|Gentle Reader! we promised thee at the outset of our journey pleasant
companions by the way, and as an earnest of that promise, we have
introduced Benjamin Bosky and Uncle Tim. We would now bespeak thy
courtesy for others that are soon to follow. In passing happily through
life, half the battle depends upon the persons with whom we may be
associated. And shall we carry spleen into the closet?--grope for that
daily plague in our books, when it elbows and stares us in the face at
every turn? To chronicle the “Painful Peregrinations” of Uncle Timothy
through this livelong day, would exhibit him, like “Patience,” not
sitting “on a monument, smiling at grief,” but lolling in Mr. Bosky's
britschka, laughing (in his sleeve!) at the strange peculiarities of
the Muffs, and listening with mild endurance to the unaccountable
antipathies of Mrs. Flumgarten. Now the Fubsys might be called, _par
excellence_, a prudent family.
And Prudence is a nymph we much admire,
She loves to aid the hypocrite and liar,
Helping poor rascals through the mire,
Whom filth and infamy begrime:
She's one of guilt's most useful drudges,
Her good advice she never grudges,
Gives parsons meekness, gravity to judges;
But frowns upon the man of rhyme!
Good store of prudence had the Fubsy family. Their honest scruples
always prevented them from burning their fingers. They were much too
wise to walk into a well. They kept on the windy side of the law. They
were vastly prone to measure other people's morality by the
family bushel, and had exceedingly grand notions touching their
self-importance; (little minds, like little men, cannot afford to
stoop!) which those who have seen a cock on a dunghill, or a crow in a
gutter, may have some idea of.
Nothing pleased Mrs. Flumgarten. Mr. Bosky's equipage she politely
brought into depreciating comparison with the staring yellow and blue,
brass-mounted, and screw-wigged turn-out of her acquaintances the
_Kickwitches_, the mushroom aristocracy of retired “Putty and Lead!” And
when Mr. Muff, who was no herald, hearing something about Mr. Bosky's
_arms_ being painted on the panels, innocently inquired whether his
_legs_ were not painted too?--at which Uncle Timothy involuntarily
smiled--the scarlet-liveried pride of the Fubsys rushed into her cheeks,
and she bridled up, wondering what there was in Mr. Muffs question to
be laughed at. Knowing the susceptibility of Mrs. Flumgarten's nervous
system, Uncle Timothy desired John Tomkins to drive moderately slow.
This was “scratching away at a snail's pace! a cat's gallop!”
“A little faster, John,” said Uncle Timothy, mildly. This was racing
along like “Sabbath-day, pleasure-taking, public-house people in a
tax-cart!” Not an exhibition, prospect, person, or thing, were to her
mind. The dinner, which might have satisfied Apicius, she dismissed with
“faint praise,” sighing a supplementary complaint, by way of errata,
that there “_was no pickles!_”--and the carving--until the well-bred
Mrs. Flumgarten snatched the knife and fork out of Uncle Timothy's
hands--was “awful! horrid!” Then she never tastes _such_ sherry as she
does at her cousins' the _Shufflebothams_; and as for their black amber
(Hambro'?) grapes, oh! they was fit for your perfect gentlefolks!--An
inquiry from mine host, whether Uncle Timothy preferred a light or a
full wine, drew forth this jocular answer, “I like a full wine, and a
full bottle, Master Boniface.”--“So do I,” added the unguarded Mr. Muff.
This was “tremendious!”
The two ladies looked at each other, and having decided on a joint
scowl, it fell with annihilating blackness on the master-mason, and Mrs.
Muff trod upon his toes under the table, a conjugal hint that Mr. Muff
had taken enough! Mrs. Flumgarten had a momentary tiff with Mrs. Muff
upon some trifling family jealousy, which brought into contest their
diminutive dignities; but as the fond sisters had the good fortune to be
Fubsys, and as the Fubsys enjoyed the exclusive privilege of abusing
one another with impunity, the sarcastic compliments and ironical sneers
they so lovingly exchanged passed for nothing after the first fire. The
absence of Mr. Flumgarten, a scholar and a gentleman, who had backed
out of this party of pleasure, (?) left his lady at a sad loss for
one favourite subject in which she revelled, because it annoyed him;
consequently there were no vulgar impertinent hits at “your clever
people!” This hiatus led to some melancholy details of what she had
suffered during her matrimonial pilgrimage.
“Suffered!” muttered the middle-aged gentleman, indignantly. “Yes, Madam
Zantippe, you have suffered! But what? Why, your greeneyed illiterate
prejudices to mar all that makes the domestic hearth intellectual and
happy! Yes! you have reduced it to a cheerless desert, where you reign
the restless fury of contradiction and discord!”
Master Guy Muff, the eldest born of Brutus, a youth who exhibited a
capacious development of the eating and drinking organs, with a winning
smile that would have made his fortune through a horse-collar, emerged
from his post of honour behind the puffed sleeves and rustling skirts of
“ma's,” and aunt's silk gowns.
“Don't be frightened, Guy,” said Mrs. Flumgarten, soothingly; “it's
_only_ Mr. Timwig.”
“I arn't a-going to, aunt,” snuffled the self-complaisant Master Guy.
[Illustration: 0206]
“I hope, young gentleman,” said uncle Timothy, (for looking at the lump
of living lumber, he did not venture to suppose,) “that you learn your
lessons, and are perfect in your exercises.”
“What,--hoop, skipping-rope, and pris'ner's base?”
“Can you parse?”
“Oh, yes? I pass my time at dumps and marloes.”
“Speak your Christmas-piece to Mr. Timtiffin, do, dear Guy!” said “ma,”
coaxingly.
Master Guy Muff made the effort, Mr. Brutus Muff acting as prompter.
Master Guy (taking in each hand a dessert-plate).
“Look here upon this pic-tur, and on this,
The counter--counter--”
“Sink the _shop!_” whispered Uncle Timothy.
Mr. Muff. “Fit presen-ti-ment--”
“You put the boy out, Mr. Muff, as you _always_ do!” snarled Mrs. Muff.
Master Muff.--
“--Of two brothers.
See what a grace was seated on that brow;
Hy--Hy--”
“Isn't it something about curls and front?” said Mr. Muff.
Mrs. Muff took this as an affront to her own particular jazey, which was
bushily redolent of both; she darted a fierce frown _à la_ Fubsy at the
interrogator, that awed him to silence.
Master Muff.--
“A eye like Ma's to threaten and command--”
The subdued master-mason felt the full force of this line, to which
his son Guy's appropriate pronunciation and personal stare gave a
_new reading_. Here the juvenile spouter broke down, upon which Mrs.
Flumgarten took his voice under her patronage, and having prevailed on
him to try a song, the “young idea” began in an excruciating wheeze, as
if a pair of bellows had been invited to sing, the following _morceau_.
“More so,” said Mrs. Muff, encouragingly, “because pa said it was almost
good enough to be sung a Sundays after _Tabernacle_.”
There was a little bird,
His cage hung in the hall;
On Monday morning, May the third,
He couldn't sing at all.
And for this reason, mark,
Good people, great and small,
Because the pussey, for a lark,
Had eat him, bones and all.
“Ah!” cried Aunt F. approvingly, “that is a song! None of your frothy
comic stuff that _some folks_ (!!) is so fond of.”
She now entertained Uncle Timothy with an account, full of bombast and
brag, of some grand weddings that had recently been celebrated in the
Fubsy family,--the _Candlerigs_ having condescended to adulterate the
patrician blood of St. Giles's in-the-Fields with the plebeian puddle
of the City Gardens, the sometime suburban retreat of the Fubsys, where
they farmed a magnificent chateau, which, like the great Westphalian
Baron de Thunder-tan-trounck's, had a door and a window. Uncle Timothy,
to change the subject, called on Mr. Brutus Muff for a song.
“I never heered Mr. Muff sing, Mr. Timwig,” chimed the sisters
simultaneously.
“Indeed! Then, ladies, it will be the greater novelty. Come, my good
sir; but first a glass of wine with you.”
“Oh, Mr. Timwiddy, you will make Mr. Muff quite top-heavy! It must only
be a half a glass,” said Mrs. Muff, authoritatively.
“The top half, if you please, madam,” said the middle-aged gentleman;
and he poured out the “regal purple stream” till it kissed, without
flowing over, the brim. Mr. Muff brought the bumper to a level with his
lips, and, as if half ashamed of what he was doing, put both halves out
of sight!
“Is the man mad?” cried the amazed Mrs. Muff.
“Has he lost his senses?” ejaculated the bewildered Mrs. Flumgarten.
“He has found them, rather,” whispered the satirical-nosed gentleman.
The bland looks and persuasive tones of Uncle Timothy, to say nothing
of the last bumper, had wrought wonders on the master-mason. He looked
Silenus-like and rosy, and glanced his little peering eyes across the
table--Mrs. Muff having a voice too in the affair--for an assenting nod
from the fierce black velvet turban of his better and bigger half. But
Mrs. Muff made no sign, and he paused irresolute; when another kind word
from the middle-aged gentleman encouraged him, at all hazards, to begin
with,
Doctor Pott lived up one pair,
And reach'd his room by a comical stair!
Like all M.D's,
He pocketed fees
As quick as he could,
As doctors should!
And rented a knocker near Bloomsbury Square.
Tib his rib was not wery young,
Wery short, wery tall.,
Wery fair vithal;
But she had a tongue
Wery pat, wery glib
For a snow-white fib,
And wery veil hung!
“You shan't sing another line, that you shan't, Brutus!” vociferated
Mrs. Muff. But the Cockney Roman, undaunted and vocal, went on singing,
Says Doctor Peter Pott, “As I know vhat's vhat,
My anti-nervous patent pill on Tib my rib I'll try;
If Mrs. P. vill svallow, if dissolution follow,
And she should kick the bucket, I'm sure I shan't
cry!”
“Where could he have learned such a rubbishing song? A man, too, after
pa's own heart!” sighed Mrs. Muff.
Mr. Muff.--
And vel the doctor knew that a leer par les deux yeux
Mrs. Pott vithstand could not, vhen shot from Peter's
eye;
So presently plump at her he opes his organic battery,
And said the pill it vouldnt kill, no, not a little fly!
“Have you no compassion for my poor nerves?” remonstrated Mrs. Muff,
pathetically.
“None vhatsumdever,” replied the stoical Brutus. “Vhat compassion have
you ever had for mine?”
“Besides,” said he, “I svear, d'ye see,
By the goods and chattels of Doctor P.
By my vig and my cane.
Brass knocker and bell,
And the cab in vhich I cut such a svell,
That a single pill (a pill, by the by,
Is a dose!) if Mrs. Pott vill try,
Of gout and phthisic she'll newer complain,
And never vant to take physic again.”
Down it slid,
And she newer did!
(The Doctor vith laughing was like to burst!)
For this wery good reason--it finish'd her first!
“I'll send,” cried Mrs. Flumgarten, furiously, “for one of the L
division.”
“You may send to Old Nick for one of the L division!” shouted the
valiant Mr. Muff, aspirating with particular emphasis the letter L.
“Here I lays, Teddy O'Blaize, (Singing)
And my body quite at its aise is;
Vith the tip of my nose and the tops of my toes
Turn'd up to the roots of the daisies!
And now, my invaluable spouse, as I carn't conwenienly sing you any
more moral lessons, I'll tipple you two or three!” And Mr. Muff, with
admirable coolness and precision, filled himself a bumper. “First and
foremust, from this day henceforrer'd, I'm determined to be my own lord
and master.
“Imprimis and secondly, I don't choose to be the hen-pecked, colly
woffling, under-the-fear-of-his-vife-and-a-broomstick Jerry Sneak and
Pollycoddle, that the Vhitechapel pin-maker vas! You shan't, like his
loving Lizzy, currycomb my precious vig, and smuggle my last vill!”
“_Et tu Brute!_” said Uncle Timothy, in a half whisper.
“He is a brute!” sobbed Mrs. Flumgarten, “to speak so of poor dear pa!”
“Don't _purwoke_ me, Mrs. Flumgarten, into 'fending and proving, or I
shall let the cat out of the bag, and the kittens into the bargain! By
the Lord Harry, I'll _peach_, Mrs. Muff!”
Mrs. Flumgarten's unruly member was about to pour upon the master-mason
a flood of Fubsyean eloquence, when _Prudence_, the family guardian
angel, took her by the tongue's tip, as St. Dunstan took a certain
ebony gentleman by the nose. She telegraphed Mrs. Muff, and Mrs. Muff
telegraphed the intelligent Guy. Just as Brutus was fetching breath for
another ebullition, with his hand on the decanter for another bumper, he
found himself half throttled in the Cornish hug of his affectionate and
blubbering first-born! When a chimney caught fire, it was a custom
in Merrie England to drop down it a live goose, in the quality of
extinguisher! And no goose ever performed its office better than the
living Guy. He opened the flood-gates of his gooseberry eyes, and played
upon pa so effectually, that Mr. Muff's ire or fire was speedily put
out; and when, to prevent a coroner's inquest, the obedient child
was motioned by the ladies to relax his filial embrace, the mollified
master-mason began to sigh and sob too. The politic sisters now proposed
to cut short their day's pleasure!--Uncle Timothy, to whom it was some
consolation, that while he had been sitting upon thorns, his tormentors
too were a little nettled, seeing bluff John Tomkins in the stable-yard
grooming _con amore_ one of Mr. Bosky's pet bloods, called out, “John!
Tm afraid we were too many this morning for that shying left-wheeler.
Now, if he should take to kicking--”
“Kicking! Mr. Timwiddy!” screamed Mrs. Flumgarten.
“Kicking! Mr. Timwig!” echoed Mrs. Muff.
Herodotus (who practised what he preached) said, “When telling a lie
will be profitable, let it be told!”--“He may lie,” said Plato, “who
knows _how_ to do it in a suitable time.” So thought John Tomkins! who
hoping to frighten his unwelcome customers into an omnibus, and
drive home Uncle Timothy in capital style, so aggravated the possible
kickings, plungings, takings fright, and runnings away of that terrible
left-wheeler, that the accommodating middle-aged gentleman was easily
persuaded by the ladies to lighten the weight and diminish the danger,
by returning to town by some other conveyance. And it was highly
entertaining to mark the glum looks of John when he doggedly put the
horses to, and how he mischievously laid his whipcord into the sensitive
flanks of the “shying left-wheeler,” that honoured every draft on his
fetlocks, and confirmed the terrifying anticipations and multiplications
of the veracious John Tomkins!
“Song sweetens toil, however rude the sound,”--and John sweetened his by
humming the following, in which he encored himself several times, as he
drove Mrs. Flumgarten and family, to town.
Dash along! splash along! hi, gee ho!
Four-and-twenty periwigs all of a row!
Save me from a tough yarn twice over told--
Save me from a Jerry Sneak, and save me from a scold.
A horse is not a mare, and a cow is not a calf;
A woman that talks all day long has too much tongue by
half.
To the music of the fiddle I like to figure in;
But off I cut a caper from the music of the chin!
When Madam's in her tantrums, and Madam'gins to
cry;
If you want to give her change, hold an ingun to your
eye;
But if she shakes her pretty fist, and longs to come to
blows,
You may slip through her fingers, if you only soap your
nose!
Dash along! splash along! hi, gee ho!
No horse so fast can gallop as a woman's tongue can go.
“Needs must,” I've heard my granny say, “when the
devil drives.”
I wish he drove, instead of _me_, this brace of scolding
wives!