It was what we will venture to call a vinous hour of the morning,
when Mr. Jericho returned home after the dinner eaten abroad in
defiance of his own household gods, we fear sadly despised upon the
occasion. For Mr. Jericho, with accessory boon-fellows, had partaken
of a luxurious repast; little caring that his own stinted lares were
served with, at best, metaphoric cold mutton. Mr. Jericho had tested
the best resources of the larder and cellar of the Apollo Tavern; and
full of meat and wine, and his brain singing with fantastic humours,
he had surveyed the river Thames with simpering complacency; had seen
big-bellied ships, stowed with India and Africa, drop silently with
the tide towards their haven. It was impossible to enjoy a serener
evening or a nobler sight. The setting sun, with a magnificence
quite worthy of the west-end, coloured all things gold and ruby;
the black hulls of ships glowed darkly and richly; and their sails
were, for the time, from Tyrian looms. The gorgeousness of the hour
enriched every common object with glorious beauty. Every cold, mean
common-place of the common day seemed suffused in one wide harmonious
splendour. And the brain of Jericho, meditating the scene, was
expanded and melted into it; and in that prodigal wealth of colour,
the illusion a little assisted by the swallowed colours within him,
Jericho felt himself a part and parcel of the absorbing richness. The
wine in his heart, a Bacchus’ jack-o’-lantern, reflected the rosy,
golden light that came upon him.
This sweet illusion lasted its pleasant time, fading a little when
the bill was rung for. Nevertheless, Jericho, by the force of the
scene and the wine, felt himself in much easier circumstances than
the hard tyranny of truth, when he was in a calm condition to respect
its dictum, was likely to allow. And so, at that hour when sparrows
look down reproachfully from their eaves at the flushed man trying
the street-door—at that penitential hour, with the hues of the past
romantic evening becoming very cold within him—Mr. Jericho stood
beneath his own oppressive roof.
Mrs. Jericho was gone to bed.
Mr. Jericho breathed a little lighter. Such a load was taken off
him, that he mounted the staircase tenderly, as though he trod upon
flowers; as though every woollen blossom in the carpet from the stair
to the bed itself was living heart’s-ease; which it was not.
Being somewhat ashamed of Mr. Jericho who, as it has been shown,
left his wife to the solitude of her dinner-table, whilst he,
luxurious spendthrift, could dine with company abroad,—we should
be very happy if we could, without any more ado, put him to bed at
once, and indignantly tucking him up, and with perhaps an allowed
allusion to the sort of head that awaited him in the morning, let the
good-for-nothing fellow snore till the curtain-rings danced again,
allowing him only to wake up in time for the next chapter. But this
we cannot do. The stern, iron moral it is our wish to impress upon
the world—yielding as it always is to such impressions—compels us
to steady Mr. Jericho to his bed-side; and even when there, not for
awhile to leave him.
In the reproachful quietude of his dressing-room, Jericho prepared
himself for his couch. Tenderly did his fingers dwell upon and wander
about buttons. He caught a sight of himself in the looking-glass,
and—to dodge his conscience—set himself to feign to whistle: and
then it struck him it must be very, very late, his beard had grown
so much. And the day in a moment seemed to have opened its broad,
staring eye; and the sparrows cried more saucily; and the reproachful
voice of the pigeons perched upon the chimney-top, came down in
muffled murmur upon Solomon’s ear; and with a very little more he
would have felt himself a villain.
The culprit placed his hand upon the handle of the bed-room
door. Had he been a burglar with a felonious intention upon Mrs.
Jericho’s repeater, instead of the man responsible for the rent
and taxes of the house in which he at that moment stood in his
shirt and shuddered,—had he, we say, at that point of time been an
unlawful thief _in posse_, in lieu of a lawful husband _in esse_,
his knees—unless he had been a very young and sensitive rogue
indeed—could not have so knocked together. With his face crumpled
into a thousand lines, he opened the door. What a blessing; the
hinges did not that time creak, and before they always did! Assured
by the omen, Jericho took a little bit of heart. The night-light was
winking its last. There was not a sound. The bed-curtains hung like
curtained marble. Jericho paused, turning up his ear. Still not a
sound. Sabilla did not ordinarily sleep so light. The stillness was
peculiar—curious—very odd.
“And if my Lucy should be dead!”
At the moment Solomon Jericho, though he did not know it, was quite
as much the author of that line as William Wordsworth. Still silent?
Hush! A gnat drones its tiny trump between the curtains. _Ubi flos,
ibi apis._ Suddenly Jericho is assured; and with two long, soft
strides, is at his own side of the bed. Sabilla is evidently in a
sound, deep, sweet sleep. Untucking the bed, and making himself the
thinnest slice of a man, Jericho slides between the sheets. And there
he lies, feloniously still; and he thinks to himself—being asleep,
she cannot tell how late I came to bed. At all events, it is open to
a dispute; and that is something.
“Mr. Jericho, when can you let me have some money?”
With open eyes, and clearly ringing every word upon the morning air,
did Mrs. Jericho repeat this primal question.
And what said Jericho? With a sudden qualm at the heart, and with
thick, stammering tongue, he answered—“Why, my dear, I thought you
were sound asleep.”
“I should be very happy if, like some people, I could sleep, Mr.
Jericho. I should be very glad indeed if, like some people, I could
leave the house and take my pleasure, and run into every sort of
extravagance. But no! I must remain at home. But I tell you this, Mr.
Jericho, I have made my mind up. Lying here, and being bitten by the
gnats as I have been”—
“I’m sure, I’m very—very sorry”—
“Not you, indeed. No—no. You don’t care how I’m bitten; or, for that
matter, who bites me. But that is not what I was going to say. What
I was going to observe is this—Neither you nor any man in this world
shall make a cat’s-paw of me.”
“I never thought of it. Never entered my head,” said Jericho,
screwing his skull into the pillow.
“Nothing but a cat’s-paw, and I’m not come to that. I was deceived at
the altar,” said Mrs. Jericho: “grossly, shamefully played upon; and
I have been deceived ever since.”
“For the matter of that,” cried Jericho, a little doggedly, “I was
deceived too. Of course, everybody said you’d money; and so I was
deceived—grossly deceived,” cried Jericho, melting a little with a
sense of his injury. “I don’t want to return to the subject, Mrs.
Jericho. But of course I thought you rich.”
“Mercenary wretch! If the girls were only stirring, I’d get up,” was
the threat. “I’m sure it’s time.”
“Just as you like, Mrs. Jericho: only be good enough to let me go to
sleep. Bed,” said Jericho, making himself vigorously up for rest,
“bed isn’t the place to talk in.”
“I don’t wish to talk,” replied Mrs. Jericho, “I don’t wish to
exchange a word with such a creature as you are. All I want to know
is this—When can you let me have some money?”
“Money!” gasped Jericho.
“Money!” repeated Mrs. Jericho, with inexorable resolution.
“Mrs. Jericho,” said the husband, bolting himself upright in bed,
and looking aside, down upon the face of his unmoved wife—“will
you permit me to sleep, now I’ve come to my own bed? I think it
particularly hard when a man has been out all the day as I have been,
toiling for his wife and family—I say I think it particularly hard”—
“I don’t want to prevent your sleeping, Mr. Jericho. Sleep as long
as the sleeping beauty, and I’m sure I should be the last person to
attempt to wake you. All I want to ask of you is what I asked in the
morning. Nothing more. When shall I have some money?”
“Zounds, woman!”—cried Jericho.
“Don’t call me woman—man!” exclaimed Mrs. Jericho. “Major
Pennibacker”—
“He was only a captain,” hiccupped Jericho.
“Major Pennibacker,” reiterated his widow, “a soldier and a
gentleman, never called me woman yet. Glorious creature! His sword
would rattle in its scabbard if he knew how I was treated.”
“Is this the time,” cried Jericho, a little fiercely, “the time to
talk of swords and scabbards, with the sun shining in at the windows?
Why can’t you let me go to sleep, and talk at the proper horns? After
a man has been toiling and slaving for his wife and family”—
“No doubt. And I wonder how many wives—and how many families—that’s
it!” cried Mrs. Jericho, with a strange, cutting significance, that
instantly levelled her husband; for Solomon desperately stretched
himself in the bed; and lugging the nightcap over his ears, turned
round, determined upon plucking up sleep, like poppies, by the roots.
“I’m not to be deceived by your indignation, Mr. Jericho. I know
everything, or else where could your money go to? However, as I
said, I will no longer be made a cat’s-paw of. For eight years
have I been married to you, under what I may call false pretences.
People called you the Golden Jericho, or is it likely that I could
have forgotten the heroic man who—I feel it—has a slight put upon
him in his warrior’s grave, by your being in the nightcap you wear
at this moment? However, he forgives me. At least, I trust”—and
Mrs. Jericho spoke with a spasm—“I trust he does. It was all for
the sake of his precious orphans that I am in the bed I am. Yes,
Pennibacker”—and his widow cast up her eyes, as though addressing her
first husband, looking down benignly upon her from the tester—“Yes,
dear Pennibacker, you know for what I sacrificed the best of wives,
and the most disconsolate of widows. I could have wished, like
the Hindoo, to be burnt upon the pyre; I was equal to it; I could
have rejoiced in it. But I re-married, unwillingly re-married, to
sacrifice myself for our children. Yes, Pennibacker”—
“Damn Pennibacker!” cried Jericho.
“Mr. Jericho,” said Pennibacker’s widow, with her deepest voice, and
with thunder brooding at her brows—“Mr. Jericho, will you dare to
desecrate the ashes of the dead? Demon! Will you?”
“Well, then,” said Jericho, a little appalled, for an impartial
circle had called Mrs. Jericho the Siddons of private life, she could
so freeze her friends with her fine manner—“Well, then, let me go to
sleep. It’s very hard, Mrs. Jericho; very hard, that you will always
be throwing your husband’s ashes in my face.”
“No levity, sir; no levity,” said Mrs. Jericho, very ponderously.
“Though unhappily I am your wife, I cannot forget that I am Miss
Pennibacker’s widow.” And then Mrs. Jericho drew a sepulchral sigh;
and then she hopefully added—“but he forgives me. However, as I
believe I have observed once before, Mr. Jericho, I will no longer be
made a cat’s-paw of.”
“Of course not. Why should you?” said Jericho. “I’m sure, for my
part, I want a wife with as little of the cat as possible.” And then
Jericho shrank in the bed, as though he had ventured too much.
Possibly Mrs. Jericho was too imperious to note the coarse affront;
for she merely repeated—“Very well, Mr. Jericho: all I want to know
is this—I ask to know no more. When—when will you let me have some
money?”
As though the bed had been strown with powdered pumice, Jericho
shifted and writhed.
“I don’t wish to annoy you, Mr. Jericho,” said the woman, with dread
composure. “But you compel me, gracious knows, much against my
nature, to ask when—when will you let me have some money?”
Jericho shook and groaned.
“It is much more afflicting to my nature, much greater suffering to
me to ask, than it can be for you to hear. Major Pennibacker never
had a pocket to himself. He, dear fellow, always came to me. Ha! how
few men can appreciate the true dignity of married life. As I always
used to say,—one heart and one pocket. However, as it’s quite time
for me to get up; and as I suppose you intend to go to sleep—and
as people will be here, and I must give them an answer of some
sort,—permit me, Mr. Jericho, to ask you—I’m sure it’s painful enough
to my feelings, and I feel degraded by the question—nevertheless, I
must and will ask you,—when will you let me have some money?”
Jericho—as though a dagger had been suddenly struck up through the
bed—bounced bolt upright. There was a supernatural horror in his
look: even his own wife, familiar as she was with his violence,
almost squealed. However, silently eyeing him through the small
murderous loop-holes of her lace border, Mrs. Jericho saw her
pale-faced husband snatch off his cap, holding it away at arm’s
length: then, breathing hard and casting back his head, he cried in
tones so deep and so unnaturally grating, that the poor woman, like a
night-flower, shrank within herself at the first sound,—
“I WISH TO HEAVEN I WAS MADE OF MONEY!”
Mrs. Jericho, considerably relieved that it was no worse, added in a
low, deep, earnest voice—“I wish to Heaven you were.”
* * * * *
Foolish and wicked wishes do not fly upwards, but there is no doubt
of it, descend below; where, though they are but bodiless syllables,
they are often fashioned by the imps into pins and needles, and
straightway returned to the world to torment their begetter.
And Solomon Jericho, with a silly, sinful wish at his heart—a wish
further emphasised by the thoughtless amen of his wife—subsided into
muddled sleep; snoring heavily, contemptuously, at the loneliness of
his spouse. She, poor woman, lay awhile, silently struggling with her
indignation. At length, however, her feelings growing too strong for
her, she got up the better to wrestle with them.
And Jericho was left alone—alone in bed? Not alone. He had
desperately fitted his night-cap to his head, and resolute upon
sleep, had punched his head deep, deep into his pillow. Mrs. Jericho
would have doubted her eyes had she seen the creatures in her house;
but standing upon a ridge of her husband’s night-cap, and looking
wisely down upon her husband’s dreaming face, were two fleas. An
elder and a younger flea.
Their ancestors had come from the far East, and carried the best
royal blood within them. It would be no difficult matter to trace
them up to the court of king Crœsus, whither they were first brought
in the cloak of Æsop. Let it suffice, that from this Lydian stock
descended the two fleas, at the time of our story, perched—like
ruminating goats upon a ledge of rock—upon the night-cap of Jericho.
Their progenitors had not come in, like many others, with the
Conquest; but were brought to England in the train of a Persian
Ambassador. After a wandering life, the race remained for some forty
years comfortably settled in a lodging-house at Margate, bringing
up a multitudinous family. From this stock came our two fleas,
travelling, cosily enough, to London. How from the Apollo Tavern,
where they first put up on their arrival in the metropolis, they
made their way to the home of Jericho, passes our knowledge to
declare. Very sure we are, that Mrs. Jericho believed she had no such
creatures in _her_ house.
Well, the two fleas having jumped upon the brow of Jericho, we shall,
without any scruple, make use of them. They stand above the brain
of the sleeper, and—being descended from the fleas of Æsop—shall,
for the nonce, be made to narrate to the reader the vision of the
dreaming victim.
“Miserable race!”—said the father flea, with its beautiful bright eye
shining pitifully upon Jericho—“Miserable craving race! You hear,
my son; man, in his greed, never knows when he has wherewithal. He
gorges to gluttony, he drinks to drunkenness; and you heard this
wretched fool, who prayed to heaven, to turn him—heart, brain and
all—into a lump of money. Happily, it is otherwise with fleas. We
take our wholesome, our sufficient draught, and there an end. With
a mountain of enjoyment under our feet, we limit ourselves to that
golden quantity—enough.”
“Therefore, oh, my sire, let us not, for our temperance, be
gluttonous of self-praise. Seeing that fleas are the crowning work
of the world; seeing that as sheep, and bullocks, and fish and fowl
are made for man, and man for us; let us be charitable towards our
labouring servant,—poor biped; our cook and butler.”
“My son, true it is, man feeds for us, drinks for us. Man is the
labouring chemist for the fleas; for them he turns the richest meats
and spiciest drinks to flea wine. Nevertheless, and I say it with
much pain, man is not what he was. He adulterates our tipple most
wickedly.”
“I felt it with the last lodgers,” said the younger flea. “They
drank vile spirits: their blood was turpentine, with, I fear me, a
dash of vitriol. How they lived at all, I know not. I always had the
head-ache in the morning. Here, however”—and the juvenile looked
steadfastly down upon the plain of flesh, the wide champain beneath
him—“here, we have promise of better fare.”
“The soil is woundily hot; hard, and dry, and hot as a volcano;
and—mercy me,” cried the elder, “how it throbs and heaves.
Hark!”—and the flea inclined its right ear—“the fellow’s brain
sings like a kettle. Now is he going off into a galloping dream.
Our ancestors—some of whom, my son, as I have often told you,
lived the bosom friends of conjurors and soothsayers—were, as
many of their descendants are at the present day, to be met with
amongst fortune-tellers and gypsies—our ancestors had the gift of
following a dream in all its zig-zag mistiness. And the wisdom of our
ancestors”—and here the flea raised itself upon its legs, and looked
with a serene pride about it—“the wisdom of our ancestors has come
down in its fullness upon myself; to be left, my dear child, whole
and unimpaired, and I may add, unimproved to you.”
“What a sight is this,” cried the young flea, staring at Jericho’s
face. “What an earthquake must be tumbling and rumbling in the
fellow’s heart; and how his teeth clang together! Is that thunder?
No. But did you ever hear such snoring?”
“In a minute, my son, and he’ll be in the thick of it. Attend; and
I’ll follow him through the maze; showing you all the odd things
that shower up and down in his brain, just as the golden air-bubbles
of yesterday sparkled in his wine-glass. But first, my child, let
us drink.” Saying this, the elder flea, raising itself pretty well
upright, and with its strong claws taking a firm hold of the flesh
beneath, for better purchase, struck its lance home, and opening its
shoulders, drew up, with its sucker, such a hearty draught of drink,
that Jericho, the unconscious cup-bearer, gave a sudden twist, so
deep and hearty was the pull of the drinker. “Very good; very good,
indeed,” said the flea. “There’s a fine delicate bouquet in it.”
“Humph,” cried the younger flea, “for my part, I think ’twould bear
a little more body. But, my sire, as I’ve heard you say, there’s
no judging truly from the first cup. Here goes again. Why, how the
fellow kicks!”
[Illustration: _Mr. Jericho’s Marvellous Dream._]
“Such, my son,” said the elder flea, “is man: such his wastefulness
upon himself, such his injustice to what—cocking his nose towards the
stars—he calls the lower animals. At least, two bottles of wine, a
gill or more of brandy, to say nothing of a draught or two of malt,
are burning in his arteries, and in hot mist rising to his brain.
Now, what work, what watching, what risk of limb and life—what
multiplication of toil—to produce the various beverage he has
guzzled! What digging and ploughing of the land; what vine-dressing;
what sailing upon the stormy seas; what glass-blowing; what bottling,
before the liquor, like a melted jewel, shone in his eye, and
trickled down his throat! Yet here he lies, and with no conscious
labour of his own, is at once the wine-press and distiller for the
fleas. And when we seek to take our temperate draught—smallest drops;
merest seed-rubies—how the miser kicks, and flounders, and when he
has sense enough, what wicked words at times he pitches at us! But
such”—said the elder flea, preparing itself for another stoup—“such
is man.” And again the flea pierced the wine-skin, and sucked up
another draught, and again Jericho plunged, and twisted.
“The bin improves,” said the younger flea, drinking very hard. “And
yet, I’m sure there’s burgundy in it. Now, never but twice before
have I tasted burgundy; and then I suffered for it; just as if the
grapes were grown on a soil of sulphur. Nevertheless, ’tis a rare
cellar this, after the turpentine and vitriol of our last lodgings:
so, hang the headache, and let’s have t’ other bumper.”
“Not another drop,” cried the elder flea. “Let the poor wretch
beneath us teach us moderation. Consider his face. How dead and
stupified it looks! How it shone above the table last night; and what
a piece of dirty dough it looks at this moment! What light was in the
lamp, and now what dullness and smoke!”
“And yet,” said the younger flea, “the dough begins again to work.
Surely, he’s on with his dream now.”
“Now, he’s fairly off. A while ago, and the brain was only
fluttering—like a bird trying its wings—but now, yes—now it’s off.
Ha! ha! A very droll dream, even so far as it goes;” and the old flea
looked very wise.
“Tell it, father; tell it. You never told me a dream before: surely,”
said the young one, “I’m old enough to learn now.”
“Listen, my son, and be instructed. The sleeping man is at this
moment following his heart. The thing has been plucked out of his
bosom by a laughing little creature, with painted wings: a strange
creature, half-elfin half-angel. The elf, or angel, or whatever it
is, hugs the heart in its plump arms, and its eyes twinkle with
mischief, and its cheeks are pitted with dimples, and its lips pout
as over-full of the fun that will rise to them; and still away the
child carries the heart.”
“And the man!—Where’s the man that owns it? Still following?” asked
the young flea.
“Still following, and in a pretty pucker about his property. But,
my son, be silent; and do not interrupt me. The elf, still flying
with the heart, is now in the open country. A peaceful, quiet spot.
Beautiful meadows, starred with daisies. Ha! they remind me of a
scene of early youth. That green velvet quilt sprinkled with little
silver flowers—the quilt of the sweet Princess of Satinskin—that
sweet, beautiful quilt in the palace of”—
“Never mind the palace,” said the young flea. “You are now in the
open country; keep to the meadow.”
And the elder flea, rebuked, proceeded. “There’s cattle and sheep in
the meadows; and the boy, in sport, flies and flutters above them.
And now he jumps from lamb’s back to lamb’s back, and the man still
following, with all his eyes watching his heart, that the little elf,
in the wildest fun, tosses up, like a ball in the air, catching it
again, and again tossing it up, and”—
“I should guess something odd,” said the young flea: “for how the
fellow here kicks; and how his face is broken into moving hills and
vallies. How he moans, too, about his heart. Poor devil!”
“And now, the little imp trips across a bridge, that leads to a large
wooden building—still in the open country. He runs into the building,
the fellow following him, as though now he was sure of getting his
heart back again. Not a bit. The youngster throws the heart to a
strange-looking woman; a sort of Egyptian fortune-teller,—and she,
with a sharp glittering knife, begins to cut the heart into little
pieces.”
“Oh, ho! Look at his face,” cried the young flea. “And if he doesn’t
shift and twist like a worm on a hook!”
“The woman cuts the heart into small pieces, and the owner of the
heart—how his knees twitch up and down, and how his head rolls upon
the pillow, at every touch of the knife—at length sits down in a
sort of curious despair to see what will become of his heart. And
now, he looks about him—yes, he knows he is in a paper-mill. And
strangely enough appears to him a kind of living history of the rise
and progress of paper. He sees the flags of Egypt growing in a ditchy
nook—and red Egyptians pulling and peeling it. And here flourishes
a field of bamboo, and here a Chinaman, with his side-long almond
eyes, cuts and shreds the skin from the bark. And the dreamer seeing
his heart in bits tossed into a trough, is suddenly smitten with the
sense that his heart, the great machine and blood-pump of his life,
is to be made into paper. He tries to protest against the injury. He
tries to roar out, but not a word will come. He sits straining and
gasping, and dumb withal, as a caught fish. And now, he sees the bits
of his heart curiously sorted by these hags of women; gloomy and wild
as sybils,—for, my son, I know what sort of folk sybils are from the
wisdom of my ancestors; our great forefathers having been closely
entertained by them.”
“Go on, father: I’m impatient to know what they make of the heart,”
cried the younger flea.
“The women, with sharp hooks, pick out the little knots and hard bits
from the heart, and then souse the sorted stuff into boding water:
and then they cut the bits with a turning thing toothed with knives;
cut it and shred it; and now what was a fine, firm, full-weight
heart, labouring in and through life, in the bosom of this wretched
tipsiness below us, is soft and liquid as a dish of batter.
Nevertheless, bating a chalky paleness in the fellow’s face, he seems
to do as well without his heart as with it.”
“But it can’t last, father; it can’t last. He must have something of
a heart to live,” said the young flea.
“Be patient a minute, and you shall learn. Now, one of the hags
scoops the batter edgewise into a little frame and shakes it
and—presto!—all is done: the heart of the dreamer is worked up into I
know not how many sheets—but there seems a lumping lot—a lumping lot
of the finest and whitest paper.”
“Poor devil, I say again. He can’t live with that; he can’t go
through life with a heart of paper.”
“Don’t interrupt me. Whilst you spoke, everything changed. At this
moment, the imp that vanished when he threw the heart to the hags,
now carries it in a square bundle upon his head; laughing and
skipping along London streets; and the man without a heart still
following his tormenter. My son, the imp and the man are now going up
Ludgate Hill”—
“Do you know the place?” asked the younger flea.
“Perfectly well; many years ago—for what a vulgar error it is to
think fleas short-lived—many years ago, I walked on a Lord Mayor’s
day.”
“Walked!” cried the young flea.
“Walked; that is, was carried in the miniver fur of the alderman of
the Fishmongers’ Company; and upon my life, a very noble sight it
was. Yes, my child, I think I ought to remember that show, for it was
on that very day, in that very miniver, I first met your poor mother.
Ha! that was a happy day—and we saw all the fun from the beginning to
the end; for we contrived to get upon the alderman, and sitting close
and keeping quiet—for that’s an art fleas have to learn, if they
would see, and not in the end be seen—sitting close in the nape of
the alder man’s neck, we were present at the banquet. I shall never
forget the beautiful sight we had, when the alderman got upon his
legs to make a speech. Well, we were carried home and put to bed with
the alderman, and from that time”—
“Never mind the alderman,” cried the pert young flea, “but get on
from Ludgate-Hill.”
“While I’ve talked, the imp and the man have gone round St. Paul’s,
and are now crossing into Cheapside. Shall I ever forget how, when we
came to Cheapside, the giants—well, I won’t think of that now. The
imp with the load of paper on his head runs by Bow-Church, and the
dreamer here stretches after him. My son, both imp and man,” said
the flea solemnly, “both imp and man have now entered the Bank of
England.”
“The Bank of England!” repeated the young flea, impressed by the
sudden seriousness of its parent.
There was a short pause. The elder flea, a little dry in the mouth
with so much talking, again inserted its piercer in the skin beneath
it, and drew up another glass of flea wine. And in this the son
dutifully imitated the father.
“The imp,” continued the elder flea, much refreshed by the draught,
“the imp has entered the Bank printing-office. The man without
the heart, the poor wretch wriggling and moaning under our feet,
resignedly drops upon a stool. He sits wringing his hands for his
lost heart; and now his veins tingle, for he hears the creaking of
presses. Their motion seems, strangely enough, his motion. And now,
the imp that had vanished, comes back again, bringing in his arms the
poor man’s heart.”
“It can’t be of any use to him, now,” said the younger flea.
“Of the best use, my child, as he thinks it. The imp jumps upon
the man’s knee, and the heart—it has lost its red colour, and its
flesh-like look, and as though all the blood had been discharged
from it, is white as a rag, save that the veins show through it all
black—yes, black as ink; the heart, nicely fitted by the imp, beats
again in its place inside the sleeper. You see! how he smiles—and
how his whole body heaves with the chuckle—as he again feels the old
acquaintance. And now he can’t make too much of the imp; he throws
his arms about him, and paws his little cheeks in drunken fondness.
You hear! You hear, how the laugh gurgles in the fool’s throat,—and
all because he’s got his heart back again.”
“And now, as the dream’s over, father—what say you to another drink?”
asked the young flea.
“In a minute, for ’tisn’t over yet. No. The place is changed, and the
sleeper is carried to see what appears to him Gold’s Grand Review in
the Bank cellars.”
“What do you mean by Gold’s Review?” demanded the junior.
“The imp and the dreamer are in the Bank Cellars. Here, my son, in
mighty bars—in bars that can break even the backs of emperors—is
gold. The imp takes a new sovereign piece from its bosom, and
holds it above its head. Like a small golden sun, it illumines the
place. Whereupon, all the bars of gold become pigmy shapes, and
all in action. Here we have a whole army—all in gold—marching,
wheeling, forming into lines and squares. Here we have little golden
shipwrights hammering at golden craft; here, cooks of gold sweating
at golden dainties; here, in the cellar, all the works and labours,
the commands and services of the world, are shown by the imp in
action—drawn into life, for a brief space, from what was a moment
before bars of inert metal. It is, my son, as if all the world
outside of the walls of the Bank, was imitated by the world’s masters
down in the Bank cellars. I can see the Lord Mayor and Court of
Aldermen in little men of gold not bigger than an Alderman’s thumb:
and here they act in the metal itself what the metal makes acted in
the flesh outside.”
“And for what purpose—I don’t see the use of it,” said the young flea.
“As a farewell show to our dreamer here. And he is mightily pleased
with it,—for he rubs his hands, and then rubs his heart as though he
found all happiness there.”
“And has he found it, think you?” asked the youngster.
“Humph! That will be seen,” said the old one.