_Nutts._ (_Stropping razor._) Happy new year to ye, my friends.
_Tickle._ Hallo, Nutts! Why, what’s the matter with the shop? As fine
and as shiny, and smelling as sweet as Covent Garden! Well, I’m sure!
If you haven’t brought a bit of Bond Street to Seven Dials! What’s it
all about?
_Nutts._ Nothing. Merely treating the new year like a gentleman. That’s
all. I’ve turned over a new leaf.
_Mrs Nutts._ That’s the old story, Mr Tickle. For these ten years and
more, Nutts has always turned over a new leaf. Mighty fine. But afore
the year’s a week old, see if he doesn’t turn the new leaf back again.
All his new leaves are very soon old dog’s-ears. Just like the men.
_Nosebag._ Shouldn’t ha’ known the shop agin. New rush-bottoms to the
chairs, all the cracked windows mended, and what--remarkable--nice
sand upon the floor!
_Nutts._ Why, you see, when Time’s brushing up all the world for a new
beginning, it’s nothin’ more than right to treat him with a little
ceremony, when Time himself starts with a clean shave on the first of
January.
_Slowgoe._ Well, for my part, I thought Time never shaved.
_Nutts._ Quite a vulgar error, sir. As the clock strikes twelve on
the thirty-first of December, he takes up his scythe, which is Time’s
razor--and what that’s stropped upon ’twould make a man’s fortin to
find out, for what cuts like it, I should wish to know?--well, he takes
up his scythe, and holding himself by the nose, begins the operation.
_Slowgoe._ What! in the dark? and without a glass?
_Peabody._ Not at all. His glass is the Frozen Ocean, and he shaves by
the Northern Lights.
_Nutts._ (_Aside to Peabody._) Thank’ee, Mr P. You’ve helped me well
out of _that_, like a gentleman with a scholar. Consider that I owe you
a shave. Why, at this moment, 1847--like a new-born babby--Time hasn’t
a hair on his chin. No; I consider him a nice smart young chap, with a
very clean face--a very straight back--a merry twinkle in his eye--a
sprig of green holly in his mouth--and quite ready to draw, wherever
he’s invited, for Twelfth-cake--and dance with all women afterwards.
_Mrs Nutts._ Yes, that’s your notion of Time; and a married man, too!
All very well; but I don’t see that Time’s any reason to look so smart,
and go dancing about with anybody but his own wife--and that, too, when
his bills for last year ain’t paid.
_Nutts._ (_Aside to Peabody._) Now isn’t that like ’em, Mr P.? The
worst of a wife is she always goes for realities. It isn’t an opinion
to put forth to the world, but my notion is that romance--like
brandy--was only made for man. Sometimes when I’m up in the clouds,
a-going here and a-flying there, and doing I don’t know what--well,
at that moment, that good woman there--the wife of my busum--says
somethin’, and down I drop in a lump, like a dead eagle with a bullet
in his belly.
_Mrs Nutts._ Not very good manners, Mr Nutts, I think, to the rest of
your customers--to keep a-muttering there to Mr Peabody. But I suppose
_that’s_ one of your new leaves.
_Nutts._ Was only asking him, my dear, if Time--like some of the
linen-drapers--didn’t sometimes shave the ladies. And Mr Peabody said
there could be no doubt on ’t, you did look this new year so fresh and
blooming.
_Mrs Nutts._ Mr Peabody, though disgised as a policeman, as I may say,
_is_ a gentleman.
_Nosebag._ Always was, from a child. Heyday! Why, Nutts, how smart the
cats look, too!--both on ’em, Whig and Tory. Spick-and-span new collars!
_Nutts._ Yes; poor brutes! Couldn’t do less, you see. Parliament meets
on the nineteenth, and out o’ special compliment to what’s called its
wisdom--and considerin’ it’s the new year--I’ve given ’em collars. Whig
looks rather serous, doesn’t he?
_Tickle._ Well, I must say there is a sort of thoughtful look about his
whiskers. He _does_ get very like Lord John, somehow.
_Nutts._ Poor fellow! There is rayther a few mice to catch for him,
isn’t there?
_Slowgoe._ Well, Tory’s the cretur for my money. Really a beautiful
animal, and a credit to any house.
_Nutts._ Why, she has been, to say the hard and serous truth, a very
devil in her time. But she’s old, very old, and wheezy now. Teeth’s
nearly gone, and claws worn to the stumps. Here, Tory, Tory! Look
at her, poor old cretur! All she can do now is to purr; she hasn’t
strength enough in her for a good squall of the good old times. Talking
of the likeness of Whig and Lord John--do now just observe that Tory;
all in a lump of cosy fur, with her eyes half-shut, and her head a
leetle on one side, is she not the very spit of the late lamented Lord
Eldon?
_Slowgoe._ (_Rising._) So early in the year I should not like to
quarrel. No; I should not like to be forced out of the shop. But I
cannot, as an Englishman who sticks to his institutions, hear that
animal compared to a reverend Lord Chancellor. What! liken catskin to
the spotless ermine?
_Tickle._ Ecod! Considering what ermine’s sometimes done, there hasn’t
been much difference between ’em.
_Limpy._ What, Nutts! Got more cats? A big ’un and, yes, five kittens!
_Nutts._ Yes; that’s Charter and the Five Pints. My wife--jest like
the Whigs--wanted to drown all the five afore they could see. They’re
not very strong; a little back’ard, it must be owned, jest yet; but
shouldn’t wonder if some on ’em don’t catch mice some day. Here--as
Parliament’s going to begin, I bought another, what I call, a party,
yesterday. Here--here! (_Whistles._)
_Nosebag._ Why, it’s a dog, a turnspit; and, I declare, quite a puppy.
_Nutts._ Yes; that’s Young England.
_Slowgoe._ A most intelligent, beautiful little animal. That’s the only
dog I care for, for that’s a dog that reminds me of what England was
in her good old times of hospitality: in those happy days when there
were no smoke-jacks, or any such new-fangled inventions to roast good
honest English beef with; nothing but a national animal like that to
sit upon his faithful hind legs, and turn and turn the noble surloin.
Ha! there’s no such beef now.
_Tickle._ But I say, Nutts, you don’t make Young England there turn
your spit, do you?
_Nutts._ Lor’ bless you! no. Still, somehow, the thing’s bred in the
cretur; for whenever missus hangs down a jint to roast, doesn’t Young
England get as close as he can to it? and then sitting up and begging
like, doesn’t he look with one eye upon the meat as it browns, and the
other on the sops in the pan?
_Slowgoe._ A very clever dog, no doubt.
_Nutts._ Why, yes; he can understand sops in the pan as well as any on
’em.
_Limpy._ And how does he and the cats agree?
_Nutts._ Why, middlin’. Whig spits and sets up her back at him, and
won’t be friends nohow. Poor old Tory dozes away, and rayther likes
him; whilst Charter seems to treat him with silent contempt; and the
little Five Pints play with his tail as if it was no more than my
wife’s thread-paper.
_Slowgoe._ Just like the lower orders. No respect for real rank.
_Nutts._ I haven’t thought much of any of the creturs lately; but I
assure you, when Parliament ’sembles I shall keep my eye as sharp as
a needle’s pint upon ’em. In the meanwhile, gentlemen, considerin’
this is the new year, if you will take so short a notice, I shall be
proud to see you, your wives and sweethearts, to a dance in the shop
to-morrow night, which, somehow or the other, we’ll manage to enlarge
for the occasion.
_Slowgoe._ I’ve no objection, for one. But mind, none of your fangled
brass stuff, your _cornets-a-piston_, and all that. Let’s have a
good English fiddle and a constitutional clarionet. And none of your
quodrilling, and polkys; but a straightforward country-dance, and a
legitimate four-handed reel. And mind, none of your fellars from the
orchestra of the opera: if there’s a foreigner here with moustachers, I
take my hat.
_Nutts._ No objection, I hope, to a Scotch bagpipe and an Irish harp?
_Slowgoe._ Why, no.
_Nutts._ Very well, you shall have ’em; and more than that, a hornpipe
danced to ’em in character, by a young gentleman who lives at Mrs
Biggleswade’s over the way, and goes on in one of the pantomimes as the
“British Lion.”
_Mrs Nutts._ He’s promised me to come in his skin, and I’m sure it will
be beautiful.
And for awhile turning from the fierceness of politics, raging all the
year round in Nutts’ shaving-shop, it _was_ beautiful to see how Nutts
and the customers, with wives and sweethearts, danced on New-Year’s
night. Mr Nutts led off Mrs Biggleswade from over the way; the hornpipe
of the “British Lion” was danced to admiration;--and, in the full
flush of the festivity, it is said that Mr Peabody, the scholarly
policeman, furtively saluted Mrs Nutts, when that unsuspecting woman
stood immediately beneath the mistletoe. This, however, could hardly
be, since the very next morning Mrs Nutts herself declared to Mrs
Biggleswade over the way, “that that Mr Peabody was too good for the
police; he was such a gentleman.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]