author - "Charles Dickens"
e of this same House.
As I say, I went and saw for myself. The lodging was perfect.That, I was sure it would be; because Trottle is the best judge ofcomfort I know. The empty house was an eyesore; and that I was sureit would be too, for the same reason. However, setting the onething against the other, the good against the bad, the lodging verysoon got the victory over the House. My lawyer, Mr. Squares, ofCrown Office Row; Temple, drew up an agreement; which his young manjabbered over so dreadfully when he read it to me, that I didn'tunderstand one word of it except my own name; and hardly that, and Isigned it, and the other party signed it, and, in three weeks' time,I moved my old bones, bag and baggage, up to London.
For the first month or so, I arranged to leave Trottle at the Wells.I made this arrangement, not only because there was a good deal totake care of in the way of my school-children and pensioners, andalso of a new stove in the hall to air the house in my absence,which appe
rd and dusted with his own hands every morning before varnishing his boots) I notice him as full of thought and care as full can be and frowning in a fearful manner, but indeed the Major does nothing by halves as witness his great delight in going out surveying with Jemmy when he has Jemmy to go with, carrying a chain and a measuring-tape and driving I don't know what improvements right through Westminster Abbey and fully believed in the streets to be knocking everything upside down by Act of Parliament. As please Heaven will come to pass when Jemmy takes to that as a profession!
Mentioning my poor Lirriper brings into my head his own youngest brother the Doctor though Doctor of what I am sure it would be hard to say unless Liquor, for neither Physic nor Music nor yet Law does Joshua Lirriper know a morsel of except continually being summoned to the County Court and having orders made upon him which he runs away from, and once was taken in the passage of this very house with an umbrella up and the Majo
must have some name in going about, for people to pick up," heexplained to Mugby High Street, through the Inn window, "and that name atleast was real once. Whereas, Young Jackson!--Not to mention its being asadly satirical misnomer for Old Jackson."
He took up his hat and walked out, just in time to see, passing along onthe opposite side of the way, a velveteen man, carrying his day's dinnerin a small bundle that might have been larger without suspicion ofgluttony, and pelting away towards the Junction at a great pace.
"There's Lamps!" said Barbox Brothers. "And by the bye--"
Ridiculous, surely, that a man so serious, so self-contained, and not yetthree days emancipated from a routine of drudgery, should stand rubbinghis chin in the street, in a brown study about Comic Songs.
"Bedside?" said Barbox Brothers testily. "Sings them at the bedside? Whyat the bedside, unless he goes to bed drunk? Does, I shouldn't wonder.But it's no business of mine. Let me see. Mugby Junction, MugbyJ
ct of Madness onthe part of a Waiter,--and took to his bed (leastwise, your motherand family's bed), with the statement that his eyes were devilledkidneys. Physicians being in vain, your father expired, afterrepeating at intervals for a day and a night, when gleams of reasonand old business fitfully illuminated his being, "Two and two isfive. And three is sixpence." Interred in the parochial departmentof the neighbouring churchyard, and accompanied to the grave by asmany Waiters of long standing as could spare the morning time fromtheir soiled glasses (namely, one), your bereaved form was attiredin a white neckankecher, and you was took on from motives ofbenevolence at The George and Gridiron, theatrical and supper.Here, supporting nature on what you found in the plates (which wasas it happened, and but too often thoughtlessly, immersed inmustard), and on what you found in the glasses (which rarely wentbeyond driblets and lemon), by night you dropped asleep standing,till you was cuffed awak
plinters. Antiquarians differrespecting the intent and meaning of this ceremony, which has beenconstrued and interpreted in many different ways. The strong probability isthat it was done "for luck;" and yet Lord Bateman should have been superiorto the prejudices of the vulgar.]
[Footnote 9:
If my own Sophia.
So called doubtless from the mosque of St. Sophia, at Constantinople; herfather having professed the Mahomedan religion.]
[Footnote 10:
_Then up and spoke this young bride's mother,
Who never vos heerd to speak so free._
This is an exquisite touch of nature, which most married men, whether ofnoble or plebeian blood, will quickly recognise. During the whole of herdaughter's courtship, the good old lady had scarcely spoken, save byexpressive smiles and looks of approval. But now that her object is gained,and her daughter fast married (as she thinks), she suddenly assumes quite anew tone, "and never was heerd to speak so free." It would be diff
anding his dissipation, Bottle-nosed Ned was a generalfavourite; and the authorities of Mudfog, remembering his numerousservices to the population, allowed him in return to get drunk inhis own way, without the fear of stocks, fine, or imprisonment. Hehad a general licence, and he showed his sense of the compliment bymaking the most of it.
We have been thus particular in describing the character andavocations of Bottle-nosed Ned, because it enables us to introducea fact politely, without hauling it into the reader's presence withindecent haste by the head and shoulders, and brings us verynaturally to relate, that on the very same evening on which Mr.Nicholas Tulrumble and family returned to Mudfog, Mr. Tulrumble'snew secretary, just imported from London, with a pale face andlight whiskers, thrust his head down to the very bottom of hisneckcloth-tie, in at the tap-room door of the Lighterman's Arms,and inquiring whether one Ned Twigger was luxuriating within,announced himself as the bearer of
roprietor in turnips or mangold-wurzel.
Mr. Traveller having finished his breakfast and paid his moderatescore, walked out to the threshold of the Peal of Bells, and, thencedirected by the pointing finger of his host, betook himself towardsthe ruined hermitage of Mr. Mopes the hermit.
For, Mr. Mopes, by suffering everything about him to go to ruin, andby dressing himself in a blanket and skewer, and by steeping himselfin soot and grease and other nastiness, had acquired great renown inall that country-side--far greater renown than he could ever havewon for himself, if his career had been that of any ordinaryChristian, or decent Hottentot. He had even blanketed and skeweredand sooted and greased himself, into the London papers. And it wascurious to find, as Mr. Traveller found by stopping for a newdirection at this farm-house or at that cottage as he went along,with how much accuracy the morbid Mopes had counted on the weaknessof his neighbours to embellish him. A mist of home-brewed marv
opagandism. Engravings of Mr. Hunt's country boy, before and after his pie, were on the wall, divided by a highly-coloured nautical piece, the subject of which had all her colours (and more) flying, and was making great way through a sea of a regular pattern, like a lady's collar. A benevolent, elderly gentleman of the last century, with a powdered head, kept guard, in oil and varnish, over a most perplexing piece of furniture on a table; in appearance between a driving seat and an angular knife- box, but, when opened, a musical instrument of tinkling wires, exactly like David's harp packed for travelling. Everything became a nick-nack in this curious room. The copper tea-kettle, burnished up to the highest point of glory, took his station on a stand of his own at the greatest possible distance from the fireplace, and said: 'By your leave, not a kettle, but a bijou.' The Staffordshire-ware butter-dish with the cover on, got upon a little round occasional table in a window, with a worked top, and announced its
"Order!" cried a merry-faced little man, who had brought his young daughter with him to see life, and who always modestly hid his face in his beer-mug after he had thus assisted the business.
"John Nightingale, William Thrush, Joseph Blackbird, Cecil Robin, and Thomas Linnet!" cried Friar Bacon.
"Here, sir!" and "Here, sir!" And Linnet, Robin, Blackbird, Thrush, and Nightingale, stood confessed.
We, the undersigned, declare, in effect, by this written paper, that each of us is responsible for the repayment of this pig-money by each of the other. "Sure you understand, Nightingale?"
"Ees, sur."
"Can you write your name, Nightingale?"
"Na, sur."
Nightingale's eye upon his name, as Friar Bacon wrote it, was a sight to consider in after years. Rather incredulous was Nightingale, with a hand at the corner of his mouth, and his head on one side, as to those drawings really meaning him. Doubtful was Nightingale whether any virtue had gone out of him in that committal t
Iheard a cracked voice somewhere in the ring say, 'My name isHawkyard, Mr. Verity Hawkyard, of West Bromwich.' Then the ringsplit in one place; and a yellow-faced, peak-nosed gentleman, cladall in iron-gray to his gaiters, pressed forward with a policemanand another official of some sort. He came forward close to thevessel of smoking vinegar; from which he sprinkled himselfcarefully, and me copiously.
'He had a grandfather at Birmingham, this young boy, who is justdead too,' said Mr. Hawkyard.
I turned my eyes upon the speaker, and said in a ravening manner,'Where's his houses?'
'Hah! Horrible worldliness on the edge of the grave,' said Mr.Hawkyard, casting more of the vinegar over me, as if to get mydevil out of me. 'I have undertaken a slight - a very slight -trust in behalf of this boy; quite a voluntary trust: a matter ofmere honour, if not of mere sentiment: still I have taken it uponmyself, and it shall be (O, yes, it shall be!) discharged.'
The bystanders seemed to form an
e of this same House.
As I say, I went and saw for myself. The lodging was perfect.That, I was sure it would be; because Trottle is the best judge ofcomfort I know. The empty house was an eyesore; and that I was sureit would be too, for the same reason. However, setting the onething against the other, the good against the bad, the lodging verysoon got the victory over the House. My lawyer, Mr. Squares, ofCrown Office Row; Temple, drew up an agreement; which his young manjabbered over so dreadfully when he read it to me, that I didn'tunderstand one word of it except my own name; and hardly that, and Isigned it, and the other party signed it, and, in three weeks' time,I moved my old bones, bag and baggage, up to London.
For the first month or so, I arranged to leave Trottle at the Wells.I made this arrangement, not only because there was a good deal totake care of in the way of my school-children and pensioners, andalso of a new stove in the hall to air the house in my absence,which appe
rd and dusted with his own hands every morning before varnishing his boots) I notice him as full of thought and care as full can be and frowning in a fearful manner, but indeed the Major does nothing by halves as witness his great delight in going out surveying with Jemmy when he has Jemmy to go with, carrying a chain and a measuring-tape and driving I don't know what improvements right through Westminster Abbey and fully believed in the streets to be knocking everything upside down by Act of Parliament. As please Heaven will come to pass when Jemmy takes to that as a profession!
Mentioning my poor Lirriper brings into my head his own youngest brother the Doctor though Doctor of what I am sure it would be hard to say unless Liquor, for neither Physic nor Music nor yet Law does Joshua Lirriper know a morsel of except continually being summoned to the County Court and having orders made upon him which he runs away from, and once was taken in the passage of this very house with an umbrella up and the Majo
must have some name in going about, for people to pick up," heexplained to Mugby High Street, through the Inn window, "and that name atleast was real once. Whereas, Young Jackson!--Not to mention its being asadly satirical misnomer for Old Jackson."
He took up his hat and walked out, just in time to see, passing along onthe opposite side of the way, a velveteen man, carrying his day's dinnerin a small bundle that might have been larger without suspicion ofgluttony, and pelting away towards the Junction at a great pace.
"There's Lamps!" said Barbox Brothers. "And by the bye--"
Ridiculous, surely, that a man so serious, so self-contained, and not yetthree days emancipated from a routine of drudgery, should stand rubbinghis chin in the street, in a brown study about Comic Songs.
"Bedside?" said Barbox Brothers testily. "Sings them at the bedside? Whyat the bedside, unless he goes to bed drunk? Does, I shouldn't wonder.But it's no business of mine. Let me see. Mugby Junction, MugbyJ
ct of Madness onthe part of a Waiter,--and took to his bed (leastwise, your motherand family's bed), with the statement that his eyes were devilledkidneys. Physicians being in vain, your father expired, afterrepeating at intervals for a day and a night, when gleams of reasonand old business fitfully illuminated his being, "Two and two isfive. And three is sixpence." Interred in the parochial departmentof the neighbouring churchyard, and accompanied to the grave by asmany Waiters of long standing as could spare the morning time fromtheir soiled glasses (namely, one), your bereaved form was attiredin a white neckankecher, and you was took on from motives ofbenevolence at The George and Gridiron, theatrical and supper.Here, supporting nature on what you found in the plates (which wasas it happened, and but too often thoughtlessly, immersed inmustard), and on what you found in the glasses (which rarely wentbeyond driblets and lemon), by night you dropped asleep standing,till you was cuffed awak
plinters. Antiquarians differrespecting the intent and meaning of this ceremony, which has beenconstrued and interpreted in many different ways. The strong probability isthat it was done "for luck;" and yet Lord Bateman should have been superiorto the prejudices of the vulgar.]
[Footnote 9:
If my own Sophia.
So called doubtless from the mosque of St. Sophia, at Constantinople; herfather having professed the Mahomedan religion.]
[Footnote 10:
_Then up and spoke this young bride's mother,
Who never vos heerd to speak so free._
This is an exquisite touch of nature, which most married men, whether ofnoble or plebeian blood, will quickly recognise. During the whole of herdaughter's courtship, the good old lady had scarcely spoken, save byexpressive smiles and looks of approval. But now that her object is gained,and her daughter fast married (as she thinks), she suddenly assumes quite anew tone, "and never was heerd to speak so free." It would be diff
anding his dissipation, Bottle-nosed Ned was a generalfavourite; and the authorities of Mudfog, remembering his numerousservices to the population, allowed him in return to get drunk inhis own way, without the fear of stocks, fine, or imprisonment. Hehad a general licence, and he showed his sense of the compliment bymaking the most of it.
We have been thus particular in describing the character andavocations of Bottle-nosed Ned, because it enables us to introducea fact politely, without hauling it into the reader's presence withindecent haste by the head and shoulders, and brings us verynaturally to relate, that on the very same evening on which Mr.Nicholas Tulrumble and family returned to Mudfog, Mr. Tulrumble'snew secretary, just imported from London, with a pale face andlight whiskers, thrust his head down to the very bottom of hisneckcloth-tie, in at the tap-room door of the Lighterman's Arms,and inquiring whether one Ned Twigger was luxuriating within,announced himself as the bearer of
roprietor in turnips or mangold-wurzel.
Mr. Traveller having finished his breakfast and paid his moderatescore, walked out to the threshold of the Peal of Bells, and, thencedirected by the pointing finger of his host, betook himself towardsthe ruined hermitage of Mr. Mopes the hermit.
For, Mr. Mopes, by suffering everything about him to go to ruin, andby dressing himself in a blanket and skewer, and by steeping himselfin soot and grease and other nastiness, had acquired great renown inall that country-side--far greater renown than he could ever havewon for himself, if his career had been that of any ordinaryChristian, or decent Hottentot. He had even blanketed and skeweredand sooted and greased himself, into the London papers. And it wascurious to find, as Mr. Traveller found by stopping for a newdirection at this farm-house or at that cottage as he went along,with how much accuracy the morbid Mopes had counted on the weaknessof his neighbours to embellish him. A mist of home-brewed marv
opagandism. Engravings of Mr. Hunt's country boy, before and after his pie, were on the wall, divided by a highly-coloured nautical piece, the subject of which had all her colours (and more) flying, and was making great way through a sea of a regular pattern, like a lady's collar. A benevolent, elderly gentleman of the last century, with a powdered head, kept guard, in oil and varnish, over a most perplexing piece of furniture on a table; in appearance between a driving seat and an angular knife- box, but, when opened, a musical instrument of tinkling wires, exactly like David's harp packed for travelling. Everything became a nick-nack in this curious room. The copper tea-kettle, burnished up to the highest point of glory, took his station on a stand of his own at the greatest possible distance from the fireplace, and said: 'By your leave, not a kettle, but a bijou.' The Staffordshire-ware butter-dish with the cover on, got upon a little round occasional table in a window, with a worked top, and announced its
"Order!" cried a merry-faced little man, who had brought his young daughter with him to see life, and who always modestly hid his face in his beer-mug after he had thus assisted the business.
"John Nightingale, William Thrush, Joseph Blackbird, Cecil Robin, and Thomas Linnet!" cried Friar Bacon.
"Here, sir!" and "Here, sir!" And Linnet, Robin, Blackbird, Thrush, and Nightingale, stood confessed.
We, the undersigned, declare, in effect, by this written paper, that each of us is responsible for the repayment of this pig-money by each of the other. "Sure you understand, Nightingale?"
"Ees, sur."
"Can you write your name, Nightingale?"
"Na, sur."
Nightingale's eye upon his name, as Friar Bacon wrote it, was a sight to consider in after years. Rather incredulous was Nightingale, with a hand at the corner of his mouth, and his head on one side, as to those drawings really meaning him. Doubtful was Nightingale whether any virtue had gone out of him in that committal t
Iheard a cracked voice somewhere in the ring say, 'My name isHawkyard, Mr. Verity Hawkyard, of West Bromwich.' Then the ringsplit in one place; and a yellow-faced, peak-nosed gentleman, cladall in iron-gray to his gaiters, pressed forward with a policemanand another official of some sort. He came forward close to thevessel of smoking vinegar; from which he sprinkled himselfcarefully, and me copiously.
'He had a grandfather at Birmingham, this young boy, who is justdead too,' said Mr. Hawkyard.
I turned my eyes upon the speaker, and said in a ravening manner,'Where's his houses?'
'Hah! Horrible worldliness on the edge of the grave,' said Mr.Hawkyard, casting more of the vinegar over me, as if to get mydevil out of me. 'I have undertaken a slight - a very slight -trust in behalf of this boy; quite a voluntary trust: a matter ofmere honour, if not of mere sentiment: still I have taken it uponmyself, and it shall be (O, yes, it shall be!) discharged.'
The bystanders seemed to form an