_Mrs Nutts._ I don’t wonder we’re poor, Mr Nutts; sitting there reading
the news when you should be minding your bus’ness and your family.
_Nutts._ Bless the woman!
_Mrs Nutts._ Yes; bless the man!--but that does no good, one way or the
other.
_Nutts._ Can’t I have a bit of quiet news to myself afore the customers
come in?
_Mrs Nutts._ Not with your razors in the state they are. ’Twould be
another thing if you was stropped as you ought to be. And I must tell
you this----
_Nutts._ And I must tell you, Mrs Nutts, that I won’t have you here in
the shop. ’Tisn’t your place.
_Mrs Nutts._ Don’t you think it? All the years I’ve been married to
you, I’ve been kept in the background--and you know it, Nutts. Very
well, as I said afore, Tommy’s weaned, and now I shall come for’ard and
enjoy myself. Women, as I said to Mrs Biggleswade over the way--women
have been kept too long under, a good deal too long. But it is my
intention now, Nutts--and I give you fair warnin’--to jine the movement.
_Nutts._ I wish you’d lead it and get out of this. (_Mrs Nutts
determinedly drops in a chair._) Well, you are the most aggravating
thing as ever wore petticoats; you are----(_=Slowgoe=, =Peabody=,
=Nosebag=, =&c.=, drop in_.) Mrs Nutts, my darling, where’s the hot
water?
_Mrs Nutts._ On the fire, and minding its business. Biling, as it ought
to do, Mr Nutts.
_Slowgoe._ I’m first, Nutts; but I’m in no hurry. I haven’t heard a bit
of news this week: feel quite starving. (_Takes paper--sits._) Well,
I’ve often thought what Rob’son Crusoe did without a newspaper. To me,
a paper’s meat and drink, and a blanket to sleep in. Ha! so I see the
Duke of Borducks----
_Peabody._ Beg your pardon--Bordeaux.
_Slowgoe._ I know; but it’s Borducks in English. He’s got a wife at
last. The Duke of Modena’s sister--aged thirty--with four millions of
money!
_Mrs Nutts._ Poor thing! I hope she’s settled every penny on it on
herself, else a nice life she’ll have of it.
_Nutts._ Four millions of money, and got safe to thirty with it!
’Twouldn’t have happened had she been in England! She’d had a swarm o’
Irish barristers stopping her on the king’s highway, every one with
his heart and weddin’-ring. Four millions! Why, sweethearts would have
swarmed round her like flies round a sugar-cask.
_Mrs Nutts._ A very pretty comparison, Mr Nutts, for a husband and a
father.
_Nosebag._ Well, I don’t know; but to think of a woman with sich a
mountain o’ gold--it seems unnat’ral.
_Nutts._ Quite awful to think of! Besides, quite impossible, too, that
any man could love her.
_Mrs Nutts._ And I should like to know why not?
_Nutts._ The money, Mrs Nutts, the money; it must distract his
attention. No man’s heart can be big enough to hold four millions o’
money and a wife at the same time.
_Mrs Nutts._ Just like you, Nutts. But I know what you’d have done if
you’d have been a dook. Yes; _you’d_ have had room enough in your heart
for all the money; and as for the poor ’oman, she might have taken her
chance and have stayed outside.
_All._ Ha! ha! ha!
_Mrs Nutts._ I see nothing to laugh at. And it’s enough to make a
woman’s flesh creep to hear you men.
_Tickle._ No offence, Mrs Nutts; but the fact is, women have no
bus’ness with sich a lot o’ money. ’Tisn’t giving us men a fair
chance. Woman, as I’ve always said, is fascinatin’ enough without
a penny--always has the odds of us, if she hasn’t a farden; but
when jined to everything else, she comes among us with millions o’
money--why, it isn’t fair love-making; no, it’s nothing short of
manslaughter.
_Slowgoe._ How _did_ Louis Philippe overlook her? Why, the Infanta
hasn’t got above a fourth of the sum--only a million.
_Mrs Nutts._ Poor little thing! And nicely that brute her father-in-law
will snub her for it now, I daresay. A wife, and only fourteen too!
Well, if she’d been my daughter--but I’ll say nothing. Only as a
married woman I _will_ say this, she’s begun her troubles early enough.
_Nutts._ Well, who knows?--she may the sooner get through ’em.
_Mrs Nutts._ Nutts--but I won’t tell you _what_ you are, now.
_Slowgoe._ Lord Normandy, I see, as ’Bassador for England, didn’t pay
his public compliments to the happy pair; and the Funds, I see, went
down because.
_Nosebag._ Why, no; but his Lordship went afterwards in private and
took tea and muffins with ’em, and upon that the Funds riz like a
rocket.
_Peabody._ The _Times_ says that Louis Philippe has retained Lord
Brougham to plead his cause in the House of Lords. M. Guizot, they say,
has loaded him with all the papers--rammed him down like a piece of
brass ordnance with all sorts of wadding--and, there’s no doubt of it,
he’ll go off with a considerable bang.
_Tickle._ No doubt on it; and just as sailors do when they board--get
the better of their lordships in the smoke. Wonder what fee Lewis
Philip’s to give Brougham for the job? for, being a lawyer, he can’t
work for nothing.
_Peabody._ Why, they do say it’s to be made up to his Lordship somehow
in his arms. He’s to be allowed to quarter every boar he kills at
Cannes, and put him upon his coach panels; and further, he and his
heirs for ever and ever are to be permitted to land anywhere in France,
and not to have their pockets rummaged inside out by customhouse
officers. It’s further said that Lord Brougham intends to plead the
King of the French’s cause in French, that his Lordship may seem to be
as little of an Englishman in the matter as possible.
_Slowgoe._ (_With paper._) Well, I hope I’m a lover of the institutions
of my country--but I think this is pulling the rope a little too tight.
I always stand up for the Church, and always will, like any steeple;
but--I’m sorry to own it--but, as a great man has said afore me, this
is too bad.
_Nosebag._ What’s the matter? Anybody been sticking posters agin St
Paul’s? As a billsticker, I must say I’ve often looked with an eye of
envy at Queen Anne--often wished to stick her.
_Slowgoe._ Here’s a letter from the _Times_; from a gentleman whose
wife and party was asked sixpence at St Paul’s on Lord Mayor’s Day,
because “she was told when once in, they might see the Lord Mayor’s
show there, when it came back in three or four hours.”
_Nutts._ Well, Mother Church is now and then a good ’un at a
bargain, for certain. Nice ways that to turn a penny with the men in
armour--nice way of showing a mayor and a mayor’s coach-horses at
threepence a peep.
_Limpy._ Well, it’s just struck me that if Mr Taylor of the Surrey
’Logical Gardens don’t mind what he’s at, the nobs of St Paul’s will
next summer get quite the better on him.
_Slowgoe._ I can’t see that. I don’t defend St Paul’s in the matter of
the show, but I don’t see how that venerable building is to be opposed
to the lions and tigers at feedin’-time.
_Limpy._ In this way, I mean. At the ’Logical Gardens, you know, there
is always a “grand display of fireworks.” Very well. Admittance one
shilling. Very well. Now if the folks of St Paul’s took it into their
heads, couldn’t they admit the public to the top of the church, where
they might have a comfortable view of the ’ruption and the rockets, all
at half-price?--for a little sixpence?
_Slowgoe._ Humph! I don’t think they’d do that.
_Tickle._ Well, I don’t know; when they make a peep-show of a mayor’s
gold coach and liveries, I wouldn’t trust ’em with Wesuvius. Sorry am I
to say it; sorry am I to believe that any church could so forget itself
as to think of making a penny by fireworks.
_Mrs Nutts._ Don’t talk in that wicked way, Mr Tickle; but you’ve
learnt it all from my husband. And--sorry am I to say it, but though
I’m his wife, he’s no more religion than a tombstone; for, however near
he may be to a church, he’s not a bit the better for it.
_Nutts._ (_Solemnly._) Mrs Nutts, it is one of the few grievances
of the marriage state, that a woman may take away her husband’s
character, and the poor man have no remedy for it.
_Tickle._ None: unless he pays himself heavy damages out of his own
pocket.
_Nosebag._ And goes with ’em--which he always may do--to the
public-house.
_Mrs Nutts._ Oh, you needn’t teach him that. But I was going to ask, Mr
Slowgoe, is it true that they’re going to take the dear Dook down again
from the Park arch?
_Tickle._ Why, they do say he’s received warning. All I know is he’s
beginning to look very black about something.
_Mrs Nutts._ Well, I don’t know--I was saying so to Mrs Biggleswade
over the way--but after all that had been said, he looked very nice and
comfortable. To be sure the horse does look a little more concerned
about the battle than the Dook himself; but Mrs Biggleswade assures me
that that’s quite as the thing happened, all according to ’istory. But
why--I want to know, after all the fuss of lugging him up--why is he
coming down agin?
_Nosebag._ Why, the _Daily Noose_ says that the Queen has done it all.
Her Majesty, having a taste, and knowing how a gentleman ought to look
on horseback, won’t have the Dook nohow.
_Slowgoe._ That’s one story; but I think the other much more likely.
And that is, that it’s aginst the Queen’s perrogative, and contrary
to her state and dignity, to have any subject perched upon so high a
place that her carriage must drive right under him. And now I think of
it--for it never struck me before--there is a sort of a petty treason
in it. Good thing Sir Frederick Trench didn’t live in Queen Elizabeth’s
time. _She_ knew how to use her royal perrogative; she’d have had his
head off to a certain.
_Tickle._ Suppose she had. What would she have made o’ that? Why,
nothin’.
_Mrs Nutts._ But the poor soul and his horse must go somewhere! What’s
to become of him, can any good Christian tell?
_Nutts._ Very like a traveller gone astray, and wanting good
entertainment for man and beast.
_Tickle._ Well, I have heard, if nothing better can be done with it,
that it’s to be taken somewhere to the sea-coast, and made a sort of
lighthouse of.
_Mrs Nutts._ A lighthouse of! A lighthouse! How?
_Tickle._ Why, by fitting up a revolving light inside the statue’s
head, to warn ships from sands and rocks.
_Slowgoe._ And after all, I, for one, should have no objection to it.
After all, ’twould be a very pretty compliment to the aristocracy o’
the land. (_Rising from his chair._) For are they not the lights and
beacons that in time of danger----
_Nutts._ Come, none o’ that nonsense in this place. We’re none of us
Lord Georges here.
_Slowgoe._ Mr Nutts, I have once, remember--_once_ left your shop.
_Nutts._ Well, I never care to balk a customer, not I; so you may take
it even numbers if you like.
_Mrs Nutts._ Don’t mind him, Mr Slowgoe; he’s a man as hates all
authority. Talks, too, about the perlitical principles! All very well
and very fine for bachelors, but I should very much like to know what
men with wives and families have to do with principles at all--eh, Mr
Peabody? You who’ve been a schoolmaster can answer that, I should think.
_Peabody._ Very true, Mrs Nutts; for the great Lord Bacon--you have
heard of him--eh, Mrs Nutts?
_Mrs Nutts._ No doubt on it; but I can’t bring him to mind just now.
_Peabody._ The great Lord Bacon was accustomed over his wine to say,
that the man who had a wife and children had given hostages to fortune.
_Mrs Nutts._ And just like a good many of ’em. There’s Nutts there,
for all his fine perlitical principles, I’ve often told him--and Lord
Bacon makes it true--that he wouldn’t mind giving his wife and children
to anybody, so _he_ wasn’t troubled with ’em. Only he’s not likely to
give them to _fortune_, as the lord tells of--not he, indeed; more like
to force his poor wife to another Union; well, it can’t be worse than
the first.
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