It will have been, ere now, perceived that I sold the foregoing writings.
From the fact of their being printed in these pages, the inference will,
ere now, have been drawn by the reader (may I add, the gentle reader?)
that I sold them to One who never yet--{2}
Having parted with the writings on most satisfactory terms,--for, in
opening negotiations with the present Journal, was I not placing myself
in the hands of One of whom it may be said, in the words of Another,
{2,}--resumed my usual functions. But I too soon discovered that peace
of mind had fled from a brow which, up to that time, Time had merely took
the hair off, leaving an unruffled expanse within.
It were superfluous to veil it,--the brow to which I allude is my own.
Yes, over that brow uneasiness gathered like the sable wing of the fabled
bird, as--as no doubt will be easily identified by all right-minded
individuals. If not, I am unable, on the spur of the moment, to enter
into particulars of him. The reflection that the writings must now
inevitably get into print, and that He might yet live and meet with them,
sat like the Hag of Night upon my jaded form. The elasticity of my
spirits departed. Fruitless was the Bottle, whether Wine or Medicine. I
had recourse to both, and the effect of both upon my system was
witheringly lowering.
In this state of depression, into which I subsided when I first began to
revolve what could I ever say if He--the unknown--was to appear in the
Coffee-room and demand reparation, I one forenoon in this last November
received a turn that appeared to be given me by the finger of Fate and
Conscience, hand in hand. I was alone in the Coffee-room, and had just
poked the fire into a blaze, and was standing with my back to it, trying
whether heat would penetrate with soothing influence to the Voice within,
when a young man in a cap, of an intelligent countenance, though
requiring his hair cut, stood before me.
"Mr. Christopher, the Head Waiter?"
"The same."
The young man shook his hair out of his vision,--which it impeded,--to a
packet from his breast, and handing it over to me, said, with his eye (or
did I dream?) fixed with a lambent meaning on me, "THE PROOFS."
Although I smelt my coat-tails singeing at the fire, I had not the power
to withdraw them. The young man put the packet in my faltering grasp,
and repeated,--let me do him the justice to add, with civility:
"THE PROOFS. A. Y. R."
With those words he departed.
A. Y. R.? And You Remember. Was that his meaning? At Your Risk. Were
the letters short for _that_ reminder? Anticipate Your Retribution. Did
they stand for _that_ warning? Out-dacious Youth Repent? But no; for
that, a O was happily wanting, and the vowel here was a A.
I opened the packet, and found that its contents were the foregoing
writings printed just as the reader (may I add the discerning reader?)
peruses them. In vain was the reassuring whisper,--A.Y.R., All the Year
Round,--it could not cancel the Proofs. Too appropriate name. The
Proofs of my having sold the Writings.
My wretchedness daily increased. I had not thought of the risk I ran,
and the defying publicity I put my head into, until all was done, and all
was in print. Give up the money to be off the bargain and prevent the
publication, I could not. My family was down in the world, Christmas was
coming on, a brother in the hospital and a sister in the rheumatics could
not be entirely neglected. And it was not only ins in the family that
had told on the resources of one unaided Waitering; outs were not
wanting. A brother out of a situation, and another brother out of money
to meet an acceptance, and another brother out of his mind, and another
brother out at New York (not the same, though it might appear so), had
really and truly brought me to a stand till I could turn myself round. I
got worse and worse in my meditations, constantly reflecting "The
Proofs," and reflecting that when Christmas drew nearer, and the Proofs
were published, there could be no safety from hour to hour but that He
might confront me in the Coffee-room, and in the face of day and his
country demand his rights.
The impressive and unlooked-for catastrophe towards which I dimly pointed
the reader (shall I add, the highly intellectual reader?) in my first
remarks now rapidly approaches.
It was November still, but the last echoes of the Guy Foxes had long
ceased to reverberate. We was slack,--several joints under our average
mark, and wine, of course, proportionate. So slack had we become at
last, that Beds Nos. 26, 27, 28, and 31, having took their six o'clock
dinners, and dozed over their respective pints, had drove away in their
respective Hansoms for their respective Night Mail-trains and left us
empty.
I had took the evening paper to No. 6 table,--which is warm and most to
be preferred,--and, lost in the all-absorbing topics of the day, had
dropped into a slumber. I was recalled to consciousness by the
well-known intimation, "Waiter!" and replying, "Sir!" found a gentleman
standing at No. 4 table. The reader (shall I add, the observant reader?)
will please to notice the locality of the gentleman,--_at No. 4 table_.
He had one of the newfangled uncollapsable bags in his hand (which I am
against, for I don't see why you shouldn't collapse, while you are about
it, as your fathers collapsed before you), and he said:
"I want to dine, waiter. I shall sleep here to-night."
"Very good, sir. What will you take for dinner, sir?"
"Soup, bit of codfish, oyster sauce, and the joint."
"Thank you, sir."
I rang the chambermaid's bell; and Mrs. Pratchett marched in, according
to custom, demurely carrying a lighted flat candle before her, as if she
was one of a long public procession, all the other members of which was
invisible.
In the meanwhile the gentleman had gone up to the mantelpiece, right in
front of the fire, and had laid his forehead against the mantelpiece
(which it is a low one, and brought him into the attitude of leap-frog),
and had heaved a tremenjous sigh. His hair was long and lightish; and
when he laid his forehead against the mantelpiece, his hair all fell in a
dusty fluff together over his eyes; and when he now turned round and
lifted up his head again, it all fell in a dusty fluff together over his
ears. This give him a wild appearance, similar to a blasted heath.
"O! The chambermaid. Ah!" He was turning something in his mind. "To
be sure. Yes. I won't go up-stairs now, if you will take my bag. It
will be enough for the present to know my number.--Can you give me 24 B?"
(O Conscience, what a Adder art thou!)
Mrs. Pratchett allotted him the room, and took his bag to it. He then
went back before the fire, and fell a biting his nails.
"Waiter!" biting between the words, "give me," bite, "pen and paper; and
in five minutes," bite, "let me have, if you please," bite, "a", bite,
"Messenger."
Unmindful of his waning soup, he wrote and sent off six notes before he
touched his dinner. Three were City; three West-End. The City letters
were to Cornhill, Ludgate-hill, and Farringdon Street. The West-End
letters were to Great Marlborough Street, New Burlington Street, and
Piccadilly. Everybody was systematically denied at every one of the six
places, and there was not a vestige of any answer. Our light porter
whispered to me, when he came back with that report, "All Booksellers."
But before then he had cleared off his dinner, and his bottle of wine. He
now--mark the concurrence with the document formerly given in
full!--knocked a plate of biscuits off the table with his agitated elber
(but without breakage), and demanded boiling brandy-and-water.
Now fully convinced that it was Himself, I perspired with the utmost
freedom. When he became flushed with the heated stimulant referred to,
he again demanded pen and paper, and passed the succeeding two hours in
producing a manuscript which he put in the fire when completed. He then
went up to bed, attended by Mrs. Pratchett. Mrs. Pratchett (who was
aware of my emotions) told me, on coming down, that she had noticed his
eye rolling into every corner of the passages and staircase, as if in
search of his Luggage, and that, looking back as she shut the door of 24
B, she perceived him with his coat already thrown off immersing himself
bodily under the bedstead, like a chimley-sweep before the application of
machinery.
The next day--I forbear the horrors of that night--was a very foggy day
in our part of London, insomuch that it was necessary to light the Coffee-
room gas. We was still alone, and no feverish words of mine can do
justice to the fitfulness of his appearance as he sat at No. 4 table,
increased by there being something wrong with the meter.
Having again ordered his dinner, he went out, and was out for the best
part of two hours. Inquiring on his return whether any of the answers
had arrived, and receiving an unqualified negative, his instant call was
for mulligatawny, the cayenne pepper, and orange brandy.
Feeling that the mortal struggle was now at hand, I also felt that I must
be equal to him, and with that view resolved that whatever he took I
would take. Behind my partition, but keeping my eye on him over the
curtain, I therefore operated on Mulligatawny, Cayenne Pepper, and Orange
Brandy. And at a later period of the day, when he again said, "Orange
Brandy," I said so too, in a lower tone, to George, my Second Lieutenant
(my First was absent on leave), who acts between me and the bar.
Throughout that awful day he walked about the Coffee-room continually.
Often he came close up to my partition, and then his eye rolled within,
too evidently in search of any signs of his Luggage. Half-past six came,
and I laid his cloth. He ordered a bottle of old Brown. I likewise
ordered a bottle of old Brown. He drank his. I drank mine (as nearly as
my duties would permit) glass for glass against his. He topped with
coffee and a small glass. I topped with coffee and a small glass. He
dozed. I dozed. At last, "Waiter!"--and he ordered his bill. The
moment was now at hand when we two must be locked in the deadly grapple.
Swift as the arrow from the bow, I had formed my resolution; in other
words, I had hammered it out between nine and nine. It was, that I would
be the first to open up the subject with a full acknowledgment, and would
offer any gradual settlement within my power. He paid his bill (doing
what was right by attendance) with his eye rolling about him to the last
for any tokens of his Luggage. One only time our gaze then met, with the
lustrous fixedness (I believe I am correct in imputing that character to
it?) of the well-known Basilisk. The decisive moment had arrived.
With a tolerable steady hand, though with humility, I laid The Proofs
before him.
"Gracious Heavens!" he cries out, leaping up, and catching hold of his
hair. "What's this? Print!"
"Sir," I replied, in a calming voice, and bending forward, "I humbly
acknowledge to being the unfortunate cause of it. But I hope, sir, that
when you have heard the circumstances explained, and the innocence of my
intentions--"
To my amazement, I was stopped short by his catching me in both his arms,
and pressing me to his breast-bone; where I must confess to my face (and
particular, nose) having undergone some temporary vexation from his
wearing his coat buttoned high up, and his buttons being uncommon hard.
"Ha, ha, ha!" he cries, releasing me with a wild laugh, and grasping my
hand. "What is your name, my Benefactor?"
"My name, sir" (I was crumpled, and puzzled to make him out), "is
Christopher; and I hope, sir, that, as such, when you've heard my ex--"
"In print!" he exclaims again, dashing the proofs over and over as if he
was bathing in them.--"In print!! O Christopher! Philanthropist!
Nothing can recompense you,--but what sum of money would be acceptable to
you?"
I had drawn a step back from him, or I should have suffered from his
buttons again.
"Sir, I assure you, I have been already well paid, and--"
"No, no, Christopher! Don't talk like that! What sum of money would be
acceptable to you, Christopher? Would you find twenty pounds acceptable,
Christopher?"
However great my surprise, I naturally found words to say, "Sir, I am not
aware that the man was ever yet born without more than the average amount
of water on the brain as would not find twenty pounds acceptable.
But--extremely obliged to you, sir, I'm sure;" for he had tumbled it out
of his purse and crammed it in my hand in two bank-notes; "but I could
wish to know, sir, if not intruding, how I have merited this liberality?"
"Know then, my Christopher," he says, "that from boyhood's hour I have
unremittingly and unavailingly endeavoured to get into print. Know,
Christopher, that all the Booksellers alive--and several dead--have
refused to put me into print. Know, Christopher, that I have written
unprinted Reams. But they shall be read to you, my friend and brother.
You sometimes have a holiday?"
Seeing the great danger I was in, I had the presence of mind to answer,
"Never!" To make it more final, I added, "Never! Not from the cradle to
the grave."
"Well," says he, thinking no more about that, and chuckling at his proofs
again. "But I am in print! The first flight of ambition emanating from
my father's lowly cot is realised at length! The golden bow"--he was
getting on,--"struck by the magic hand, has emitted a complete and
perfect sound! When did this happen, my Christopher?"
"Which happen, sir?"
"This," he held it out at arms length to admire it,--"this Per-rint."
When I had given him my detailed account of it, he grasped me by the hand
again, and said:
"Dear Christopher, it should be gratifying to you to know that you are an
instrument in the hands of Destiny. Because you _are_."
A passing Something of a melancholy cast put it into my head to shake it,
and to say, "Perhaps we all are."
"I don't mean that," he answered; "I don't take that wide range; I
confine myself to the special case. Observe me well, my Christopher!
Hopeless of getting rid, through any effort of my own, of any of the
manuscripts among my Luggage,--all of which, send them where I would,
were always coming back to me,--it is now some seven years since I left
that Luggage here, on the desperate chance, either that the too, too
faithful manuscripts would come back to me no more, or that some one less
accursed than I might give them to the world. You follow me, my
Christopher?"
"Pretty well, sir." I followed him so far as to judge that he had a weak
head, and that the Orange, the Boiling, and Old Brown combined was
beginning to tell. (The Old Brown, being heady, is best adapted to
seasoned cases.)
"Years elapsed, and those compositions slumbered in dust. At length,
Destiny, choosing her agent from all mankind, sent You here, Christopher,
and lo! the Casket was burst asunder, and the Giant was free!"
He made hay of his hair after he said this, and he stood a-tiptoe.
"But," he reminded himself in a state of excitement, "we must sit up all
night, my Christopher. I must correct these Proofs for the press. Fill
all the inkstands, and bring me several new pens."
He smeared himself and he smeared the Proofs, the night through, to that
degree that when Sol gave him warning to depart (in a four-wheeler), few
could have said which was them, and which was him, and which was blots.
His last instructions was, that I should instantly run and take his
corrections to the office of the present Journal. I did so. They most
likely will not appear in print, for I noticed a message being brought
round from Beauford Printing House, while I was a throwing this
concluding statement on paper, that the ole resources of that
establishment was unable to make out what they meant. Upon which a
certain gentleman in company, as I will not more particularly name,--but
of whom it will be sufficient to remark, standing on the broad basis of a
wave-girt isle, that whether we regard him in the light of,--{3} laughed,
and put the corrections in the fire.
FOOTNOTES
{1} Its name and address at length, with other full particulars, all
editorially struck out.
{2} The remainder of this complimentary sentence editorially struck out.
{3} The remainder of this complimentary parenthesis editorially struck
out.