BREAD-SEEKING.
There are few streets in London better known to that large army of
martyrs, the genteelly poor, than those which run northward from the
Strand, and are lost in the two vast tracts of brick known under the
name of Covent Garden and Drury Lane. Lodging-house keepers do not
affect these streets, preferring the narrow no-thoroughfares on the
other side of the Strand, abutting on the river, streets eternally
ringing with the hoarse voice of the costermonger, who descends on one
side and ascends on the other, eternally echoing to the grinding of
the organ-man, who gets through his entire _répertoire_ twice over
during his progress to the railing overlooking the Embankment, and his
return to the pickle-shop at the top, eternally haunted by the
beer-boy and the newspaper-boy, by postmen infuriated with wrongly
addressed letters, and by luggage-laden cabs. In the streets bearing
northward no costermonger screams and no organ is found; the denizens
are business-people, and would very soon put a stop to any such
attempt.
Business, and nothing but business, in that drab-coloured house with
the high wire-blinds in the window, over which you can just catch a
glimpse of the top of a hanging white robe. Cope and Son are the
owners of the drab-coloured house, and Cope and Son are the largest
retailers of clerical millinery in London. All day long members of
"the cloth," sleek, pale, emaciated, high-church curates, stout,
fresh-coloured, huge-whiskered, broad-church rectors, fat,
pasty-faced, straight-haired evangelical ministers, are pouring into
Cope and Son's for clothes, for hoods, for surplices, for stoles, for
every variety of ecclesiastical garment. Cope and Son supply all, in
every variety, for every sect; the M.B. waistcoat and stiff-collared
coat reaching to his heels in which the Honourable and Reverend Cyril
Genuflex looks so imposing, as he, before the assembled vestry, defies
the scrutiny of his evangelical churchwarden; the pepper-and-salt
cutaway in which the Reverend Pytchley Quorn follows the hounds; the
black-stuff gown in which the Reverend Locock Congreve perspires and
groans as he deals out denunciations of those sitting under him; and
the purple bed gown, turned up with yellow satin, and worked all
over with crosses and vagaries, in which poor Tom Phoole, such a
kind-hearted and such a soft-headed vessel, goes through his
ritualistic tricks,--all these come from the establishment of Cope and
Son's, in Rutland Street, Strand.
The next house on the right is handy for the high-church clergymen,
though the evangelicals shut their eyes and turn away their heads as
they pass by it. Here Herr Tubelkahn, from Elberfeld, the cunning
worker in metals, the artificer of brass and steel and iron, and
sometimes of gold and silver, the great ecclesiastical upholsterer,
has set up his Lares and Penates, and here he deals in the loveliest
of mediaevalisms and the choicest of renaissance wares. The sleek
long-coated gentry who come to make purchases can scarcely thread
their way through the heterogeneous contents of Herr Tubelkahn's shop.
All massed together without order; black oaken chairs, bought up by
Tubelkahn's agents from occupants of tumbledown old cottages in
midland districts, crosiers and crucifixes, ornate and plain, from
Elberfeld, sceptres and wands from Solingen, lecterns in the shape of
enormous brazen eagles with outstretched wings from Birmingham,
enormous candelabra and gaseliers of Gothic pattern from Liège, and
sculptured pulpits and carved altar-rails from the Curtain Road,
Shoreditch. Altar-cloths hang from the tables, and altar-carpets, none
of your common loom-woven stuff, but hand-worked and--as Herr
Tubelkahn gives you to understand--by the fairest fingers, are spread
about to show their patterns to the best advantage, while there is so
much stained glass about ready for immediate transfer to the oriel
windows of country churches, that when the sun shines, Herr
Tubelkahn's customers seem to be suddenly invested with Joseph's
garment of many colours, and the whole shop lights up like a
kaleidoscope.
Many of the customers, both of Messrs. Cope and Tubelkahn, were
customers, or, more euphuistically, clients, of Messrs. Camoxon, who
kept the celebrated Clerical and Educational Registry higher up the
street; but these customers and clients invariably crossed and
recrossed the road, in proceeding from the one to the other of these
establishments, in order to avoid a certain door which lay midway
between them. A shabby swing-door, sun-blistered, and with its bottom
panel scored with heel and toe kicks from impatient entrance-seeking
feet; a door flanked by two flaming bills, and surrounded by a host of
close-shaven, sallow-faced men, in shabby clothes and shiny hats, and
red noses and swinging canes, noble Romans, roistering cavaliers,
clamorous citizens, fashionable guests, virtuous peasants--all at a
shilling a night; for the door was, in fact, the stage-door of the
Cracksideum Theatre. The shabby men in threadbare jauntiness smiled
furtively, and grinned at each other as they saw the sleek gentlemen
in shining broad-cloth step out of their path; but the said gentlemen
felt the proximity of the Thespian temple very acutely, and did not
scruple to say so to Messrs. Camoxon, who, as in duty bound, shrugged
their shoulders deprecatingly, and--changed the conversation. They
were very sorry, but--and they shrugged their shoulders. When men
shrug their shoulders to their customers it is time that they should
retire from business. It was time that the Messrs. Camoxon so retired,
for the old gentleman now seldom appeared in Rutland Street, but
remained at home at Wimbledon, enacting his favourite character of the
British squire, and actually dressing the part in a blue coat and gilt
buttons, gray knee-breeches, and Hessian boots; while young George
Camoxon hunted with the Queen's hounds, had dined twice at the Life
Guards' mess at Windsor, and had serious thoughts of standing for the
county.
But the business was far too good to give up; every one who had a
presentation or an advowson to sell took it to Camoxons'; the head
clerk could tell you off-hand the net value of every valuable living
in England, the age of the incumbent, and the state of his health.
Every rector who wanted assistance, every curate who wanted a change,
in servants' phrase, "to better himself," every layman who wanted a
title for orders, every vicar who, oddly enough, wanted to change a
dull, bleak living in the north for a pleasant social sphere of duty
in a cheerful neighbourhood in the south of England; parents on the
lookout for tutors, tutors in search of pupils--all inscribed their
names on Camoxon's books, and looked to him for assistance in their
extremity. There was a substantial, respectable, orthodox appearance
about Camoxons', in the ground-glass windows, with the device of the
Bible and Sceptre duly inscribed thereon; in the chaste internal
fittings of polished mahogany and plain horsehair stools, with the
Churchman's Almanack on the wall in mediaeval type, very illegible,
and in a highly mediaeval frame, all bosses and clamps; in the big
ledgers and address-books, and in the Post-office Directory, which
here shed its truculent red cover, and was scarcely recognisable in a
meek sad-coloured calf binding; and, above all, in the grave, solemn,
sable-clad clerks, who moved noiselessly about, and who looked like
clergymen playing at business.
Up and down Rutland Street had Walter Joyce paced full a thousand
times since his arrival in London. The name of the street and of its
principal inhabitants was familiar to him through the advertisements
in the clerical newspaper which used to be sent to Mr. Ashurst at
Helmingham; and no sooner was he settled down in his little lodging in
Winchester Street than he crossed the mighty artery of the Strand, and
sought out the street and the shops of which he had already heard so
much. He saw them, peered in at Copes', and at Tubelkahn's, and looked
earnestly at Camoxons' ground-glass window, and half thought of going
in to see whether they had anything which might suit him on their
books. But he refrained until he had received the answers to a certain
advertisement which he had inserted in the newspaper, setting forth
that a young man with excellent testimonials--he knew he could get
them from the rector of Helmingham--was desirous of giving instruction
in the classics and mathematics. Advertising, he thought, was a better
and more gentlemanly medium than causing a detailed list of his
accomplishments to be inscribed in the books of the Ecclesiastical
Registry, as a horse's pedigree and performances are entered in the
horsedealer's list; but when, after hunting for half an hour through
the columns of the newspaper's supplement, he found his advertisement
amongst a score of others, all of them from men with college honours,
or promising greater advantages than he could hold forth, he began to
doubt the wisdom of his proceeding. However, he would wait and see the
result. He did so wait for three days, but not a single line
addressed, as requested, to W.J. found its way to Winchester Street.
Then he sent for the newspaper again, and began to reply to the
advertisements which he thought might suit him. He had no high
thoughts or hopes, no notions of regenerating the living generation,
or of placing tuition on a new footing, or rendering it easy by some
hitherto unexplained process. He had been an usher in a school; for
the place of an usher in a school he had advertised; and if he could
have obtained that position he would have been contented. But when the
few answers to his advertisement arrived, he saw that it was
impossible to accept any of the offers they contained. One man wanted
him to teach French with a guaranteed Parisian accent, to devote his
whole time out of school-hours to the boys, to supervise them in the
Indian-sceptre athletic exercises, and to rule over a dormitory of
thirteen, "where, in consequence of the lax supervision of the last
didaskolos, severe measures would be required," for twenty pounds a
year. Another gentleman, whose notepaper was ornamented with a highly
florid Maltese cross, and who dated his letter "Eve of S. Boanerges,"
wished to know his opinion of the impostor-firebrand M. Luther, and
whether he (the advertiser) had any connections in the florist or
decorative line, with whom an arrangement in the mutual-accommodation
way could be entered into; while a third, evidently a grave
sententious man, with a keen eye to business, expressed, on
old-fashioned Bath-post, gilt-edged letter-paper, his desire to know
"what sum W.J. would be willing to contribute for the permission to
state, after a year's residence, that he had been one of Dr. Sumph's
most trusted helpmates and assistants."
No good to be got that way, then, and a visit to Camoxons' imminent,
for the money was running very, very short, and the conventional
upturning of stones, by no means leaving one in its normal position,
must be proceeded with. Visit to Camoxon's paid, after much staring
through the ground-glass window (opaque generally, but transparent in
the Bible and Sceptre artistic bits), much ascent and descent of two
steps cogitatively, final rush up top step wildly, and hurried, not to
say pantomimic, entrance through the ground-glass door, to be
confronted by the oldest and most composed of the sable-clad clerks.
Bows exchanged; name and address required; name and address given in a
low and serious whisper, and repeated aloud in a clear high treble,
each word as it was uttered being transcribed in a hand which was the
very essence of copperplate into an enormous book. Position required?
Second or third mastership in a classical school, private tutorship,
as secretary or librarian to a nobleman or gentleman. So glibly ran
the old gentleman's steel pen over these items that Walter Joyce began
to fancy that applicants for one post were generally ready and willing
to take all or any, as indeed they were. "Which University, what
college?" The old gentleman scratched his head with the end of his
steel penholder, and looked across at Walter, with a benevolent
expression which seemed to convey that he would rather the young man
would say Christchurch than St. Mary's, and Trinity in preference to
Clare Hall. Walter Joyce grew hot to his ear-tips, and his tongue felt
too large for his mouth, as he stammered out, "I have not been to
either University--I----" but the remainder of the sentence was lost
in the loud bang with which the old gentleman clapped-to the heavy
sides of the big book, clasped it with its brazen clasp, and hoisted
it on to a shelf behind him with the dexterity of a juggler.
"My good young friend," said the old clerk blandly, "you might have
saved yourself a vast amount of vexation, and me a certain amount of
trouble, if you had made that announcement earlier! Good morning!"
"But do you mean to say----"
"I mean to say that in that book at the present moment are the names
of sixty gentlemen seeking just the employment which you have named,
all of whom are not merely members of colleges, but members who have
taken rank--prizemen, first-class men, wranglers, senior optimes; they
are on our books, and they may remain there for months before we get
them off. You may judge, then, what chance you would have. At most
agencies they would have taken your money and given you hope. But we
don't do that here--it isn't our way. Good morning!"
"Then you think I have no chance----"
"I'm sure of it--through us, at least. Good morning!"
Joyce would have made another effort, but the old gentleman had
already turned on his heel, and feigned to be busy with some letters
on a desk before him, so Walter turned round too, and silently left
the registry-office.
Silently, and with an aching heart. The old clerk had said but little,
but Walter felt that his dictum was correct, and that all hopes of
getting a situation as a tutor were at an end. Oh, if his father had
only left him money enough to go to college, he would have had a
future before him which---- But then, Marian? He would never have
known that pure, faithful, earnest love, failing which, life in its
brightest and best form would have been dull and distasteful to him.
He had that love still, thank Heaven, and in that thought there were
the elements of hope, and the promptings to bestir himself yet once
more in his hard, self-appointed task of bread-winning.
Money running very short, and time running rapidly on. Not the
shortest step in advance since he had first set foot in London, and
the bottom of his purse growing painfully visible. He had taken to
frequenting a small coffee-house in the neighbourhood of Covent
Garden, where, as he munched the roll and drank the tea which now too
often served him as a dinner, he could read the newspapers, and scan
the advertisements to see if there were anything likely to suit him
among the myriad columns. It was a quiet and secluded little place,
where but few strangers entered; he saw the same faces night after
night, as he noticed--and where he could have his letters addressed to
him under his initials, which was a great comfort, as he had noticed
lately that his landlady in his riverside lodging-house had demurred
to the receipt of so much initialed correspondence, ascribing it, as
Walter afterwards learned from the "slavey," or maid-of-all-work,
either to "castin' 'orryscopes, tellin' charickters by 'andwritin', or
rejen'rative bolsum for the 'air!"--things utterly at variance with
the respectability of her establishment.
A quiet, secluded little place, sand-floored and spittoon-decorated,
with a cosy clock, and a cosy red-faced fire, singing with steaming
kettles, and cooking chops, and frizzling bacon, with a sleepy cat, a
pet of the customers, dozing before the hearth, and taking occasional
quarter-of-an-hour turns round the room, to be back-rubbed and
whisker-scratched, and tit-bit fed, with tea and coffee and cocoa, in
thick blue china half-pint mugs, and with bacon in which the edge was
by no means to be cut off and thrown away, but was thick, and crisp,
and delicious as the rest of it, on willow-pattern plates, with little
yellow pats of country butter, looking as if the cow whose impressed
form they bore had only fed upon buttercups, as different from the
ordinary petrified cold cream which in London passes current for
butter as chalk from cheese. "Bliffkins's"--the house was supposed to
have been leased to Bliffkins as the Elephant, and appeared under that
title in the Directories; but no one knew it but as Bliffkins's--was a
Somersetshire house, and kept a neat placard framed and glazed in its
front window to the effect that the _Somerset County Gazette_ was
taken in. So that among the thin, pale London folk who "used" the
house you occasionally came upon stalwart giants, big-chested,
horny-handed, deep-voiced, with z's sticking out all over their
pronunciation, jolly Zummerzetshire men, who brought Bliffkins the
latest gossip from his old native place of Bruton and its
neighbourhood, and who, during their stay--and notably at cattle-show
period--were kings of the house. At ordinary times, however, the
frequenters of the house never varied--indeed, it was understood that
Bliffkins's was a "connection," and did not in the least depend upon
chance custom. Certain people sat in certain places, ordered certain
refreshment, and went away at certain hours, never varying in the
slightest particular. Mr. Byrne, a wizened old man, who invariably
bore on his coat and on his hair traces of fur and fluff and wool, who
was known to be a bird-stuffer by trade, and an extreme Radical in
politics, and who was reputed to be the writer of some of those
spirit-stirring letters in the weekly press signed "Lucius Junius
Brutus" and "Scrutator," sat in the right-hand corner box nearest the
door, where he was out of the draught, and had the readiest chance of
pouncing upon the boy who brought in the evening papers, and securing
them before his rival, Mr. Wickwar, could effect a seizure. Mr.
Wickwar, who was a retired tailor, and had plenty of means, the sole
bane of his life being the danger to the Constitution from the
recklessly advanced feeling of the times, sat at the other end of the
room, being gouty and immobile, contented himself with glaring at his
democratic enemy, and occasionally withering him with choice extracts
from the _Magna Charta_ weekly journal. The box between them was
usually devoted of an evening to Messrs. O'Shane and Begson, gentlemen
attached to the press, capital company, full of anecdote and repartee,
though liable to be suddenly called away in the exigence of their
literary pursuits. The top of the policeman's helmet or the flat cap
of the fireman on duty just protruded through the swing-door in this
direction acted as tocsins to these indefatigable public servants, cut
them off in the midst of a story, and sent them flying on the back of
an engine, or at the tail of a crowd, to witness scenes which,
portrayed by their graphic pencils, afforded an additional relish to
the morning muffin at thousands of respectable breakfast-tables.
Between these gentlemen and a Mr. Shimmer, a youngish man, with bright
eyes, hectic colour, and a general sense of nervous irritation, there
was a certain spirit of _camaraderie_ which the other frequenters of
Bliffkins's could not understand. Mr. Shimmer invariably sat alone,
and during his meal habitually buried himself in one of the choice
volumes of Bliffkins's library, consisting of old volumes of
Blackwood's, Bentley's, and Tait's magazines, from which he would
occasionally make extracts in a very small hand in a very small
note-book. It was probably from the fact of a printer's boy having
called at Bliffkins's with what was understood to be a "proof," that a
rumour arose and was received throughout the Bliffkins's connection
that Mr. Shimmer edited the _Times_ newspaper. Be that as it might,
there was no doubt, both from external circumstances and from the
undefined deference paid to him by the other gentlemen of the press,
that Mr. Shimmer was a literary man of position, and that Bliffkins
held him in respect, and, what was more practical for him, gave him
credit on that account. An ex-parish clerk, who took snuff and sleep
in alternate pinches; a potato salesmen in Covent Garden, who drank
coffee to keep himself awake, and who went briskly off to business
when the other customers dropped off wearily to bed; a "professional"
at an adjoining bowling-alley, who would have been a pleasant fellow
had it not been for his biceps, which got into his head and into his
mouth, and pervaded his conversation; and a seedsman, a terrific
republican, who named his innocent bulbs and hyacinths after the most
sanguinary heroes of the French revolution,--filled up the list of
Bliffkins's "regulars."
Among these quiet people Walter Joyce took up his place night after
night, until he began to be looked upon as of and belonging to them.
They were intolerant of strangers at Bliffkins's, of strangers, that
is to say, who, tempted by the comforts of the place, renewed their
visits, and threatened to make them habitual. These were for the most
part received at about their third appearance, when they came in with
a pleasant smile and thought they had made an impression, with a
strong stare and a dead silence, under the influences of which they
ordered refreshment which they did not want, had to pay for, and went
away without eating, amid the contemptuous grins of the regulars. But
Walter Joyce was so quiet and unobtrusive, so evidently a gentleman
desirous of peace and shelter and refuge at a cheap-rate, that the
great heart of Bliffkins's softened to him at once; they themselves
had known the feelings under which he sought the asylum of that
Long-Acre Patmos, and they respected him. No one spoke to him, there
was no acknowledgment of his presence among them; they knew well
enough that any such manifestation would have been out of place; but
when, after finishing his very simple evening meal, he would take a
few sheets of paper from his pocket, draw to him the _Times_
supplement, and, constantly referring to it, commence writing a series
of letters, they knew what all that portended, and all of them,
including old Wickwar, the ex-tailor and great Conservative, silently
wished him Godspeed.
Ah, those letters, dated from Bliffkins's coffee-house, and written in
Walter Joyce's roundest hand, in reply to the hundred of chances which
each day's newspaper-sheet offered to every enterprising bread-seeker,
chances so promising at the first glance, so barren and so full of
rottenness when they came to be tested! Clerkships? clerkships in
galore! legal, mercantile, general clerks were wanted everywhere, only
apply to A.B. or Y.Z., and take them! But when A. B. or Y. Z. replied,
Walter Joyce found that the legal clerks must write the regular
engrossing hand, must sweep out the office ready for the other clerks
by nine a.m., and must remain there occasionally till nine p.m., with
a little outdoor work in the service of writs and notices of
ejectment. The duties required of the mercantile clerk were but little
better, and those of the general clerks were worst of all, while
throughout a net income of eighteen shillings a week appeared to be
the average remuneration. "A secretary wanted?" certainly, four
secretaries wanted nearly every day, to public companies which were
about to bring forth an article in universal demand, but of which the
supply had hitherto been limited, and which could not fail to meet
with an enormous success and return a large dividend. In all cases the
secretary must be a man of education and of gentlemanly manners, so
said the advertisements; but the reply to Walter Joyce's application
said in addition that he must be able to advance the sum of three
hundred pounds, to be invested in the shares of the company, which
would bear interest at the rate of twenty-five per cent, per annum.
The Press? through the medium of their London fraternity the
provincial press was clamorous for educated men who could write
leading articles, general articles, and reviews; but on inquiry the
press required the same educated men to be able to combine shorthand
reporting with editorial writing, and in many cases suggested the
advisability of the editorial writer being able to set up his own
leaders in type at case. The literary institutions throughout the
country were languishing for lecturers; but when Walter Joyce wrote to
them, offering them a choice of certain subjects which he had studied,
and on which he thought himself competent of conveying real
information, he received answers from the secretaries, that only men
of name were paid by the institutions, but that the committee would be
happy to set apart a night for him if he chose to lecture gratis, or
that if he felt inclined to address the inhabitants of Knuckleborough
on his own account, the charge for the great hall was three pounds,
for the smaller hall thirty shillings a night, in both cases exclusive
of gas, while the secretary, who kept the principal stationer's shop
and library in the town, would be happy to become his agent, and sell
his tickets at the usual charge of ten per cent. Four pounds a week,
guaranteed! Not a bad income for a penniless man! to be earned, too,
in the discharge of a light and gentlemanly occupation, to be acquired
by the outlay of three shillings' worth of postage stamps. Walter
Joyce sent the postage stamps, and received in return a lithographic
circular, vary dirty about the folded edges, instructing him in the
easiest method of modelling wax flowers!
That was the final straw. On the receipt of that letter, or rather on
the reading of it--he had taken it from the stately old looking-glass
over the fireplace to the box where of late he usually sat--Walter
Joyce gave a deep groan, and buried his face in his hands. A minute
after he felt his hair slightly touched, and looking up, saw old Jack
Byrne bending over him.
"What ails ye, lad?" asked the old man tenderly.
"Misery--despair--starvation!"
"I thought so!" said the old man calmly. Then taking a small battered
flask from his breast and emptying its contents into a clean cup
before him--"Here, drink this, and come outside. We can't talk here!"
Walter swallowed the contents of the cup mechanically, and followed
his new friend into the street.