Somebody's Luggage / Charles Dickens

CHAPTER I--HIS LEAVING IT TILL CALLED FOR

The writer of these humble lines being a Waiter, and having come of a

family of Waiters, and owning at the present time five brothers who are

all Waiters, and likewise an only sister who is a Waitress, would wish to

offer a few words respecting his calling; first having the pleasure of

hereby in a friendly manner offering the Dedication of the same unto

_Joseph_, much respected Head Waiter at the Slamjam Coffee-house, London,

E.C., than which a individual more eminently deserving of the name of

man, or a more amenable honour to his own head and heart, whether

considered in the light of a Waiter or regarded as a human being, do not

exist.

In case confusion should arise in the public mind (which it is open to

confusion on many subjects) respecting what is meant or implied by the

term Waiter, the present humble lines would wish to offer an explanation.

It may not be generally known that the person as goes out to wait is

_not_ a Waiter. It may not be generally known that the hand as is called

in extra, at the Freemasons' Tavern, or the London, or the Albion, or

otherwise, is _not_ a Waiter. Such hands may be took on for Public

Dinners by the bushel (and you may know them by their breathing with

difficulty when in attendance, and taking away the bottle ere yet it is

half out); but such are _not_ Waiters. For you cannot lay down the

tailoring, or the shoemaking, or the brokering, or the green-grocering,

or the pictorial-periodicalling, or the second-hand wardrobe, or the

small fancy businesses,--you cannot lay down those lines of life at your

will and pleasure by the half-day or evening, and take up Waitering. You

may suppose you can, but you cannot; or you may go so far as to say you

do, but you do not. Nor yet can you lay down the gentleman's-service

when stimulated by prolonged incompatibility on the part of Cooks (and

here it may be remarked that Cooking and Incompatibility will be mostly

found united), and take up Waitering. It has been ascertained that what

a gentleman will sit meek under, at home, he will not bear out of doors,

at the Slamjam or any similar establishment. Then, what is the inference

to be drawn respecting true Waitering? You must be bred to it. You must

be born to it.

Would you know how born to it, Fair Reader,--if of the adorable female

sex? Then learn from the biographical experience of one that is a Waiter

in the sixty-first year of his age.

You were conveyed,--ere yet your dawning powers were otherwise developed

than to harbour vacancy in your inside,--you were conveyed, by

surreptitious means, into a pantry adjoining the Admiral Nelson, Civic

and General Dining-Rooms, there to receive by stealth that healthful

sustenance which is the pride and boast of the British female

constitution. Your mother was married to your father (himself a distant

Waiter) in the profoundest secrecy; for a Waitress known to be married

would ruin the best of businesses,--it is the same as on the stage. Hence

your being smuggled into the pantry, and that--to add to the

infliction--by an unwilling grandmother. Under the combined influence of

the smells of roast and boiled, and soup, and gas, and malt liquors, you

partook of your earliest nourishment; your unwilling grandmother sitting

prepared to catch you when your mother was called and dropped you; your

grandmother's shawl ever ready to stifle your natural complainings; your

innocent mind surrounded by uncongenial cruets, dirty plates,

dish-covers, and cold gravy; your mother calling down the pipe for veals

and porks, instead of soothing you with nursery rhymes. Under these

untoward circumstances you were early weaned. Your unwilling

grandmother, ever growing more unwilling as your food assimilated less,

then contracted habits of shaking you till your system curdled, and your

food would not assimilate at all. At length she was no longer spared,

and could have been thankfully spared much sooner. When your brothers

began to appear in succession, your mother retired, left off her smart

dressing (she had previously been a smart dresser), and her dark ringlets

(which had previously been flowing), and haunted your father late of

nights, lying in wait for him, through all weathers, up the shabby court

which led to the back door of the Royal Old Dust-Bin (said to have been

so named by George the Fourth), where your father was Head. But the Dust-

Bin was going down then, and your father took but little,--excepting from

a liquid point of view. Your mother's object in those visits was of a

house-keeping character, and you was set on to whistle your father out.

Sometimes he came out, but generally not. Come or not come, however, all

that part of his existence which was unconnected with open Waitering was

kept a close secret, and was acknowledged by your mother to be a close

secret, and you and your mother flitted about the court, close secrets

both of you, and would scarcely have confessed under torture that you

know your father, or that your father had any name than Dick (which

wasn't his name, though he was never known by any other), or that he had

kith or kin or chick or child. Perhaps the attraction of this mystery,

combined with your father's having a damp compartment, to himself, behind

a leaky cistern, at the Dust-Bin,--a sort of a cellar compartment, with a

sink in it, and a smell, and a plate-rack, and a bottle-rack, and three

windows that didn't match each other or anything else, and no

daylight,--caused your young mind to feel convinced that you must grow up

to be a Waiter too; but you did feel convinced of it, and so did all your

brothers, down to your sister. Every one of you felt convinced that you

was born to the Waitering. At this stage of your career, what was your

feelings one day when your father came home to your mother in open broad

daylight,--of itself an act of Madness on the part of a Waiter,--and took

to his bed (leastwise, your mother and family's bed), with the statement

that his eyes were devilled kidneys. Physicians being in vain, your

father expired, after repeating at intervals for a day and a night, when

gleams of reason and old business fitfully illuminated his being, "Two

and two is five. And three is sixpence." Interred in the parochial

department of the neighbouring churchyard, and accompanied to the grave

by as many Waiters of long standing as could spare the morning time from

their soiled glasses (namely, one), your bereaved form was attired in a

white neckankecher, and you was took on from motives of benevolence at

The George and Gridiron, theatrical and supper. Here, supporting nature

on what you found in the plates (which was as it happened, and but too

often thoughtlessly, immersed in mustard), and on what you found in the

glasses (which rarely went beyond driblets and lemon), by night you

dropped asleep standing, till you was cuffed awake, and by day was set to

polishing every individual article in the coffee-room. Your couch being

sawdust; your counterpane being ashes of cigars. Here, frequently hiding

a heavy heart under the smart tie of your white neckankecher (or

correctly speaking lower down and more to the left), you picked up the

rudiments of knowledge from an extra, by the name of Bishops, and by

calling plate-washer, and gradually elevating your mind with chalk on the

back of the corner-box partition, until such time as you used the

inkstand when it was out of hand, attained to manhood, and to be the

Waiter that you find yourself.

I could wish here to offer a few respectful words on behalf of the

calling so long the calling of myself and family, and the public interest

in which is but too often very limited. We are not generally understood.

No, we are not. Allowance enough is not made for us. For, say that we

ever show a little drooping listlessness of spirits, or what might be

termed indifference or apathy. Put it to yourself what would your own

state of mind be, if you was one of an enormous family every member of

which except you was always greedy, and in a hurry. Put it to yourself

that you was regularly replete with animal food at the slack hours of one

in the day and again at nine p.m., and that the repleter you was, the

more voracious all your fellow-creatures came in. Put it to yourself

that it was your business, when your digestion was well on, to take a

personal interest and sympathy in a hundred gentlemen fresh and fresh

(say, for the sake of argument, only a hundred), whose imaginations was

given up to grease and fat and gravy and melted butter, and abandoned to

questioning you about cuts of this, and dishes of that,--each of 'em

going on as if him and you and the bill of fare was alone in the world.

Then look what you are expected to know. You are never out, but they

seem to think you regularly attend everywhere. "What's this,

Christopher, that I hear about the smashed Excursion Train? How are they

doing at the Italian Opera, Christopher?" "Christopher, what are the

real particulars of this business at the Yorkshire Bank?" Similarly a

ministry gives me more trouble than it gives the Queen. As to Lord

Palmerston, the constant and wearing connection into which I have been

brought with his lordship during the last few years is deserving of a

pension. Then look at the Hypocrites we are made, and the lies (white, I

hope) that are forced upon us! Why must a sedentary-pursuited Waiter be

considered to be a judge of horseflesh, and to have a most tremendous

interest in horse-training and racing? Yet it would be half our little

incomes out of our pockets if we didn't take on to have those sporting

tastes. It is the same (inconceivable why!) with Farming. Shooting,

equally so. I am sure that so regular as the months of August,

September, and October come round, I am ashamed of myself in my own

private bosom for the way in which I make believe to care whether or not

the grouse is strong on the wing (much their wings, or drumsticks either,

signifies to me, uncooked!), and whether the partridges is plentiful

among the turnips, and whether the pheasants is shy or bold, or anything

else you please to mention. Yet you may see me, or any other Waiter of

my standing, holding on by the back of the box, and leaning over a

gentleman with his purse out and his bill before him, discussing these

points in a confidential tone of voice, as if my happiness in life

entirely depended on 'em.

I have mentioned our little incomes. Look at the most unreasonable point

of all, and the point on which the greatest injustice is done us! Whether

it is owing to our always carrying so much change in our right-hand

trousers-pocket, and so many halfpence in our coat-tails, or whether it

is human nature (which I were loth to believe), what is meant by the

everlasting fable that Head Waiters is rich? How did that fable get into

circulation? Who first put it about, and what are the facts to establish

the unblushing statement? Come forth, thou slanderer, and refer the

public to the Waiter's will in Doctors' Commons supporting thy malignant

hiss! Yet this is so commonly dwelt upon--especially by the screws who

give Waiters the least--that denial is vain; and we are obliged, for our

credit's sake, to carry our heads as if we were going into a business,

when of the two we are much more likely to go into a union. There was

formerly a screw as frequented the Slamjam ere yet the present writer had

quitted that establishment on a question of tea-ing his assistant staff

out of his own pocket, which screw carried the taunt to its bitterest

height. Never soaring above threepence, and as often as not grovelling

on the earth a penny lower, he yet represented the present writer as a

large holder of Consols, a lender of money on mortgage, a Capitalist. He

has been overheard to dilate to other customers on the allegation that

the present writer put out thousands of pounds at interest in

Distilleries and Breweries. "Well, Christopher," he would say (having

grovelled his lowest on the earth, half a moment before), "looking out

for a House to open, eh? Can't find a business to be disposed of on a

scale as is up to your resources, humph?" To such a dizzy precipice of

falsehood has this misrepresentation taken wing, that the well-known and

highly-respected OLD CHARLES, long eminent at the West Country Hotel, and

by some considered the Father of the Waitering, found himself under the

obligation to fall into it through so many years that his own wife (for

he had an unbeknown old lady in that capacity towards himself) believed

it! And what was the consequence? When he was borne to his grave on the

shoulders of six picked Waiters, with six more for change, six more

acting as pall-bearers, all keeping step in a pouring shower without a

dry eye visible, and a concourse only inferior to Royalty, his pantry and

lodgings was equally ransacked high and low for property, and none was

found! How could it be found, when, beyond his last monthly collection

of walking-sticks, umbrellas, and pocket-handkerchiefs (which happened to

have been not yet disposed of, though he had ever been through life

punctual in clearing off his collections by the month), there was no

property existing? Such, however, is the force of this universal libel,

that the widow of Old Charles, at the present hour an inmate of the

Almshouses of the Cork-Cutters' Company, in Blue Anchor Road (identified

sitting at the door of one of 'em, in a clean cap and a Windsor

arm-chair, only last Monday), expects John's hoarded wealth to be found

hourly! Nay, ere yet he had succumbed to the grisly dart, and when his

portrait was painted in oils life-size, by subscription of the

frequenters of the West Country, to hang over the coffee-room chimney-

piece, there were not wanting those who contended that what is termed the

accessories of such a portrait ought to be the Bank of England out of

window, and a strong-box on the table. And but for better-regulated

minds contending for a bottle and screw and the attitude of drawing,--and

carrying their point,--it would have been so handed down to posterity.

I am now brought to the title of the present remarks. Having, I hope

without offence to any quarter, offered such observations as I felt it my

duty to offer, in a free country which has ever dominated the seas, on

the general subject, I will now proceed to wait on the particular

question.

At a momentous period of my life, when I was off, so far as concerned

notice given, with a House that shall be nameless,--for the question on

which I took my departing stand was a fixed charge for waiters, and no

House as commits itself to that eminently Un-English act of more than

foolishness and baseness shall be advertised by me,--I repeat, at a

momentous crisis, when I was off with a House too mean for mention, and

not yet on with that to which I have ever since had the honour of being

attached in the capacity of Head, {1} I was casting about what to do

next. Then it were that proposals were made to me on behalf of my

present establishment. Stipulations were necessary on my part,

emendations were necessary on my part: in the end, ratifications ensued

on both sides, and I entered on a new career.

We are a bed business, and a coffee-room business. We are not a general

dining business, nor do we wish it. In consequence, when diners drop in,

we know what to give 'em as will keep 'em away another time. We are a

Private Room or Family business also; but Coffee-room principal. Me and

the Directory and the Writing Materials and cetrer occupy a place to

ourselves--a place fended of up a step or two at the end of the Coffee-

room, in what I call the good old-fashioned style. The good

old-fashioned style is, that whatever you want, down to a wafer, you must

be olely and solely dependent on the Head Waiter for. You must put

yourself a new-born Child into his hands. There is no other way in which

a business untinged with Continental Vice can be conducted. (It were

bootless to add, that if languages is required to be jabbered and English

is not good enough, both families and gentlemen had better go somewhere

else.)

When I began to settle down in this right-principled and well-conducted

House, I noticed, under the bed in No. 24 B (which it is up a angle off

the staircase, and usually put off upon the lowly-minded), a heap of

things in a corner. I asked our Head Chambermaid in the course of the

day,

"What are them things in 24 B?"

To which she answered with a careless air, "Somebody's Luggage."

Regarding her with a eye not free from severity, I says, "Whose Luggage?"

Evading my eye, she replied,

"Lor! How should _I_ know!"

--Being, it may be right to mention, a female of some pertness, though

acquainted with her business.

A Head Waiter must be either Head or Tail. He must be at one extremity

or the other of the social scale. He cannot be at the waist of it, or

anywhere else but the extremities. It is for him to decide which of the

extremities.

On the eventful occasion under consideration, I give Mrs. Pratchett so

distinctly to understand my decision, that I broke her spirit as towards

myself, then and there, and for good. Let not inconsistency be suspected

on account of my mentioning Mrs. Pratchett as "Mrs.," and having formerly

remarked that a waitress must not be married. Readers are respectfully

requested to notice that Mrs. Pratchett was not a waitress, but a

chambermaid. Now a chambermaid _may_ be married; if Head, generally is

married,--or says so. It comes to the same thing as expressing what is

customary. (N.B. Mr. Pratchett is in Australia, and his address there is

"the Bush.")

Having took Mrs. Pratchett down as many pegs as was essential to the

future happiness of all parties, I requested her to explain herself.

"For instance," I says, to give her a little encouragement, "who is

Somebody?"

"I give you my sacred honour, Mr. Christopher," answers Pratchett, "that

I haven't the faintest notion."

But for the manner in which she settled her cap-strings, I should have

doubted this; but in respect of positiveness it was hardly to be

discriminated from an affidavit.

"Then you never saw him?" I followed her up with.

"Nor yet," said Mrs. Pratchett, shutting her eyes and making as if she

had just took a pill of unusual circumference,--which gave a remarkable

force to her denial,--"nor yet any servant in this house. All have been

changed, Mr. Christopher, within five year, and Somebody left his Luggage

here before then."

Inquiry of Miss Martin yielded (in the language of the Bard of A.1.)

"confirmation strong." So it had really and truly happened. Miss Martin

is the young lady at the bar as makes out our bills; and though higher

than I could wish considering her station, is perfectly well-behaved.

Farther investigations led to the disclosure that there was a bill

against this Luggage to the amount of two sixteen six. The Luggage had

been lying under the bedstead of 24 B over six year. The bedstead is a

four-poster, with a deal of old hanging and valance, and is, as I once

said, probably connected with more than 24 Bs,--which I remember my

hearers was pleased to laugh at, at the time.

I don't know why,--when DO we know why?--but this Luggage laid heavy on

my mind. I fell a wondering about Somebody, and what he had got and been

up to. I couldn't satisfy my thoughts why he should leave so much

Luggage against so small a bill. For I had the Luggage out within a day

or two and turned it over, and the following were the items:--A black

portmanteau, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a brown-paper parcel,

a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick. It was all very

dusty and fluey. I had our porter up to get under the bed and fetch it

out; and though he habitually wallows in dust,--swims in it from morning

to night, and wears a close-fitting waistcoat with black calimanco

sleeves for the purpose,--it made him sneeze again, and his throat was

that hot with it that it was obliged to be cooled with a drink of

Allsopp's draft.

The Luggage so got the better of me, that instead of having it put back

when it was well dusted and washed with a wet cloth,--previous to which

it was so covered with feathers that you might have thought it was

turning into poultry, and would by-and-by begin to Lay,--I say, instead

of having it put back, I had it carried into one of my places

down-stairs. There from time to time I stared at it and stared at it,

till it seemed to grow big and grow little, and come forward at me and

retreat again, and go through all manner of performances resembling

intoxication. When this had lasted weeks,--I may say months, and not be

far out,--I one day thought of asking Miss Martin for the particulars of

the Two sixteen six total. She was so obliging as to extract it from the

books,--it dating before her time,--and here follows a true copy:

Coffee-Room.

1856. No. 4. Pounds s. d.

Feb. 2d, Pen and Paper 0 0 6

Port Negus 0 2 0

Ditto 0 2 0

Pen and paper 0 0 6

Tumbler broken 0 2 6

Brandy 0 2 0

Pen and paper 0 0 6

Anchovy toast 0 2 6

Pen and paper 0 0 6

Bed 0 3 0

Feb. 3d, Pen and paper 0 0 6

Breakfast 0 2 6

Broiled ham 0 2 0

Eggs 0 1 0

Watercresses 0 1 0

Shrimps 0 1 0

Pen and paper 0 0 6

Blotting-paper 0 0 6

Messenger to Paternoster

Row and back 0 1 6

Again, when No Answer 0 1 6

Brandy 2s., Devilled

Pork chop 2s. 0 4 0

Pens and paper 0 1 0

Messenger to Albemarle

Street and back 0 1 0

Again (detained), when

No Answer 0 1 6

Salt-cellar broken 0 3 6

Large Liquour-glass

Orange Brandy 0 1 6

Dinner, Soup, Fish,

Joint, and bird 0 7 6

Bottle old East India

Brown 0 8 0

Pen and paper 0 0 6

Pounds 2 16 6

Mem.: January 1st, 1857. He went out after dinner, directing luggage to

be ready when he called for it. Never called.

* * * * *

So far from throwing a light upon the subject, this bill appeared to me,

if I may so express my doubts, to involve it in a yet more lurid halo.

Speculating it over with the Mistress, she informed me that the luggage

had been advertised in the Master's time as being to be sold after such

and such a day to pay expenses, but no farther steps had been taken. (I

may here remark, that the Mistress is a widow in her fourth year. The

Master was possessed of one of those unfortunate constitutions in which

Spirits turns to Water, and rises in the ill-starred Victim.)

My speculating it over, not then only, but repeatedly, sometimes with the

Mistress, sometimes with one, sometimes with another, led up to the

Mistress's saying to me,--whether at first in joke or in earnest, or half

joke and half earnest, it matters not:

"Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer."

(If this should meet her eye,--a lovely blue,--may she not take it ill my

mentioning that if I had been eight or ten year younger, I would have

done as much by her! That is, I would have made her a offer. It is for

others than me to denominate it a handsome one.)

"Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer."

"Put a name to it, ma'am."

"Look here, Christopher. Run over the articles of Somebody's Luggage.

You've got it all by heart, I know."

"A black portmanteau, ma'am, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a

brown-paper parcel, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a

walking-stick."

"All just as they were left. Nothing opened, nothing tampered with."

"You are right, ma'am. All locked but the brown-paper parcel, and that

sealed."

The Mistress was leaning on Miss Martin's desk at the bar-window, and she

taps the open book that lays upon the desk,--she has a pretty-made hand

to be sure,--and bobs her head over it and laughs.

"Come," says she, "Christopher. Pay me Somebody's bill, and you shall

have Somebody's Luggage."

I rather took to the idea from the first moment; but,

"It mayn't be worth the money," I objected, seeming to hold back.

"That's a Lottery," says the Mistress, folding her arms upon the book,--it

ain't her hands alone that's pretty made, the observation extends right

up her arms. "Won't you venture two pound sixteen shillings and sixpence

in the Lottery? Why, there's no blanks!" says the Mistress; laughing and

bobbing her head again, "you _must_ win. If you lose, you must win! All

prizes in this Lottery! Draw a blank, and remember, Gentlemen-Sportsmen,

you'll still be entitled to a black portmanteau, a black bag, a desk, a

dressing-case, a sheet of brown paper, a hat-box, and an umbrella

strapped to a walking-stick!"

To make short of it, Miss Martin come round me, and Mrs. Pratchett come

round me, and the Mistress she was completely round me already, and all

the women in the house come round me, and if it had been Sixteen two

instead of Two sixteen, I should have thought myself well out of it. For

what can you do when they do come round you?

So I paid the money--down--and such a laughing as there was among 'em!

But I turned the tables on 'em regularly, when I said:

"My family-name is Blue-Beard. I'm going to open Somebody's Luggage all

alone in the Secret Chamber, and not a female eye catches sight of the

contents!"

Whether I thought proper to have the firmness to keep to this, don't

signify, or whether any female eye, and if any, how many, was really

present when the opening of the Luggage came off. Somebody's Luggage is

the question at present: Nobody's eyes, nor yet noses.

What I still look at most, in connection with that Luggage, is the

extraordinary quantity of writing-paper, and all written on! And not our

paper neither,--not the paper charged in the bill, for we know our

paper,--so he must have been always at it. And he had crumpled up this

writing of his, everywhere, in every part and parcel of his luggage.

There was writing in his dressing-case, writing in his boots, writing

among his shaving-tackle, writing in his hat-box, writing folded away

down among the very whalebones of his umbrella.

His clothes wasn't bad, what there was of 'em. His dressing-case was

poor,--not a particle of silver stopper,--bottle apertures with nothing

in 'em, like empty little dog-kennels,--and a most searching description

of tooth-powder diffusing itself around, as under a deluded mistake that

all the chinks in the fittings was divisions in teeth. His clothes I

parted with, well enough, to a second-hand dealer not far from St.

Clement's Danes, in the Strand,--him as the officers in the Army mostly

dispose of their uniforms to, when hard pressed with debts of honour, if

I may judge from their coats and epaulets diversifying the window with

their backs towards the public. The same party bought in one lot the

portmanteau, the bag, the desk, the dressing-case, the hat-box, the

umbrella, strap, and walking-stick. On my remarking that I should have

thought those articles not quite in his line, he said: "No more ith a

man'th grandmother, Mithter Chrithtopher; but if any man will bring hith

grandmother here, and offer her at a fair trifle below what the'll feth

with good luck when the'th thcoured and turned--I'll buy her!"

These transactions brought me home, and, indeed, more than home, for they

left a goodish profit on the original investment. And now there remained

the writings; and the writings I particular wish to bring under the

candid attention of the reader.

I wish to do so without postponement, for this reason. That is to say,

namely, viz. i.e., as follows, thus:--Before I proceed to recount the

mental sufferings of which I became the prey in consequence of the

writings, and before following up that harrowing tale with a statement of

the wonderful and impressive catastrophe, as thrilling in its nature as

unlooked for in any other capacity, which crowned the ole and filled the

cup of unexpectedness to overflowing, the writings themselves ought to

stand forth to view. Therefore it is that they now come next. One word

to introduce them, and I lay down my pen (I hope, my unassuming pen)

until I take it up to trace the gloomy sequel of a mind with something on

it.

He was a smeary writer, and wrote a dreadful bad hand. Utterly

regardless of ink, he lavished it on every undeserving object--on his

clothes, his desk, his hat, the handle of his tooth-brush, his umbrella.

Ink was found freely on the coffee-room carpet by No. 4 table, and two

blots was on his restless couch. A reference to the document I have

given entire will show that on the morning of the third of February,

eighteen fifty-six, he procured his no less than fifth pen and paper. To

whatever deplorable act of ungovernable composition he immolated those

materials obtained from the bar, there is no doubt that the fatal deed

was committed in bed, and that it left its evidences but too plainly,

long afterwards, upon the pillow-case.

He had put no Heading to any of his writings. Alas! Was he likely to

have a Heading without a Head, and where was _his_ Head when he took such

things into it? In some cases, such as his Boots, he would appear to

have hid the writings; thereby involving his style in greater obscurity.

But his Boots was at least pairs,--and no two of his writings can put in

any claim to be so regarded. Here follows (not to give more specimens)

what was found in

CHAPTER II--HIS BOOTS

"Eh! well then, Monsieur Mutuel! What do I know, what can I say? I

assure you that he calls himself Monsieur The Englishman."

"Pardon. But I think it is impossible," said Monsieur Mutuel,--a

spectacled, snuffy, stooping old gentleman in carpet shoes and a cloth

cap with a peaked shade, a loose blue frock-coat reaching to his heels, a

large limp white shirt-frill, and cravat to correspond,--that is to say,

white was the natural colour of his linen on Sundays, but it toned down

with the week.

"It is," repeated Monsieur Mutuel, his amiable old walnut-shell

countenance very walnut-shelly indeed as he smiled and blinked in the

bright morning sunlight,--"it is, my cherished Madame Bouclet, I think,

impossible!"

"Hey!" (with a little vexed cry and a great many tosses of her head.)

"But it is not impossible that you are a Pig!" retorted Madame Bouclet, a

compact little woman of thirty-five or so. "See then,--look there,--read!

'On the second floor Monsieur L'Anglais.' Is it not so?"

"It is so," said Monsieur Mutuel.

"Good. Continue your morning walk. Get out!" Madame Bouclet dismissed

him with a lively snap of her fingers.

The morning walk of Monsieur Mutuel was in the brightest patch that the

sun made in the Grande Place of a dull old fortified French town. The

manner of his morning walk was with his hands crossed behind him; an

umbrella, in figure the express image of himself, always in one hand; a

snuffbox in the other. Thus, with the shuffling gait of the Elephant

(who really does deal with the very worst trousers-maker employed by the

Zoological world, and who appeared to have recommended him to Monsieur

Mutuel), the old gentleman sunned himself daily when sun was to be had--of

course, at the same time sunning a red ribbon at his button-hole; for was

he not an ancient Frenchman?

Being told by one of the angelic sex to continue his morning walk and get

out, Monsieur Mutuel laughed a walnut-shell laugh, pulled off his cap at

arm's length with the hand that contained his snuffbox, kept it off for a

considerable period after he had parted from Madame Bouclet, and

continued his morning walk and got out, like a man of gallantry as he

was.

The documentary evidence to which Madame Bouclet had referred Monsieur

Mutuel was the list of her lodgers, sweetly written forth by her own

Nephew and Bookkeeper, who held the pen of an Angel, and posted up at the

side of her gateway, for the information of the Police: "Au second, M.

L'Anglais, Proprietaire." On the second floor, Mr. The Englishman, man

of property. So it stood; nothing could be plainer.

Madame Bouclet now traced the line with her forefinger, as it were to

confirm and settle herself in her parting snap at Monsieur Mutuel, and so

placing her right hand on her hip with a defiant air, as if nothing

should ever tempt her to unsnap that snap, strolled out into the Place to

glance up at the windows of Mr. The Englishman. That worthy happening to

be looking out of window at the moment, Madame Bouclet gave him a

graceful salutation with her head, looked to the right and looked to the

left to account to him for her being there, considered for a moment, like

one who accounted to herself for somebody she had expected not being

there, and reentered her own gateway. Madame Bouclet let all her house

giving on the Place in furnished flats or floors, and lived up the yard

behind in company with Monsieur Bouclet her husband (great at billiards),

an inherited brewing business, several fowls, two carts, a nephew, a

little dog in a big kennel, a grape-vine, a counting-house, four horses,

a married sister (with a share in the brewing business), the husband and

two children of the married sister, a parrot, a drum (performed on by the

little boy of the married sister), two billeted soldiers, a quantity of

pigeons, a fife (played by the nephew in a ravishing manner), several

domestics and supernumeraries, a perpetual flavour of coffee and soup, a

terrific range of artificial rocks and wooden precipices at least four

feet high, a small fountain, and half-a-dozen large sunflowers.

Now the Englishman, in taking his Appartement,--or, as one might say on

our side of the Channel, his set of chambers,--had given his name,

correct to the letter, LANGLEY. But as he had a British way of not

opening his mouth very wide on foreign soil, except at meals, the Brewery

had been able to make nothing of it but L'Anglais. So Mr. The Englishman

he had become and he remained.

"Never saw such a people!" muttered Mr. The Englishman, as he now looked

out of window. "Never did, in my life!"

This was true enough, for he had never before been out of his own

country,--a right little island, a tight little island, a bright little

island, a show-fight little island, and full of merit of all sorts; but

not the whole round world.

"These chaps," said Mr. The Englishman to himself, as his eye rolled over

the Place, sprinkled with military here and there, "are no more like

soldiers--" Nothing being sufficiently strong for the end of his

sentence, he left it unended.

This again (from the point of view of his experience) was strictly

correct; for though there was a great agglomeration of soldiers in the

town and neighbouring country, you might have held a grand Review and

Field-day of them every one, and looked in vain among them all for a

soldier choking behind his foolish stock, or a soldier lamed by his ill-

fitting shoes, or a soldier deprived of the use of his limbs by straps

and buttons, or a soldier elaborately forced to be self-helpless in all

the small affairs of life. A swarm of brisk, bright, active, bustling,

handy, odd, skirmishing fellows, able to turn cleverly at anything, from

a siege to soup, from great guns to needles and thread, from the

broadsword exercise to slicing an onion, from making war to making

omelets, was all you would have found.

What a swarm! From the Great Place under the eye of Mr. The Englishman,

where a few awkward squads from the last conscription were doing the

goose-step--some members of those squads still as to their bodies, in the

chrysalis peasant-state of Blouse, and only military butterflies as to

their regimentally-clothed legs--from the Great Place, away outside the

fortifications, and away for miles along the dusty roads, soldiers

swarmed. All day long, upon the grass-grown ramparts of the town,

practising soldiers trumpeted and bugled; all day long, down in angles of

dry trenches, practising soldiers drummed and drummed. Every forenoon,

soldiers burst out of the great barracks into the sandy gymnasium-ground

hard by, and flew over the wooden horse, and hung on to flying ropes, and

dangled upside-down between parallel bars, and shot themselves off wooden

platforms,--splashes, sparks, coruscations, showers of soldiers. At

every corner of the town-wall, every guard-house, every gateway, every

sentry-box, every drawbridge, every reedy ditch, and rushy dike,

soldiers, soldiers, soldiers. And the town being pretty well all wall,

guard-house, gateway, sentry-box, drawbridge, reedy ditch, and rushy

dike, the town was pretty well all soldiers.

What would the sleepy old town have been without the soldiers, seeing

that even with them it had so overslept itself as to have slept its

echoes hoarse, its defensive bars and locks and bolts and chains all

rusty, and its ditches stagnant! From the days when VAUBAN engineered it

to that perplexing extent that to look at it was like being knocked on

the head with it, the stranger becoming stunned and stertorous under the

shock of its incomprehensibility,--from the days when VAUBAN made it the

express incorporation of every substantive and adjective in the art of

military engineering, and not only twisted you into it and twisted you

out of it, to the right, to the left, opposite, under here, over there,

in the dark, in the dirt, by the gateway, archway, covered way, dry way,

wet way, fosse, portcullis, drawbridge, sluice, squat tower, pierced

wall, and heavy battery, but likewise took a fortifying dive under the

neighbouring country, and came to the surface three or four miles off,

blowing out incomprehensible mounds and batteries among the quiet crops

of chicory and beet-root,--from those days to these the town had been

asleep, and dust and rust and must had settled on its drowsy Arsenals and

Magazines, and grass had grown up in its silent streets.

On market-days alone, its Great Place suddenly leaped out of bed. On

market-days, some friendly enchanter struck his staff upon the stones of

the Great Place, and instantly arose the liveliest booths and stalls, and

sittings and standings, and a pleasant hum of chaffering and huckstering

from many hundreds of tongues, and a pleasant, though peculiar, blending

of colours,--white caps, blue blouses, and green vegetables,--and at last

the Knight destined for the adventure seemed to have come in earnest, and

all the Vaubanois sprang up awake. And now, by long, low-lying avenues

of trees, jolting in white-hooded donkey-cart, and on donkey-back, and in

tumbril and wagon, and cart and cabriolet, and afoot with barrow and

burden,--and along the dikes and ditches and canals, in little

peak-prowed country boats,--came peasant-men and women in flocks and

crowds, bringing articles for sale. And here you had boots and shoes,

and sweetmeats and stuffs to wear, and here (in the cool shade of the

Town-hall) you had milk and cream and butter and cheese, and here you had

fruits and onions and carrots, and all things needful for your soup, and

here you had poultry and flowers and protesting pigs, and here new

shovels, axes, spades, and bill-hooks for your farming work, and here

huge mounds of bread, and here your unground grain in sacks, and here

your children's dolls, and here the cake-seller, announcing his wares by

beat and roll of drum. And hark! fanfaronade of trumpets, and here into

the Great Place, resplendent in an open carriage, with four gorgeously-

attired servitors up behind, playing horns, drums, and cymbals, rolled

"the Daughter of a Physician" in massive golden chains and ear-rings, and

blue-feathered hat, shaded from the admiring sun by two immense umbrellas

of artificial roses, to dispense (from motives of philanthropy) that

small and pleasant dose which had cured so many thousands! Toothache,

earache, headache, heartache, stomach-ache, debility, nervousness, fits,

fainting, fever, ague, all equally cured by the small and pleasant dose

of the great Physician's great daughter! The process was this,--she, the

Daughter of a Physician, proprietress of the superb equipage you now

admired with its confirmatory blasts of trumpet, drum, and cymbal, told

you so: On the first day after taking the small and pleasant dose, you

would feel no particular influence beyond a most harmonious sensation of

indescribable and irresistible joy; on the second day you would be so

astonishingly better that you would think yourself changed into somebody

else; on the third day you would be entirely free from disorder, whatever

its nature and however long you had had it, and would seek out the

Physician's Daughter to throw yourself at her feet, kiss the hem of her

garment, and buy as many more of the small and pleasant doses as by the

sale of all your few effects you could obtain; but she would be

inaccessible,--gone for herbs to the Pyramids of Egypt,--and you would be

(though cured) reduced to despair! Thus would the Physician's Daughter

drive her trade (and briskly too), and thus would the buying and selling

and mingling of tongues and colours continue, until the changing

sunlight, leaving the Physician's Daughter in the shadow of high roofs,

admonished her to jolt out westward, with a departing effect of gleam and

glitter on the splendid equipage and brazen blast. And now the enchanter

struck his staff upon the stones of the Great Place once more, and down

went the booths, the sittings and standings, and vanished the

merchandise, and with it the barrows, donkeys, donkey-carts, and

tumbrils, and all other things on wheels and feet, except the slow

scavengers with unwieldy carts and meagre horses clearing up the rubbish,

assisted by the sleek town pigeons, better plumped out than on non-market

days. While there was yet an hour or two to wane before the autumn

sunset, the loiterer outside town-gate and drawbridge, and postern and

double-ditch, would see the last white-hooded cart lessening in the

avenue of lengthening shadows of trees, or the last country boat, paddled

by the last market-woman on her way home, showing black upon the

reddening, long, low, narrow dike between him and the mill; and as the

paddle-parted scum and weed closed over the boat's track, he might be

comfortably sure that its sluggish rest would be troubled no more until

next market-day.

As it was not one of the Great Place's days for getting out of bed, when

Mr. The Englishman looked down at the young soldiers practising the goose-

step there, his mind was left at liberty to take a military turn.

"These fellows are billeted everywhere about," said he; "and to see them

lighting the people's fires, boiling the people's pots, minding the

people's babies, rocking the people's cradles, washing the people's

greens, and making themselves generally useful, in every sort of

unmilitary way, is most ridiculous! Never saw such a set of

fellows,--never did in my life!"

All perfectly true again. Was there not Private Valentine in that very

house, acting as sole housemaid, valet, cook, steward, and nurse, in the

family of his captain, Monsieur le Capitaine de la Cour,--cleaning the

floors, making the beds, doing the marketing, dressing the captain,

dressing the dinners, dressing the salads, and dressing the baby, all

with equal readiness? Or, to put him aside, he being in loyal attendance

on his Chief, was there not Private Hyppolite, billeted at the Perfumer's

two hundred yards off, who, when not on duty, volunteered to keep shop

while the fair Perfumeress stepped out to speak to a neighbour or so, and

laughingly sold soap with his war-sword girded on him? Was there not

Emile, billeted at the Clock-maker's, perpetually turning to of an

evening, with his coat off, winding up the stock? Was there not Eugene,

billeted at the Tinman's, cultivating, pipe in mouth, a garden four feet

square, for the Tinman, in the little court, behind the shop, and

extorting the fruits of the earth from the same, on his knees, with the

sweat of his brow? Not to multiply examples, was there not Baptiste,

billeted on the poor Water-carrier, at that very instant sitting on the

pavement in the sunlight, with his martial legs asunder, and one of the

Water-carrier's spare pails between them, which (to the delight and glory

of the heart of the Water-carrier coming across the Place from the

fountain, yoked and burdened) he was painting bright-green outside and

bright-red within? Or, to go no farther than the Barber's at the very

next door, was there not Corporal Theophile--

"No," said Mr. The Englishman, glancing down at the Barber's, "he is not

there at present. There's the child, though."

A mere mite of a girl stood on the steps of the Barber's shop, looking

across the Place. A mere baby, one might call her, dressed in the close

white linen cap which small French country children wear (like the

children in Dutch pictures), and in a frock of homespun blue, that had no

shape except where it was tied round her little fat throat. So that,

being naturally short and round all over, she looked, behind, as if she

had been cut off at her natural waist, and had had her head neatly fitted

on it.

"There's the child, though."

To judge from the way in which the dimpled hand was rubbing the eyes, the

eyes had been closed in a nap, and were newly opened. But they seemed to

be looking so intently across the Place, that the Englishman looked in

the same direction.

"O!" said he presently. "I thought as much. The Corporal's there."

The Corporal, a smart figure of a man of thirty, perhaps a thought under

the middle size, but very neatly made,--a sunburnt Corporal with a brown

peaked beard,--faced about at the moment, addressing voluble words of

instruction to the squad in hand. Nothing was amiss or awry about the

Corporal. A lithe and nimble Corporal, quite complete, from the

sparkling dark eyes under his knowing uniform cap to his sparkling white

gaiters. The very image and presentment of a Corporal of his country's

army, in the line of his shoulders, the line of his waist, the broadest

line of his Bloomer trousers, and their narrowest line at the calf of his

leg.

Mr. The Englishman looked on, and the child looked on, and the Corporal

looked on (but the last-named at his men), until the drill ended a few

minutes afterwards, and the military sprinkling dried up directly, and

was gone. Then said Mr. The Englishman to himself, "Look here! By

George!" And the Corporal, dancing towards the Barber's with his arms

wide open, caught up the child, held her over his head in a flying

attitude, caught her down again, kissed her, and made off with her into

the Barber's house.

Now Mr. The Englishman had had a quarrel with his erring and disobedient

and disowned daughter, and there was a child in that case too. Had not

his daughter been a child, and had she not taken angel-flights above his

head as this child had flown above the Corporal's?

"He's a "--National Participled--"fool!" said the Englishman, and shut

his window.

But the windows of the house of Memory, and the windows of the house of

Mercy, are not so easily closed as windows of glass and wood. They fly

open unexpectedly; they rattle in the night; they must be nailed up. Mr.

The Englishman had tried nailing them, but had not driven the nails quite

home. So he passed but a disturbed evening and a worse night.

By nature a good-tempered man? No; very little gentleness, confounding

the quality with weakness. Fierce and wrathful when crossed? Very, and

stupendously unreasonable. Moody? Exceedingly so. Vindictive? Well;

he had had scowling thoughts that he would formally curse his daughter,

as he had seen it done on the stage. But remembering that the real

Heaven is some paces removed from the mock one in the great chandelier of

the Theatre, he had given that up.

And he had come abroad to be rid of his repudiated daughter for the rest

of his life. And here he was.

At bottom, it was for this reason, more than for any other, that Mr. The

Englishman took it extremely ill that Corporal Theophile should be so

devoted to little Bebelle, the child at the Barber's shop. In an unlucky

moment he had chanced to say to himself, "Why, confound the fellow, he is

not her father!" There was a sharp sting in the speech which ran into

him suddenly, and put him in a worse mood. So he had National

Participled the unconscious Corporal with most hearty emphasis, and had

made up his mind to think no more about such a mountebank.

But it came to pass that the Corporal was not to be dismissed. If he had

known the most delicate fibres of the Englishman's mind, instead of

knowing nothing on earth about him, and if he had been the most obstinate

Corporal in the Grand Army of France, instead of being the most obliging,

he could not have planted himself with more determined immovability plump

in the midst of all the Englishman's thoughts. Not only so, but he

seemed to be always in his view. Mr. The Englishman had but to look out

of window, to look upon the Corporal with little Bebelle. He had but to

go for a walk, and there was the Corporal walking with Bebelle. He had

but to come home again, disgusted, and the Corporal and Bebelle were at

home before him. If he looked out at his back windows early in the

morning, the Corporal was in the Barber's back yard, washing and dressing

and brushing Bebelle. If he took refuge at his front windows, the

Corporal brought his breakfast out into the Place, and shared it there

with Bebelle. Always Corporal and always Bebelle. Never Corporal

without Bebelle. Never Bebelle without Corporal.

Mr. The Englishman was not particularly strong in the French language as

a means of oral communication, though he read it very well. It is with

languages as with people,--when you only know them by sight, you are apt

to mistake them; you must be on speaking terms before you can be said to

have established an acquaintance.

For this reason, Mr. The Englishman had to gird up his loins considerably

before he could bring himself to the point of exchanging ideas with

Madame Bouclet on the subject of this Corporal and this Bebelle. But

Madame Bouclet looking in apologetically one morning to remark, that, O

Heaven! she was in a state of desolation because the lamp-maker had not

sent home that lamp confided to him to repair, but that truly he was a

lamp-maker against whom the whole world shrieked out, Mr. The Englishman

seized the occasion.

"Madame, that baby--"

"Pardon, monsieur. That lamp."

"No, no, that little girl."

"But, pardon!" said Madame Bonclet, angling for a clew, "one cannot light

a little girl, or send her to be repaired?"

"The little girl--at the house of the barber."

"Ah-h-h!" cried Madame Bouclet, suddenly catching the idea with her

delicate little line and rod. "Little Bebelle? Yes, yes, yes! And her

friend the Corporal? Yes, yes, yes, yes! So genteel of him,--is it

not?"

"He is not--?"

"Not at all; not at all! He is not one of her relations. Not at all!"

"Why, then, he--"

"Perfectly!" cried Madame Bouclet, "you are right, monsieur. It is so

genteel of him. The less relation, the more genteel. As you say."

"Is she--?"

"The child of the barber?" Madame Bouclet whisked up her skilful little

line and rod again. "Not at all, not at all! She is the child of--in a

word, of no one."

"The wife of the barber, then--?"

"Indubitably. As you say. The wife of the barber receives a small

stipend to take care of her. So much by the month. Eh, then! It is

without doubt very little, for we are all poor here."

"You are not poor, madame."

"As to my lodgers," replied Madame Bouclet, with a smiling and a gracious

bend of her head, "no. As to all things else, so-so."

"You flatter me, madame."

"Monsieur, it is you who flatter me in living here."

Certain fishy gasps on Mr. The Englishman's part, denoting that he was

about to resume his subject under difficulties, Madame Bouclet observed

him closely, and whisked up her delicate line and rod again with

triumphant success.

"O no, monsieur, certainly not. The wife of the barber is not cruel to

the poor child, but she is careless. Her health is delicate, and she

sits all day, looking out at window. Consequently, when the Corporal

first came, the poor little Bebelle was much neglected."

"It is a curious--" began Mr. The Englishman.

"Name? That Bebelle? Again you are right, monsieur. But it is a

playful name for Gabrielle."

"And so the child is a mere fancy of the Corporal's?" said Mr. The

Englishman, in a gruffly disparaging tone of voice.

"Eh, well!" returned Madame Bouclet, with a pleading shrug: "one must

love something. Human nature is weak."

("Devilish weak," muttered the Englishman, in his own language.)

"And the Corporal," pursued Madame Bouclet, "being billeted at the

barber's,--where he will probably remain a long time, for he is attached

to the General,--and finding the poor unowned child in need of being

loved, and finding himself in need of loving,--why, there you have it

all, you see!"

Mr. The Englishman accepted this interpretation of the matter with an

indifferent grace, and observed to himself, in an injured manner, when he

was again alone: "I shouldn't mind it so much, if these people were not

such a"--National Participled--"sentimental people!"

There was a Cemetery outside the town, and it happened ill for the

reputation of the Vaubanois, in this sentimental connection, that he took

a walk there that same afternoon. To be sure there were some wonderful

things in it (from the Englishman's point of view), and of a certainty in

all Britain you would have found nothing like it. Not to mention the

fanciful flourishes of hearts and crosses in wood and iron, that were

planted all over the place, making it look very like a Firework-ground,

where a most splendid pyrotechnic display might be expected after dark,

there were so many wreaths upon the graves, embroidered, as it might be,

"To my mother," "To my daughter," "To my father," "To my brother," "To my

sister," "To my friend," and those many wreaths were in so many stages of

elaboration and decay, from the wreath of yesterday, all fresh colour and

bright beads, to the wreath of last year, a poor mouldering wisp of

straw! There were so many little gardens and grottos made upon graves,

in so many tastes, with plants and shells and plaster figures and

porcelain pitchers, and so many odds and ends! There were so many

tributes of remembrance hanging up, not to be discriminated by the

closest inspection from little round waiters, whereon were depicted in

glowing lines either a lady or a gentleman with a white

pocket-handkerchief out of all proportion, leaning, in a state of the

most faultless mourning and most profound affliction, on the most

architectural and gorgeous urn! There were so many surviving wives who

had put their names on the tombs of their deceased husbands, with a blank

for the date of their own departure from this weary world; and there were

so many surviving husbands who had rendered the same homage to their

deceased wives; and out of the number there must have been so many who

had long ago married again! In fine, there was so much in the place that

would have seemed more frippery to a stranger, save for the consideration

that the lightest paper flower that lay upon the poorest heap of earth

was never touched by a rude hand, but perished there, a sacred thing!

"Nothing of the solemnity of Death here," Mr. The Englishman had been

going to say, when this last consideration touched him with a mild

appeal, and on the whole he walked out without saying it. "But these

people are," he insisted, by way of compensation, when he was well

outside the gate, "they are so"--Participled--"sentimental!"

His way back lay by the military gymnasium-ground. And there he passed

the Corporal glibly instructing young soldiers how to swing themselves

over rapid and deep watercourses on their way to Glory, by means of a

rope, and himself deftly plunging off a platform, and flying a hundred

feet or two, as an encouragement to them to begin. And there he also

passed, perched on a crowning eminence (probably the Corporal's careful

hands), the small Bebelle, with her round eyes wide open, surveying the

proceeding like a wondering sort of blue and white bird.

"If that child was to die," this was his reflection as he turned his back

and went his way,--"and it would almost serve the fellow right for making

such a fool of himself,--I suppose we should have him sticking up a

wreath and a waiter in that fantastic burying-ground."

Nevertheless, after another early morning or two of looking out of

window, he strolled down into the Place, when the Corporal and Bebelle

were walking there, and touching his hat to the Corporal (an immense

achievement), wished him Good-day.

"Good-day, monsieur."

"This is a rather pretty child you have here," said Mr. The Englishman,

taking her chin in his hand, and looking down into her astonished blue

eyes.

"Monsieur, she is a very pretty child," returned the Corporal, with a

stress on his polite correction of the phrase.

"And good?" said the Englishman.

"And very good. Poor little thing!"

"Hah!" The Englishman stooped down and patted her cheek, not without

awkwardness, as if he were going too far in his conciliation. "And what

is this medal round your neck, my little one?"

Bebelle having no other reply on her lips than her chubby right fist, the

Corporal offered his services as interpreter.

"Monsieur demands, what is this, Bebelle?"

"It is the Holy Virgin," said Bebelle.

"And who gave it you?" asked the Englishman.

"Theophile."

"And who is Theophile?"

Bebelle broke into a laugh, laughed merrily and heartily, clapped her

chubby hands, and beat her little feet on the stone pavement of the

Place.

"He doesn't know Theophile! Why, he doesn't know any one! He doesn't

know anything!" Then, sensible of a small solecism in her manners,

Bebelle twisted her right hand in a leg of the Corporal's Bloomer

trousers, and, laying her cheek against the place, kissed it.

"Monsieur Theophile, I believe?" said the Englishman to the Corporal.

"It is I, monsieur."

"Permit me." Mr. The Englishman shook him heartily by the hand and

turned away. But he took it mighty ill that old Monsieur Mutuel in his

patch of sunlight, upon whom he came as he turned, should pull off his

cap to him with a look of pleased approval. And he muttered, in his own

tongue, as he returned the salutation, "Well, walnut-shell! And what

business is it of _yours_?"

Mr. The Englishman went on for many weeks passing but disturbed evenings

and worse nights, and constantly experiencing that those aforesaid

windows in the houses of Memory and Mercy rattled after dark, and that he

had very imperfectly nailed them up. Likewise, he went on for many weeks

daily improving the acquaintance of the Corporal and Bebelle. That is to

say, he took Bebelle by the chin, and the Corporal by the hand, and

offered Bebelle sous and the Corporal cigars, and even got the length of

changing pipes with the Corporal and kissing Bebelle. But he did it all

in a shamefaced way, and always took it extremely ill that Monsieur

Mutuel in his patch of sunlight should note what he did. Whenever that

seemed to be the case, he always growled in his own tongue, "There you

are again, walnut-shell! What business is it of yours?"

In a word, it had become the occupation of Mr. The Englishman's life to

look after the Corporal and little Bebelle, and to resent old Monsieur

Mutuel's looking after _him_. An occupation only varied by a fire in the

town one windy night, and much passing of water-buckets from hand to hand

(in which the Englishman rendered good service), and much beating of

drums,--when all of a sudden the Corporal disappeared.

Next, all of a sudden, Bebelle disappeared.

She had been visible a few days later than the Corporal,--sadly

deteriorated as to washing and brushing,--but she had not spoken when

addressed by Mr. The Englishman, and had looked scared and had run away.

And now it would seem that she had run away for good. And there lay the

Great Place under the windows, bare and barren.

In his shamefaced and constrained way, Mr. The Englishman asked no

question of any one, but watched from his front windows and watched from

his back windows, and lingered about the Place, and peeped in at the

Barber's shop, and did all this and much more with a whistling and tune-

humming pretence of not missing anything, until one afternoon when

Monsieur Mutuel's patch of sunlight was in shadow, and when, according to

all rule and precedent, he had no right whatever to bring his red ribbon

out of doors, behold here he was, advancing with his cap already in his

hand twelve paces off!

Mr. The Englishman had got as far into his usual objurgation as, "What bu-

si--" when he checked himself.

"Ah, it is sad, it is sad! Helas, it is unhappy, it is sad!" Thus old

Monsieur Mutuel, shaking his gray head.

"What busin--at least, I would say, what do you mean, Monsieur Mutuel?"

"Our Corporal. Helas, our dear Corporal!"

"What has happened to him?"

"You have not heard?"

"No."

"At the fire. But he was so brave, so ready. Ah, too brave, too ready!"

"May the Devil carry you away!" the Englishman broke in impatiently; "I

beg your pardon,--I mean me,--I am not accustomed to speak French,--go

on, will you?"

"And a falling beam--"

"Good God!" exclaimed the Englishman. "It was a private soldier who was

killed?"

"No. A Corporal, the same Corporal, our dear Corporal. Beloved by all

his comrades. The funeral ceremony was touching,--penetrating. Monsieur

The Englishman, your eyes fill with tears."

"What bu-si--"

"Monsieur The Englishman, I honour those emotions. I salute you with

profound respect. I will not obtrude myself upon your noble heart."

Monsieur Mutuel,--a gentleman in every thread of his cloudy linen, under

whose wrinkled hand every grain in the quarter of an ounce of poor snuff

in his poor little tin box became a gentleman's property,--Monsieur

Mutuel passed on, with his cap in his hand.

"I little thought," said the Englishman, after walking for several

minutes, and more than once blowing his nose, "when I was looking round

that cemetery--I'll go there!"

Straight he went there, and when he came within the gate he paused,

considering whether he should ask at the lodge for some direction to the

grave. But he was less than ever in a mood for asking questions, and he

thought, "I shall see something on it to know it by."

In search of the Corporal's grave he went softly on, up this walk and

down that, peering in, among the crosses and hearts and columns and

obelisks and tombstones, for a recently disturbed spot. It troubled him

now to think how many dead there were in the cemetery,--he had not

thought them a tenth part so numerous before,--and after he had walked

and sought for some time, he said to himself, as he struck down a new

vista of tombs, "I might suppose that every one was dead but I."

Not every one. A live child was lying on the ground asleep. Truly he

had found something on the Corporal's grave to know it by, and the

something was Bebelle.

With such a loving will had the dead soldier's comrades worked at his

resting-place, that it was already a neat garden. On the green turf of

the garden Bebelle lay sleeping, with her cheek touching it. A plain,

unpainted little wooden Cross was planted in the turf, and her short arm

embraced this little Cross, as it had many a time embraced the Corporal's

neck. They had put a tiny flag (the flag of France) at his head, and a

laurel garland.

Mr. The Englishman took off his hat, and stood for a while silent. Then,

covering his head again, he bent down on one knee, and softly roused the

child.

"Bebelle! My little one!"

Opening her eyes, on which the tears were still wet, Bebelle was at first

frightened; but seeing who it was, she suffered him to take her in his

arms, looking steadfastly at him.

"You must not lie here, my little one. You must come with me."

"No, no. I can't leave Theophile. I want the good dear Theophile."

"We will go and seek him, Bebelle. We will go and look for him in

England. We will go and look for him at my daughter's, Bebelle."

"Shall we find him there?"

"We shall find the best part of him there. Come with me, poor forlorn

little one. Heaven is my witness," said the Englishman, in a low voice,

as, before he rose, he touched the turf above the gentle Corporal's

breast, "that I thankfully accept this trust!"

It was a long way for the child to have come unaided. She was soon

asleep again, with her embrace transferred to the Englishman's neck. He

looked at her worn shoes, and her galled feet, and her tired face, and

believed that she had come there every day.

He was leaving the grave with the slumbering Bebelle in his arms, when he

stopped, looked wistfully down at it, and looked wistfully at the other

graves around. "It is the innocent custom of the people," said Mr. The

Englishman, with hesitation. "I think I should like to do it. No one

sees."

Careful not to wake Bebelle as he went, he repaired to the lodge where

such little tokens of remembrance were sold, and bought two wreaths. One,

blue and white and glistening silver, "To my friend;" one of a soberer

red and black and yellow, "To my friend." With these he went back to the

grave, and so down on one knee again. Touching the child's lips with the

brighter wreath, he guided her hand to hang it on the Cross; then hung

his own wreath there. After all, the wreaths were not far out of keeping

with the little garden. To my friend. To my friend.

Mr. The Englishman took it very ill when he looked round a street corner

into the Great Place, carrying Bebelle in his arms, that old Mutuel

should be there airing his red ribbon. He took a world of pains to dodge

the worthy Mutuel, and devoted a surprising amount of time and trouble to

skulking into his own lodging like a man pursued by Justice. Safely

arrived there at last, he made Bebelle's toilet with as accurate a

remembrance as he could bring to bear upon that work of the way in which

he had often seen the poor Corporal make it, and having given her to eat

and drink, laid her down on his own bed. Then he slipped out into the

barber's shop, and after a brief interview with the barber's wife, and a

brief recourse to his purse and card-case, came back again with the whole

of Bebelle's personal property in such a very little bundle that it was

quite lost under his arm.

As it was irreconcilable with his whole course and character that he

should carry Bebelle off in state, or receive any compliments or

congratulations on that feat, he devoted the next day to getting his two

portmanteaus out of the house by artfulness and stealth, and to

comporting himself in every particular as if he were going to run

away,--except, indeed, that he paid his few debts in the town, and

prepared a letter to leave for Madame Bouclet, enclosing a sufficient sum

of money in lieu of notice. A railway train would come through at

midnight, and by that train he would take away Bebelle to look for

Theophile in England and at his forgiven daughter's.

At midnight, on a moonlight night, Mr. The Englishman came creeping forth

like a harmless assassin, with Bebelle on his breast instead of a dagger.

Quiet the Great Place, and quiet the never-stirring streets; closed the

cafes; huddled together motionless their billiard-balls; drowsy the guard

or sentinel on duty here and there; lulled for the time, by sleep, even

the insatiate appetite of the Office of Town-dues.

Mr. The Englishman left the Place behind, and left the streets behind,

and left the civilian-inhabited town behind, and descended down among the

military works of Vauban, hemming all in. As the shadow of the first

heavy arch and postern fell upon him and was left behind, as the shadow

of the second heavy arch and postern fell upon him and was left behind,

as his hollow tramp over the first drawbridge was succeeded by a gentler

sound, as his hollow tramp over the second drawbridge was succeeded by a

gentler sound, as he overcame the stagnant ditches one by one, and passed

out where the flowing waters were and where the moonlight, so the dark

shades and the hollow sounds and the unwholesomely locked currents of his

soul were vanquished and set free. See to it, Vaubans of your own

hearts, who gird them in with triple walls and ditches, and with bolt and

chain and bar and lifted bridge,--raze those fortifications, and lay them

level with the all-absorbing dust, before the night cometh when no hand

can work!

All went prosperously, and he got into an empty carriage in the train,

where he could lay Bebelle on the seat over against him, as on a couch,

and cover her from head to foot with his mantle. He had just drawn

himself up from perfecting this arrangement, and had just leaned back in

his own seat contemplating it with great satisfaction, when he became

aware of a curious appearance at the open carriage window,--a ghostly

little tin box floating up in the moonlight, and hovering there.

He leaned forward, and put out his head. Down among the rails and wheels

and ashes, Monsieur Mutuel, red ribbon and all!

"Excuse me, Monsieur The Englishman," said Monsieur Mutuel, holding up

his box at arm's length, the carriage being so high and he so low; "but I

shall reverence the little box for ever, if your so generous hand will

take a pinch from it at parting."

Mr. The Englishman reached out of the window before complying,

and--without asking the old fellow what business it was of his--shook

hands and said, "Adieu! God bless you!"

"And, Mr. The Englishman, God bless _you_!" cried Madame Bouclet, who was

also there among the rails and wheels and ashes. "And God will bless you

in the happiness of the protected child now with you. And God will bless

you in your own child at home. And God will bless you in your own

remembrances. And this from me!"

He had barely time to catch a bouquet from her hand, when the train was

flying through the night. Round the paper that enfolded it was bravely

written (doubtless by the nephew who held the pen of an Angel), "Homage

to the friend of the friendless."

"Not bad people, Bebelle!" said Mr. The Englishman, softly drawing the

mantle a little from her sleeping face, that he might kiss it, "though

they are so--"

Too "sentimental" himself at the moment to be able to get out that word,

he added nothing but a sob, and travelled for some miles, through the

moonlight, with his hand before his eyes.

CHAPTER III--HIS BROWN-PAPER PARCEL

My works are well known. I am a young man in the Art line. You have

seen my works many a time, though it's fifty thousand to one if you have

seen me. You say you don't want to see me? You say your interest is in

my works, and not in me? Don't be too sure about that. Stop a bit.

Let us have it down in black and white at the first go off, so that there

may be no unpleasantness or wrangling afterwards. And this is looked

over by a friend of mine, a ticket writer, that is up to literature. I

am a young man in the Art line--in the Fine-Art line. You have seen my

works over and over again, and you have been curious about me, and you

think you have seen me. Now, as a safe rule, you never have seen me, and

you never do see me, and you never will see me. I think that's plainly

put--and it's what knocks me over.

If there's a blighted public character going, I am the party.

It has been remarked by a certain (or an uncertain,) philosopher, that

the world knows nothing of its greatest men. He might have put it

plainer if he had thrown his eye in my direction. He might have put it,

that while the world knows something of them that apparently go in and

win, it knows nothing of them that really go in and don't win. There it

is again in another form--and that's what knocks me over.

Not that it's only myself that suffers from injustice, but that I am more

alive to my own injuries than to any other man's. Being, as I have

mentioned, in the Fine-Art line, and not the Philanthropic line, I openly

admit it. As to company in injury, I have company enough. Who are you

passing every day at your Competitive Excruciations? The fortunate

candidates whose heads and livers you have turned upside down for life?

Not you. You are really passing the Crammers and Coaches. If your

principle is right, why don't you turn out to-morrow morning with the

keys of your cities on velvet cushions, your musicians playing, and your

flags flying, and read addresses to the Crammers and Coaches on your

bended knees, beseeching them to come out and govern you? Then, again,

as to your public business of all sorts, your Financial statements and

your Budgets; the Public knows much, truly, about the real doers of all

that! Your Nobles and Right Honourables are first-rate men? Yes, and so

is a goose a first-rate bird. But I'll tell you this about the

goose;--you'll find his natural flavour disappointing, without stuffing.

Perhaps I am soured by not being popular? But suppose I AM popular.

Suppose my works never fail to attract. Suppose that, whether they are

exhibited by natural light or by artificial, they invariably draw the

public. Then no doubt they are preserved in some Collection? No, they

are not; they are not preserved in any Collection. Copyright? No, nor

yet copyright. Anyhow they must be somewhere? Wrong again, for they are

often nowhere.

Says you, "At all events, you are in a moody state of mind, my friend."

My answer is, I have described myself as a public character with a blight

upon him--which fully accounts for the curdling of the milk in _that_

cocoa-nut.

Those that are acquainted with London are aware of a locality on the

Surrey side of the river Thames, called the Obelisk, or, more generally,

the Obstacle. Those that are not acquainted with London will also be

aware of it, now that I have named it. My lodging is not far from that

locality. I am a young man of that easy disposition, that I lie abed

till it's absolutely necessary to get up and earn something, and then I

lie abed again till I have spent it.

It was on an occasion when I had had to turn to with a view to victuals,

that I found myself walking along the Waterloo Road, one evening after

dark, accompanied by an acquaintance and fellow-lodger in the gas-fitting

way of life. He is very good company, having worked at the theatres,

and, indeed, he has a theatrical turn himself, and wishes to be brought

out in the character of Othello; but whether on account of his regular

work always blacking his face and hands more or less, I cannot say.

"Tom," he says, "what a mystery hangs over you!"

"Yes, Mr. Click"--the rest of the house generally give him his name, as

being first, front, carpeted all over, his own furniture, and if not

mahogany, an out-and-out imitation--"yes, Mr. Click, a mystery does hang

over me."

"Makes you low, you see, don't it?" says he, eyeing me sideways.

"Why, yes, Mr. Click, there are circumstances connected with it that

have," I yielded to a sigh, "a lowering effect."

"Gives you a touch of the misanthrope too, don't it?" says he. "Well,

I'll tell you what. If I was you, I'd shake it of."

"If I was you, I would, Mr. Click; but, if you was me, you wouldn't."

"Ah!" says he, "there's something in that."

When we had walked a little further, he took it up again by touching me

on the chest.

"You see, Tom, it seems to me as if, in the words of the poet who wrote

the domestic drama of The Stranger, you had a silent sorrow there."

"I have, Mr. Click."

"I hope, Tom," lowering his voice in a friendly way, "it isn't coining,

or smashing?"

"No, Mr. Click. Don't be uneasy."

"Nor yet forg--" Mr. Click checked himself, and added, "counterfeiting

anything, for instance?"

"No, Mr. Click. I am lawfully in the Art line--Fine-Art line--but I can

say no more."

"Ah! Under a species of star? A kind of malignant spell? A sort of a

gloomy destiny? A cankerworm pegging away at your vitals in secret, as

well as I make it out?" said Mr. Click, eyeing me with some admiration.

I told Mr. Click that was about it, if we came to particulars; and I

thought he appeared rather proud of me.

Our conversation had brought us to a crowd of people, the greater part

struggling for a front place from which to see something on the pavement,

which proved to be various designs executed in coloured chalks on the

pavement stones, lighted by two candles stuck in mud sconces. The

subjects consisted of a fine fresh salmon's head and shoulders, supposed

to have been recently sent home from the fishmonger's; a moonlight night

at sea (in a circle); dead game; scroll-work; the head of a hoary hermit

engaged in devout contemplation; the head of a pointer smoking a pipe;

and a cherubim, his flesh creased as in infancy, going on a horizontal

errand against the wind. All these subjects appeared to me to be

exquisitely done.

On his knees on one side of this gallery, a shabby person of modest

appearance who shivered dreadfully (though it wasn't at all cold), was

engaged in blowing the chalk-dust off the moon, toning the outline of the

back of the hermit's head with a bit of leather, and fattening the down-

stroke of a letter or two in the writing. I have forgotten to mention

that writing formed a part of the composition, and that it also--as it

appeared to me--was exquisitely done. It ran as follows, in fine round

characters: "An honest man is the noblest work of God. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

0. Pounds s. d. Employment in an office is humbly requested. Honour

the Queen. Hunger is a 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 sharp thorn. Chip chop,

cherry chop, fol de rol de ri do. Astronomy and mathematics. I do this

to support my family."

Murmurs of admiration at the exceeding beauty of this performance went

about among the crowd. The artist, having finished his touching (and

having spoilt those places), took his seat on the pavement, with his

knees crouched up very nigh his chin; and halfpence began to rattle in.

"A pity to see a man of that talent brought so low; ain't it?" said one

of the crowd to me.

"What he might have done in the coach-painting, or house-decorating!"

said another man, who took up the first speaker because I did not.

"Why, he writes--alone--like the Lord Chancellor!" said another man.

"Better," said another. "I know his writing. He couldn't support his

family this way."

Then, a woman noticed the natural fluffiness of the hermit's hair, and

another woman, her friend, mentioned of the salmon's gills that you could

almost see him gasp. Then, an elderly country gentleman stepped forward

and asked the modest man how he executed his work? And the modest man

took some scraps of brown paper with colours in 'em out of his pockets,

and showed them. Then a fair-complexioned donkey, with sandy hair and

spectacles, asked if the hermit was a portrait? To which the modest man,

casting a sorrowful glance upon it, replied that it was, to a certain

extent, a recollection of his father. This caused a boy to yelp out, "Is

the Pinter a smoking the pipe your mother?" who was immediately shoved

out of view by a sympathetic carpenter with his basket of tools at his

back.

At every fresh question or remark the crowd leaned forward more eagerly,

and dropped the halfpence more freely, and the modest man gathered them

up more meekly. At last, another elderly gentleman came to the front,

and gave the artist his card, to come to his office to-morrow, and get

some copying to do. The card was accompanied by sixpence, and the artist

was profoundly grateful, and, before he put the card in his hat, read it

several times by the light of his candles to fix the address well in his

mind, in case he should lose it. The crowd was deeply interested by this

last incident, and a man in the second row with a gruff voice growled to

the artist, "You've got a chance in life now, ain't you?" The artist

answered (sniffing in a very low-spirited way, however), "I'm thankful to

hope so." Upon which there was a general chorus of "You are all right,"

and the halfpence slackened very decidedly.

I felt myself pulled away by the arm, and Mr. Click and I stood alone at

the corner of the next crossing.

"Why, Tom," said Mr. Click, "what a horrid expression of face you've

got!"

"Have I?" says I.

"Have you?" says Mr. Click. "Why, you looked as if you would have his

blood."

"Whose blood?"

"The artist's."

"The artist's?" I repeated. And I laughed, frantically, wildly,

gloomily, incoherently, disagreeably. I am sensible that I did. I know

I did.

Mr. Click stared at me in a scared sort of a way, but said nothing until

we had walked a street's length. He then stopped short, and said, with

excitement on the part of his forefinger:

"Thomas, I find it necessary to be plain with you. I don't like the

envious man. I have identified the cankerworm that's pegging away at

_your_ vitals, and it's envy, Thomas."

"Is it?" says I.

"Yes, it is," says be. "Thomas, beware of envy. It is the green-eyed

monster which never did and never will improve each shining hour, but

quite the reverse. I dread the envious man, Thomas. I confess that I am

afraid of the envious man, when he is so envious as you are. Whilst you

contemplated the works of a gifted rival, and whilst you heard that

rival's praises, and especially whilst you met his humble glance as he

put that card away, your countenance was so malevolent as to be terrific.

Thomas, I have heard of the envy of them that follows the Fine-Art line,

but I never believed it could be what yours is. I wish you well, but I

take my leave of you. And if you should ever got into trouble through

knifeing--or say, garotting--a brother artist, as I believe you will,

don't call me to character, Thomas, or I shall be forced to injure your

case."

Mr. Click parted from me with those words, and we broke off our

acquaintance.

I became enamoured. Her name was Henrietta. Contending with my easy

disposition, I frequently got up to go after her. She also dwelt in the

neighbourhood of the Obstacle, and I did fondly hope that no other would

interpose in the way of our union.

To say that Henrietta was volatile is but to say that she was woman. To

say that she was in the bonnet-trimming is feebly to express the taste

which reigned predominant in her own.

She consented to walk with me. Let me do her the justice to say that she

did so upon trial. "I am not," said Henrietta, "as yet prepared to

regard you, Thomas, in any other light than as a friend; but as a friend

I am willing to walk with you, on the understanding that softer

sentiments may flow."

We walked.

Under the influence of Henrietta's beguilements, I now got out of bed

daily. I pursued my calling with an industry before unknown, and it

cannot fail to have been observed at that period, by those most familiar

with the streets of London, that there was a larger supply. But hold!

The time is not yet come!

One evening in October I was walking with Henrietta, enjoying the cool

breezes wafted over Vauxhall Bridge. After several slow turns, Henrietta

gaped frequently (so inseparable from woman is the love of excitement),

and said, "Let's go home by Grosvenor Place, Piccadilly, and

Waterloo"--localities, I may state for the information of the stranger

and the foreigner, well known in London, and the last a Bridge.

"No. Not by Piccadilly, Henrietta," said I.

"And why not Piccadilly, for goodness' sake?" said Henrietta.

Could I tell her? Could I confess to the gloomy presentiment that

overshadowed me? Could I make myself intelligible to her? No.

"I don't like Piccadilly, Henrietta."

"But I do," said she. "It's dark now, and the long rows of lamps in

Piccadilly after dark are beautiful. I _will_ go to Piccadilly!"

Of course we went. It was a pleasant night, and there were numbers of

people in the streets. It was a brisk night, but not too cold, and not

damp. Let me darkly observe, it was the best of all nights--FOR THE

PURPOSE.

As we passed the garden wall of the Royal Palace, going up Grosvenor

Place, Henrietta murmured:

"I wish I was a Queen!"

"Why so, Henrietta?"

"I would make _you_ Something," said she, and crossed her two hands on my

arm, and turned away her head.

Judging from this that the softer sentiments alluded to above had begun

to flow, I adapted my conduct to that belief. Thus happily we passed on

into the detested thoroughfare of Piccadilly. On the right of that

thoroughfare is a row of trees, the railing of the Green Park, and a fine

broad eligible piece of pavement.

"Oh my!" cried Henrietta presently. "There's been an accident!"

I looked to the left, and said, "Where, Henrietta?"

"Not there, stupid!" said she. "Over by the Park railings. Where the

crowd is. Oh no, it's not an accident, it's something else to look at!

What's them lights?"

She referred to two lights twinkling low amongst the legs of the

assemblage: two candles on the pavement.

"Oh, do come along!" cried Henrietta, skipping across the road with me. I

hung back, but in vain. "Do let's look!"

Again, designs upon the pavement. Centre compartment, Mount Vesuvius

going it (in a circle), supported by four oval compartments, severally

representing a ship in heavy weather, a shoulder of mutton attended by

two cucumbers, a golden harvest with distant cottage of proprietor, and a

knife and fork after nature; above the centre compartment a bunch of

grapes, and over the whole a rainbow. The whole, as it appeared to me,

exquisitely done.

The person in attendance on these works of art was in all respects,

shabbiness excepted, unlike the former personage. His whole appearance

and manner denoted briskness. Though threadbare, he expressed to the

crowd that poverty had not subdued his spirit, or tinged with any sense

of shame this honest effort to turn his talents to some account. The

writing which formed a part of his composition was conceived in a

similarly cheerful tone. It breathed the following sentiments: "The

writer is poor, but not despondent. To a British 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

Public he Pounds s. d. appeals. Honour to our brave Army! And also 0 9

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 to our gallant Navy. BRITONS STRIKE the A B C D E F G

writer in common chalks would be grateful for any suitable employment

HOME! HURRAH!" The whole of this writing appeared to me to be

exquisitely done.

But this man, in one respect like the last, though seemingly hard at it

with a great show of brown paper and rubbers, was only really fattening

the down-stroke of a letter here and there, or blowing the loose chalk

off the rainbow, or toning the outside edge of the shoulder of mutton.

Though he did this with the greatest confidence, he did it (as it struck

me) in so ignorant a manner, and so spoilt everything he touched, that

when he began upon the purple smoke from the chimney of the distant

cottage of the proprietor of the golden harvest (which smoke was

beautifully soft), I found myself saying aloud, without considering of

it:

"Let that alone, will you?"

"Halloa!" said the man next me in the crowd, jerking me roughly from him

with his elbow, "why didn't you send a telegram? If we had known you was

coming, we'd have provided something better for you. You understand the

man's work better than he does himself, don't you? Have you made your

will? You're too clever to live long."

"Don't be hard upon the gentleman, sir," said the person in attendance on

the works of art, with a twinkle in his eye as he looked at me; "he may

chance to be an artist himself. If so, sir, he will have a

fellow-feeling with me, sir, when I"--he adapted his action to his words

as he went on, and gave a smart slap of his hands between each touch,

working himself all the time about and about the composition--"when I

lighten the bloom of my grapes--shade off the orange in my rainbow--dot

the i of my Britons--throw a yellow light into my cow-cum-_ber_--insinuate

another morsel of fat into my shoulder of mutton--dart another zigzag

flash of lightning at my ship in distress!"

He seemed to do this so neatly, and was so nimble about it, that the

halfpence came flying in.

"Thanks, generous public, thanks!" said the professor. "You will

stimulate me to further exertions. My name will be found in the list of

British Painters yet. I shall do better than this, with encouragement. I

shall indeed."

"You never can do better than that bunch of grapes," said Henrietta. "Oh,

Thomas, them grapes!"

"Not better than _that_, lady? I hope for the time when I shall paint

anything but your own bright eyes and lips equal to life."

"(Thomas, did you ever?) But it must take a long time, sir," said

Henrietta, blushing, "to paint equal to that."

"I was prenticed to it, miss," said the young man, smartly touching up

the composition--"prenticed to it in the caves of Spain and Portingale,

ever so long and two year over."

There was a laugh from the crowd; and a new man who had worked himself in

next me, said, "He's a smart chap, too; ain't he?"

"And what a eye!" exclaimed Henrietta softly.

"Ah! He need have a eye," said the man.

"Ah! He just need," was murmured among the crowd.

"He couldn't come that 'ere burning mountain without a eye," said the

man. He had got himself accepted as an authority, somehow, and everybody

looked at his finger as it pointed out Vesuvius. "To come that effect in

a general illumination would require a eye; but to come it with two

dips--why, it's enough to blind him!"

That impostor, pretending not to have heard what was said, now winked to

any extent with both eyes at once, as if the strain upon his sight was

too much, and threw back his long hair--it was very long--as if to cool

his fevered brow. I was watching him doing it, when Henrietta suddenly

whispered, "Oh, Thomas, how horrid you look!" and pulled me out by the

arm.

Remembering Mr. Click's words, I was confused when I retorted, "What do

you mean by horrid?"

"Oh gracious! Why, you looked," said Henrietta, "as if you would have

his blood."

I was going to answer, "So I would, for twopence--from his nose," when I

checked myself and remained silent.

We returned home in silence. Every step of the way, the softer

sentiments that had flowed, ebbed twenty mile an hour. Adapting my

conduct to the ebbing, as I had done to the flowing, I let my arm drop

limp, so as she could scarcely keep hold of it, and I wished her such a

cold good-night at parting, that I keep within the bounds of truth when I

characterise it as a Rasper.

In the course of the next day I received the following document:

"Henrietta informs Thomas that my eyes are open to you. I must ever

wish you well, but walking and us is separated by an unfarmable abyss.

One so malignant to superiority--Oh that look at him!--can never never

conduct

HENRIETTA

P.S.--To the altar."

Yielding to the easiness of my disposition, I went to bed for a week,

after receiving this letter. During the whole of such time, London was

bereft of the usual fruits of my labour. When I resumed it, I found that

Henrietta was married to the artist of Piccadilly.

Did I say to the artist? What fell words were those, expressive of what

a galling hollowness, of what a bitter mockery! I--I--I--am the artist.

I was the real artist of Piccadilly, I was the real artist of the

Waterloo Road, I am the only artist of all those pavement-subjects which

daily and nightly arouse your admiration. I do 'em, and I let 'em out.

The man you behold with the papers of chalks and the rubbers, touching up

the down-strokes of the writing and shading off the salmon, the man you

give the credit to, the man you give the money to, hires--yes! and I live

to tell it!--hires those works of art of me, and brings nothing to 'em

but the candles.

Such is genius in a commercial country. I am not up to the shivering, I

am not up to the liveliness, I am not up to the wanting-employment-in-an-

office move; I am only up to originating and executing the work. In

consequence of which you never see me; you think you see me when you see

somebody else, and that somebody else is a mere Commercial character. The

one seen by self and Mr. Click in the Waterloo Road can only write a

single word, and that I taught him, and it's MULTIPLICATION--which you

may see him execute upside down, because he can't do it the natural way.

The one seen by self and Henrietta by the Green Park railings can just

smear into existence the two ends of a rainbow, with his cuff and a

rubber--if very hard put upon making a show--but he could no more come

the arch of the rainbow, to save his life, than he could come the

moonlight, fish, volcano, shipwreck, mutton, hermit, or any of my most

celebrated effects.

To conclude as I began: if there's a blighted public character going, I

am the party. And often as you have seen, do see, and will see, my

Works, it's fifty thousand to one if you'll ever see me, unless, when the

candles are burnt down and the Commercial character is gone, you should

happen to notice a neglected young man perseveringly rubbing out the last

traces of the pictures, so that nobody can renew the same. That's me.

CHAPTER IV--HIS WONDERFUL END

It will have been, ere now, perceived that I sold the foregoing writings.

From the fact of their being printed in these pages, the inference will,

ere now, have been drawn by the reader (may I add, the gentle reader?)

that I sold them to One who never yet--{2}

Having parted with the writings on most satisfactory terms,--for, in

opening negotiations with the present Journal, was I not placing myself

in the hands of One of whom it may be said, in the words of Another,

{2,}--resumed my usual functions. But I too soon discovered that peace

of mind had fled from a brow which, up to that time, Time had merely took

the hair off, leaving an unruffled expanse within.

It were superfluous to veil it,--the brow to which I allude is my own.

Yes, over that brow uneasiness gathered like the sable wing of the fabled

bird, as--as no doubt will be easily identified by all right-minded

individuals. If not, I am unable, on the spur of the moment, to enter

into particulars of him. The reflection that the writings must now

inevitably get into print, and that He might yet live and meet with them,

sat like the Hag of Night upon my jaded form. The elasticity of my

spirits departed. Fruitless was the Bottle, whether Wine or Medicine. I

had recourse to both, and the effect of both upon my system was

witheringly lowering.

In this state of depression, into which I subsided when I first began to

revolve what could I ever say if He--the unknown--was to appear in the

Coffee-room and demand reparation, I one forenoon in this last November

received a turn that appeared to be given me by the finger of Fate and

Conscience, hand in hand. I was alone in the Coffee-room, and had just

poked the fire into a blaze, and was standing with my back to it, trying

whether heat would penetrate with soothing influence to the Voice within,

when a young man in a cap, of an intelligent countenance, though

requiring his hair cut, stood before me.

"Mr. Christopher, the Head Waiter?"

"The same."

The young man shook his hair out of his vision,--which it impeded,--to a

packet from his breast, and handing it over to me, said, with his eye (or

did I dream?) fixed with a lambent meaning on me, "THE PROOFS."

Although I smelt my coat-tails singeing at the fire, I had not the power

to withdraw them. The young man put the packet in my faltering grasp,

and repeated,--let me do him the justice to add, with civility:

"THE PROOFS. A. Y. R."

With those words he departed.

A. Y. R.? And You Remember. Was that his meaning? At Your Risk. Were

the letters short for _that_ reminder? Anticipate Your Retribution. Did

they stand for _that_ warning? Out-dacious Youth Repent? But no; for

that, a O was happily wanting, and the vowel here was a A.

I opened the packet, and found that its contents were the foregoing

writings printed just as the reader (may I add the discerning reader?)

peruses them. In vain was the reassuring whisper,--A.Y.R., All the Year

Round,--it could not cancel the Proofs. Too appropriate name. The

Proofs of my having sold the Writings.

My wretchedness daily increased. I had not thought of the risk I ran,

and the defying publicity I put my head into, until all was done, and all

was in print. Give up the money to be off the bargain and prevent the

publication, I could not. My family was down in the world, Christmas was

coming on, a brother in the hospital and a sister in the rheumatics could

not be entirely neglected. And it was not only ins in the family that

had told on the resources of one unaided Waitering; outs were not

wanting. A brother out of a situation, and another brother out of money

to meet an acceptance, and another brother out of his mind, and another

brother out at New York (not the same, though it might appear so), had

really and truly brought me to a stand till I could turn myself round. I

got worse and worse in my meditations, constantly reflecting "The

Proofs," and reflecting that when Christmas drew nearer, and the Proofs

were published, there could be no safety from hour to hour but that He

might confront me in the Coffee-room, and in the face of day and his

country demand his rights.

The impressive and unlooked-for catastrophe towards which I dimly pointed

the reader (shall I add, the highly intellectual reader?) in my first

remarks now rapidly approaches.

It was November still, but the last echoes of the Guy Foxes had long

ceased to reverberate. We was slack,--several joints under our average

mark, and wine, of course, proportionate. So slack had we become at

last, that Beds Nos. 26, 27, 28, and 31, having took their six o'clock

dinners, and dozed over their respective pints, had drove away in their

respective Hansoms for their respective Night Mail-trains and left us

empty.

I had took the evening paper to No. 6 table,--which is warm and most to

be preferred,--and, lost in the all-absorbing topics of the day, had

dropped into a slumber. I was recalled to consciousness by the

well-known intimation, "Waiter!" and replying, "Sir!" found a gentleman

standing at No. 4 table. The reader (shall I add, the observant reader?)

will please to notice the locality of the gentleman,--_at No. 4 table_.

He had one of the newfangled uncollapsable bags in his hand (which I am

against, for I don't see why you shouldn't collapse, while you are about

it, as your fathers collapsed before you), and he said:

"I want to dine, waiter. I shall sleep here to-night."

"Very good, sir. What will you take for dinner, sir?"

"Soup, bit of codfish, oyster sauce, and the joint."

"Thank you, sir."

I rang the chambermaid's bell; and Mrs. Pratchett marched in, according

to custom, demurely carrying a lighted flat candle before her, as if she

was one of a long public procession, all the other members of which was

invisible.

In the meanwhile the gentleman had gone up to the mantelpiece, right in

front of the fire, and had laid his forehead against the mantelpiece

(which it is a low one, and brought him into the attitude of leap-frog),

and had heaved a tremenjous sigh. His hair was long and lightish; and

when he laid his forehead against the mantelpiece, his hair all fell in a

dusty fluff together over his eyes; and when he now turned round and

lifted up his head again, it all fell in a dusty fluff together over his

ears. This give him a wild appearance, similar to a blasted heath.

"O! The chambermaid. Ah!" He was turning something in his mind. "To

be sure. Yes. I won't go up-stairs now, if you will take my bag. It

will be enough for the present to know my number.--Can you give me 24 B?"

(O Conscience, what a Adder art thou!)

Mrs. Pratchett allotted him the room, and took his bag to it. He then

went back before the fire, and fell a biting his nails.

"Waiter!" biting between the words, "give me," bite, "pen and paper; and

in five minutes," bite, "let me have, if you please," bite, "a", bite,

"Messenger."

Unmindful of his waning soup, he wrote and sent off six notes before he

touched his dinner. Three were City; three West-End. The City letters

were to Cornhill, Ludgate-hill, and Farringdon Street. The West-End

letters were to Great Marlborough Street, New Burlington Street, and

Piccadilly. Everybody was systematically denied at every one of the six

places, and there was not a vestige of any answer. Our light porter

whispered to me, when he came back with that report, "All Booksellers."

But before then he had cleared off his dinner, and his bottle of wine. He

now--mark the concurrence with the document formerly given in

full!--knocked a plate of biscuits off the table with his agitated elber

(but without breakage), and demanded boiling brandy-and-water.

Now fully convinced that it was Himself, I perspired with the utmost

freedom. When he became flushed with the heated stimulant referred to,

he again demanded pen and paper, and passed the succeeding two hours in

producing a manuscript which he put in the fire when completed. He then

went up to bed, attended by Mrs. Pratchett. Mrs. Pratchett (who was

aware of my emotions) told me, on coming down, that she had noticed his

eye rolling into every corner of the passages and staircase, as if in

search of his Luggage, and that, looking back as she shut the door of 24

B, she perceived him with his coat already thrown off immersing himself

bodily under the bedstead, like a chimley-sweep before the application of

machinery.

The next day--I forbear the horrors of that night--was a very foggy day

in our part of London, insomuch that it was necessary to light the Coffee-

room gas. We was still alone, and no feverish words of mine can do

justice to the fitfulness of his appearance as he sat at No. 4 table,

increased by there being something wrong with the meter.

Having again ordered his dinner, he went out, and was out for the best

part of two hours. Inquiring on his return whether any of the answers

had arrived, and receiving an unqualified negative, his instant call was

for mulligatawny, the cayenne pepper, and orange brandy.

Feeling that the mortal struggle was now at hand, I also felt that I must

be equal to him, and with that view resolved that whatever he took I

would take. Behind my partition, but keeping my eye on him over the

curtain, I therefore operated on Mulligatawny, Cayenne Pepper, and Orange

Brandy. And at a later period of the day, when he again said, "Orange

Brandy," I said so too, in a lower tone, to George, my Second Lieutenant

(my First was absent on leave), who acts between me and the bar.

Throughout that awful day he walked about the Coffee-room continually.

Often he came close up to my partition, and then his eye rolled within,

too evidently in search of any signs of his Luggage. Half-past six came,

and I laid his cloth. He ordered a bottle of old Brown. I likewise

ordered a bottle of old Brown. He drank his. I drank mine (as nearly as

my duties would permit) glass for glass against his. He topped with

coffee and a small glass. I topped with coffee and a small glass. He

dozed. I dozed. At last, "Waiter!"--and he ordered his bill. The

moment was now at hand when we two must be locked in the deadly grapple.

Swift as the arrow from the bow, I had formed my resolution; in other

words, I had hammered it out between nine and nine. It was, that I would

be the first to open up the subject with a full acknowledgment, and would

offer any gradual settlement within my power. He paid his bill (doing

what was right by attendance) with his eye rolling about him to the last

for any tokens of his Luggage. One only time our gaze then met, with the

lustrous fixedness (I believe I am correct in imputing that character to

it?) of the well-known Basilisk. The decisive moment had arrived.

With a tolerable steady hand, though with humility, I laid The Proofs

before him.

"Gracious Heavens!" he cries out, leaping up, and catching hold of his

hair. "What's this? Print!"

"Sir," I replied, in a calming voice, and bending forward, "I humbly

acknowledge to being the unfortunate cause of it. But I hope, sir, that

when you have heard the circumstances explained, and the innocence of my

intentions--"

To my amazement, I was stopped short by his catching me in both his arms,

and pressing me to his breast-bone; where I must confess to my face (and

particular, nose) having undergone some temporary vexation from his

wearing his coat buttoned high up, and his buttons being uncommon hard.

"Ha, ha, ha!" he cries, releasing me with a wild laugh, and grasping my

hand. "What is your name, my Benefactor?"

"My name, sir" (I was crumpled, and puzzled to make him out), "is

Christopher; and I hope, sir, that, as such, when you've heard my ex--"

"In print!" he exclaims again, dashing the proofs over and over as if he

was bathing in them.--"In print!! O Christopher! Philanthropist!

Nothing can recompense you,--but what sum of money would be acceptable to

you?"

I had drawn a step back from him, or I should have suffered from his

buttons again.

"Sir, I assure you, I have been already well paid, and--"

"No, no, Christopher! Don't talk like that! What sum of money would be

acceptable to you, Christopher? Would you find twenty pounds acceptable,

Christopher?"

However great my surprise, I naturally found words to say, "Sir, I am not

aware that the man was ever yet born without more than the average amount

of water on the brain as would not find twenty pounds acceptable.

But--extremely obliged to you, sir, I'm sure;" for he had tumbled it out

of his purse and crammed it in my hand in two bank-notes; "but I could

wish to know, sir, if not intruding, how I have merited this liberality?"

"Know then, my Christopher," he says, "that from boyhood's hour I have

unremittingly and unavailingly endeavoured to get into print. Know,

Christopher, that all the Booksellers alive--and several dead--have

refused to put me into print. Know, Christopher, that I have written

unprinted Reams. But they shall be read to you, my friend and brother.

You sometimes have a holiday?"

Seeing the great danger I was in, I had the presence of mind to answer,

"Never!" To make it more final, I added, "Never! Not from the cradle to

the grave."

"Well," says he, thinking no more about that, and chuckling at his proofs

again. "But I am in print! The first flight of ambition emanating from

my father's lowly cot is realised at length! The golden bow"--he was

getting on,--"struck by the magic hand, has emitted a complete and

perfect sound! When did this happen, my Christopher?"

"Which happen, sir?"

"This," he held it out at arms length to admire it,--"this Per-rint."

When I had given him my detailed account of it, he grasped me by the hand

again, and said:

"Dear Christopher, it should be gratifying to you to know that you are an

instrument in the hands of Destiny. Because you _are_."

A passing Something of a melancholy cast put it into my head to shake it,

and to say, "Perhaps we all are."

"I don't mean that," he answered; "I don't take that wide range; I

confine myself to the special case. Observe me well, my Christopher!

Hopeless of getting rid, through any effort of my own, of any of the

manuscripts among my Luggage,--all of which, send them where I would,

were always coming back to me,--it is now some seven years since I left

that Luggage here, on the desperate chance, either that the too, too

faithful manuscripts would come back to me no more, or that some one less

accursed than I might give them to the world. You follow me, my

Christopher?"

"Pretty well, sir." I followed him so far as to judge that he had a weak

head, and that the Orange, the Boiling, and Old Brown combined was

beginning to tell. (The Old Brown, being heady, is best adapted to

seasoned cases.)

"Years elapsed, and those compositions slumbered in dust. At length,

Destiny, choosing her agent from all mankind, sent You here, Christopher,

and lo! the Casket was burst asunder, and the Giant was free!"

He made hay of his hair after he said this, and he stood a-tiptoe.

"But," he reminded himself in a state of excitement, "we must sit up all

night, my Christopher. I must correct these Proofs for the press. Fill

all the inkstands, and bring me several new pens."

He smeared himself and he smeared the Proofs, the night through, to that

degree that when Sol gave him warning to depart (in a four-wheeler), few

could have said which was them, and which was him, and which was blots.

His last instructions was, that I should instantly run and take his

corrections to the office of the present Journal. I did so. They most

likely will not appear in print, for I noticed a message being brought

round from Beauford Printing House, while I was a throwing this

concluding statement on paper, that the ole resources of that

establishment was unable to make out what they meant. Upon which a

certain gentleman in company, as I will not more particularly name,--but

of whom it will be sufficient to remark, standing on the broad basis of a

wave-girt isle, that whether we regard him in the light of,--{3} laughed,

and put the corrections in the fire.

FOOTNOTES

{1} Its name and address at length, with other full particulars, all

editorially struck out.

{2} The remainder of this complimentary sentence editorially struck out.

{3} The remainder of this complimentary parenthesis editorially struck

out.