_Nutts._ (_Opening door for child carrying hare in a dish._) Now,
Adelgitha, you’ll tell Dobbs the baker to be very partic’lar with
that hare. ’Tisn’t pleasant to send meat to the oven, and have back a
cinder. (_Exit child._)
_Nosebag._ Specially arter the trouble of gettin’ a hare. Hares aren’t
wired every day.
_Nutts._ Wired, Mr Nosebag? No sich thing. That hare died happy,
knowing it died according to Act of Parliament: goin’ to eat him with
currant-jelly, and all the honours.
_Enter =Slowgoe=._
What, Mr Slowgoe! Well, at first if I didn’t think it was a he-goat.
Can’t afford it--can’t, indeed; if you will go with your beard for a
fortnight, I can’t lose by it. No; that must be twopenn’orth; not a
farthin’ less. Soap and razor can’t do it.
_Slowgoe._ Never again, Mr Nutts, am I shaved by an infidel. Never
again should I have come into your shop, only, I--I think I left my
’bacco-stopper.
_Nutts._ Never thought you smoked; but I do. (_Calling._) Mrs Nutts,
you haven’t seen Mr Slowgoe’s ’bacco-stopper?--a little boot o’ virgin
gold with a diamond heel-top. If the child’s swallowed it, put the poor
man out of his misery, and say so.
_Mrs Nutts._ (_From the back._) Mind your business, Nutts; and go along
with your rubbish.
_Nutts._ (_In a low voice._) That’s like the women, isn’t it, Mr
Slowgoe? All our little pleasures in which they take no part is
rubbish. What do they care for ’bacco-stoppers? Not a jot: nothin’
below a broken heart’s worth their notice. You won’t take a stool, Mr
Slowgoe?
_Slowgoe._ Just while I wait. The thing will be found; for Mrs Nutts is
a charming woman, and----
_Nutts._ Mr Slowgoe, excuse me; I never say anything o’ the sort
myself, and can suffer no other man to take that freedom. (_Calling._)
Mrs Nutts--partner of my bosom--apple of my eye--don’t forget the
currant-jelly. You see, gentlemen, when it’s a matter of dinner, a
little kindness is allowable. Exalt man as you will, still he’s a thing
of stomach.
_Nosebag._ Stomach! I only wish Mr Slowgoe had seen that hare. Poached,
Mr Slowgoe, poached, as I’m a sinful billsticker. If Mr Peabody here
had done his duty as a policeman, he’d ha’ taken that hare to Bow
Street.
_Slowgoe._ Ha! it’s no business of mine, of course--I’ll take the paper
after you, Mr Nosebag, just while I stay--no business; but I know’d
what it would come to when they disgraced pheasants down to poultry,
and sold hares with low rabbits.
_Tickle._ Nothin’s surprising now; I shouldn’t wonder to see the
British Lion sold for bull-beef, and the Unicorn himself turned into
ewe-mutton. Wonder what Mr Grantley Berkeley would say, if he heard
that a penny barber dined off hare and currant-jelly!
_Slowgoe._ Why, he’d write another letter to the _Morning Post_, of
course. Great man Mr Berkeley! We’ve got a Keeper of the Woods and
Forests, why shouldn’t we have a Government officer, a Keeper of the
Hares and Pheasants?
_Peabody._ With a seat in the Cabinet?
_Slowgoe._ And a right to raise a body of men, to be called “Punchers
on the Head”--punching everybody as ever looked at anything above a
weasel or a sparrow? But I always said it: once sell game--once let the
lower orders taste it, and, like tigers that once eat men, they’re too
conceited to eat anything under it.
_Nosebag._ Talking about Grantley Berkeley--here’s a letter from him,
that says he’s had warning from Lord Fitzhardinge not to think any more
of his seat for the “Western Division of the County of Gloucester”!
_Nutts._ I see. An order to take off his Lordship’s livery and look
out for another place. That’s how they discharge valets, and footmen,
and----
_Tickle._ Independent members of Parliament!
_Slowgoe._ I can’t stop a minute; but this is interesting: just one
look at the paper. (_Takes it._) Ha! I see: a very long letter.
_Tickle._ Yes; by what I can make out, it goes more for length than
depth.
_Slowgoe._ I’ve no doubt--whatever it is--it’s quite right. (_Reads._)
“I have a letter bearing date the 31st August 1846, in which Lord
Fitzhardinge for the first time informs me that _he shall discontinue
the support_ he had for so many years given to my representation of
the county. You will, I am sure, pardon me for not touching on all
_the wild passages_ of that angry letter, and permit me to bring under
your notice the only strictly public accusation it contains. In the
sincerest sorrow, I assure you, that were I in the present instance to
deem it worth my while to allude to other objectionable portions of
that remarkable communication, I could do myself justice in refutation
of them, without touching with a _tenfold deeper tint_ certain and
mischievously ruling or _predominant shadows_, that unhappily are
already too well known as _imperiously existing_ in the quarter from
whence the aspersion comes.” “Shadows imperiously existing!” That’s
fine writing, that is! Real pen-and-ink work!
_Nutts._ But why should the servant be discharged? What has the unhappy
man done that he should be commanded to strip himself of the coat of
the family--to take off his plush--to undo the Fitzhardinge gold-band
from his hat--and leave Parliament in a plain suit?
_Slowgoe._ Why, he’s accused of “abusing Government patronage.”
_Tickle._ Well, that isn’t much--there’s so many to keep him in
countenance. But what’s he done? ’Pointed himself to be Master of the
Royal Poultry-yard?
_Slowgoe._ A mere nothing. All he’s done, poor fellow! is this. He got
a cadetship from Government for a youth some years ago, and he’s just
asked for another. Now, what’s in that, I should like to know? And yet
on the 15th September, Lord Fitzhardinge--but here’s the resolution
(_reads_): “A meeting of some of the influential supporters of the
Liberal interest of the Western Division of Gloucestershire having
taken place at Gloucester on the 15th September 1846, and a statement
having been made by Earl Fitzhardinge _as to his future intentions
with regard to the representation_ of the Division, it was unanimously
decided to support, in every possible way, _the views and intentions of
Lord Fitzhardinge_ as detailed to-day, and as a necessary consequence
to deprecate every attempt which may be made to foil the Liberal
interest in this Division.” And this is signed by a batch of the
independent electors.
_Nutts._ Poor fellow! And what does Grantley say to that?
_Slowgoe._ Doesn’t like it at all--and doesn’t mean to put up with it.
He says (_reads_): “On the field of politics, I stand _precisely on the
spot_ whereon _he_ (Lord Fitzhardinge) _placed me_: I am so far and no
further, _by his immediate desire_, and with his personal concurrence;
and at present it is fair to presume that in his unexplained desertion
of me, he either contemplates a retrograde movement, or he means to
jump beyond me, leave me at a spot to which my obedience to his wishes
led me, and to join the Free Traders to the widest extent of their
wishes. At all events, by every law of courtesy and justice, he ought
to give me _the option_ of taking _either step by his side_.”
_Nutts._ Well, there’s a good deal of truth in that. If I was able to
keep a footman, and he wasn’t to brush my clothes, or clean the plate,
or to bring Mrs Nutts’ lapdog into the room in a manner I liked, I
think I should first say to him, “Is that the way, Jeames, you take
the dirt off my trousers? is that the style you have your forks in? is
that the manner to lift a pug or a spaniel bitch (as the case might be)
worth forty pounds--is that the way to do it?” I should say at first
that he might try again, and not, no, not at once without a warning
word, discharge him, but give him, as the unfortunate Mr Berkeley says,
“the option” of trying his hand again. But so it is. Whether in a House
of Commons, or a house of call for tailors, people have no pity on
their servants.
_Slowgoe._ But Mr Berkeley intends to call a meeting in November
next; for, speaking of the county, he says (_reads_): “I am ready to
sacrifice myself, _as I have long done_, for her _real interests_, but
not to an unworthy conspiracy, if one exists. I am in no way inclined
to commit a _political suicide_, or to allow my public life to die by
the hand of undiscovered assassination.” That’s noble--and like a
sportsman!
_Nutts._ Poor gentleman! And he has long sacrificed himself--and
nobody’s known it! Just as I’ve read of folks carrying iron spikes
about their waists, when people have thought they wore nothing harder
than fleecy hosiery. What a shame there shouldn’t be a House of
Commons’ “Book of Martyrs”! Then we should know our real sufferers.
_Peabody._ And a Berkeley go down to posterity with “a punch on the
head” (I wonder how _he_ likes it?) from his noble relation--for all
the world as old Fox sends down _his_ martyrs--in a copperplate picture.
_Nutts._ No notion, I suppose, of the next independent member for the
equally independent voters of Western Gloucester? Not known yet who’s
to wear the gold-band, the plush, and the family facings?
_Tickle._ That’s in the bosom of the Most Noble Lord Fitzhardinge!
He’ll do what’s right, I daresay.
_Peabody._ But isn’t there a law against peers of England dirtying
their precious white hands with making--just as children make
dirt-pies--members of Parliament?
_Nutts._ To be sure. But peers never do make ’em; they only say, Let
’em be made; and their journeymen see to that. A good deal of it’s
quite the same as doll-making; and there’s dolls in my house that
open their eyes and shut ’em--and speak to notes that go for “no” and
“yes”--and with these dolls I make all the profit I can. Only there’s
this difference: the dolls never pretend to be anything but dolls;
they are faithful to their wires, and when they speak, they never
for a moment try to say--that very difficult word for a doll of any
sort--“Independent.”
_Tickle._ Talking about dolls, I see they’ve married them little girls
in Spain. Mr Lewis Philips has got another daughter.
_Nosebag._ Seem to have made quite a ballet-dance of it. Seem to
have danced the princes from town to town--as if the holy state of
wedlock was to lead to nothing better than a jig. When the princes got
to Tolosa (_reads_), “a lively and original symphony announced the
approach of the dancers; at the head of these marched a choir of little
boys, arrayed in white dresses, all bespangled with gold, with diadems
on their heads, and guitars or lutes in their hands. Then advanced, in
double line, the male and female dancers--the latter in blue and white
dresses, the former in white pantaloons and pink waistcoats.”
_Nutts._ I see: the little boys “with diadems on their heads” is a
capital touch; and means the lot of little princes that’s to be born in
Paris, to be ready for the Spanish throne.
_Slowgoe._ And what does this mean? I mean this about “the fireworks”?
_Nutts._ The fireworks means the war that’s to be lighted for the
glory of France, when the King of the French is in the busum of his
partic’lar saint, and, gone from this world, has left to it the benefit
of bullets, bayonets, and saltpetre, besides the new diskiveries
that’s to beat Warner, and to blow up Maltar and Gibraltar by way of
experiment like.
_Slowgoe._ Well, he’s married all his sons now--that’s a comfort.
_Nutts._ Not a bit on it; for hasn’t he got relays of grandchildren?
Now I don’t want this to be known all over the Dials, but the fact
is, at this very moment--I have the news from a Moor that sweeps the
crossing in Broad Street--at this moment he’s sent to Mr Besson, his
journeyman lucifer-match maker, to go off at once to Morocco, and
ask the Emperor to let any one of his hundred little daughters marry
the Count of Paris, and to keep all the benefit of her gold-dust
and di’monds, and the M’ometan religion. And, moreover, his Majesty
promises to build a mosque for the young lady in the ’Lysian Fields,
I believe they call ’em, with a mufty on the top of it, to call her
every morning to prayers.
_Slowgoe._ Humph! we must mind what we’re arter in the Mediterranean.
Not that I think the Emperor of Morocco will consent to the matter; in
which case Louis Philippe----
_Nutts._ Doesn’t care a pin; acause he then intends to apply for a
daughter to Mr Abdel Kader. And when the Count of Paris has married
her, his little brother is to have a wife from Ireland.
_Slowgoe._ Why, there’s no princesses there!
_Nutts._ Isn’t there? Louis Philippe knows better than that. So he’s
sent over to invite any of the five hundred gentlemen with daughters,
all undeniably come from Irish kings; and when he’s picked out a bride,
he’ll marry his grandson to the child, and in her right take possession
o’ the Emerald Isle! Queen Victoria doesn’t know it; but never was a
young woman robbed by a nice-looking old gentleman in any omnibus as
she’s been rifled by Louis Philippe.
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