“_Little, cheerful, and honest--do you not know the species?_”
--Kovaleffski.
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HAD left my hotel and settled in my apartments; the labels with “Nelson
Bunyan” were removed from my luggage; I had been assured that so long as
I remained on English soil I was safe. Next thing I must find a servant;
one who should “know the ropes” of an English life. Lumme had promised
to make inquiries for me, and I had impressed upon him that the
following things were essential--in fact, I declared that without them I
should never entertain an application for one instant. First, he must
be of such an appearance as would do me credit, whether equipped in the
livery I had already designed for him, in the cast-off suits I should
provide him with, or in the guise of an attendant at the chase or upon
the moors. Then, that he must be honest enough to trust in the room with
a handful of mixed change, sober enough to leave alone with a decanter,
discerning enough to arrange an odd lot of sixteen boots into eight
pairs, cleanly enough to pack collars without soiling them. Finally,
he must be polite, obliging, industrious, discreet, and, if possible,
a little religious--not sufficiently so to criticise my conduct, but
enough to regulate his own.
I wrote this list down and handed it to the obliging Teddy.
“You will procure him by this afternoon?” I said.
“I know a man who keeps a Methodist footman in his separate
establishment,” answered Lumme, after a moment's reflection. “That's the
kind of article you require, I suppose. If you get 'em too moral there's
apt to be a screw loose somewhere, and if you get 'em the other way the
spoons go. Well, I can't promise, but I'll do my best.”
So this amiable young man departed, and I, to pass the time, walked into
Piccadilly, and there took my seat once more upon the top of an omnibus
to enjoy the sunshine, and be for a time a spectator of the life in the
streets. To obtain a better view I sat down on the front bench close to
the driver's elbow, and we had not gone very far before this individual
turned to me and remarked with a cordiality that pleased me infinitely,
and a perspicacity that astonished me:
“Been long in London, sir?”
“You perceive that I am a stranger, then?” I asked.
“Well,” said the man, as he cracked his whip and drove his lumbering
coach straight at an orifice between two cabs just wide enough, it
seemed to me, for a wheelbarrow, “I'm a observer, I am. When I sees that
speckled tie droopin' from a collar of unknown horigin, and them rum
kind of boots, I says to myself a Rooshian, for 'alf a sovereign. Come
from Rooshia, sir?”
The man's naïveté delighted me.
“I belong to an allied power,” I replied, wondering if his powers of
observation would enable him to decide my nationality now.
He seemed to debate the question as, with an apropos greeting to each
cabman, his 'bus bumped them to the side and sailed down the middle of
the street.
“Native o' Manchuria, perhaps?” he hazarded.
“Not quite; try again.”
“Siberia?” he suggested next.
Seeing that either his imagination or my appearance confined his
speculations to Asia, I told him forthwith that I was French.
“French?” he said. “Well, now I'm surprised to 'ear it, sir. If you'll
excuse me saying so, you don't look like no Frenchman.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“I always thought they was little chaps, no bigger than a monkey. Why,
you're quite as tall as most Englishmen.”
Considering that my friend could not possibly have measured more than
five feet, two inches, and that I am five feet, nine inches, in my
socks, I was highly diverted by this.
“Have you seen many Frenchmen?” I asked him. “I knew one once,” he
replied, after a minute or two's thought, and a brief interruption to
invite some ladies on the pavement to enter his 'bus. “'E was a waiter
at the Bull's 'Ead, 'Ighbury. I drove a 'bus that way then, and there
was a young lady served in the bar 'im and me was both sweet on. Nasty,
greasy little man 'e was--meaning no reflection on you, sir. They
couldn't make out where the fresh butter went, and when 'e left--which
'e 'ad to for kissing the missis when she wasn't 'erself, 'aving 'ad a
drop more than 'er usual--do you know what they found, sir?”
I confessed my inability to guess this secret. “Why, 'e'd put it all on
'is beastly 'air, two pounds a week, sir, of the very best fresh butter
in 'Ighbury. Perhaps, sir, I've been prejudiced against Frenchmen in
consequence.”
I admitted that he had every excuse, and asked him whether my buttered
compatriot had won the maiden's affections in addition to his other
offences.
“No, sir,” said he, “I'm 'appy to say she 'ad more sense. More sense
than to take either of us,” he added, with a deep sigh, and then, as if
to quench melancholy reflections, hailed another driver who was passing
us in the most hilarious fashion.
“'Old your 'at on, ole man!” he shouted. “Them opera-'ats is getting
scarce, you know!”
[Illustration: 8076]
The other driver, a bottle-nosed man, redeemed only from unusual
shabbiness by the head-gear in question, winked, leered, and made some
reply about “not 'aving such a fat head underneath it as some people.”
My friend turned to me with a confidential air. “You saw that gentleman
as I addressed?” he said, in an impressive voice. “Well, that man was
driving 'is own kerridge not five years ago. On the Stock Exchange 'e
was, and worth ten thousand a year if 'e was worth a penny; 'ouse in
Park Lane, and married to the daughter of a baronite. 'E's told me all
that 'isself, so it's true and no 'umbug.
“'Ow did 'e lose 'is money? Hunfortunit speculations and consols goin'
down; but you, being a furriner, won't likely understand.”
Looking as unsophisticated as possible, I pressed my friend for an
explanation of these mysteries.
[Illustration: 9077]
“Well,” said he, “it's something like this: If you goes on the Stock
Exchange you buys what they calls consols--that's stocks and shares
of various sorts and kinds, but principally mines in Australia, and
inventions for to make things different from what they is at present.
That's what's called makin' a corner, which ain't a corner exactly in
the usual sense--not as used in England, that's to say, but a kind o'
American variety.
“What, O Bill! Bloomin', thank you. 'Ow's yourself?” (This to another
driver passed upon the road.)
“As I was savin', sir, this 'ere pore friend o' mine speculated in
consols, and prices being what they calls up, and then shiftin',
he loses and the bank wins. Inside o' twenty-four hours that there
gentleman was changed from one of the richest men in the city into a
pore cove a-looking out for a job like you and me.”
“And he chose driving an omnibus?” I asked. “'Adn't got no choice.
He was too much of a gentleman to sink to a ordinary perfession, and
drivin' a pair o' 'orses seems to 'im more in keepin' with 'is position
than drivin' one 'orse in a cab, which was the only thing left.”
He paused, and then shaking his head with an air of sentiment,
continued:
“Wunderful 'ow sensitive he is, sir. He wouldn't part with that there
hopera-'at, not if you give him five 'undred pounds; yet he can't a-bear
to 'ear it chipped, not except in a kind o' delicate way, same as I did
just now. You 'eard me, sir? 'Hop-era-'ats is scarce,' says I; but
I dursn't sail closer to the wind nor that. 'E'd say, “Old your jaw,
Halfred,' or words to that effec', quick enough. Comes o' being bred too
fine for the job, I tells 'im often; I says it to 'im straight, sir.'
Comes o' being bred too fine for the job,' says I.”
At this point my friend's attention was called from the romantic history
of his fellow-driver to the exigencies of their common profession, and
I had an opportunity of studying more attentively this entertaining
specimen of the cockney.
He was, as I have said, a very short man, from thirty to thirty-five
years of age, I judged, redcheeked and snub-nosed, with a bright,
cheerful eye, and the most friendly and patronizing manner. Yet he was
perfectly respectful and civil, despite his knowledge of my unfortunate
nationality. In fact, it seemed his object to place me as far as
possible at my ease, and enable me to forget for a space the blot upon
my origin.
“There's some quite clever Frenchmen, I' ve 'eard tell,” he said,
presently. “That there 'idro-phobia man--and Napoleon Bonyparty, in his
way, too, I suppose, though we don't think so much of 'im over 'ere.”
“I am sorry to hear that, I said.
“Well, sir,” he explained, “we believes in a man 'aving his fair share of
what's goin'. Like as if me and a friend goes inter a public 'ouse, and
another gentleman he comes in and he says, 'What's it going to be this
time?' or, 'Name your gargle, gents,' or words to some such effec'; and
we says, 'Right you are, old man,' and 'as a drink at his expense.
Now it wouldn't be fair if I says to the young lady, 'I'll 'ave a 'ole
bottle of Scotch whiskey, miss, and what I can't drink I'll take 'ome in
a noospaper,' and I leaves 'im to pay for all that; would it, sir? Well,
that's what Bonyparty done; 'e tried to get more nor his share o' what
was goin' in Europe. Not that it affec's us much, we being able to take
care of ourselves, but we don't like to see it, sir. That's 'ow it is.”
All this time we had been going eastward into the city of London, and
now we were arrived at the most extraordinary scene of confusion you
can possibly imagine. I should be afraid to say how many 'buses and cabs
were struggling and surging in a small open space at the junction of
several streets. Foot-passengers in hundreds bustled along the pavements
or dodged between the horses, and, immobile in the midst of it, the
inevitable policeman appeared actually to be sifting this mob according
to some mysterious scheme.
“Cheer-O,” cried my friend upon the box. “'Ow's the price o' lime-juice
this morning?
“That there's wot we calls the Bank, sir, where the Queen keeps 'er
money, and the Rothschilds and the like o' them; guarded by seven
'undred of the flower o' the British army, it is, the hofficer bein'
hinvariably a millionaire hisself, in case he's tempted to steal. Garn
yerself and git yer face syringed with a fire-'ose. You can't clean it
no 'ow else. The 'andsome hedifice to your right, sir, is the Mansion
'Ouse; not the station of that name, but the 'ome of the Lord Mayor;
kind o' governor of the city, 'e is; 'as a hextraordinary show of
'is own on taking the hoath of hofflce; people comes all the way from
Halgiers and San Francisco to see it; camels and 'orses got up like
chargers of the holden time, and men disguised so as their own girls
wouldn't know 'em. Representing harts, hindustries, and hempire, that's
their game. Pleeceman, them there bloomin' whiskers of yours will get
mowed off by a four-wheel cab some day, and then 'ow'll you look? Too
bloomin' funny, am I? More'n them whiskers is, hinterfering with the
traffic like that.”
“Yes, sir, we 'as a rest 'ere for a few minutes; we ain't near at the
end yet, though.”
[Illustration: 9081]
I shall leave it to your judgment to guess which of these remarks were
addressed to me and which to various of his countrymen in this vortex
of wheels and human beings. For a few minutes he now sat at ease in a
quieter street (though, my faith! no street in this city of London but
would seem busy in most towns), apparently deliberating what topic
to enter upon next. I say apparently deliberating, but on further
acquaintance with my good “Halfred,” as he called himself (the aspirated
form of “Alfred” used by the cockney Alfred being the name of England's
famous monarch), I came to the conclusion that his mind never was known
to go through any such process. What came first into his head flew
straight to his tongue, till by constant use that organ had got into a
state of unstable equilibrium, like the tongue of a toy mandarin, that
oscillates for five minutes if you move him ever so gently.
In a word, Halfred was an inveterate chatterbox.
Even had I been that very compatriot of mine who had so deeply, and,
I could not but admit, so justly, roused his ire, he would, I am sure,
have chattered just as hard.
By the time we were under way again and threading the eastern alleys of
the city--for they are called streets only by courtesy--his tongue had
started too, and he was talking just as hard as ever. Now, however, his
conversation took a more reminiscent and a more personal turn, and this
led to such sweeping consequences that I shall keep the last half of our
journey together for a separate chapter.
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