‘Well, now, you’d better begin to pave the way,’ said Parsons, who,

having invested some money in the speculation, assumed the office of

director.

‘Yes, yes, I will—presently,’ replied Tottle, greatly flurried.

‘Say something to her, man,’ urged Parsons again. ‘Confound it! pay her

a compliment, can’t you?’

‘No! not till after dinner,’ replied the bashful Tottle, anxious to

postpone the evil moment.

‘Well, gentlemen,’ said Mrs. Parsons, ‘you are really very polite; you

stay away the whole morning, after promising to take us out, and when

you do come home, you stand whispering together and take no notice of

us.’

‘We were talking of the _business_, my dear, which detained us this

morning,’ replied Parsons, looking significantly at Tottle.

‘Dear me! how very quickly the morning has gone,’ said Miss Lillerton,

referring to the gold watch, which was wound up on state occasions,

whether it required it or not.

‘_I_ think it has passed very slowly,’ mildly suggested Tottle.

(‘That’s right—bravo!’) whispered Parsons.

‘Indeed!’ said Miss Lillerton, with an air of majestic surprise.

‘I can only impute it to my unavoidable absence from your society,

madam,’ said Watkins, ‘and that of Mrs. Parsons.’

During this short dialogue, the ladies had been leading the way to the

house.

‘What the deuce did you stick Fanny into that last compliment for?’

inquired Parsons, as they followed together; ‘it quite spoilt the

effect.’

‘Oh! it really would have been too broad without,’ replied Watkins

Tottle, ‘much too broad!’

‘He’s mad!’ Parsons whispered his wife, as they entered the

drawing-room, ‘mad from modesty.’

‘Dear me!’ ejaculated the lady, ‘I never heard of such a thing.’

‘You’ll find we have quite a family dinner, Mr. Tottle,’ said Mrs.

Parsons, when they sat down to table: ‘Miss Lillerton is one of us,

and, of course, we make no stranger of you.’

Mr. Watkins Tottle expressed a hope that the Parsons family never would

make a stranger of him; and wished internally that his bashfulness

would allow him to feel a little less like a stranger himself.

‘Take off the covers, Martha,’ said Mrs. Parsons, directing the

shifting of the scenery with great anxiety. The order was obeyed, and a

pair of boiled fowls, with tongue and et ceteras, were displayed at the

top, and a fillet of veal at the bottom. On one side of the table two

green sauce-tureens, with ladles of the same, were setting to each

other in a green dish; and on the other was a curried rabbit, in a

brown suit, turned up with lemon.

‘Miss Lillerton, my dear,’ said Mrs. Parsons, ‘shall I assist you?’

‘Thank you, no; I think I’ll trouble Mr. Tottle.’

Watkins started—trembled—helped the rabbit—and broke a tumbler. The

countenance of the lady of the house, which had been all smiles

previously, underwent an awful change.

‘Extremely sorry,’ stammered Watkins, assisting himself to currie and

parsley and butter, in the extremity of his confusion.

‘Not the least consequence,’ replied Mrs. Parsons, in a tone which

implied that it was of the greatest consequence possible,—directing

aside the researches of the boy, who was groping under the table for

the bits of broken glass.

‘I presume,’ said Miss Lillerton, ‘that Mr. Tottle is aware of the

interest which bachelors usually pay in such cases; a dozen glasses for

one is the lowest penalty.’

Mr. Gabriel Parsons gave his friend an admonitory tread on the toe.

Here was a clear hint that the sooner he ceased to be a bachelor and

emancipated himself from such penalties, the better. Mr. Watkins Tottle

viewed the observation in the same light, and challenged Mrs. Parsons

to take wine, with a degree of presence of mind, which, under all the

circumstances, was really extraordinary.

‘Miss Lillerton,’ said Gabriel, ‘may I have the pleasure?’

‘I shall be most happy.’

‘Tottle, will you assist Miss Lillerton, and pass the decanter. Thank

you.’ (The usual pantomimic ceremony of nodding and sipping gone

through)—

‘Tottle, were you ever in Suffolk?’ inquired the master of the house,

who was burning to tell one of his seven stock stories.

‘No,’ responded Watkins, adding, by way of a saving clause, ‘but I’ve

been in Devonshire.’

‘Ah!’ replied Gabriel, ‘it was in Suffolk that a rather singular

circumstance happened to me many years ago. Did you ever happen to hear

me mention it?’

Mr. Watkins Tottle _had_ happened to hear his friend mention it some

four hundred times. Of course he expressed great curiosity, and evinced

the utmost impatience to hear the story again. Mr. Gabriel Parsons

forthwith attempted to proceed, in spite of the interruptions to which,

as our readers must frequently have observed, the master of the house

is often exposed in such cases. We will attempt to give them an idea of

our meaning.

‘When I was in Suffolk—’ said Mr. Gabriel Parsons.

‘Take off the fowls first, Martha,’ said Mrs. Parsons. ‘I beg your

pardon, my dear.’

‘When I was in Suffolk,’ resumed Mr. Parsons, with an impatient glance

at his wife, who pretended not to observe it, ‘which is now years ago,

business led me to the town of Bury St. Edmund’s. I had to stop at the

principal places in my way, and therefore, for the sake of convenience,

I travelled in a gig. I left Sudbury one dark night—it was winter

time—about nine o’clock; the rain poured in torrents, the wind howled

among the trees that skirted the roadside, and I was obliged to proceed

at a foot-pace, for I could hardly see my hand before me, it was so

dark—’

‘John,’ interrupted Mrs. Parsons, in a low, hollow voice, ‘don’t spill

that gravy.’

‘Fanny,’ said Parsons impatiently, ‘I wish you’d defer these domestic

reproofs to some more suitable time. Really, my dear, these constant

interruptions are very annoying.’

‘My dear, I didn’t interrupt you,’ said Mrs. Parsons.

‘But, my dear, you _did_ interrupt me,’ remonstrated Mr. Parsons.

‘How very absurd you are, my love! I must give directions to the

servants; I am quite sure that if I sat here and allowed John to spill

the gravy over the new carpet, you’d be the first to find fault when

you saw the stain to-morrow morning.’

‘Well,’ continued Gabriel with a resigned air, as if he knew there was

no getting over the point about the carpet, ‘I was just saying, it was

so dark that I could hardly see my hand before me. The road was very

lonely, and I assure you, Tottle (this was a device to arrest the

wandering attention of that individual, which was distracted by a

confidential communication between Mrs. Parsons and Martha, accompanied

by the delivery of a large bunch of keys), I assure you, Tottle, I

became somehow impressed with a sense of the loneliness of my

situation—’

‘Pie to your master,’ interrupted Mrs. Parsons, again directing the

servant.

‘Now, pray, my dear,’ remonstrated Parsons once more, very pettishly.

Mrs. P. turned up her hands and eyebrows, and appealed in dumb show to

Miss Lillerton. ‘As I turned a corner of the road,’ resumed Gabriel,

‘the horse stopped short, and reared tremendously. I pulled up, jumped

out, ran to his head, and found a man lying on his back in the middle

of the road, with his eyes fixed on the sky. I thought he was dead; but

no, he was alive, and there appeared to be nothing the matter with him.

He jumped up, and putting his hand to his chest, and fixing upon me the

most earnest gaze you can imagine, exclaimed—’

‘Pudding here,’ said Mrs. Parsons.

‘Oh! it’s no use,’ exclaimed the host, now rendered desperate. ‘Here,

Tottle; a glass of wine. It’s useless to attempt relating anything when

Mrs. Parsons is present.’

This attack was received in the usual way. Mrs. Parsons talked _to_

Miss Lillerton and _at_ her better half; expatiated on the impatience

of men generally; hinted that her husband was peculiarly vicious in

this respect, and wound up by insinuating that she must be one of the

best tempers that ever existed, or she never could put up with it.

Really what she had to endure sometimes, was more than any one who saw

her in every-day life could by possibility suppose.—The story was now a

painful subject, and therefore Mr. Parsons declined to enter into any

details, and contented himself by stating that the man was a maniac,

who had escaped from a neighbouring mad-house.

The cloth was removed; the ladies soon afterwards retired, and Miss

Lillerton played the piano in the drawing-room overhead, very loudly,

for the edification of the visitor. Mr. Watkins Tottle and Mr. Gabriel

Parsons sat chatting comfortably enough, until the conclusion of the

second bottle, when the latter, in proposing an adjournment to the

drawing-room, informed Watkins that he had concerted a plan with his

wife, for leaving him and Miss Lillerton alone, soon after tea.

‘I say,’ said Tottle, as they went up-stairs, ‘don’t you think it would

be better if we put it off till-till-to-morrow?’

‘Don’t _you_ think it would have been much better if I had left you in

that wretched hole I found you in this morning?’ retorted Parsons

bluntly.

‘Well—well—I only made a suggestion,’ said poor Watkins Tottle, with a

deep sigh.

Tea was soon concluded, and Miss Lillerton, drawing a small work-table

on one side of the fire, and placing a little wooden frame upon it,

something like a miniature clay-mill without the horse, was soon busily

engaged in making a watch-guard with brown silk.

‘God bless me!’ exclaimed Parsons, starting up with well-feigned

surprise, ‘I’ve forgotten those confounded letters. Tottle, I know

you’ll excuse me.’

If Tottle had been a free agent, he would have allowed no one to leave

the room on any pretence, except himself. As it was, however, he was

obliged to look cheerful when Parsons quitted the apartment.

He had scarcely left, when Martha put her head into the room,

with—‘Please, ma’am, you’re wanted.’

Mrs. Parsons left the room, shut the door carefully after her, and Mr.

Watkins Tottle was left alone with Miss Lillerton.

For the first five minutes there was a dead silence.—Mr. Watkins Tottle

was thinking how he should begin, and Miss Lillerton appeared to be

thinking of nothing. The fire was burning low; Mr. Watkins Tottle

stirred it, and put some coals on.

‘Hem!’ coughed Miss Lillerton; Mr. Watkins Tottle thought the fair

creature had spoken. ‘I beg your pardon,’ said he.

‘Eh?’

‘I thought you spoke.’

‘No.’

‘Oh!’

‘There are some books on the sofa, Mr. Tottle, if you would like to

look at them,’ said Miss Lillerton, after the lapse of another five

minutes.

‘No, thank you,’ returned Watkins; and then he added, with a courage

which was perfectly astonishing, even to himself, ‘Madam, that is Miss

Lillerton, I wish to speak to you.’

‘To me!’ said Miss Lillerton, letting the silk drop from her hands, and

sliding her chair back a few paces.—‘Speak—to me!’

‘To you, madam—and on the subject of the state of your affections.’ The

lady hastily rose and would have left the room; but Mr. Watkins Tottle

gently detained her by the hand, and holding it as far from him as the

joint length of their arms would permit, he thus proceeded: ‘Pray do

not misunderstand me, or suppose that I am led to address you, after so

short an acquaintance, by any feeling of my own merits—for merits I

have none which could give me a claim to your hand. I hope you will

acquit me of any presumption when I explain that I have been acquainted

through Mrs. Parsons, with the state—that is, that Mrs. Parsons has

told me—at least, not Mrs. Parsons, but—’ here Watkins began to wander,

but Miss Lillerton relieved him.

‘Am I to understand, Mr. Tottle, that Mrs. Parsons has acquainted you

with my feeling—my affection—I mean my respect, for an individual of

the opposite sex?’

‘She has.’

‘Then, what?’ inquired Miss Lillerton, averting her face, with a

girlish air, ‘what could induce _you_ to seek such an interview as

this? What can your object be? How can I promote your happiness, Mr.

Tottle?’

Here was the time for a flourish—‘By allowing me,’ replied Watkins,

falling bump on his knees, and breaking two brace-buttons and a

waistcoat-string, in the act—‘By allowing me to be your slave, your

servant—in short, by unreservedly making me the confidant of your

heart’s feelings—may I say for the promotion of your own happiness—may

I say, in order that you may become the wife of a kind and affectionate

husband?’

‘Disinterested creature!’ exclaimed Miss Lillerton, hiding her face in

a white pocket-handkerchief with an eyelet-hole border.

Mr. Watkins Tottle thought that if the lady knew all, she might

possibly alter her opinion on this last point. He raised the tip of her

middle finger ceremoniously to his lips, and got off his knees, as

gracefully as he could. ‘My information was correct?’ he tremulously

inquired, when he was once more on his feet.

‘It was.’ Watkins elevated his hands, and looked up to the ornament in

the centre of the ceiling, which had been made for a lamp, by way of

expressing his rapture.

‘Our situation, Mr. Tottle,’ resumed the lady, glancing at him through

one of the eyelet-holes, ‘is a most peculiar and delicate one.’

‘It is,’ said Mr. Tottle.

‘Our acquaintance has been of _so_ short duration,’ said Miss

Lillerton.

‘Only a week,’ assented Watkins Tottle.

‘Oh! more than that,’ exclaimed the lady, in a tone of surprise.

‘Indeed!’ said Tottle.

‘More than a month—more than two months!’ said Miss Lillerton.

‘Rather odd, this,’ thought Watkins.

‘Oh!’ he said, recollecting Parsons’s assurance that she had known him

from report, ‘I understand. But, my dear madam, pray, consider. The

longer this acquaintance has existed, the less reason is there for

delay now. Why not at once fix a period for gratifying the hopes of

your devoted admirer?’

‘It has been represented to me again and again that this is the course

I ought to pursue,’ replied Miss Lillerton, ‘but pardon my feelings of

delicacy, Mr. Tottle—pray excuse this embarrassment—I have peculiar

ideas on such subjects, and I am quite sure that I never could summon

up fortitude enough to name the day to my future husband.’

‘Then allow _me_ to name it,’ said Tottle eagerly.

‘I should like to fix it myself,’ replied Miss Lillerton, bashfully,

‘but I cannot do so without at once resorting to a third party.’

‘A third party!’ thought Watkins Tottle; ‘who the deuce is that to be,

I wonder!’

‘Mr. Tottle,’ continued Miss Lillerton, ‘you have made me a most

disinterested and kind offer—that offer I accept. Will you at once be

the bearer of a note from me to—to Mr. Timson?’

‘Mr. Timson!’ said Watkins.

‘After what has passed between us,’ responded Miss Lillerton, still

averting her head, ‘you must understand whom I mean; Mr. Timson,

the—the—clergyman.’

‘Mr. Timson, the clergyman!’ ejaculated Watkins Tottle, in a state of

inexpressible beatitude, and positive wonder at his own success.

‘Angel! Certainly—this moment!’

‘I’ll prepare it immediately,’ said Miss Lillerton, making for the

door; ‘the events of this day have flurried me so much, Mr. Tottle,

that I shall not leave my room again this evening; I will send you the

note by the servant.’

‘Stay,—stay,’ cried Watkins Tottle, still keeping a most respectful

distance from the lady; ‘when shall we meet again?’

‘Oh! Mr. Tottle,’ replied Miss Lillerton, coquettishly, ‘when _we_ are

married, I can never see you too often, nor thank you too much;’ and

she left the room.

Mr. Watkins Tottle flung himself into an arm-chair, and indulged in the

most delicious reveries of future bliss, in which the idea of ‘Five

hundred pounds per annum, with an uncontrolled power of disposing of it

by her last will and testament,’ was somehow or other the foremost. He

had gone through the interview so well, and it had terminated so

admirably, that he almost began to wish he had expressly stipulated for

the settlement of the annual five hundred on himself.

‘May I come in?’ said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, peeping in at the door.

‘You may,’ replied Watkins.

‘Well, have you done it?’ anxiously inquired Gabriel.

‘Have I done it!’ said Watkins Tottle. ‘Hush—I’m going to the

clergyman.’

‘No!’ said Parsons. ‘How well you have managed it!’

‘Where does Timson live?’ inquired Watkins.

‘At his uncle’s,’ replied Gabriel, ‘just round the lane. He’s waiting

for a living, and has been assisting his uncle here for the last two or

three months. But how well you have done it—I didn’t think you could

have carried it off so!’

Mr. Watkins Tottle was proceeding to demonstrate that the Richardsonian

principle was the best on which love could possibly be made, when he

was interrupted by the entrance of Martha, with a little pink note

folded like a fancy cocked-hat.

‘Miss Lillerton’s compliments,’ said Martha, as she delivered it into

Tottle’s hands, and vanished.

‘Do you observe the delicacy?’ said Tottle, appealing to Mr. Gabriel

Parsons. ‘_Compliments_, not _love_, by the servant, eh?’

Mr. Gabriel Parsons didn’t exactly know what reply to make, so he poked

the forefinger of his right hand between the third and fourth ribs of

Mr. Watkins Tottle.

‘Come,’ said Watkins, when the explosion of mirth, consequent on this

practical jest, had subsided, ‘we’ll be off at once—let’s lose no

time.’

‘Capital!’ echoed Gabriel Parsons; and in five minutes they were at the

garden-gate of the villa tenanted by the uncle of Mr. Timson.

‘Is Mr. Charles Timson at home?’ inquired Mr. Watkins Tottle of Mr.

Charles Timson’s uncle’s man.

‘Mr. Charles _is_ at home,’ replied the man, stammering; ‘but he

desired me to say he couldn’t be interrupted, sir, by any of the

parishioners.’

‘_I_ am not a parishioner,’ replied Watkins.

‘Is Mr. Charles writing a sermon, Tom?’ inquired Parsons, thrusting

himself forward.

‘No, Mr. Parsons, sir; he’s not exactly writing a sermon, but he is

practising the violoncello in his own bedroom, and gave strict orders

not to be disturbed.’

‘Say I’m here,’ replied Gabriel, leading the way across the garden;

‘Mr. Parsons and Mr. Tottle, on private and particular business.’

They were shown into the parlour, and the servant departed to deliver

his message. The distant groaning of the violoncello ceased; footsteps

were heard on the stairs; and Mr. Timson presented himself, and shook

hands with Parsons with the utmost cordiality.

‘How do you do, sir?’ said Watkins Tottle, with great solemnity.

‘How do _you_ do, sir?’ replied Timson, with as much coldness as if it

were a matter of perfect indifference to him how he did, as it very

likely was.

‘I beg to deliver this note to you,’ said Watkins Tottle, producing the

cocked-hat.

‘From Miss Lillerton!’ said Timson, suddenly changing colour. ‘Pray sit

down.’

Mr. Watkins Tottle sat down; and while Timson perused the note, fixed

his eyes on an oyster-sauce-coloured portrait of the Archbishop of

Canterbury, which hung over the fireplace.

Mr. Timson rose from his seat when he had concluded the note, and

looked dubiously at Parsons. ‘May I ask,’ he inquired, appealing to

Watkins Tottle, ‘whether our friend here is acquainted with the object

of your visit?’

‘Our friend is in _my_ confidence,’ replied Watkins, with considerable

importance.

‘Then, sir,’ said Timson, seizing both Tottle’s hands, ‘allow me in his

presence to thank you most unfeignedly and cordially, for the noble

part you have acted in this affair.’

‘He thinks I recommended him,’ thought Tottle. ‘Confound these fellows!

they never think of anything but their fees.’

‘I deeply regret having misunderstood your intentions, my dear sir,’

continued Timson. ‘Disinterested and manly, indeed! There are very few

men who would have acted as you have done.’

Mr. Watkins Tottle could not help thinking that this last remark was

anything but complimentary. He therefore inquired, rather hastily,

‘When is it to be?’

‘On Thursday,’ replied Timson,—‘on Thursday morning at half-past

eight.’

‘Uncommonly early,’ observed Watkins Tottle, with an air of triumphant

self-denial. ‘I shall hardly be able to get down here by that hour.’

(This was intended for a joke.)

‘Never mind, my dear fellow,’ replied Timson, all suavity, shaking

hands with Tottle again most heartily, ‘so long as we see you to

breakfast, you know—’

‘Eh!’ said Parsons, with one of the most extraordinary expressions of

countenance that ever appeared in a human face.

‘What!’ ejaculated Watkins Tottle, at the same moment.

‘I say that so long as we see you to breakfast,’ replied Timson, ‘we

will excuse your being absent from the ceremony, though of course your

presence at it would give us the utmost pleasure.’

Mr. Watkins Tottle staggered against the wall, and fixed his eyes on

Timson with appalling perseverance.

‘Timson,’ said Parsons, hurriedly brushing his hat with his left arm,

‘when you say “us,” whom do you mean?’

Mr. Timson looked foolish in his turn, when he replied, ‘Why—Mrs.

Timson that will be this day week: Miss Lillerton that is—’

‘Now don’t stare at that idiot in the corner,’ angrily exclaimed

Parsons, as the extraordinary convulsions of Watkins Tottle’s

countenance excited the wondering gaze of Timson,—‘but have the

goodness to tell me in three words the contents of that note?’

‘This note,’ replied Timson, ‘is from Miss Lillerton, to whom I have

been for the last five weeks regularly engaged. Her singular scruples

and strange feeling on some points have hitherto prevented my bringing

the engagement to that termination which I so anxiously desire. She

informs me here, that she sounded Mrs. Parsons with the view of making

her her confidante and go-between, that Mrs. Parsons informed this

elderly gentleman, Mr. Tottle, of the circumstance, and that he, in the

most kind and delicate terms, offered to assist us in any way, and even

undertook to convey this note, which contains the promise I have long

sought in vain—an act of kindness for which I can never be sufficiently

grateful.’

‘Good night, Timson,’ said Parsons, hurrying off, and carrying the

bewildered Tottle with him.

‘Won’t you stay—and have something?’ said Timson.

‘No, thank ye,’ replied Parsons; ‘I’ve had quite enough;’ and away he

went, followed by Watkins Tottle in a state of stupefaction.

Mr. Gabriel Parsons whistled until they had walked some quarter of a

mile past his own gate, when he suddenly stopped, and said—

‘You are a clever fellow, Tottle, ain’t you?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the unfortunate Watkins.

‘I suppose you’ll say this is Fanny’s fault, won’t you?’ inquired

Gabriel.

‘I don’t know anything about it,’ replied the bewildered Tottle.

‘Well,’ said Parsons, turning on his heel to go home, ‘the next time

you make an offer, you had better speak plainly, and don’t throw a

chance away. And the next time you’re locked up in a spunging-house,

just wait there till I come and take you out, there’s a good fellow.’

How, or at what hour, Mr. Watkins Tottle returned to Cecil-street is

unknown. His boots were seen outside his bedroom-door next morning; but

we have the authority of his landlady for stating that he neither

emerged therefrom nor accepted sustenance for four-and-twenty hours. At

the expiration of that period, and when a council of war was being held

in the kitchen on the propriety of summoning the parochial beadle to

break his door open, he rang his bell, and demanded a cup of

milk-and-water. The next morning he went through the formalities of

eating and drinking as usual, but a week afterwards he was seized with

a relapse, while perusing the list of marriages in a morning paper,

from which he never perfectly recovered.

A few weeks after the last-named occurrence, the body of a gentleman

unknown, was found in the Regent’s canal. In the trousers-pockets were

four shillings and threepence halfpenny; a matrimonial advertisement

from a lady, which appeared to have been cut out of a Sunday paper: a

tooth-pick, and a card-case, which it is confidently believed would

have led to the identification of the unfortunate gentleman, but for

the circumstance of there being none but blank cards in it. Mr. Watkins

Tottle absented himself from his lodgings shortly before. A bill, which

has not been taken up, was presented next morning; and a bill, which

has not been taken down, was soon afterwards affixed in his

parlour-window.

CHAPTER XI—THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING

Mr. Nicodemus Dumps, or, as his acquaintance called him, ‘long Dumps,’

was a bachelor, six feet high, and fifty years old: cross, cadaverous,

odd, and ill-natured. He was never happy but when he was miserable; and

always miserable when he had the best reason to be happy. The only real

comfort of his existence was to make everybody about him wretched—then

he might be truly said to enjoy life. He was afflicted with a situation

in the Bank worth five hundred a-year, and he rented a ‘first-floor

furnished,’ at Pentonville, which he originally took because it

commanded a dismal prospect of an adjacent churchyard. He was familiar

with the face of every tombstone, and the burial service seemed to

excite his strongest sympathy. His friends said he was surly—he

insisted he was nervous; they thought him a lucky dog, but he protested

that he was ‘the most unfortunate man in the world.’ Cold as he was,

and wretched as he declared himself to be, he was not wholly

unsusceptible of attachments. He revered the memory of Hoyle, as he was

himself an admirable and imperturbable whist-player, and he chuckled

with delight at a fretful and impatient adversary. He adored King Herod

for his massacre of the innocents; and if he hated one thing more than

another, it was a child. However, he could hardly be said to hate

anything in particular, because he disliked everything in general; but

perhaps his greatest antipathies were cabs, old women, doors that would

not shut, musical amateurs, and omnibus cads. He subscribed to the

‘Society for the Suppression of Vice’ for the pleasure of putting a

stop to any harmless amusements; and he contributed largely towards the

support of two itinerant methodist parsons, in the amiable hope that if

circumstances rendered any people happy in this world, they might

perchance be rendered miserable by fears for the next.

Mr. Dumps had a nephew who had been married about a year, and who was

somewhat of a favourite with his uncle, because he was an admirable

subject to exercise his misery-creating powers upon. Mr. Charles

Kitterbell was a small, sharp, spare man, with a very large head, and a

broad, good-humoured countenance. He looked like a faded giant, with

the head and face partially restored; and he had a cast in his eye

which rendered it quite impossible for any one with whom he conversed

to know where he was looking. His eyes appeared fixed on the wall, and

he was staring you out of countenance; in short, there was no catching

his eye, and perhaps it is a merciful dispensation of Providence that

such eyes are not catching. In addition to these characteristics, it

may be added that Mr. Charles Kitterbell was one of the most credulous

and matter-of-fact little personages that ever took _to_ himself a

wife, and _for_ himself a house in Great Russell-street,

Bedford-square. (Uncle Dumps always dropped the ‘Bedford-square,’ and

inserted in lieu thereof the dreadful words ‘Tottenham-court-road.’)

‘No, but, uncle, ’pon my life you must—you must promise to be

godfather,’ said Mr. Kitterbell, as he sat in conversation with his

respected relative one morning.

‘I cannot, indeed I cannot,’ returned Dumps.

‘Well, but why not? Jemima will think it very unkind. It’s very little

trouble.’

‘As to the trouble,’ rejoined the most unhappy man in existence, ‘I

don’t mind that; but my nerves are in that state—I cannot go through

the ceremony. You know I don’t like going out.—For God’s sake, Charles,

don’t fidget with that stool so; you’ll drive me mad.’ Mr. Kitterbell,

quite regardless of his uncle’s nerves, had occupied himself for some

ten minutes in describing a circle on the floor with one leg of the

office-stool on which he was seated, keeping the other three up in the

air, and holding fast on by the desk.

‘I beg your pardon, uncle,’ said Kitterbell, quite abashed, suddenly

releasing his hold of the desk, and bringing the three wandering legs

back to the floor, with a force sufficient to drive them through it.

‘But come, don’t refuse. If it’s a boy, you know, we must have two

godfathers.’

‘_If_ it’s a boy!’ said Dumps; ‘why can’t you say at once whether it

_is_ a boy or not?’

‘I should be very happy to tell you, but it’s impossible I can

undertake to say whether it’s a girl or a boy, if the child isn’t born

yet.’

‘Not born yet!’ echoed Dumps, with a gleam of hope lighting up his

lugubrious visage. ‘Oh, well, it _may_ be a girl, and then you won’t

want me; or if it is a boy, it _may_ die before it is christened.’

‘I hope not,’ said the father that expected to be, looking very grave.

‘I hope not,’ acquiesced Dumps, evidently pleased with the subject. He

was beginning to get happy. ‘I hope not, but distressing cases

frequently occur during the first two or three days of a child’s life;

fits, I am told, are exceedingly common, and alarming convulsions are

almost matters of course.’

‘Lord, uncle!’ ejaculated little Kitterbell, gasping for breath.

‘Yes; my landlady was confined—let me see—last Tuesday: an uncommonly

fine boy. On the Thursday night the nurse was sitting with him upon her

knee before the fire, and he was as well as possible. Suddenly he

became black in the face, and alarmingly spasmodic. The medical man was

instantly sent for, and every remedy was tried, but—’

‘How frightful!’ interrupted the horror-stricken Kitterbell.

‘The child died, of course. However, your child _may_ not die; and if

it should be a boy, and should _live_ to be christened, why I suppose I

must be one of the sponsors.’ Dumps was evidently good-natured on the

faith of his anticipations.

‘Thank you, uncle,’ said his agitated nephew, grasping his hand as

warmly as if he had done him some essential service. ‘Perhaps I had

better not tell Mrs. K. what you have mentioned.’

‘Why, if she’s low-spirited, perhaps you had better not mention the

melancholy case to her,’ returned Dumps, who of course had invented the

whole story; ‘though perhaps it would be but doing your duty as a

husband to prepare her for the _worst_.’

A day or two afterwards, as Dumps was perusing a morning paper at the

chop-house which he regularly frequented, the following-paragraph met

his eyes:—

‘_Births_.—On Saturday, the 18th inst., in Great Russell-street, the

lady of Charles Kitterbell, Esq., of a son.’

‘It _is_ a boy!’ he exclaimed, dashing down the paper, to the

astonishment of the waiters. ‘It _is_ a boy!’ But he speedily regained

his composure as his eye rested on a paragraph quoting the number of

infant deaths from the bills of mortality.

Six weeks passed away, and as no communication had been received from

the Kitterbells, Dumps was beginning to flatter himself that the child

was dead, when the following note painfully resolved his doubts:—

‘_Great Russell-street_,

_Monday morning_.

‘Dear Uncle,—You will be delighted to hear that my dear Jemima has left

her room, and that your future godson is getting on capitally. He was

very thin at first, but he is getting much larger, and nurse says he is

filling out every day. He cries a good deal, and is a very singular

colour, which made Jemima and me rather uncomfortable; but as nurse

says it’s natural, and as of course we know nothing about these things

yet, we are quite satisfied with what nurse says. We think he will be a

sharp child; and nurse says she’s sure he will, because he never goes

to sleep. You will readily believe that we are all very happy, only

we’re a little worn out for want of rest, as he keeps us awake all

night; but this we must expect, nurse says, for the first six or eight

months. He has been vaccinated, but in consequence of the operation

being rather awkwardly performed, some small particles of glass were

introduced into the arm with the matter. Perhaps this may in some

degree account for his being rather fractious; at least, so nurse says.

We propose to have him christened at twelve o’clock on Friday, at Saint

George’s church, in Hart-street, by the name of Frederick Charles

William. Pray don’t be later than a quarter before twelve. We shall

have a very few friends in the evening, when of course we shall see

you. I am sorry to say that the dear boy appears rather restless and

uneasy to-day: the cause, I fear, is fever.

‘Believe me, dear Uncle,

‘Yours affectionately,

‘Charles Kitterbell.

‘P.S.—I open this note to say that we have just discovered the cause of

little Frederick’s restlessness. It is not fever, as I apprehended, but

a small pin, which nurse accidentally stuck in his leg yesterday

evening. We have taken it out, and he appears more composed, though he

still sobs a good deal.’

It is almost unnecessary to say that the perusal of the above

interesting statement was no great relief to the mind of the

hypochondriacal Dumps. It was impossible to recede, however, and so he

put the best face—that is to say, an uncommonly miserable one—upon the

matter; and purchased a handsome silver mug for the infant Kitterbell,

upon which he ordered the initials ‘F. C. W. K.,’ with the customary

untrained grape-vine-looking flourishes, and a large full stop, to be

engraved forthwith.

Monday was a fine day, Tuesday was delightful, Wednesday was equal to

either, and Thursday was finer than ever; four successive fine days in

London! Hackney-coachmen became revolutionary, and crossing-sweepers

began to doubt the existence of a First Cause. The _Morning Herald_

informed its readers that an old woman in Camden Town had been heard to

say that the fineness of the season was ‘unprecedented in the memory of

the oldest inhabitant;’ and Islington clerks, with large families and

small salaries, left off their black gaiters, disdained to carry their

once green cotton umbrellas, and walked to town in the conscious pride

of white stockings and cleanly brushed Bluchers. Dumps beheld all this

with an eye of supreme contempt—his triumph was at hand. He knew that

if it had been fine for four weeks instead of four days, it would rain

when he went out; he was lugubriously happy in the conviction that

Friday would be a wretched day—and so it was. ‘I knew how it would be,’

said Dumps, as he turned round opposite the Mansion-house at half-past

eleven o’clock on the Friday morning. ‘I knew how it would be. _I_ am

concerned, and that’s enough;’—and certainly the appearance of the day

was sufficient to depress the spirits of a much more buoyant-hearted

individual than himself. It had rained, without a moment’s cessation,

since eight o’clock; everybody that passed up Cheapside, and down

Cheapside, looked wet, cold, and dirty. All sorts of forgotten and

long-concealed umbrellas had been put into requisition. Cabs whisked

about, with the ‘fare’ as carefully boxed up behind two glazed calico

curtains as any mysterious picture in any one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s

castles; omnibus horses smoked like steam-engines; nobody thought of

‘standing up’ under doorways or arches; they were painfully convinced

it was a hopeless case; and so everybody went hastily along, jumbling

and jostling, and swearing and perspiring, and slipping about, like

amateur skaters behind wooden chairs on the Serpentine on a frosty

Sunday.

Dumps paused; he could not think of walking, being rather smart for the

christening. If he took a cab he was sure to be spilt, and a

hackney-coach was too expensive for his economical ideas. An omnibus

was waiting at the opposite corner—it was a desperate case—he had never

heard of an omnibus upsetting or running away, and if the cad did knock

him down, he could ‘pull him up’ in return.

‘Now, sir!’ cried the young gentleman who officiated as ‘cad’ to the

‘Lads of the Village,’ which was the name of the machine just noticed.

Dumps crossed.

‘This vay, sir!’ shouted the driver of the ‘Hark-away,’ pulling up his

vehicle immediately across the door of the opposition—‘This vay,

sir—he’s full.’ Dumps hesitated, whereupon the ‘Lads of the Village’

commenced pouring out a torrent of abuse against the ‘Hark-away;’ but

the conductor of the ‘Admiral Napier’ settled the contest in a most

satisfactory manner, for all parties, by seizing Dumps round the waist,

and thrusting him into the middle of his vehicle which had just come up

and only wanted the sixteenth inside.

‘All right,’ said the ‘Admiral,’ and off the thing thundered, like a

fire-engine at full gallop, with the kidnapped customer inside,

standing in the position of a half doubled-up bootjack, and falling

about with every jerk of the machine, first on the one side, and then

on the other, like a ‘Jack-in-the-green,’ on May-day, setting to the

lady with a brass ladle.

‘For Heaven’s sake, where am I to sit?’ inquired the miserable man of

an old gentleman, into whose stomach he had just fallen for the fourth

time.

‘Anywhere but on my _chest_, sir,’ replied the old gentleman in a surly

tone.

‘Perhaps the _box_ would suit the gentleman better,’ suggested a very

damp lawyer’s clerk, in a pink shirt, and a smirking countenance.

After a great deal of struggling and falling about, Dumps at last

managed to squeeze himself into a seat, which, in addition to the

slight disadvantage of being between a window that would not shut, and

a door that must be open, placed him in close contact with a passenger,

who had been walking about all the morning without an umbrella, and who

looked as if he had spent the day in a full water-butt—only wetter.

‘Don’t bang the door so,’ said Dumps to the conductor, as he shut it

after letting out four of the passengers; I am very nervous—it destroys

me.’

‘Did any gen’lm’n say anythink?’ replied the cad, thrusting in his

head, and trying to look as if he didn’t understand the request.

‘I told you not to bang the door so!’ repeated Dumps, with an

expression of countenance like the knave of clubs, in convulsions.

‘Oh! vy, it’s rather a sing’ler circumstance about this here door, sir,

that it von’t shut without banging,’ replied the conductor; and he

opened the door very wide, and shut it again with a terrific bang, in

proof of the assertion.

‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said a little prim, wheezing old gentleman,

sitting opposite Dumps, ‘I beg your pardon; but have you ever observed,

when you have been in an omnibus on a wet day, that four people out of

five always come in with large cotton umbrellas, without a handle at

the top, or the brass spike at the bottom?’

‘Why, sir,’ returned Dumps, as he heard the clock strike twelve, ‘it

never struck me before; but now you mention it, I—Hollo! hollo!’

shouted the persecuted individual, as the omnibus dashed past

Drury-lane, where he had directed to be set down.—‘Where is the cad?’

‘I think he’s on the box, sir,’ said the young gentleman before noticed

in the pink shirt, which looked like a white one ruled with red ink.

‘I want to be set down!’ said Dumps in a faint voice, overcome by his

previous efforts.

‘I think these cads want to be _set down_,’ returned the attorney’s

clerk, chuckling at his sally.

‘Hollo!’ cried Dumps again.

‘Hollo!’ echoed the passengers. The omnibus passed St. Giles’s church.

‘Hold hard!’ said the conductor; ‘I’m blowed if we ha’n’t forgot the

gen’lm’n as vas to be set down at Doory-lane.—Now, sir, make haste, if

you please,’ he added, opening the door, and assisting Dumps out with

as much coolness as if it was ‘all right.’ Dumps’s indignation was for

once getting the better of his cynical equanimity. ‘Drury-lane!’ he

gasped, with the voice of a boy in a cold bath for the first time.

‘Doory-lane, sir?—yes, sir,—third turning on the right-hand side, sir.’

Dumps’s passion was paramount: he clutched his umbrella, and was

striding off with the firm determination of not paying the fare. The

cad, by a remarkable coincidence, happened to entertain a directly

contrary opinion, and Heaven knows how far the altercation would have

proceeded, if it had not been most ably and satisfactorily brought to a

close by the driver.

‘Hollo!’ said that respectable person, standing up on the box, and

leaning with one hand on the roof of the omnibus. ‘Hollo, Tom! tell the

gentleman if so be as he feels aggrieved, we will take him up to the

Edge-er (Edgeware) Road for nothing, and set him down at Doory-lane

when we comes back. He can’t reject that, anyhow.’

The argument was irresistible: Dumps paid the disputed sixpence, and in

a quarter of an hour was on the staircase of No. 14, Great

Russell-street.

Everything indicated that preparations were making for the reception of

‘a few friends’ in the evening. Two dozen extra tumblers, and four

ditto wine-glasses—looking anything but transparent, with little bits

of straw in them on the slab in the passage, just arrived. There was a

great smell of nutmeg, port wine, and almonds, on the staircase; the

covers were taken off the stair-carpet, and the figure of Venus on the

first landing looked as if she were ashamed of the composition-candle

in her right hand, which contrasted beautifully with the lamp-blacked

drapery of the goddess of love. The female servant (who looked very

warm and bustling) ushered Dumps into a front drawing-room, very

prettily furnished, with a plentiful sprinkling of little baskets,

paper table-mats, china watchmen, pink and gold albums, and

rainbow-bound little books on the different tables.

‘Ah, uncle!’ said Mr. Kitterbell, ‘how d’ye do? Allow me—Jemima, my

dear—my uncle. I think you’ve seen Jemima before, sir?’

‘Have had the _pleasure_,’ returned big Dumps, his tone and look making

it doubtful whether in his life he had ever experienced the sensation.

‘I’m sure,’ said Mrs. Kitterbell, with a languid smile, and a slight

cough. ‘I’m sure—hem—any friend—of Charles’s—hem—much less a relation,

is—’

‘I knew you’d say so, my love,’ said little Kitterbell, who, while he

appeared to be gazing on the opposite houses, was looking at his wife

with a most affectionate air: ‘Bless you!’ The last two words were

accompanied with a simper, and a squeeze of the hand, which stirred up

all Uncle Dumps’s bile.

‘Jane, tell nurse to bring down baby,’ said Mrs. Kitterbell, addressing

the servant. Mrs. Kitterbell was a tall, thin young lady, with very

light hair, and a particularly white face—one of those young women who

almost invariably, though one hardly knows why, recall to one’s mind

the idea of a cold fillet of veal. Out went the servant, and in came

the nurse, with a remarkably small parcel in her arms, packed up in a

blue mantle trimmed with white fur.—This was the baby.

‘Now, uncle,’ said Mr. Kitterbell, lifting up that part of the mantle

which covered the infant’s face, with an air of great triumph, ‘_Who_

do you think he’s like?’

‘He! he! Yes, who?’ said Mrs. K., putting her arm through her

husband’s, and looking up into Dumps’s face with an expression of as

much interest as she was capable of displaying.

‘Good God, how small he is!’ cried the amiable uncle, starting back

with well-feigned surprise; ‘_remarkably_ small indeed.’

‘Do you think so?’ inquired poor little Kitterbell, rather alarmed.

‘He’s a monster to what he was—ain’t he, nurse?’

‘He’s a dear,’ said the nurse, squeezing the child, and evading the

question—not because she scrupled to disguise the fact, but because she

couldn’t afford to throw away the chance of Dumps’s half-crown.

‘Well, but who is he like?’ inquired little Kitterbell.

Dumps looked at the little pink heap before him, and only thought at

the moment of the best mode of mortifying the youthful parents.

‘I really don’t know _who_ he’s like,’ he answered, very well knowing

the reply expected of him.

‘Don’t you think he’s like _me_?’ inquired his nephew with a knowing

air.

‘Oh, _decidedly_ not!’ returned Dumps, with an emphasis not to be

misunderstood. ‘Decidedly not like you.—Oh, certainly not.’

‘Like Jemima?’ asked Kitterbell, faintly.

‘Oh, dear no; not in the least. I’m no judge, of course, in such cases;

but I really think he’s more like one of those little carved

representations that one sometimes sees blowing a trumpet on a

tombstone!’ The nurse stooped down over the child, and with great

difficulty prevented an explosion of mirth. Pa and ma looked almost as

miserable as their amiable uncle.

‘Well!’ said the disappointed little father, ‘you’ll be better able to

tell what he’s like by-and-by. You shall see him this evening with his

mantle off.’

‘Thank you,’ said Dumps, feeling particularly grateful.

‘Now, my love,’ said Kitterbell to his wife, ‘it’s time we were off.

We’re to meet the other godfather and the godmother at the church,

uncle,—Mr. and Mrs. Wilson from over the way—uncommonly nice people. My

love, are you well wrapped up?’

‘Yes, dear.’

‘Are you sure you won’t have another shawl?’ inquired the anxious

husband.

‘No, sweet,’ returned the charming mother, accepting Dumps’s proffered

arm; and the little party entered the hackney-coach that was to take

them to the church; Dumps amusing Mrs. Kitterbell by expatiating

largely on the danger of measles, thrush, teeth-cutting, and other

interesting diseases to which children are subject.

The ceremony (which occupied about five minutes) passed off without

anything particular occurring. The clergyman had to dine some distance

from town, and had two churchings, three christenings, and a funeral to

perform in something less than an hour. The godfathers and godmother,

therefore, promised to renounce the devil and all his works—‘and all

that sort of thing’—as little Kitterbell said—‘in less than no time;’

and with the exception of Dumps nearly letting the child fall into the

font when he handed it to the clergyman, the whole affair went off in

the usual business-like and matter-of-course manner, and Dumps

re-entered the Bank-gates at two o’clock with a heavy heart, and the

painful conviction that he was regularly booked for an evening party.

Evening came—and so did Dumps’s pumps, black silk stockings, and white

cravat which he had ordered to be forwarded, per boy, from Pentonville.

The depressed godfather dressed himself at a friend’s counting-house,

from whence, with his spirits fifty degrees below proof, he sallied

forth—as the weather had cleared up, and the evening was tolerably

fine—to walk to Great Russell-street. Slowly he paced up Cheapside,

Newgate-street, down Snow-hill, and up Holborn ditto, looking as grim

as the figure-head of a man-of-war, and finding out fresh causes of

misery at every step. As he was crossing the corner of Hatton-garden, a

man apparently intoxicated, rushed against him, and would have knocked

him down, had he not been providentially caught by a very genteel young

man, who happened to be close to him at the time. The shock so

disarranged Dumps’s nerves, as well as his dress, that he could hardly

stand. The gentleman took his arm, and in the kindest manner walked

with him as far as Furnival’s Inn. Dumps, for about the first time in

his life, felt grateful and polite; and he and the gentlemanly-looking

young man parted with mutual expressions of good will.

‘There are at least some well-disposed men in the world,’ ruminated the

misanthropical Dumps, as he proceeded towards his destination.

Rat—tat—ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-rat—knocked a hackney-coachman at Kitterbell’s

door, in imitation of a gentleman’s servant, just as Dumps reached it;

and out came an old lady in a large toque, and an old gentleman in a

blue coat, and three female copies of the old lady in pink dresses, and

shoes to match.

‘It’s a large party,’ sighed the unhappy godfather, wiping the

perspiration from his forehead, and leaning against the area-railings.

It was some time before the miserable man could muster up courage to

knock at the door, and when he did, the smart appearance of a

neighbouring greengrocer (who had been hired to wait for seven and

sixpence, and whose calves alone were worth double the money), the lamp

in the passage, and the Venus on the landing, added to the hum of many

voices, and the sound of a harp and two violins, painfully convinced

him that his surmises were but too well founded.

‘How are you?’ said little Kitterbell, in a greater bustle than ever,

bolting out of the little back parlour with a cork-screw in his hand,

and various particles of sawdust, looking like so many inverted commas,

on his inexpressibles.

‘Good God!’ said Dumps, turning into the aforesaid parlour to put his

shoes on, which he had brought in his coat-pocket, and still more

appalled by the sight of seven fresh-drawn corks, and a corresponding

number of decanters. ‘How many people are there up-stairs?’

‘Oh, not above thirty-five. We’ve had the carpet taken up in the back

drawing-room, and the piano and the card-tables are in the front.

Jemima thought we’d better have a regular sit-down supper in the front

parlour, because of the speechifying, and all that. But, Lord! uncle,

what’s the matter?’ continued the excited little man, as Dumps stood

with one shoe on, rummaging his pockets with the most frightful

distortion of visage. ‘What have you lost? Your pocket-book?’

‘No,’ returned Dumps, diving first into one pocket and then into the

other, and speaking in a voice like Desdemona with the pillow over her

mouth.

‘Your card-case? snuff-box? the key of your lodgings?’ continued

Kitterbell, pouring question on question with the rapidity of

lightning.

‘No! no!’ ejaculated Dumps, still diving eagerly into his empty

pockets.

‘Not—not—the _mug_ you spoke of this morning?’

‘Yes, the _mug_!’ replied Dumps, sinking into a chair.

‘How _could_ you have done it?’ inquired Kitterbell. ‘Are you sure you

brought it out?’

‘Yes! yes! I see it all!’ said Dumps, starting up as the idea flashed

across his mind; ‘miserable dog that I am—I was born to suffer. I see

it all: it was the gentlemanly-looking young man!’

‘Mr. Dumps!’ shouted the greengrocer in a stentorian voice, as he

ushered the somewhat recovered godfather into the drawing-room half an

hour after the above declaration. ‘Mr. Dumps!’—everybody looked at the

door, and in came Dumps, feeling about as much out of place as a salmon

might be supposed to be on a gravel-walk.

‘Happy to see you again,’ said Mrs. Kitterbell, quite unconscious of

the unfortunate man’s confusion and misery; ‘you must allow me to

introduce you to a few of our friends:—my mamma, Mr. Dumps—my papa and

sisters.’ Dumps seized the hand of the mother as warmly as if she was

his own parent, bowed _to_ the young ladies, and _against_ a gentleman

behind him, and took no notice whatever of the father, who had been

bowing incessantly for three minutes and a quarter.

‘Uncle,’ said little Kitterbell, after Dumps had been introduced to a

select dozen or two, ‘you must let me lead you to the other end of the

room, to introduce you to my friend Danton. Such a splendid fellow!—I’m

sure you’ll like him—this way,’—Dumps followed as tractably as a tame

bear.

Mr. Danton was a young man of about five-and-twenty, with a

considerable stock of impudence, and a very small share of ideas: he

was a great favourite, especially with young ladies of from sixteen to

twenty-six years of age, both inclusive. He could imitate the

French-horn to admiration, sang comic songs most inimitably, and had

the most insinuating way of saying impertinent nothings to his doting

female admirers. He had acquired, somehow or other, the reputation of

being a great wit, and, accordingly, whenever he opened his mouth,

everybody who knew him laughed very heartily.

The introduction took place in due form. Mr. Danton bowed, and twirled

a lady’s handkerchief, which he held in his hand, in a most comic way.

Everybody smiled.

‘Very warm,’ said Dumps, feeling it necessary to say something.

‘Yes. It was warmer yesterday,’ returned the brilliant Mr. Danton.—A

general laugh.

‘I have great pleasure in congratulating you on your first appearance

in the character of a father, sir,’ he continued, addressing

Dumps—‘godfather, I mean.’—The young ladies were convulsed, and the

gentlemen in ecstasies.

A general hum of admiration interrupted the conversation, and announced

the entrance of nurse with the baby. An universal rush of the young

ladies immediately took place. (Girls are always _so_ fond of babies in

company.)

‘Oh, you dear!’ said one.

‘How sweet!’ cried another, in a low tone of the most enthusiastic

admiration.

‘Heavenly!’ added a third.

‘Oh! what dear little arms!’ said a fourth, holding up an arm and fist

about the size and shape of the leg of a fowl cleanly picked.

‘Did you ever!’—said a little coquette with a large bustle, who looked

like a French lithograph, appealing to a gentleman in three

waistcoats—‘Did you ever!’

‘Never, in my life,’ returned her admirer, pulling up his collar.

‘Oh! _do_ let me take it, nurse,’ cried another young lady. ‘The love!’

‘Can it open its eyes, nurse?’ inquired another, affecting the utmost

innocence.—Suffice it to say, that the single ladies unanimously voted

him an angel, and that the married ones, _nem. con._, agreed that he

was decidedly the finest baby they had ever beheld—except their own.

The quadrilles were resumed with great spirit. Mr. Danton was

universally admitted to be beyond himself; several young ladies

enchanted the company and gained admirers by singing ‘We met’—‘I saw

her at the Fancy Fair’—and other equally sentimental and interesting

ballads. ‘The young men,’ as Mrs. Kitterbell said, ‘made themselves

very agreeable;’ the girls did not lose their opportunity; and the

evening promised to go off excellently. Dumps didn’t mind it: he had

devised a plan for himself—a little bit of fun in his own way—and he

was almost happy! He played a rubber and lost every point Mr. Danton

said he could not have lost every point, because he made a point of

losing: everybody laughed tremendously. Dumps retorted with a better

joke, and nobody smiled, with the exception of the host, who seemed to

consider it his duty to laugh till he was black in the face, at

everything. There was only one drawback—the musicians did not play with

quite as much spirit as could have been wished. The cause, however, was

satisfactorily explained; for it appeared, on the testimony of a

gentleman who had come up from Gravesend in the afternoon, that they

had been engaged on board a steamer all day, and had played almost

without cessation all the way to Gravesend, and all the way back again.

The ‘sit-down supper’ was excellent; there were four barley-sugar

temples on the table, which would have looked beautiful if they had not

melted away when the supper began; and a water-mill, whose only fault

was that instead of going round, it ran over the table-cloth. Then

there were fowls, and tongue, and trifle, and sweets, and lobster

salad, and potted beef—and everything. And little Kitterbell kept

calling out for clean plates, and the clean plates did not come: and

then the gentlemen who wanted the plates said they didn’t mind, they’d

take a lady’s; and then Mrs. Kitterbell applauded their gallantry, and

the greengrocer ran about till he thought his seven and sixpence was

very hardly earned; and the young ladies didn’t eat much for fear it

shouldn’t look romantic, and the married ladies eat as much as

possible, for fear they shouldn’t have enough; and a great deal of wine

was drunk, and everybody talked and laughed considerably.

‘Hush! hush!’ said Mr. Kitterbell, rising and looking very important.

‘My love (this was addressed to his wife at the other end of the

table), take care of Mrs. Maxwell, and your mamma, and the rest of the

married ladies; the gentlemen will persuade the young ladies to fill

their glasses, I am sure.’

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said long Dumps, in a very sepulchral voice and

rueful accent, rising from his chair like the ghost in Don Juan, ‘will

you have the kindness to charge your glasses? I am desirous of

proposing a toast.’

A dead silence ensued, and the glasses were filled—everybody looked

serious.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ slowly continued the ominous Dumps, ‘I’—(here

Mr. Danton imitated two notes from the French-horn, in a very loud key,

which electrified the nervous toast-proposer, and convulsed his

audience).

‘Order! order!’ said little Kitterbell, endeavouring to suppress his

laughter.

‘Order!’ said the gentlemen.

‘Danton, be quiet,’ said a particular friend on the opposite side of

the table.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ resumed Dumps, somewhat recovered, and not much

disconcerted, for he was always a pretty good hand at a speech—‘In

accordance with what is, I believe, the established usage on these

occasions, I, as one of the godfathers of Master Frederick Charles

William Kitterbell—(here the speaker’s voice faltered, for he

remembered the mug)—venture to rise to propose a toast. I need hardly

say that it is the health and prosperity of that young gentleman, the

particular event of whose early life we are here met to

celebrate—(applause). Ladies and gentlemen, it is impossible to suppose

that our friends here, whose sincere well-wishers we all are, can pass

through life without some trials, considerable suffering, severe

affliction, and heavy losses!’—Here the arch-traitor paused, and slowly

drew forth a long, white pocket-handkerchief—his example was followed

by several ladies. ‘That these trials may be long spared them is my

most earnest prayer, my most fervent wish (a distinct sob from the

grandmother). I hope and trust, ladies and gentlemen, that the infant

whose christening we have this evening met to celebrate, may not be

removed from the arms of his parents by premature decay (several

cambrics were in requisition): that his young and now _apparently_

healthy form, may not be wasted by lingering disease. (Here Dumps cast

a sardonic glance around, for a great sensation was manifest among the

married ladies.) You, I am sure, will concur with me in wishing that he

may live to be a comfort and a blessing to his parents. (“Hear, hear!”

and an audible sob from Mr. Kitterbell.) But should he not be what we

could wish—should he forget in after times the duty which he owes to

them—should they unhappily experience that distracting truth, “how

sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child”’—Here

Mrs. Kitterbell, with her handkerchief to her eyes, and accompanied by

several ladies, rushed from the room, and went into violent hysterics

in the passage, leaving her better half in almost as bad a condition,

and a general impression in Dumps’s favour; for people like sentiment,

after all.

It need hardly be added, that this occurrence quite put a stop to the

harmony of the evening. Vinegar, hartshorn, and cold water, were now as

much in request as negus, rout-cakes, and _bon-bons_ had been a short

time before. Mrs. Kitterbell was immediately conveyed to her apartment,

the musicians were silenced, flirting ceased, and the company slowly

departed. Dumps left the house at the commencement of the bustle, and

walked home with a light step, and (for him) a cheerful heart. His

landlady, who slept in the next room, has offered to make oath that she

heard him laugh, in his peculiar manner, after he had locked his door.

The assertion, however, is so improbable, and bears on the face of it

such strong evidence of untruth, that it has never obtained credence to

this hour.

The family of Mr. Kitterbell has considerably increased since the

period to which we have referred; he has now two sons and a daughter;

and as he expects, at no distant period, to have another addition to

his blooming progeny, he is anxious to secure an eligible godfather for

the occasion. He is determined, however, to impose upon him two

conditions. He must bind himself, by a solemn obligation, not to make

any speech after supper; and it is indispensable that he should be in

no way connected with ‘the most miserable man in the world.’

CHAPTER XII—THE DRUNKARD’S DEATH

We will be bold to say, that there is scarcely a man in the constant

habit of walking, day after day, through any of the crowded

thoroughfares of London, who cannot recollect among the people whom he

‘knows by sight,’ to use a familiar phrase, some being of abject and

wretched appearance whom he remembers to have seen in a very different

condition, whom he has observed sinking lower and lower, by almost

imperceptible degrees, and the shabbiness and utter destitution of

whose appearance, at last, strike forcibly and painfully upon him, as

he passes by. Is there any man who has mixed much with society, or

whose avocations have caused him to mingle, at one time or other, with

a great number of people, who cannot call to mind the time when some

shabby, miserable wretch, in rags and filth, who shuffles past him now

in all the squalor of disease and poverty, with a respectable

tradesman, or clerk, or a man following some thriving pursuit, with

good prospects, and decent means?—or cannot any of our readers call to

mind from among the list of their _quondam_ acquaintance, some fallen

and degraded man, who lingers about the pavement in hungry misery—from

whom every one turns coldly away, and who preserves himself from sheer

starvation, nobody knows how? Alas! such cases are of too frequent

occurrence to be rare items in any man’s experience; and but too often

arise from one cause—drunkenness—that fierce rage for the slow, sure

poison, that oversteps every other consideration; that casts aside

wife, children, friends, happiness, and station; and hurries its

victims madly on to degradation and death.

Some of these men have been impelled, by misfortune and misery, to the

vice that has degraded them. The ruin of worldly expectations, the

death of those they loved, the sorrow that slowly consumes, but will

not break the heart, has driven them wild; and they present the hideous

spectacle of madmen, slowly dying by their own hands. But by far the

greater part have wilfully, and with open eyes, plunged into the gulf

from which the man who once enters it never rises more, but into which

he sinks deeper and deeper down, until recovery is hopeless.

Such a man as this once stood by the bedside of his dying wife, while

his children knelt around, and mingled loud bursts of grief with their

innocent prayers. The room was scantily and meanly furnished; and it

needed but a glance at the pale form from which the light of life was

fast passing away, to know that grief, and want, and anxious care, had

been busy at the heart for many a weary year. An elderly woman, with

her face bathed in tears, was supporting the head of the dying

woman—her daughter—on her arm. But it was not towards her that the was

face turned; it was not her hand that the cold and trembling fingers

clasped; they pressed the husband’s arm; the eyes so soon to be closed

in death rested on his face, and the man shook beneath their gaze. His

dress was slovenly and disordered, his face inflamed, his eyes

bloodshot and heavy. He had been summoned from some wild debauch to the

bed of sorrow and death.

A shaded lamp by the bed-side cast a dim light on the figures around,

and left the remainder of the room in thick, deep shadow. The silence

of night prevailed without the house, and the stillness of death was in

the chamber. A watch hung over the mantel-shelf; its low ticking was

the only sound that broke the profound quiet, but it was a solemn one,

for well they knew, who heard it, that before it had recorded the

passing of another hour, it would beat the knell of a departed spirit.

It is a dreadful thing to wait and watch for the approach of death; to

know that hope is gone, and recovery impossible; and to sit and count

the dreary hours through long, long nights—such nights as only watchers

by the bed of sickness know. It chills the blood to hear the dearest

secrets of the heart—the pent-up, hidden secrets of many years—poured

forth by the unconscious, helpless being before you; and to think how

little the reserve and cunning of a whole life will avail, when fever

and delirium tear off the mask at last. Strange tales have been told in

the wanderings of dying men; tales so full of guilt and crime, that

those who stood by the sick person’s couch have fled in horror and

affright, lest they should be scared to madness by what they heard and

saw; and many a wretch has died alone, raving of deeds the very name of

which has driven the boldest man away.

But no such ravings were to be heard at the bed-side by which the

children knelt. Their half-stifled sobs and moaning alone broke the

silence of the lonely chamber. And when at last the mother’s grasp

relaxed, and, turning one look from the children to the father, she

vainly strove to speak, and fell backward on the pillow, all was so

calm and tranquil that she seemed to sink to sleep. They leant over

her; they called upon her name, softly at first, and then in the loud

and piercing tones of desperation. But there was no reply. They

listened for her breath, but no sound came. They felt for the

palpitation of the heart, but no faint throb responded to the touch.

That heart was broken, and she was dead!

The husband sunk into a chair by the bed-side, and clasped his hands

upon his burning forehead. He gazed from child to child, but when a

weeping eye met his, he quailed beneath its look. No word of comfort

was whispered in his ear, no look of kindness lighted on his face. All

shrunk from and avoided him; and when at last he staggered from the

room, no one sought to follow or console the widower.

The time had been when many a friend would have crowded round him in

his affliction, and many a heartfelt condolence would have met him in

his grief. Where were they now? One by one, friends, relations, the

commonest acquaintance even, had fallen off from and deserted the

drunkard. His wife alone had clung to him in good and evil, in sickness

and poverty, and how had he rewarded her? He had reeled from the tavern

to her bed-side in time to see her die.

He rushed from the house, and walked swiftly through the streets.

Remorse, fear, shame, all crowded on his mind. Stupefied with drink,

and bewildered with the scene he had just witnessed, he re-entered the

tavern he had quitted shortly before. Glass succeeded glass. His blood

mounted, and his brain whirled round. Death! Every one must die, and

why not _she_? She was too good for him; her relations had often told

him so. Curses on them! Had they not deserted her, and left her to

whine away the time at home? Well—she was dead, and happy perhaps. It

was better as it was. Another glass—one more! Hurrah! It was a merry

life while it lasted; and he would make the most of it.

Time went on; the three children who were left to him, grew up, and

were children no longer. The father remained the same—poorer, shabbier,

and more dissolute-looking, but the same confirmed and irreclaimable

drunkard. The boys had, long ago, run wild in the streets, and left

him; the girl alone remained, but she worked hard, and words or blows

could always procure him something for the tavern. So he went on in the

old course, and a merry life he led.

One night, as early as ten o’clock—for the girl had been sick for many

days, and there was, consequently, little to spend at the

public-house—he bent his steps homeward, bethinking himself that if he

would have her able to earn money, it would be as well to apply to the

parish surgeon, or, at all events, to take the trouble of inquiring

what ailed her, which he had not yet thought it worth while to do. It

was a wet December night; the wind blew piercing cold, and the rain

poured heavily down. He begged a few halfpence from a passer-by, and

having bought a small loaf (for it was his interest to keep the girl

alive, if he could), he shuffled onwards as fast as the wind and rain

would let him.

At the back of Fleet-street, and lying between it and the water-side,

are several mean and narrow courts, which form a portion of

Whitefriars: it was to one of these that he directed his steps.

The alley into which he turned, might, for filth and misery, have

competed with the darkest corner of this ancient sanctuary in its

dirtiest and most lawless time. The houses, varying from two stories in

height to four, were stained with every indescribable hue that long

exposure to the weather, damp, and rottenness can impart to tenements

composed originally of the roughest and coarsest materials. The windows

were patched with paper, and stuffed with the foulest rags; the doors

were falling from their hinges; poles with lines on which to dry

clothes, projected from every casement, and sounds of quarrelling or

drunkenness issued from every room.

The solitary oil lamp in the centre of the court had been blown out,

either by the violence of the wind or the act of some inhabitant who

had excellent reasons for objecting to his residence being rendered too

conspicuous; and the only light which fell upon the broken and uneven

pavement, was derived from the miserable candles that here and there

twinkled in the rooms of such of the more fortunate residents as could

afford to indulge in so expensive a luxury. A gutter ran down the

centre of the alley—all the sluggish odours of which had been called

forth by the rain; and as the wind whistled through the old houses, the

doors and shutters creaked upon their hinges, and the windows shook in

their frames, with a violence which every moment seemed to threaten the

destruction of the whole place.

The man whom we have followed into this den, walked on in the darkness,

sometimes stumbling into the main gutter, and at others into some

branch repositories of garbage which had been formed by the rain, until

he reached the last house in the court. The door, or rather what was

left of it, stood ajar, for the convenience of the numerous lodgers;

and he proceeded to grope his way up the old and broken stair, to the

attic story.

He was within a step or two of his room door, when it opened, and a

girl, whose miserable and emaciated appearance was only to be equalled

by that of the candle which she shaded with her hand, peeped anxiously

out.

‘Is that you, father?’ said the girl.

‘Who else should it be?’ replied the man gruffly. ‘What are you

trembling at? It’s little enough that I’ve had to drink to-day, for

there’s no drink without money, and no money without work. What the

devil’s the matter with the girl?’

‘I am not well, father—not at all well,’ said the girl, bursting into

tears.

‘Ah!’ replied the man, in the tone of a person who is compelled to

admit a very unpleasant fact, to which he would rather remain blind, if

he could. ‘You must get better somehow, for we must have money. You

must go to the parish doctor, and make him give you some medicine.

They’re paid for it, damn ’em. What are you standing before the door

for? Let me come in, can’t you?’

‘Father,’ whispered the girl, shutting the door behind her, and placing

herself before it, ‘William has come back.’

‘Who!’ said the man with a start.

‘Hush,’ replied the girl, ‘William; brother William.’

‘And what does he want?’ said the man, with an effort at

composure—‘money? meat? drink? He’s come to the wrong shop for that, if

he does. Give me the candle—give me the candle, fool—I ain’t going to

hurt him.’ He snatched the candle from her hand, and walked into the

room.

Sitting on an old box, with his head resting on his hand, and his eyes

fixed on a wretched cinder fire that was smouldering on the hearth, was

a young man of about two-and-twenty, miserably clad in an old coarse

jacket and trousers. He started up when his father entered.

‘Fasten the door, Mary,’ said the young man hastily—‘Fasten the door.

You look as if you didn’t know me, father. It’s long enough, since you

drove me from home; you may well forget me.’

‘And what do you want here, now?’ said the father, seating himself on a

stool, on the other side of the fireplace. ‘What do you want here,

now?’

‘Shelter,’ replied the son. ‘I’m in trouble: that’s enough. If I’m

caught I shall swing; that’s certain. Caught I shall be, unless I stop

here; that’s _as_ certain. And there’s an end of it.’

‘You mean to say, you’ve been robbing, or murdering, then?’ said the

father.

‘Yes, I do,’ replied the son. ‘Does it surprise you, father?’ He looked

steadily in the man’s face, but he withdrew his eyes, and bent them on

the ground.

‘Where’s your brothers?’ he said, after a long pause.

‘Where they’ll never trouble you,’ replied his son: ‘John’s gone to

America, and Henry’s dead.’

‘Dead!’ said the father, with a shudder, which even he could not

express.

‘Dead,’ replied the young man. ‘He died in my arms—shot like a dog, by

a gamekeeper. He staggered back, I caught him, and his blood trickled

down my hands. It poured out from his side like water. He was weak, and

it blinded him, but he threw himself down on his knees, on the grass,

and prayed to God, that if his mother was in heaven, He would hear her

prayers for pardon for her youngest son. “I was her favourite boy,

Will,” he said, “and I am glad to think, now, that when she was dying,

though I was a very young child then, and my little heart was almost

bursting, I knelt down at the foot of the bed, and thanked God for

having made me so fond of her as to have never once done anything to

bring the tears into her eyes. O Will, why was she taken away, and

father left?” There’s his dying words, father,’ said the young man;

‘make the best you can of ’em. You struck him across the face, in a

drunken fit, the morning we ran away; and here’s the end of it.’

The girl wept aloud; and the father, sinking his head upon his knees,

rocked himself to and fro.

‘If I am taken,’ said the young man, ‘I shall be carried back into the

country, and hung for that man’s murder. They cannot trace me here,

without your assistance, father. For aught I know, you may give me up

to justice; but unless you do, here I stop, until I can venture to

escape abroad.’

For two whole days, all three remained in the wretched room, without

stirring out. On the third evening, however, the girl was worse than

she had been yet, and the few scraps of food they had were gone. It was

indispensably necessary that somebody should go out; and as the girl

was too weak and ill, the father went, just at nightfall.

He got some medicine for the girl, and a trifle in the way of pecuniary

assistance. On his way back, he earned sixpence by holding a horse; and

he turned homewards with enough money to supply their most pressing

wants for two or three days to come. He had to pass the public-house.

He lingered for an instant, walked past it, turned back again, lingered

once more, and finally slunk in. Two men whom he had not observed, were

on the watch. They were on the point of giving up their search in

despair, when his loitering attracted their attention; and when he

entered the public-house, they followed him.

‘You’ll drink with me, master,’ said one of them, proffering him a

glass of liquor.

‘And me too,’ said the other, replenishing the glass as soon as it was

drained of its contents.

The man thought of his hungry children, and his son’s danger. But they

were nothing to the drunkard. He _did_ drink; and his reason left him.

‘A wet night, Warden,’ whispered one of the men in his ear, as he at

length turned to go away, after spending in liquor one-half of the

money on which, perhaps, his daughter’s life depended.

‘The right sort of night for our friends in hiding, Master Warden,’

whispered the other.

‘Sit down here,’ said the one who had spoken first, drawing him into a

corner. ‘We have been looking arter the young un. We came to tell him,

it’s all right now, but we couldn’t find him ’cause we hadn’t got the

precise direction. But that ain’t strange, for I don’t think he know’d

it himself, when he come to London, did he?’

‘No, he didn’t,’ replied the father.

The two men exchanged glances.

‘There’s a vessel down at the docks, to sail at midnight, when it’s

high water,’ resumed the first speaker, ‘and we’ll put him on board.

His passage is taken in another name, and what’s better than that, it’s

paid for. It’s lucky we met you.’

‘Very,’ said the second.

‘Capital luck,’ said the first, with a wink to his companion.

‘Great,’ replied the second, with a slight nod of intelligence.

‘Another glass here; quick’—said the first speaker. And in five minutes

more, the father had unconsciously yielded up his own son into the

hangman’s hands.

Slowly and heavily the time dragged along, as the brother and sister,

in their miserable hiding-place, listened in anxious suspense to the

slightest sound. At length, a heavy footstep was heard upon the stair;

it approached nearer; it reached the landing; and the father staggered

into the room.

The girl saw that he was intoxicated, and advanced with the candle in

her hand to meet him; she stopped short, gave a loud scream, and fell

senseless on the ground. She had caught sight of the shadow of a man

reflected on the floor. They both rushed in, and in another instant the

young man was a prisoner, and handcuffed.

‘Very quietly done,’ said one of the men to his companion, ‘thanks to

the old man. Lift up the girl, Tom—come, come, it’s no use crying,

young woman. It’s all over now, and can’t be helped.’

The young man stooped for an instant over the girl, and then turned

fiercely round upon his father, who had reeled against the wall, and

was gazing on the group with drunken stupidity.

‘Listen to me, father,’ he said, in a tone that made the drunkard’s

flesh creep. ‘My brother’s blood, and mine, is on your head: I never

had kind look, or word, or care, from you, and alive or dead, I never

will forgive you. Die when you will, or how, I will be with you. I

speak as a dead man now, and I warn you, father, that as surely as you

must one day stand before your Maker, so surely shall your children be

there, hand in hand, to cry for judgment against you.’ He raised his

manacled hands in a threatening attitude, fixed his eyes on his

shrinking parent, and slowly left the room; and neither father nor

sister ever beheld him more, on this side of the grave.

When the dim and misty light of a winter’s morning penetrated into the

narrow court, and struggled through the begrimed window of the wretched

room, Warden awoke from his heavy sleep, and found himself alone. He

rose, and looked round him; the old flock mattress on the floor was

undisturbed; everything was just as he remembered to have seen it last:

and there were no signs of any one, save himself, having occupied the

room during the night. He inquired of the other lodgers, and of the

neighbours; but his daughter had not been seen or heard of. He rambled

through the streets, and scrutinised each wretched face among the

crowds that thronged them, with anxious eyes. But his search was

fruitless, and he returned to his garret when night came on, desolate

and weary.

For many days he occupied himself in the same manner, but no trace of

his daughter did he meet with, and no word of her reached his ears. At

length he gave up the pursuit as hopeless. He had long thought of the

probability of her leaving him, and endeavouring to gain her bread in

quiet, elsewhere. She had left him at last to starve alone. He ground

his teeth, and cursed her!

He begged his bread from door to door. Every halfpenny he could wring

from the pity or credulity of those to whom he addressed himself, was

spent in the old way. A year passed over his head; the roof of a jail

was the only one that had sheltered him for many months. He slept under

archways, and in brickfields—anywhere, where there was some warmth or

shelter from the cold and rain. But in the last stage of poverty,

disease, and houseless want, he was a drunkard still.

At last, one bitter night, he sunk down on a door-step faint and ill.

The premature decay of vice and profligacy had worn him to the bone.

His cheeks were hollow and livid; his eyes were sunken, and their sight

was dim. His legs trembled beneath his weight, and a cold shiver ran

through every limb.

And now the long-forgotten scenes of a misspent life crowded thick and

fast upon him. He thought of the time when he had a home—a happy,

cheerful home—and of those who peopled it, and flocked about him then,

until the forms of his elder children seemed to rise from the grave,

and stand about him—so plain, so clear, and so distinct they were that

he could touch and feel them. Looks that he had long forgotten were

fixed upon him once more; voices long since hushed in death sounded in

his ears like the music of village bells. But it was only for an

instant. The rain beat heavily upon him; and cold and hunger were

gnawing at his heart again.

He rose, and dragged his feeble limbs a few paces further. The street

was silent and empty; the few passengers who passed by, at that late

hour, hurried quickly on, and his tremulous voice was lost in the

violence of the storm. Again that heavy chill struck through his frame,

and his blood seemed to stagnate beneath it. He coiled himself up in a

projecting doorway, and tried to sleep.

But sleep had fled from his dull and glazed eyes. His mind wandered

strangely, but he was awake, and conscious. The well-known shout of

drunken mirth sounded in his ear, the glass was at his lips, the board

was covered with choice rich food—they were before him: he could see

them all, he had but to reach out his hand, and take them—and, though

the illusion was reality itself, he knew that he was sitting alone in

the deserted street, watching the rain-drops as they pattered on the

stones; that death was coming upon him by inches—and that there were

none to care for or help him.

Suddenly he started up, in the extremity of terror. He had heard his

own voice shouting in the night air, he knew not what, or why. Hark! A

groan!—another! His senses were leaving him: half-formed and incoherent

words burst from his lips; and his hands sought to tear and lacerate

his flesh. He was going mad, and he shrieked for help till his voice

failed him.

He raised his head, and looked up the long dismal street. He

recollected that outcasts like himself, condemned to wander day and

night in those dreadful streets, had sometimes gone distracted with

their own loneliness. He remembered to have heard many years before

that a homeless wretch had once been found in a solitary corner,

sharpening a rusty knife to plunge into his own heart, preferring death

to that endless, weary, wandering to and fro. In an instant his resolve

was taken, his limbs received new life; he ran quickly from the spot,

and paused not for breath until he reached the river-side.

He crept softly down the steep stone stairs that lead from the

commencement of Waterloo Bridge, down to the water’s level. He crouched

into a corner, and held his breath, as the patrol passed. Never did

prisoner’s heart throb with the hope of liberty and life half so

eagerly as did that of the wretched man at the prospect of death. The

watch passed close to him, but he remained unobserved; and after

waiting till the sound of footsteps had died away in the distance, he

cautiously descended, and stood beneath the gloomy arch that forms the

landing-place from the river.

The tide was in, and the water flowed at his feet. The rain had ceased,

the wind was lulled, and all was, for the moment, still and quiet—so

quiet, that the slightest sound on the opposite bank, even the rippling

of the water against the barges that were moored there, was distinctly

audible to his ear. The stream stole languidly and sluggishly on.

Strange and fantastic forms rose to the surface, and beckoned him to

approach; dark gleaming eyes peered from the water, and seemed to mock

his hesitation, while hollow murmurs from behind, urged him onwards. He

retreated a few paces, took a short run, desperate leap, and plunged

into the river.

Not five seconds had passed when he rose to the water’s surface—but

what a change had taken place in that short time, in all his thoughts

and feelings! Life—life in any form, poverty, misery,

starvation—anything but death. He fought and struggled with the water

that closed over his head, and screamed in agonies of terror. The curse

of his own son rang in his ears. The shore—but one foot of dry

ground—he could almost touch the step. One hand’s breadth nearer, and

he was saved—but the tide bore him onward, under the dark arches of the

bridge, and he sank to the bottom.

Again he rose, and struggled for life. For one instant—for one brief

instant—the buildings on the river’s banks, the lights on the bridge

through which the current had borne him, the black water, and the

fast-flying clouds, were distinctly visible—once more he sunk, and once

again he rose. Bright flames of fire shot up from earth to heaven, and

reeled before his eyes, while the water thundered in his ears, and

stunned him with its furious roar.

A week afterwards the body was washed ashore, some miles down the

river, a swollen and disfigured mass. Unrecognised and unpitied, it was

borne to the grave; and there it has long since mouldered away!

SKETCHES OF YOUNG GENTLEMEN

TO THE YOUNG LADIES

of the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland;

also

THE YOUNG LADIES

of

the principality of wales,

and likewise

THE YOUNG LADIES

resident in the isles of

guernsey, jersey, alderney, and sark,

the humble dedication of their devoted admirer,

Sheweth,—

That your Dedicator has perused, with feelings of virtuous indignation,

a work purporting to be ‘Sketches of Young Ladies;’ written by Quiz,

illustrated by Phiz, and published in one volume, square twelvemo.

That after an attentive and vigilant perusal of the said work, your

Dedicator is humbly of opinion that so many libels, upon your

Honourable sex, were never contained in any previously published work,

in twelvemo or any other mo.

That in the title page and preface to the said work, your Honourable

sex are described and classified as animals; and although your

Dedicator is not at present prepared to deny that you _are_ animals,

still he humbly submits that it is not polite to call you so.

That in the aforesaid preface, your Honourable sex are also described

as Troglodites, which, being a hard word, may, for aught your

Honourable sex or your Dedicator can say to the contrary, be an

injurious and disrespectful appellation.

That the author of the said work applied himself to his task in malice

prepense and with wickedness aforethought; a fact which, your Dedicator

contends, is sufficiently demonstrated, by his assuming the name of

Quiz, which, your Dedicator submits, denotes a foregone conclusion, and

implies an intention of quizzing.

That in the execution of his evil design, the said Quiz, or author of

the said work, must have betrayed some trust or confidence reposed in

him by some members of your Honourable sex, otherwise he never could

have acquired so much information relative to the manners and customs

of your Honourable sex in general.

That actuated by these considerations, and further moved by various

slanders and insinuations respecting your Honourable sex contained in

the said work, square twelvemo, entitled ‘Sketches of Young Ladies,’

your Dedicator ventures to produce another work, square twelvemo,

entitled ‘Sketches of Young Gentlemen,’ of which he now solicits your

acceptance and approval.

That as the Young Ladies are the best companions of the Young

Gentlemen, so the Young Gentlemen should be the best companions of the

Young Ladies; and extending the comparison from animals (to quote the

disrespectful language of the said Quiz) to inanimate objects, your

Dedicator humbly suggests, that such of your Honourable sex as

purchased the bane should possess themselves of the antidote, and that

those of your Honourable sex who were not rash enough to take the

first, should lose no time in swallowing the last,—prevention being in

all cases better than cure, as we are informed upon the authority, not

only of general acknowledgment, but also of traditionary wisdom.

That with reference to the said bane and antidote, your Dedicator has

no further remarks to make, than are comprised in the printed

directions issued with Doctor Morison’s pills; namely, that whenever

your Honourable sex take twenty-five of Number, 1, you will be pleased

to take fifty of Number 2, without delay.

And your Dedicator shall ever pray, &c.

THE BASHFUL YOUNG GENTLEMAN

We found ourself seated at a small dinner party the other day, opposite

a stranger of such singular appearance and manner, that he irresistibly

attracted our attention.

This was a fresh-coloured young gentleman, with as good a promise of

light whisker as one might wish to see, and possessed of a very

velvet-like, soft-looking countenance. We do not use the latter term

invidiously, but merely to denote a pair of smooth, plump,

highly-coloured cheeks of capacious dimensions, and a mouth rather

remarkable for the fresh hue of the lips than for any marked or

striking expression it presented. His whole face was suffused with a

crimson blush, and bore that downcast, timid, retiring look, which

betokens a man ill at ease with himself.

There was nothing in these symptoms to attract more than a passing

remark, but our attention had been originally drawn to the bashful

young gentleman, on his first appearance in the drawing-room

above-stairs, into which he was no sooner introduced, than making his

way towards us who were standing in a window, and wholly neglecting

several persons who warmly accosted him, he seized our hand with

visible emotion, and pressed it with a convulsive grasp for a good

couple of minutes, after which he dived in a nervous manner across the

room, oversetting in his way a fine little girl of six years and a

quarter old—and shrouding himself behind some hangings, was seen no

more, until the eagle eye of the hostess detecting him in his

concealment, on the announcement of dinner, he was requested to pair

off with a lively single lady, of two or three and thirty.

This most flattering salutation from a perfect stranger, would have

gratified us not a little as a token of his having held us in high

respect, and for that reason been desirous of our acquaintance, if we

had not suspected from the first, that the young gentleman, in making a

desperate effort to get through the ceremony of introduction, had, in

the bewilderment of his ideas, shaken hands with us at random. This

impression was fully confirmed by the subsequent behaviour of the

bashful young gentleman in question, which we noted particularly, with

the view of ascertaining whether we were right in our conjecture.

The young gentleman seated himself at table with evident misgivings,

and turning sharp round to pay attention to some observation of his

loquacious neighbour, overset his bread. There was nothing very bad in

this, and if he had had the presence of mind to let it go, and say

nothing about it, nobody but the man who had laid the cloth would have

been a bit the wiser; but the young gentleman in various

semi-successful attempts to prevent its fall, played with it a little,

as gentlemen in the streets may be seen to do with their hats on a

windy day, and then giving the roll a smart rap in his anxiety to catch

it, knocked it with great adroitness into a tureen of white soup at

some distance, to the unspeakable terror and disturbance of a very

amiable bald gentleman, who was dispensing the contents. We thought the

bashful young gentleman would have gone off in an apoplectic fit,

consequent upon the violent rush of blood to his face at the occurrence

of this catastrophe.

From this moment we perceived, in the phraseology of the fancy, that it

was ‘all up’ with the bashful young gentleman, and so indeed it was.

Several benevolent persons endeavoured to relieve his embarrassment by

taking wine with him, but finding that it only augmented his

sufferings, and that after mingling sherry, champagne, hock, and

moselle together, he applied the greater part of the mixture

externally, instead of internally, they gradually dropped off, and left

him to the exclusive care of the talkative lady, who, not noting the

wildness of his eye, firmly believed she had secured a listener. He

broke a glass or two in the course of the meal, and disappeared shortly

afterwards; it is inferred that he went away in some confusion,

inasmuch as he left the house in another gentleman’s coat, and the

footman’s hat.

This little incident led us to reflect upon the most prominent

characteristics of bashful young gentlemen in the abstract; and as this

portable volume will be the great text-book of young ladies in all

future generations, we record them here for their guidance and behoof.

If the bashful young gentleman, in turning a street corner, chance to

stumble suddenly upon two or three young ladies of his acquaintance,

nothing can exceed his confusion and agitation. His first impulse is to

make a great variety of bows, and dart past them, which he does until,

observing that they wish to stop, but are uncertain whether to do so or

not, he makes several feints of returning, which causes them to do the

same; and at length, after a great quantity of unnecessary dodging and

falling up against the other passengers, he returns and shakes hands

most affectionately with all of them, in doing which he knocks out of

their grasp sundry little parcels, which he hastily picks up, and

returns very muddy and disordered. The chances are that the bashful

young gentleman then observes it is very fine weather, and being

reminded that it has only just left off raining for the first time

these three days, he blushes very much, and smiles as if he had said a

very good thing. The young lady who was most anxious to speak, here

inquires, with an air of great commiseration, how his dear sister

Harriet is to-day; to which the young gentleman, without the slightest

consideration, replies with many thanks, that she is remarkably well.

‘Well, Mr. Hopkins!’ cries the young lady, ‘why, we heard she was bled

yesterday evening, and have been perfectly miserable about her.’ ‘Oh,

ah,’ says the young gentleman, ‘so she was. Oh, she’s very ill, very

ill indeed.’ The young gentleman then shakes his head, and looks very

desponding (he has been smiling perpetually up to this time), and after

a short pause, gives his glove a great wrench at the wrist, and says,

with a strong emphasis on the adjective, ‘_Good_ morning, _good_

morning.’ And making a great number of bows in acknowledgment of

several little messages to his sister, walks backward a few paces, and

comes with great violence against a lamp-post, knocking his hat off in

the contact, which in his mental confusion and bodily pain he is going

to walk away without, until a great roar from a carter attracts his

attention, when he picks it up, and tries to smile cheerfully to the

young ladies, who are looking back, and who, he has the satisfaction of

seeing, are all laughing heartily.

At a quadrille party, the bashful young gentleman always remains as

near the entrance of the room as possible, from which position he

smiles at the people he knows as they come in, and sometimes steps

forward to shake hands with more intimate friends: a process which on

each repetition seems to turn him a deeper scarlet than before. He

declines dancing the first set or two, observing, in a faint voice,

that he would rather wait a little; but at length is absolutely

compelled to allow himself to be introduced to a partner, when he is

led, in a great heat and blushing furiously, across the room to a spot

where half-a-dozen unknown ladies are congregated together.

‘Miss Lambert, let me introduce Mr. Hopkins for the next quadrille.’

Miss Lambert inclines her head graciously. Mr. Hopkins bows, and his

fair conductress disappears, leaving Mr. Hopkins, as he too well knows,

to make himself agreeable. The young lady more than half expects that

the bashful young gentleman will say something, and the bashful young

gentleman feeling this, seriously thinks whether he has got anything to

say, which, upon mature reflection, he is rather disposed to conclude

he has not, since nothing occurs to him. Meanwhile, the young lady,

after several inspections of her _bouquet_, all made in the expectation

that the bashful young gentleman is going to talk, whispers her mamma,

who is sitting next her, which whisper the bashful young gentleman

immediately suspects (and possibly with very good reason) must be about

_him_. In this comfortable condition he remains until it is time to

‘stand up,’ when murmuring a ‘Will you allow me?’ he gives the young

lady his arm, and after inquiring where she will stand, and receiving a

reply that she has no choice, conducts her to the remotest corner of

the quadrille, and making one attempt at conversation, which turns out

a desperate failure, preserves a profound silence until it is all over,

when he walks her twice round the room, deposits her in her old seat,

and retires in confusion.

A married bashful gentleman—for these bashful gentlemen do get married

sometimes; how it is ever brought about, is a mystery to us—a married

bashful gentleman either causes his wife to appear bold by contrast, or

merges her proper importance in his own insignificance. Bashful young

gentlemen should be cured, or avoided. They are never hopeless, and

never will be, while female beauty and attractions retain their

influence, as any young lady will find, who may think it worth while on

this confident assurance to take a patient in hand.

THE OUT-AND-OUT YOUNG GENTLEMAN

Out-and-out young gentlemen may be divided into two classes—those who

have something to do, and those who have nothing. I shall commence with

the former, because that species come more frequently under the notice

of young ladies, whom it is our province to warn and to instruct.

The out-and-out young gentleman is usually no great dresser, his

instructions to his tailor being all comprehended in the one general

direction to ‘make that what’s-a-name a regular bang-up sort of thing.’

For some years past, the favourite costume of the out-and-out young

gentleman has been a rough pilot coat, with two gilt hooks and eyes to

the velvet collar; buttons somewhat larger than crown-pieces; a black

or fancy neckerchief, loosely tied; a wide-brimmed hat, with a low

crown; tightish inexpressibles, and iron-shod boots. Out of doors he

sometimes carries a large ash stick, but only on special occasions, for

he prefers keeping his hands in his coat pockets. He smokes at all

hours, of course, and swears considerably.

The out-and-out young gentleman is employed in a city counting-house or

solicitor’s office, in which he does as little as he possibly can: his

chief places of resort are, the streets, the taverns, and the theatres.

In the streets at evening time, out-and-out young gentlemen have a

pleasant custom of walking six or eight abreast, thus driving females

and other inoffensive persons into the road, which never fails to

afford them the highest satisfaction, especially if there be any

immediate danger of their being run over, which enhances the fun of the

thing materially. In all places of public resort, the out-and-outers

are careful to select each a seat to himself, upon which he lies at

full length, and (if the weather be very dirty, but not in any other

case) he lies with his knees up, and the soles of his boots planted

firmly on the cushion, so that if any low fellow should ask him to make

room for a lady, he takes ample revenge upon her dress, without going

at all out of his way to do it. He always sits with his hat on, and

flourishes his stick in the air while the play is proceeding, with a

dignified contempt of the performance; if it be possible for one or two

out-and-out young gentlemen to get up a little crowding in the

passages, they are quite in their element, squeezing, pushing,

whooping, and shouting in the most humorous manner possible. If they

can only succeed in irritating the gentleman who has a family of

daughters under his charge, they are like to die with laughing, and

boast of it among their companions for a week afterwards, adding, that

one or two of them were ‘devilish fine girls,’ and that they really

thought the youngest would have fainted, which was the only thing

wanted to render the joke complete.

If the out-and-out young gentleman have a mother and sisters, of course

he treats them with becoming contempt, inasmuch as they (poor things!)

having no notion of life or gaiety, are far too weak-spirited and

moping for him. Sometimes, however, on a birth-day or at

Christmas-time, he cannot very well help accompanying them to a party

at some old friend’s, with which view he comes home when they have been

dressed an hour or two, smelling very strongly of tobacco and spirits,

and after exchanging his rough coat for some more suitable attire (in

which however he loses nothing of the out-and-outer), gets into the

coach and grumbles all the way at his own good nature: his bitter

reflections aggravated by the recollection, that Tom Smith has taken

the chair at a little impromptu dinner at a fighting man’s, and that a

set-to was to take place on a dining-table, between the fighting man

and his brother-in-law, which is probably ‘coming off’ at that very

instant.

As the out-and-out young gentleman is by no means at his ease in

ladies’ society, he shrinks into a corner of the drawing-room when they

reach the friend’s, and unless one of his sisters is kind enough to

talk to him, remains there without being much troubled by the

attentions of other people, until he espies, lingering outside the

door, another gentleman, whom he at once knows, by his air and manner

(for there is a kind of free-masonry in the craft), to be a brother

out-and-outer, and towards whom he accordingly makes his way.

Conversation being soon opened by some casual remark, the second

out-and-outer confidentially informs the first, that he is one of the

rough sort and hates that kind of thing, only he couldn’t very well be

off coming; to which the other replies, that that’s just his case—‘and

I’ll tell you what,’ continues the out-and-outer in a whisper, ‘I

should like a glass of warm brandy and water just now,’—‘Or a pint of

stout and a pipe,’ suggests the other out-and-outer.

The discovery is at once made that they are sympathetic souls; each of

them says at the same moment, that he sees the other understands what’s

what: and they become fast friends at once, more especially when it

appears, that the second out-and-outer is no other than a gentleman,

long favourably known to his familiars as ‘Mr. Warmint Blake,’ who upon

divers occasions has distinguished himself in a manner that would not

have disgraced the fighting man, and who—having been a pretty long time

about town—had the honour of once shaking hands with the celebrated Mr.

Thurtell himself.

At supper, these gentlemen greatly distinguish themselves, brightening

up very much when the ladies leave the table, and proclaiming aloud

their intention of beginning to spend the evening—a process which is

generally understood to be satisfactorily performed, when a great deal

of wine is drunk and a great deal of noise made, both of which feats

the out-and-out young gentlemen execute to perfection. Having

protracted their sitting until long after the host and the other guests

have adjourned to the drawing-room, and finding that they have drained

the decanters empty, they follow them thither with complexions rather

heightened, and faces rather bloated with wine; and the agitated lady

of the house whispers her friends as they waltz together, to the great

terror of the whole room, that ‘both Mr. Blake and Mr. Dummins are very

nice sort of young men in their way, only they are eccentric persons,

and unfortunately _rather too wild_!’

The remaining class of out-and-out young gentlemen is composed of

persons, who, having no money of their own and a soul above earning

any, enjoy similar pleasures, nobody knows how. These respectable

gentlemen, without aiming quite so much at the out-and-out in external

appearance, are distinguished by all the same amiable and attractive

characteristics, in an equal or perhaps greater degree, and now and

then find their way into society, through the medium of the other class

of out-and-out young gentlemen, who will sometimes carry them home, and

who usually pay their tavern bills. As they are equally gentlemanly,

clever, witty, intelligent, wise, and well-bred, we need scarcely have

recommended them to the peculiar consideration of the young ladies, if

it were not that some of the gentle creatures whom we hold in such high

respect, are perhaps a little too apt to confound a great many heavier

terms with the light word eccentricity, which we beg them henceforth to

take in a strictly Johnsonian sense, without any liberality or latitude

of construction.

THE VERY FRIENDLY YOUNG GENTLEMAN

We know—and all people know—so many specimens of this class, that in

selecting the few heads our limits enable us to take from a great

number, we have been induced to give the very friendly young gentleman

the preference over many others, to whose claims upon a more cursory

view of the question we had felt disposed to assign the priority.

The very friendly young gentleman is very friendly to everybody, but he

attaches himself particularly to two, or at most to three families:

regulating his choice by their dinners, their circle of acquaintance,

or some other criterion in which he has an immediate interest. He is of

any age between twenty and forty, unmarried of course, must be fond of

children, and is expected to make himself generally useful if possible.

Let us illustrate our meaning by an example, which is the shortest mode

and the clearest.

We encountered one day, by chance, an old friend of whom we had lost

sight for some years, and who—expressing a strong anxiety to renew our

former intimacy—urged us to dine with him on an early day, that we

might talk over old times. We readily assented, adding, that we hoped

we should be alone. ‘Oh, certainly, certainly,’ said our friend, ‘not a

soul with us but Mincin.’ ‘And who is Mincin?’ was our natural inquiry.

‘O don’t mind him,’ replied our friend, ‘he’s a most particular friend

of mine, and a very friendly fellow you will find him;’ and so he left

us.

‘We thought no more about Mincin until we duly presented ourselves at

the house next day, when, after a hearty welcome, our friend motioned

towards a gentleman who had been previously showing his teeth by the

fireplace, and gave us to understand that it was Mr. Mincin, of whom he

had spoken. It required no great penetration on our part to discover at

once that Mr. Mincin was in every respect a very friendly young

gentleman.

‘I am delighted,’ said Mincin, hastily advancing, and pressing our hand

warmly between both of his, ‘I am delighted, I am sure, to make your

acquaintance—(here he smiled)—very much delighted indeed—(here he

exhibited a little emotion)—I assure you that I have looked forward to

it anxiously for a very long time:’ here he released our hands, and

rubbing his own, observed, that the day was severe, but that he was

delighted to perceive from our appearance that it agreed with us

wonderfully; and then went on to observe, that, notwithstanding the

coldness of the weather, he had that morning seen in the paper an

exceedingly curious paragraph, to the effect, that there was now in the

garden of Mr. Wilkins of Chichester, a pumpkin, measuring four feet in

height, and eleven feet seven inches in circumference, which he looked

upon as a very extraordinary piece of intelligence. We ventured to

remark, that we had a dim recollection of having once or twice before

observed a similar paragraph in the public prints, upon which Mr.

Mincin took us confidentially by the button, and said, Exactly,

exactly, to be sure, we were very right, and he wondered what the

editors meant by putting in such things. Who the deuce, he should like

to know, did they suppose cared about them? that struck him as being

the best of it.

The lady of the house appeared shortly afterwards, and Mr. Mincin’s

friendliness, as will readily be supposed, suffered no diminution in

consequence; he exerted much strength and skill in wheeling a large

easy-chair up to the fire, and the lady being seated in it, carefully

closed the door, stirred the fire, and looked to the windows to see

that they admitted no air; having satisfied himself upon all these

points, he expressed himself quite easy in his mind, and begged to know

how she found herself to-day. Upon the lady’s replying very well, Mr.

Mincin (who it appeared was a medical gentleman) offered some general

remarks upon the nature and treatment of colds in the head, which

occupied us agreeably until dinner-time. During the meal, he devoted

himself to complimenting everybody, not forgetting himself, so that we

were an uncommonly agreeable quartette.