[Illustration]
The weather which, in Mr. DUNSTABLE's varied experience of
five-and-twenty years, he assures me, has never been so bad,
having at length afforded some indications of "breaking" I make
the acquaintance, through Mrs. COBBLER, of Mr. WISTERWHISTLE, the
Proprietor of the one Bath-chair available for the invalid of
Torsington-on-Sea, who, like myself, stands in need of the salubrious
air of that health-giving resort, but who is ordered by his medical
adviser to secure it with the least possible expenditure of physical
strength.
[Illustration: A Mess Dinner.]
Both Mr. WISTERWHISTLE and his chair are peculiar in their respective
ways, and each has a decided history. Mr. WISTERWHISTLE, growing
confidential over his antecedents, says, "You see, Sir, I wasn't
brought up to the Bath-chair business, so to speak, for I began in the
Royal Navy, under His Majesty King WILLIAM THE FOURTH. Then I took to
the Coast-Guard business, and having put by a matter of thirty pound
odd, and hearing 'she' was in the market,"--Mr. WISTERWHISTLE always
referred to his Bath-chair as "she," evidently regarding it from the
nautical stand-point as of the feminine gender,--"and knowing, saving
your presence, Sir, that old BLOXER, of whom I bought her, had such
a good crop of cripples the last season or two, that he often touched
two-and-forty shillings a-week with 'em, I dropped Her Majesty's
Service, and took to this 'ere. But, Lor, Sir, the business ain't wot
it wos. Things is changed woeful at Torsington since I took her up.
Then from 9 o'clock, as you might say, to 6 P.M., every hour was
took up; and, mind you, by real downright 'aristocracy,'--real live
noble-men, with gout on 'em, as thought nothink of a two hours'
stretch, and didn't 'aggle, savin' your presence, over a extra
sixpence for the job either way. But, bless you, wot's it come to now?
Why, she might as well lay up in a dry dock arf the week, for wot's
come of the downright genuine invalid, savin' your presence, blow'd
if I knows. One can see, of course, Sir, in arf a jiffy, as you
is touched in the legs with the rheumatics, or summat like it; but
besides you and a old gent on crutches from Portland Buildings, there
ain't no real invalid public 'ere at all, and one can't expect to
make a livin' out of you two; for if you mean to do the thing ever
so 'ansome, it ain't reasonable to expect you and the old gent I was
a referring to, to stand seven hours a day goin' up and down the
Esplanade between you, and you see even that at a bob an hour ain't
no great shakes when you come to pay for 'ousing her and keepin' her
lookin' spic and span, with all her brass knobs a shining and her
leather apron fresh polished with patent carriage blackin': and Lor,
Sir, you'd not b'lieve me if I was to tell you what a deal of show
some parties expects for their one bob an hour. Why, it was only the
other day that Lady GLUMPLEY (a old party with a front of black curls
and yaller bows in her bonnet, as I dare say you've noticed me a
haulin' up and down the Parade when the band's a playin'), says to
me, says she, 'It ain't so much the easy goin' of your chair, Mr.
WISTERWHISTLE, as makes me patronise it, as its general genteel
appearance. For there's many a chair at Brighton that can't hold a
candle to it!'" But at this point he was interrupted by the appearance
of a dense crowd that half filled the street, and drew up in silent
expectation opposite my front door. Dear me, I had quite forgotten
I had sent for him. But the boy who cleans the boots and knives has
returned, and brought with him _the One Policeman_!
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