IN WHICH SHEPPARD LEE IS TOLD HIS HISTORY.
An idea had suddenly seized me; and I must say, that up to this time,
it was the most brilliant one that ever entered my mind. My ignorance
of Mr. I. D. Dawkins's affairs was still highly inconvenient and
oppressive, and I was determined, with my friend's assistance, to
remove it.
"Tickle," said I, "I really believe the doctor has only half
resuscitated me; my body is pretty well, but my mind is only so-so.
Would you believe it, my memory is quite gone?"
"As to your debts, certainly," said Jack; "so is mine."
"Ged," said I, "'tis gone altogether. Really, it seems to me as if I
had only begun existence this morning; my recollection of all events
(and even persons known) anterior to my sop in the river, is so
imperfect, you can't conceive. Would you believe it, I really didn't
know that rogue Sniggles, and had to ask him his name! The ladies,
too, Jack--Miss Smith, Miss Small, and the rest that you were talking
about--who the deuse are they? I have heard much talk of my uncle, too.
_Have_ I an uncle? and if so, who and what is he? for I swear, 'pon
honour, Jack, I know no more than the man in the moon. In a word, Jack,
demmee, I am in my second childhood, and you must help me out of it.
Give me, therefore, my history, my whole history, and tell me all about
me; for may I be dunned to death if I rightly know who I am!"
"You don't?" said Jack; "well, that's funny; but I have heard of such
things before. Is a dip in cold water, then, so hard on the memory?
I say, Dawky, my fellow, couldn't we contrive some way to dip our
creditors? But, eged now, Dawky, you a'n't serious?"
"I am," said I; "and I beg you'll give me an idea who I am, and all
other things appertaining."
"Oh!" said Tickle, who seemed vastly diverted by my embarrassment,
"that is soon done. You are a dandy of pure blood, and poor as a church
mouse, but not yet out of favour. Your father, who was a dandy before
you, and in prime esteem, having bought his way into notice with two or
three cargoes of indigo and young hyson (for he was an India merchant),
properly laid out in elegant entertainments, gave up trade to live a
gentleman, and died one; leaving you, an elegant fellow and ignoramus,
as a gentleman's son should be, to spend his leavings. This you have
done, Dawky, and most gloriously. For five years, none of us, the sons
of nabobocracy, could compare with you in dash, flash, and splash. But
even Phaeton fell! Horses galloped away, buggies and curricles rolled
into the gutter, and tailors looked alarmed--stocks flew out at the
window, bricks and mortar took to themselves wings, and your stockings
began to want darning. Then said Dawkins, 'I will marry a wife,' and
he looked loving at Periwinkle's fair daughter; and Periwinkle's fair
daughter looked loving at Dawkins; and Dawkins calling counsel of his
friend, John Tickle, of Ticklesbury Manor, beheld and lo! Periwinkle's
fair daughter's father's fine estate was fenced round with rows
of mortgages, as thick and thorny as prickly-pears. Whereupon the
inconstant swain, forgetting his vows, ran to the elegant Miss Small,
who smiled on him, and married another; and the loss of this adorable
fair, fortune and all, together with an uncommon fit of dunning,
so affected my friend's spirits, that he threw himself into the
Schuylkill, whence he was fished by a fellow called What-d'-ye-call-it,
a brewer."
"Well," said I; "but do you mean to say I have squandered all my
property?"
"Every sous," said my friend; "it is just six weeks since you spent the
last dollar of the last term of your annuity."
"What annuity?" said I.
"Why, the five years' annuity you bought of old Goldfist. Is it
possible you don't recollect _him_? Don't you remember the row of
negro-houses you owned down in Southwark?"
"I don't," said I.
"A piece of arrant cheating! sheer swindling!" said Tickle; "but
when did old Skinner ever make an honest bargain? The houses and
lot of ground worth two thousand, as they stood; but title good and
indefeisible, and capable of being made worth twenty thousand: I
remember you offered 'em to old Goldfist for seven. What said the old
hunks? 'Give me immediate possession, and thereupon you shall have a
bonus of a thousand on the nail, together with the same sum yearly
for five years, provided you live so long--if not, then as long as
you live.' Snapped like a gudgeon, and was bit; and on the fifth
year--beginning of August last, had the last integer of payment, with
comfort of seeing a property you had sold for six thousand, yielding
its possessor just that much a year."
"The geds!" said I; "has old Goldfist six thousand a year?"
"Say sixty," replied Jack.
"Tickle," said I, "the old curmudgeon has a daughter: I'll marry her."
"No you won't," said my friend, shaking his head mournfully: "old
Goldfist is too well acquainted with your affairs; and unless you have
his consent, what will you get by her?"
"Tickle," said I, "I must marry somebody, or be ruined. But stay,
there's my uncle; now, my dear fellow, who is he?"
"Faith," said Tickle, "I don't know; always supposed he belonged to the
Apocrypha, and was used to argue duns into good manners: nobody sues
a young fellow that has good expectations from a rich uncle. But, now
I think of it, I believe you did once tell me you had an uncle--some
vagabond trading fellow or other--in the west; but I never heard you
say you expected any thing of him. I thought you called him Wiggins;
but Sniggles says Wilkins. All's one, however; for I remember you said
he had brats of his own."
I began to feel uncomfortable; and, upon questioning my friend further,
I discovered that my situation was far from being agreeable. I had a
horrible quantity of debts on my shoulders, and no fund to discharge
them; and, what was worse, I found that my means of subsistence were
not only precarious, but I had good reason to fear they were any
thing but reputable. My dear friend John Tickle, though a gentleman
and dandy, it was plain, was a personage who lived by his wits; and
I began to see that Mr. I. D. Dawkins was another. From Tickle's
expressions, I perceived that our chief dependance lay in the noble
trade of pigeon-hunting. As this is a word some of my readers may be
too unsophisticated to understand, I will explain it, and in very few
words. As there are in the world young fellows of plebeian origin
but full pockets, who are ambitious to figure in elegant society, so
there are also in elegant society sundry youths of better fame than
fortune, who are willing to patronise them, provided any thing can
be made by their condescension; in which case, the happy Phaeton is
taught to spend his money in ways most advantageous to his patrons,
though by no means to his own profit. Such a young gentleman is then
called a pigeon, and is allowed to flutter in the sunbeams, while his
eagle-clawed friends are helping themselves to his feathers; the last
of which being abstracted, he is commonly called a fine fellow, and
kicked out of their company. I cannot pretend to say what degree of
relish my prototype, the true I. D. Dawkins, may have had for such
a mode of existence; but I must aver in my own defence, that I had,
throughout the whole adventure, while in his body, so much of Sheppard
Lee's original sense of honour and honesty hanging about me, that I was
more than once shocked at the meanness and depravity of such a course
of life; and when I first understood the thing from Tickle, I was so
ashamed of myself, that had I lighted upon the body of any decent man
at the moment, I do verily believe I should have done my best to get
into it, and so put an end to Mr. I. D. Dawkins altogether. But men's
bodies are not like the dry-goods dealers' boxes in Market-street, to
be stumbled into at any moment.
It was some comfort to me to find that our practice in this particular
was so little known, that both Tickle and myself--but myself more
especially--were considered in the main very excellent, exemplary
young men, as far as dandies could be, and were still allowed to mingle
in elegant society.
As for Tickle, indeed, I soon discovered he was in but doubtful odour
with the ladies, at least with their mammas; for he had been for
some years living on his wits: but I, on the contrary, being pretty
universally regarded as the heir-expectant of a rich uncle, and being
besides a prettier fellow, was received with general favour and
approbation.
Having obtained from Tickle as much of my (or Mr. I. D. Dawkins's)
history as was necessary, I gave my worthy friend to understand I
should need his advice and assistance in returning into society; "for,"
said I, and very truly too, "I really sha'n't know anybody, and shall
feel very awkward. Here," I added, "are two invitations for this very
evening--one from Mrs. Pickup, and the other from the Misses Oldstyle.
Now who is Mrs. Pickup? and who are the Oldstyles? and where the
mischief do they live?"
"It is very odd you should forget so much," said Tickle; and then
proceeded to give me the information I wanted, promising also to go
with me to both places himself, and prompt me through all difficulties.