseilles.
Sniff is husband to Mrs. Sniff, and is a regular insignificant cove. He
looks arter the sawdust department in a back room, and is sometimes, when
we are very hard put to it, let behind the counter with a corkscrew; but
never when it can be helped, his demeanour towards the public being
disgusting servile. How Mrs. Sniff ever come so far to lower herself as
to marry him, I don't know; but I suppose he does, and I should think he
wished he didn't, for he leads a awful life. Mrs. Sniff couldn't be much
harder with him if he was public. Similarly, Miss Whiff and Miss Piff,
taking the tone of Mrs. Sniff, they shoulder Sniff about when he _is_ let
in with a corkscrew, and they whisk things out of his hands when in his
servility he is a-going to let the public have 'em, and they snap him up
when in the crawling baseness of his spirit he is a-going to answer a
public question, and they drore more tears into his eyes than ever the
mustard does which he all day long lays on to the sawdust. (But it ain't
strong.) Once, when Sniff had the repulsiveness to reach across to get
the milk-pot to hand over for a baby, I see Our Missis in her rage catch
him by both his shoulders, and spin him out into the Bandolining Room.
But Mrs. Sniff,--how different! She's the one! She's the one as you'll
notice to be always looking another way from you, when you look at her.
She's the one with the small waist buckled in tight in front, and with
the lace cuffs at her wrists, which she puts on the edge of the counter
before her, and stands a smoothing while the public foams. This
smoothing the cuffs and looking another way while the public foams is the
last accomplishment taught to the young ladies as come to Mugby to be
finished by Our Missis; and it's always taught by Mrs. Sniff.
When Our Missis went away upon her journey, Mrs. Sniff was left in
charge. She did hold the public in check most beautiful! In all my
time, I never see half so many cups of tea given without milk to people
as wanted it with, nor half so many cups of tea with milk given to people
as wanted it without. When foaming ensued, Mrs. Sniff would say: "Then
you'd better settle it among yourselves, and change with one another." It
was a most highly delicious lark. I enjoyed the Refreshmenting business
more than ever, and was so glad I had took to it when young.
Our Missis returned. It got circulated among the young ladies, and it as
it might be penetrated to me through the crevices of the Bandolining
Room, that she had Orrors to reveal, if revelations so contemptible could
be dignified with the name. Agitation become awakened. Excitement was
up in the stirrups. Expectation stood a-tiptoe. At length it was put
forth that on our slacked evening in the week, and at our slackest time
of that evening betwixt trains, Our Missis would give her views of
foreign Refreshmenting, in the Bandolining Room.
It was arranged tasteful for the purpose. The Bandolining table and
glass was hid in a corner, a arm-chair was elevated on a packing-case for
Our Missis's ockypation, a table and a tumbler of water (no sherry in it,
thankee) was placed beside it. Two of the pupils, the season being
autumn, and hollyhocks and dahlias being in, ornamented the wall with
three devices in those flowers. On one might be read, "MAY ALBION NEVER
LEARN;" on another "KEEP THE PUBLIC DOWN;" on another, "OUR
REFRESHMENTING CHARTER." The whole had a beautiful appearance, with
which the beauty of the sentiments corresponded.
On Our Missis's brow was wrote Severity, as she ascended the fatal
platform. (Not that that was anythink new.) Miss Whiff and Miss Piff
sat at her feet. Three chairs from the Waiting Room might have been
perceived by a average eye, in front of her, on which the pupils was
accommodated. Behind them a very close observer might have discerned a
Boy. Myself.
"Where," said Our Missis, glancing gloomily around, "is Sniff?"
"I thought it better," answered Mrs. Sniff, "that he should not be let to
come in. He is such an Ass."
"No doubt," assented Our Missis. "But for that reason is it not
desirable to improve his mind?"
"Oh, nothing will ever improve _him_," said Mrs. Sniff.
"However," pursued Our Missis, "call him in, Ezekiel."
I called him in. The appearance of the low-minded cove was hailed with
disapprobation from all sides, on account of his having brought his
corkscrew with him. He pleaded "the force of habit."
"The force!" said Mrs. Sniff. "Don't let us have you talking about
force, for Gracious' sake. There! Do stand still where you are, with
your back against the wall."
He is a smiling piece of vacancy, and he smiled in the mean way in which
he will even smile at the public if he gets a chance (language can say no
meaner of him), and he stood upright near the door with the back of his
head agin the wall, as if he was a waiting for somebody to come and
measure his heighth for the Army.
"I should not enter, ladies," says Our Missis, "on the revolting
disclosures I am about to make, if it was not in the hope that they will
cause you to be yet more implacable in the exercise of the power you
wield in a constitutional country, and yet more devoted to the
constitutional motto which I see before me,"--it was behind her, but the
words sounded better so,--"'May Albion never learn!'"
Here the pupils as had made the motto admired it, and cried, "Hear! Hear!
Hear!" Sniff, showing an inclination to join in chorus, got himself
frowned down by every brow.
"The baseness of the French," pursued Our Missis, "as displayed in the
fawning nature of their Refreshmenting, equals, if not surpasses,
anythink as was ever heard of the baseness of the celebrated Bonaparte."
Miss Whiff, Miss Piff, and me, we drored a heavy breath, equal to saying,
"We thought as much!" Miss Whiff and Miss Piff seeming to object to my
droring mine along with theirs, I drored another to aggravate 'em.
"Shall I be believed," says Our Missis, with flashing eyes, "when I tell
you that no sooner had I set my foot upon that treacherous shore--"
Here Sniff, either bursting out mad, or thinking aloud, says, in a low
voice: "Feet. Plural, you know."
The cowering that come upon him when he was spurned by all eyes, added to
his being beneath contempt, was sufficient punishment for a cove so
grovelling. In the midst of a silence rendered more impressive by the
turned-up female noses with which it was pervaded, Our Missis went on:
"Shall I be believed when I tell you, that no sooner had I landed," this
word with a killing look at Sniff, "on that treacherous shore, than I was
ushered into a Refreshment Room where there were--I do not
exaggerate--actually eatable things to eat?"
A groan burst from the ladies. I not only did myself the honour of
jining, but also of lengthening it out.
"Where there were," Our Missis added, "not only eatable things to eat,
but also drinkable things to drink?"
A murmur, swelling almost into a scream, ariz. Miss Piff, trembling with
indignation, called out, "Name?"
"I _will_ name," said Our Missis. "There was roast fowls, hot and cold;
there was smoking roast veal surrounded with browned potatoes; there was
hot soup with (again I ask shall I be credited?) nothing bitter in it,
and no flour to choke off the consumer; there was a variety of cold
dishes set off with jelly; there was salad; there was--mark me! _fresh_
pastry, and that of a light construction; there was a luscious show of
fruit; there was bottles and decanters of sound small wine, of every
size, and adapted to every pocket; the same odious statement will apply
to brandy; and these were set out upon the counter so that all could help
themselves."
Our Missis's lips so quivered, that Mrs. Sniff, though scarcely less
convulsed than she were, got up and held the tumbler to them.
"This," proceeds Our Missis, "was my first unconstitutional experience.
Well would it have been if it had been my last and worst. But no. As I
proceeded farther into that enslaved and ignorant land, its aspect became
more hideous. I need not explain to this assembly the ingredients and
formation of the British Refreshment sangwich?"
Universal laughter,--except from Sniff, who, as sangwich-cutter, shook
his head in a state of the utmost dejection as he stood with it agin the
wall.
"Well!" said Our Missis, with dilated nostrils. "Take a fresh, crisp,
long, crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and best flour. Cut it
longwise through the middle. Insert a fair and nicely fitting slice of
ham. Tie a smart piece of ribbon round the middle of the whole to bind
it together. Add at one end a neat wrapper of clean white paper by which
to hold it. And the universal French Refreshment sangwich busts on your
disgusted vision."
A cry of "Shame!" from all--except Sniff, which rubbed his stomach with a
soothing hand.
"I need not," said Our Missis, "explain to this assembly the usual
formation and fitting of the British Refreshment Room?"
No, no, and laughter. Sniff agin shaking his head in low spirits agin
the wall.
"Well," said Our Missis, "what would you say to a general decoration of
everythink, to hangings (sometimes elegant), to easy velvet furniture, to
abundance of little tables, to abundance of little seats, to brisk bright
waiters, to great convenience, to a pervading cleanliness and
tastefulness positively addressing the public, and making the Beast
thinking itself worth the pains?"
Contemptuous fury on the part of all the ladies. Mrs. Sniff looking as
if she wanted somebody to hold her, and everbody else looking as if
they'd rayther not.
"Three times," said Our Missis, working herself into a truly
terrimenjious state,--"three times did I see these shameful things, only
between the coast and Paris, and not counting either: at Hazebroucke, at
Arras, at Amiens. But worse remains. Tell me, what would you call a
person who should propose in England that there should be kept, say at
our own model Mugby Junction, pretty baskets, each holding an assorted
cold lunch and dessert for one, each at a certain fixed price, and each
within a passenger's power to take away, to empty in the carriage at
perfect leisure, and to return at another station fifty or a hundred
miles farther on?"
There was disagreement what such a person should be called. Whether
revolutionise, atheist, Bright (_I_ said him), or Un-English. Miss Piff
screeched her shrill opinion last, in the words: "A malignant maniac!"
"I adopt," says Our Missis, "the brand set upon such a person by the
righteous indignation of my friend Miss Piff. A malignant maniac. Know,
then, that that malignant maniac has sprung from the congenial soil of
France, and that his malignant madness was in unchecked action on this
same part of my journey."
I noticed that Sniff was a-rubbing his hands, and that Mrs. Sniff had got
her eye upon him. But I did not take more particular notice, owing to
the excited state in which the young ladies was, and to feeling myself
called upon to keep it up with a howl.
"On my experience south of Paris," said Our Missis, in a deep tone, "I
will not expatiate. Too loathsome were the task! But fancy this. Fancy
a guard coming round, with the train at full speed, to inquire how many
for dinner. Fancy his telegraphing forward the number of dinners. Fancy
every one expected, and the table elegantly laid for the complete party.
Fancy a charming dinner, in a charming room, and the head-cook, concerned
for the honour of every dish, superintending in his clean white jacket
and cap. Fancy the Beast travelling six hundred miles on end, very fast,
and with great punctuality, yet being taught to expect all this to be
done for it!"
A spirited chorus of "The Beast!"
I noticed that Sniff was agin a-rubbing his stomach with a soothing hand,
and that he had drored up one leg. But agin I didn't take particular
notice, looking on myself as called upon to stimulate public feeling. It
being a lark besides.
"Putting everything together," said Our Missis, "French Refreshmenting
comes to this, and oh, it comes to a nice total! First: eatable things
to eat, and drinkable things to drink."
A groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me.
"Second: convenience, and even elegance."
Another groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me.
"Third: moderate charges."
This time a groan from me, kep' up by the young ladies.
"Fourth:--and here," says Our Missis, "I claim your angriest
sympathy,--attention, common civility, nay, even politeness!"
Me and the young ladies regularly raging mad all together.
"And I cannot in conclusion," says Our Missis, with her spitefullest
sneer, "give you a completer pictur of that despicable nation (after what
I have related), than assuring you that they wouldn't bear our
constitutional ways and noble independence at Mugby Junction, for a
single month, and that they would turn us to the right-about and put
another system in our places, as soon as look at us; perhaps sooner, for
I do not believe they have the good taste to care to look at us twice."
The swelling tumult was arrested in its rise. Sniff, bore away by his
servile disposition, had drored up his leg with a higher and a higher
relish, and was now discovered to be waving his corkscrew over his head.
It was at this moment that Mrs. Sniff, who had kep' her eye upon him like
the fabled obelisk, descended on her victim. Our Missis followed them
both out, and cries was heard in the sawdust department.
You come into the Down Refreshment Room, at the Junction, making believe
you don't know me, and I'll pint you out with my right thumb over my
shoulder which is Our Missis, and which is Miss Whiff, and which is Miss
Piff, and which is Mrs. Sniff. But you won't get a chance to see Sniff,
because he disappeared that night. Whether he perished, tore to pieces,
I cannot say; but his corkscrew alone remains, to bear witness to the
servility of his disposition.