U N I V E R.S ITY OF ILLINOIS 823 T32ch 1857 l ««" oX b0 s ° t k a »" ” brfore , he sta mpecl below Illinois Li LI61— H41 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/christmasbooksbyOOthac CHRISTMAS BOOKS MRS. PERKINS’S BALL. OUR STREET. DR. BIRCH. BY W. M. THACKERAY. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR. NEW EDITION IN ONE VOLUME. LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1857. GRAND POLKA. CHRISTMAS BOOKS MRS. PERKINS’S BALL OUR STREET. UR. BIRCH. BY W. M. THACKERAY. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR. NEW EDITION IN ONE VOLUME. LONDON : CHAPMAN & HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1857. LONDON : BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTEU8, WH1TEFRIARS. %2 3 ~T 32. dL i %sn LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 5* = MRS. PERKINS’S BALL. GRAND POLKA jN TITLE PAGE v THE MULLIGAN AND MR. M. A. TITMARSH THE MULLIGAN AND. MISS FANNY PERKINS . : MR. FREDERICK MINCHIN THE BALL ROOM DOOR "I LADY BACON, THE MISS BACONS, AND MR. FLAM . N ' MR. LARKINS vh ^ MISS BUNION v^MR. HICKS MISS MEGGOT : MISS RANYILLE, REY. MR. TOOP, MISS MULLINS, WINTER Frontispiece. 4 10 12 15 17 IS 20 22 24 AND MR. . 26 IV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, MISS JOY, MR. AND MRS. JOY, MR. BOTTER 28 MR. RANYILLE RANYILLE AND JACK HUBBARD .... 29 MRS. TROTTER, MISS TROTTER, MISS TOADY, LORD METHUSELAH 31 MR. BEAUMORIS, MR. GRIG, MR. FLYNDERS 33 CAYALIER SEUL 36 M. CANAILLARD, LIEUTENANT BARON DE BOBWITZ . . . . 38 THE BOUDOIR, MR. SMITH, MR. BROWN, MISS BUSTLETON . . 39 GEORGE GRUNDSELL 43 MISS MARTIN AND YOUNG WARD 46 THE MULLIGAN AND MR. PERKINS . . 47 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. V OUR STREET. A STUDIO IN OUR STREET 4 A STREET COURTSHIP 8 CAPTAIN AND MRS. BRAGG OF OUR STREET 9 SOME OF OUR GENTLEMEN ......... IT WHY OUR NURSEMAIDS LIKE KENSINGTON GARDENS . . . 22 A STREET CEREMONY ... 28 THE LADY WHOM NOBODY KNOWS 26 THE MAN IN POSSESSION 31 THE LION OF THE STREET 35 THE DOYE OF OUR STREET 39 VENUS AND CUPID 45 THE SIREN OF OUR STREET 46 THE STREET DOOR KEY 49 A SCENE OF PASSION 51 THE HAPPY FAMILY 52 VI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. DK. BIECH. — ♦ — A YOUNG RAPHAEL . . 4 THE LION AND THE LITTLE CUBS 7 RIVAL FORCES 8 THE LITTLE SCHOOL-ROOM 10 THE DEAR BROTHERS 13 THE LAST BOY OF ALL 15 WHO STOLE THE JAM? 20 A SERIOUS CASE 21 A HAMPER FOR BRIGGS 22 SURE TO SUCCEED IN LIFE 28 THE PIRATE 29 HOME, SWEET HOME 32 A RESCUE 34 MISS BIRCH’S FLOWER GARDEN 38 WANTED A GOVERNESS 43 MRS. PERKINS’S BALL. THE MULLIGAN (OF BALLYMULLIGAN), AND HOW WE WENT TO MRS. PERKINS’S BALL. I do not know where Ballymulligan is, and never knew any- body who did. Once I asked the Mulligan the question, when that chieftain assumed a look of dignity so ferocious, and spoke of “ Saxon curiawsitee,” in a tone of such evident dis- pleasure, that as after all it can matter very little to me where- abouts lies the Celtic principality in question, I have never pressed the inquiry any farther. I don’t know even the Mulligan’s town residence. One night, as he bade us adieu in Oxford Street, — “ I live there ,” says he, pointing down towards Uxbridge, with the big stick he carries : — so his abode is in that direction, at any rate. He has his letters addressed to several of his friends’ houses, and his parcels, &c., are left for him at various taverns which he frequents. That pair of checked trowsers, in which you 2 mrs. perkins’s ball. see him attired, he did me the favour of ordering from my own tailor, who is quite as anxious as any body to know the address of the wearer. In like manner my hatter asked me, “ Oo was the Hirish gent as ad ordered four ’ats and a sable hoar to be sent to my lodgings ?” As I did not know (however I might guess), the articles have never been sent, and the Mulligan has withdrawn his custom from the “ infernal four-and-nine-penny scoundthrel,” as he calls him. The hatter has not shut up shop in consequence. I became acquainted with the Mulligan, through a distin- guished countryman of his, who, strange to say, did not know the chieftain himself. But dining with my friend Fred. Clancy of the Irish bar, at Greenwich, the Mulligan came up “ inthrojuiced” himself to Clancy as he said; claimed relation- ship with him on the side of Brian Boroo, and drawing his chair to our table, quickly became intimate with us. He took a great liking to me, was good enough to find out my address, and pay me a visit: since which period often and often on coming to breakfast in the morning, I have found him in my sitting-room on the sofa engaged with the rolls and morning papers : and many a time, on returning home at night, for an evening’s quiet reading, I have discovered this honest fellow in the arm-chair before the fire, perfuming the apartment with my cigars, and trying the quality of such liquors as might mrs. perkins's ball. 3 be found in the sideboard. The way in which he pokes fun at Betsy, the maid of the lodgings, is prodigious. She begins to laugh whenever he comes ; if he calls her a duck, a divvle, a darlin, it is all one. He is just as much a master of the premises as the individual who rents them at fifteen shillings a week ; and as for handkerchiefs, shirt collars, and the like articles of fugitive haberdashery, the loss since I have known him, is uncountable. I suspect he is like the cat in some houses : for, suppose the whiskey, the cigars, the sugar, the tea-caddy, the pickles, and other groceries disappear, all is laid upon that edax-rerum of a Mulligan. The greatest offence that can be offered to him, is to call him Mr. Mulligan. “ Would you deprive me, Sir,” says he, “ of the title which was bawrun be me princelee ancestors in a hundred thousand battles ? In our own green valleys and fawrests, in the American Savannahs, in the Sierras of Speen, and the Flats of Flandthers, the Saxon has quailed before me war-cry of Mulligan Aboo ! Mr. Mulligan ! I’ll pitch any body out of the window who calls me Mr. Mulligan.” He said this, and uttered the slogan of the Mulligans with a shriek so terrific, that my uncle (the Rev. W. Gruels, of the Indepen- dent Congregation, Bungay), who had happened to address him in the above obnoxious manner, while sitting at my apart- ments drinking tea after the May meetings, instantly quitted 4 mrs. perkins’s ball. the room, and has never taken the least notice of me since, except to state to the rest of the family that I am doomed irrevocably to perdition. Well, one day last season I had received from my kind and most estimable friend, Mrs Perkins, of Pocklington Square (to whose amiable family I have had the honour of giving lessons in drawing, French, and the German flute), an invita- tation couched in the usual terms on satin gilt-edged note paper, to her evening party ; or, as I call it, “ Ball.” Besides the engraved note sent to all her friends, my kind patroness had addressed me privately as follows : — “ My dear Mr. Titmarsh, “If you know any very eligible young man, we give you leave to bring him. You gentlemen love your clubs so much now, and care so little for dancing, that it is really quite a scandal. Come early, and before every body, and give us the benefit of all your taste and continental skill. “ Your sincere “Emily Perkins.'’ Whom shall I bring? mused I, highly flattered by this mark of confidence ; and I thought of Bob Tripp ett ; and little Fred. Spring, of the Navy Pay Office; Hulker, who is rich, and I know took lessons in Paris ; and a half score of other -bachelor friends, who might be considered as very eligible — when I was roused from my meditation by the slap of a hand on my shoulder ; and looking up, there was the Mulligan, who began, as usual, reading the papers on my desk. If THE MULLIGAN AND ME. M. A. TITMARSH. mrs. perkins’s ball. 5 “ Hwhat’s this,” says he, “ who’s Perkins ? Is it a supper- ball, or only a tay-hall ? ” “ The Perkinses, of Pocklington Square, Mulligan, are tip- top people,” says I, with a tone of dignity ; “ Mr. Perkins’s sister is married to a baronet, Sir Charles Bacon, of Hogwash, Norfolk. Mr. Perkins's uncle was Lord Mayor of London ; and he was himself in Parliament, and may be again any day. The family are my most particular friends. A tay-hall indeed ! why Gunter * * * ” Here I stopped, I felt I was com- mitting myself. “Gunter?” says the Mulligan, with another confounded slap on the shoulder; “ Don’t say another word, I’ll go widg you, my boy.” “ You go, Mulligan,” says I : “ why, really — I — it’s not my party.”— “ Your hwhawt ? hwhat’s this letter ? an’t I an eligible young man ? — Is the descendant of a thousand kings unfit company for a miserable tallow-chandthlering cockney ? Are ye joking wid me ? for, let me tell ye, I don’t like them jokes. D’ye suppose I’m not as well bawrun and bred as yourself, or any Saxon friend ye ever had ? ” “ I never said you weren’t, Mulligan,” says I. “ Ye don’t mean seriously that a Mulligan is not fit com- pany for a Perkins ?” 6 mrs. perktns’s ball. “ My dear fellow, how could you think I could so far insult you,” says I. “Well then,” says he, “that’s a matter settled, and we go.” What the deuce was I to do ? I wrote to Mrs. Perkins ; and that kind lady replied, that she would receive the Mulli- gan, or any other of my friends, with the greatest cordiality. Fancy a party, all Mulligans ! thought I, with a secret terror. ME. AND MBS. PERKINS, THEIR HOUSE, AND THEIR YOUNG PEOPLE. Following Mrs. Perkins’s orders, the present writer made his appearance very early at Pocklington Square ; where the tastiness of all the decorations elicited my warmest admiration. Supper, of course, was in the dining-room, superbly arranged by Messrs. Grigs and Spooner, the confectioners of the neigh- bourhood. I assisted my respected friend Mr. Perkins, and his butler, in decanting the Sherry, and saw, not without satisfaction, a large hath for wine under the sideboard, in which were already placed very many bottles of champagne. The Back Dining-room, Mr. P.’s study (where the venerable man goes to sleep after dinner), was arranged on this occasion as a tea-room, Mrs. Flouncy (Miss Fanny’s maid) officiating in a cap and pink ribbons, which became her exceedingly. Long, long before the arrival of the company, I remarked Master Thomas Perkins and Master Giles Bacon, his cousin (son of Sir Giles Bacon, Bart.), in this apartment, busy among the macaroons. 8 mrs. perkins’s ball. Mr. Gregory, the butler, besides John the footman, and Sir Giles’s large man in the Bacon livery, and honest Grundsell, carpet-beater and green grocer, of Little Pocklington Buildings, bad, at least, half a dozen of Aides-de-camp, in black and white neckcloths, like doctors of divinity. The Back Drawing-room door on the landing, being taken off the binges (and placed up stairs under Mr. Perkins’s bed), the orifice was covered with musbn, and festooned with elegant wreaths of flowers. This was the Dancing Saloon. A linen was spread over the carpet, and a band, consisting of Mr. Clapperton, piano, Mr. Pinch, harp, and Herr Spoff, cornet- a-piston ; arrived at a pretty early hour, and were accommo- dated with some comfortable Negus in the tea-room, previous to the commencement of their dehghtful labours. The boudoir to the left was fitted up as a card-room; the drawing-room was, of course, for the reception of the company; the chande- liers and yellow damask being displayed, this night, in all their splendour ; and the charming conservatory, over the landing, was ornamented by a few moon-like lamps, and the flowers arranged, so that it had the appearance of a fairy bower. And Miss Perkins (as I took the liberty of stating to her mamma) looked like the fairy of that bower. It is this young creature’s first year in public life : she has been educated, regardless of expense, at Hammersmith ; and a simple white musbn dress mrs. perkins’s ball. 9 and blue ceinture set off charms, of which I beg to speak with respectful admiration. My distinguished friend, the Mulligan of Ballymulligan, was good enough to come, the very first of the party. By the way, how awkward it is to be the first of the party ! and yet you know somebody must ; but for my part, being timid, I always wait at the corner of the street in the cab, and watch until some other carriage comes up. Well, as we were arranging the Sherry, in the decanters, down the supper-tables, my friend arrived : “ Hwhares me friend, Mr. Titmarsh,” I heard him bawling out to Gregory in the passage, and presently he rushed into the supper-room, where Mr. and Mrs. Perkins and myself were, and as the waiter was announcing, “ Mr. Mulligan ; ” “ THE Mulligan of Ballymulligan, ye blackguard ! ” roared he, and stalked into the apartment, “ apologoizing,” as he said, for introducing himself. Mr. and Mrs. Perkins did not perhaps wish to be seen in this room, which was for the present only lighted by a couple of candles ; but he was not at all abashed by the circumstance, and grasping them both warmly by the hands, he instantly made himself at home. “ As friends of my dear and talented friend Mick,” so he is pleased to call me, “ I’m deloighted, Madam, to be made known to ye. Don’t consider me in the 10 mrs. Perkins’s ball. light of a mere acquaintance ! As for you, my dear Madam, you put me so much in moind of my own blessed mother, now resoiding at Ballymulligan Castle, that I begin to love ye at first soight.” At which speech, Mr. Perkins, getting rather alarmed, asked the Mulligan, whether he would take some wine, or go up stairs. “Faix,” says Mulligan, “it’s never too soon for good dthrink ; ” and (although he smelt very much of whiskey already) he drank a tumbler of wine, “ to the improvement of an acqueentence which comminces in a manner so de- loightful.” “ Let’s go up stairs Mulligan,” says I, and led the noble Irishman to the upper apartments, which were in a profound gloom, the candles not being yet illuminated, and where we surprised Miss Fanny, seated in the twilight, at the piano, timidly trying the tunes of the Polka, which she danced so exquisitely that evening. She did not perceive the stranger at first; hut how she started, when the Mulligan loomed upon her. “ Heavenlee enchanthress ! ” says Mulligan, “ don’t floy at the approach of the humblest of your sleeves ! Reshewm your pleece at that insthrument, which weeps harmonious, or smoils melojious, as you charrum it! Are you acqueented with the Oirish Melodies ? Can ye play, ‘ Who Fears to Talk of Nointy- THE MTLLIGAX VXD MISS FAXXY PEBKIXS. mrs. perkins’s ball. 11 eight;’ the ‘Shan Van Yoght;’ or the ‘ Dirge of 011am Fodhlah ? ’ ” “ Who’s this mad chap that Titmarsh has brought ? ” I heard Master Bacon exclaim to Master Perkins. “ Look ! how frightened Fanny looks ! ” “ 0 poo ! gals are alivays frightened,” Fanny’s brother replied ; hut Giles Bacon, more violent, said, “ I’ll tell you what, Tom ; if this goes on, we must pitch into him.” And so I have no doubt they would, when another thundering knock coming, Gregory rushed into the room, and began lighting all the candles, so as to produce an amazing brilliancy. Miss Fanny sprang up, and ran to her Mamma, and the young gentlemen slid down the banisters to receive the company in the hall. EVERYBODY BEGINS TO COME, BUT ESPECIALLY MR. MINCHIN. — ♦ — “ It’s only Me and my sisters,” Master Bacon said ; though “ only ” meant eight in this instance. All the young ladies had fresh cheeks and purple elbows; all had white frocks, with hair more or less auburn ; and so a party was already made of this blooming and numerous family, before the rest of the company began to arrive. The three Miss Meggots next came in their fly; Mr. Blades and his niece from 19 in the square : Captain and Mrs. Struther, and Miss Struther : Doctor Toddy’s two daughters and their mamma : but where were the gentlemen ? The Mulligan, great and active as he was, could not suffice among so many beauties. At last came a brisk neat little knock, and looking into the hall, I saw a gentleman taking off his clogs there, whilst Sir Giles Bacon’s big footman was looking on with rather a contemptuous air. “What name shall I enounce?” says he, with a wink at Gregory on the stair. "What name shall I enounce?’ "Don't hurry the gentleman— do n’t you see he ain't buttoned his strap yet?” " Say Mr. Frederick MraOHW." (This is spoken with much dignity.) mrs. perkins’s ball. 13 The Gentleman in clogs said, with quiet dignity, — MR. FREDERICK MINCHIN. “Pump Court, Temple,” is printed on his cards in very small type : and he is a rising barrister, of the Western Circuit. He is to be found at home of mornings : afterwards “ at Westminster,” as you read on his back door. “ Binks and Minchin’s Reports ” are probably known to my legal friends : this is the Minchin in question. He is decidedly genteel, and is rather in request at the balls of the Judges’ and Serjeants’ ladies ; for he dances irreproach- ably, and goes out to dinner as much as ever he can. He mostly dines at the Oxford and Cambridge Clubs, of which you can easily see by his appearance that he is a member; he takes the joint and his half-pint of wine, for Minchin does everything like a Gentleman. He is rather of a literary turn ; still makes Latin verses with some neatness ; and before he was called, was remarkably fond of the flute. When Mr. Minchin goes out in the evening, his clerk brings his bag to the Club, to dress ; and if it is at all muddy, he turns up his trowsers so that he may come in without a speck. For such a party as this, he will have new gloves; otherwise, Frederic, his clerk, is chiefly employed in cleaning them with India-rubber. He has a number of pleasant stories about the Circuit and 14 mrs. perkins’s ball. the University, which he tells with a simper to his neighbour at dinner; and has always the last joke of Mr. Baron Maule. He has a private fortune of five thousand pounds ; he is a dutiful son; he has a sister married, in Harley Street; and Lady Jane Ranville has the best opinion of him, and says he is a most excellent and highty-principled young man. Her Ladyship and daughter arrived, just as Mr. Minchin had popped his clogs into the umbrella-stand, and the rank of that respected person, and dignified manner in which he led her up stairs, caused all sneering on the part of the domestics to disappear. THE BALL-ROOM DOOR. THE BALL-ROOM DOOR. A hundred of knocks follow Frederick Minchin’s : in half an hour Messrs. Spoff, Pinch, and Clapperton, have begun their music, and Mulligan, with one of the Miss Bacon’s, is dancing majestically in the first quadrille. My young friends, Giles and Tom, prefer the landing-place to the Drawing- rooms, where they stop all night robbing the refreshment- trays as they come up or down. Giles has eaten fourteen ices, he will have a dreadful stomach-ache to morrow. Tom has eaten twelve, hut he has had four more glasses of Negus than Giles. Grundsell, the occasional waiter, from whom Master Tom buys quantities of ginger-beer, can of course deny him nothing. That is Grundsell, in the tights, with the tray. Meanwhile direct your attention to the three gentlemen at the door, they are conversing. 1st Gent. Who’s the man of the house — the bald man ? 2nd Gent. Of course. The man of the house is always bald. He’s a stockbroker I believe. Snooks brought me. 16 mbs. perkixs’s ball. 1st Gent. Have you been to the tea-room ? There’s a pretty girl in the tea-room ; blue eyes, pink ribbons, that kind of thing. 2nd Gent. Who the deuce is that girl with those tremendous shoulders ? Gad ! I do wish somebody would smack ’em. 3rd Gent. Sir — that young lady is my niece, Sir, — my niece — my name is Blades, Sir. 2nd Gent. Well, Blades! Smack your niece’s shoulders; she deserves it, begad ! she does. Come in, Jinks, present me to the Perkinses. — Hollo ! here’s an old country acquaint- ance — Lady Bacon, as I live ! with all the piglings ; she never goes out without the whole litter. {Exeunt 1st and 2nd Gent.) LADY BACON, THE MISS BACONS, AND MB. FLAM. LADY BACON, THE MISS BACONS, MR. FLAM. Lady B . — Leonora ! Maria ! Amelia ! here is the gentleman we met at Sir John Porkington's. [The Misses Bacox, expecting to be ashed to dance , smile simultaneously, and begin to smooth their tuckers.'] Mr. Flam. — Lady Bacon ! I couldn't be mistaken in you ! Won’t you dance, Lady Bacon ? Lady B. — Go away, you droll creature ! Mr. Flam . — And these are your ladyship’s seven lovely sisters, to judge from their likenesses to the charming Lady Bacon ? Lady B. — My sisters, he ! he ! my daughters , Mr. Flam, and they dance, don’t you, girls ? The Misses Bacon. — 0 yes ! Mr. Flam. — Gad ! how I wish I was a dancing man ! [ Exit Flam. MR. LARKINS. I have not been able to do justice (only a Lawrence could do that) to my respected friend Mrs. Perkins, in this picture ; but Larkins’s portrait is considered very like. Adolphus Larkins has been long connected with Mr. Perkins’s City Establish- ment, and is asked to dine twice or thrice per annum. Evening parties are the great enjoyment of this simple youth, who after he has walked from Kentish Town to Thames Street, and passed twelve hours in severe labour there, and walked back again to Kentish Town, finds no greater pleasure than to attire his lean person in that elegant evening costume which you see, to walk into town again, and to dance at any body’s house who will invite him. Islington, Pentonville, Somers Town, are the scenes of many of his exploits; and I have seen this good-natured fellow performing figure dances at Notting-hill, at a house where I am ashamed to say there was no supper, no negus even to speak of, nothing but the bare merits of the Polka in which Adolphus revels. To MR. LARKINS. Mrs. perkins’s ball. 19 describe this gentleman’s infatuation for dancing, let me say, in a word, that be will even frequent boarding-house hops, rather than not go. He has clogs, too, like Minchin : but nobody laughs at him. He gives himself no airs ; but walks into a house with a knock and a demeanour so tremulous and humble, that the servants rather patronise him. He does not speak, or have any particular opinions, but when the time comes, begins to dance. He bleats out a word or two to his partner during this operation, seems very weak and sad during the whole performance ; and, of course, is set to dance with the ugliest women everywhere. The gentle, kind spirit ! when I think of him night after night, hopping and jigging, and trudging off to Kentish Town, so gently, through the fogs, and mud, and darkness ; I do not know whether I ought to admire him, because his enjoyments are so simple, and his dispositions so kindly ; or laugh at him, because he draws his life so exquisitely mild. Well, well, we can’t be all roaring lions in this world; there must be some lambs, and harmless, kindly, gregarious creatures for eating and shearing. See ! even good-natured Mrs. Perkins is leading up the trembling Larkins to the tremendous Miss Bunion ! MISS BUNION. The poetess, author of " Heartstrings,” “ The Deadly Nightshade,” “ Passion Flowers/’ &c. Though her poems breathe only of love, Miss B. has never been married. She is nearly six feet high ; she loves waltzing beyond even poesy ; and I think lobster-salad as much as either. She confesses to twenty-eight ; in which case her first volume, “ The Orphan of Gozo,” (cut up by Mr. Bigby, in the Quarterly, with his usual kindness) must have been published when she was three years old. For a woman all soul, she certainly eats as much as any woman I ever saw. The sufferings she has had to endure, are, she says, beyond compare ; the poems which she writes breathe a withering passion, a smouldering despair, an agony of spirit that would melt the soul of a drayman, were he to read them. Well, it is a comfort to see that she can dance of nights, and to know (for the habits of illustrious literary persons are always worth knowing) that she eats a hot MISS BUXIOX. mrs. perkins's ball. 21 mutton chop for breakfast every morning of her blighted existence. She lives in a boarding-house at Brompton, and comes to the party in a fly. MR. HICKS. It is worth twopence to see Miss Bunion and Poseidon Hicks, the great poet, conversing with one another, and to talk of one to the other afterwards. How they hate each other ! I (in my wicked way) have sent Hicks almost raving mad, by praising Bunion to him in confidence ; and you can drive Bunion out of the room by a few judicious panegyrics of Hicks. Hicks first burst upon the astonished world with poems, in the Byronic manner : “ The Death- Shriek,” “ The Bastard of Lara,” “ The Atabal,” “ The Fire Ship of Botzaris,” and other works. His “ Love-Lays,” in Mr. Moore’s early style, were pronounced to be wonderfully precocious for a young gentle- man then only thirteen, and in a commercial academy, at Tooting. Subsequently, this great bard became less passionate and more thoughtful ; and, at the age of twenty, wrote “ Idiosyncracy ” (in 40 books, 4to.): “Ararat,” “a stupendous MR. HICKS, mrs. perkins’s ball. 23 epic,” as tlie reviews said ; and “ The Megatlieria,” “ a mag- nificent contribution to our pre-adamite literature,” according to the same authorities. Not having read these works, it would ill become me to judge them; but I know that poor Jingle, the publisher, always attributed his insolvency to the latter epic, which was magnificently printed in elephant folio. Hicks has now taken a classical turn, and has brought out “Poseidon;” “Iacchus;” “Hephaestus;” and I dare say is going through the mythology. But I should not like to try him at a passage of the Greek Delectus, any more than twenty thousand others of us who have had a “ classical education.” Hicks was taken in an inspired attitude, regarding the chandelier, and pretending he didn’t know that Miss Pettifer was looking at him. Her name is Anna Maria (daughter of Higgs and Pettifer, Solicitors, Bedford Row), hut Hicks calls her “ Ianthe,” in his album verses, and is himself an eminent drysalter in the city. MISS MEGGOT. Poor -Miss Meggot is not so lucky as Miss Bunion. Nobody conies to dance with her , though she has a new frock on, as she calls it, and rather -a pretty foot, which she always manages to stick out. She is fort} r -seven, the j^oimgest of three sisters, who live in a mouldy old house near Middlesex Hospital, where they have lived for I don’t know how many score of years; but this is certain, the eldest Miss Meggot saw the Gordon riots out of that same parlour window, and tells the story how her father (physician to George III.) was robbed of his queue in the streets on that occasion. The two old ladies have taken the brevet rank, and are addressed as Mrs. Jane and Mrs. Betsy : one of them is at whist in the back drawing- room. But the youngest is still called Miss Nancy, and is considered quite a baby by her sisters. She was going to be married once to a brave young officer, Ensign Angus Macquirk, of the Whistlebinkie Fencibles ; but MISS MEGGOT. MBS. PERKINS’S BALL. 25 he fell at Quatre Bras, by the side of the gallant Snuffinull, his commander. Deeply, deeply did Miss Nancy deplore him . But time has cicatrized the wounded heart. She is gay now, and would sing or dance, ay, or marry if any body asked her. Do go, my dear friend — I don’t mean to ask her to marry, but to ask her to dance. — Never mind the looks of the thing. It will make her happy ; and what does it cost you ? Ah, my dear fellow! take this counsel; always dance with the old ladies — always dance with the governesses. It is a comfort to the poor things when they get up in their garret that some- body has had mercy on them. And such a handsome fellow as you too ! MISS RANYILLE, REV. MR. TOOP. MISS MULLINS, MR. WINTER. Mr. TU. — Miss Mullins, look at Miss Ranville, what a picture of good humour. Miss M. — 0 you s atm cal creature ! Mr. IF. — Do you know why she is so angry ? She expected to dance with Captain Grig, and, by some mistake, the Cam- bridge Professor got hold of her : isn’t he a handsome man ? Miss M. — 0 you droll wretch ! Mr. W. — Yes, he’s a fellow of college — fellows mayn’t marry, Miss Mullins — poor fellows, ay, Miss Mullins ? Miss M . — La ! Mr. TU. — And Professor of Phlebotomy in the University. He flatters himself he is a man of the world, Miss Mullins, and always dances in the long vacation. Miss M. — You malicious wicked monster ! 3/r.TT. — Do you know Lady Jane "Ranville ? Miss Ranville’s mamma. A ball once a-year; footmen in canary- coloured mrs. perkixs’s ball. 27 livery; Baker Street; six dinners in the season; starves all the year round; pride and poverty, you know; I’ve been to her hall once. Ranville Banville’s her brother ; and between you and me — but this, dear Miss Mullins, is a profound secret, — I think he’s a greater fool than his sister. Miss M. — 0, you satirical, droll, malicious, wicked thing, you ! Mr. W . — You do me injustice, Miss Mullins, indeed you do. \Chaine Anglaise.] MISS JOY, ME. AND MBS. JOY, MR. BOTTER. Mr. B. — What spirits that girl has, Mrs. Joy ! Mr. J. — She’s a sunshine in a house, Botter, a regular sun- shine- — when Mrs. J. here’s in a bad humour, I * * * Mrs. J. — Don’t talk nonsense, Mr. Jo}\ Mr. B. — There’s a hop, skip, and jump for you ! Why, it beats Ellsler ! Upon my conscience it does ! It’s her fourteenth quadrille, too. There she goes ! She’s a jewel of a girl, though I say it, that shouldn’t. Mrs. J. (laughing). — Why don’t you many her, Botter ? Shall I speak to her ? I dare say she’d have you. You’re not so very old. Mr. B . — Don’t aggravate me, Mrs. J. You know when I lost my heart in the year 1817, at the opening of Waterloo Bridge, to a young lady who wouldn’t have me, and left me to die in despair, and married Joy, of the Stock Exchange. Mrs. J. — Get away, you foolish old creature. [Mr. Joy looks on in ecstasies at Miss Joy’s agility. Lady Jane Ranyille, of Baker Street, pronounces her to be an exceedingly forward person. Captain Dobbs likes a girl who has plenty of go in her ; and as for Fred. Sparks, he is over head and ears in love with her.] mss JOY, MR. AND MRS. JOY, MR. BOTTER. MR. RANYILLE RANVILLE AND JACK HUBBARD MR. RANVILLE DANVILLE AND JACK HUBBARD. This is Miss Danville Danville's brother, Mr. Danville Danville, of the Foreign Office, faithfully designed as he was playing at whist in the card-room. Talleyrand used to play at whist at the Travellers’, that is why Danville Danville indulges in that diplomatic recreation. It is not his fault if he be not the greatest man in the room. If you speak to him, he smiles sternly, and answers in mono- syllables ; he would rather die than commit himself. He never has committed himself in his life. He was the first at school, and distinguished at Oxford. He is growing prematurely bald now, like Canning, and is quite proud of it. He rides in St. James’s Park of a morning before breakfast. He dockets his tailor’s bills, and nicks off his dinner notes in diplomatic paragraphs, and keeps precis of them all. If he ever makes a joke, it is a quotation from Horace, like Sir Robert Peel. The only relaxation he permits himself, is to read Thucydides in the holidays. 30 mrs. perkins’s ball. Everybody asks him out to dinner, on account of his brass buttons with the Queen’s cipher, and to have the air of being well with the Foreign Office. “ Where I dine,” he says solemnly, “ I think it is my duty to go to evening parties.” That is why he is here. He never dances, never sups, never drinks. He has gruel when he goes home to bed. I think it is in his brains. He is such an ass and so respectable, that one wonders he has not succeeded in the world ; and yet, somehow, they laugh at him ; and you and I shall be ministers as soon as he will. Yonder, making believe to look over the print-books, is that merry rogue, Jack Hubbard. See how jovial he looks ! He is the life and soul of every party, and his impromptu singing after supper will make you die of laughing. He is meditating an impromptu now, and at the same time thinking about a bill that is coming due next Thursday. Happy dog ! MRS. TROTTER, MISS TROTTER, MISS TOADY, 1LORD METHUSELAH. MRS. TROTTER, MISS TROTTER, MISS TOADY, LORD METHUSELAH. Dear Emma Trotter has been silent and rather ill-humoured all the evening until now her pretty face lights up with smiles. Cannot you guess why? Pity the simple and affectionate creature ! Lord Methuselah has not arrived until this moment ; and see how the artless girl steps forward to greet him ! In the midst of all the selfishness and turmoil of the world, how charming it is to find virgin hearts quite unsullied, and to look on at little romantic pictures of mutual love ! Lord Methuselah, though you know his age by the peerage — though he is old, wigged, gouty, rouged, wicked, has lighted up a pure flame in that gentle bosom. There was a talk about Tom Willoughby last year ; and then, for a time, young Hawbuck (Sir John Hawbuck’s youngest son) seemed the favoured man ; hut Emma never knew her mind until she met the dear creature before you in a Rhine steam-boat. “ Why are you so late, Edward ? ” says she. Dear artless child ! 32 mrs. Perkins’s ball. Her mother looks on with tender satisfaction. One can appreciate the joys of such an admirable parent ! “ Look at them ! ” says Miss Toady. “ I vow and protest they ’re the handsomest couple in the room ! ” Methuselah’s grandchildren are rather jealous and angry, and Mademoiselle Ariane, of the French theatre, is furious. But there’s no accounting for the mercenary envy of some people ; and it is impossible to satisfy everybody. MR. BEAUMORIS, MR. GRIG, MR. FLYNDERS. MR. BEAUMORIS, MR. GRIG, MR. FLYNDERS. Those three young men are described in a twinkling : Lieutenant. Grig of the heavies ; Mr. Beaumoris, the hand- some young man ; Tom Flinders (Flynders Flynders, he now calls himself), the fat gentleman who dresses after Beaumoris. Beaumoris is in the Treasury: he has a salary of eighty pounds a year, on which he maintains the best cab and horses of the season ; and out of which he pays seventy guineas merely for his subscription to clubs. He hunts in Leicester- shire, where great men mount him ; is a prodigious favourite behind the scenes at the theatres; you may get glimpses of him at Richmond, with all sorts of pink bonnets ; and he is the sworn friend of half the most famous roues about town, such as Old Methuselah, Lord Billygoat, Lord Tarquin, and the rest ; a respectable race. It is to oblige the former that the good-natured young fellow is here to-night; though it must not be imagined that he gives himself any airs of supe- riority. Dandy as he is, he is quite affable, and would borrow 84 mrs. perkins’s ball. ten guineas from any man in the room, in the most jovial way possible. It is neither Beau’s birth, which is doubtful ; nor his money, which is entirely negative ; nor his honesty, which goes along with his money- qualification ; nor his wit, for he can barely spell, — which recommend him to the fashionable world: but a sort of Grand Seigneur splendour, and dandified Je ne s^ais quoi, which make the man he is of him. The way in which his boots and gloves fit him is a wonder, which no other man can achieve ; and though he has not an atom of principle, it must be confessed that he invented the Taglioni shirt. When I see these magnificent dandies yawning out of White’s, or caracoling in the Park on shining chargers, I like to think that Brummell was the greatest of them all, and that Brummell’s father was a footman. Flynders is Beaumoris’s toady : lends him money ; buys horses through his recommendation ; dresses after him ; clings to him in Pall Mall, and on the steps of the clubs ; and talks about ‘Bo’ in all societies. It is his drag which carries down Bo’s friends to the Derby, and his cheques pay for dinners to the pink bonnets. I don’t believe the Perkinses know what a rogue it is, but fancy him a decent reputable City man, like his father before him. As for Captain Grig, what is there to tell about him ? He mrs. perkins’s ball. 35 performs the duties of his calling with perfect gravity. He is faultless on parade ; excellent across country ; amiable when drunk, rather slow when sober. He has not two ideas, and is a most good-natured, irreproachable, gallant, and stupid young officer. CAVALIER SEUL. This is my friend Bob Hely, performing the Cavalier seul in a quadrille. Remark the good-humoured pleasure depicted in his countenance. Has he any secret grief ? Has he a pain anywhere ? No, dear Miss Jones, he is dancing like a true Briton, and with all the charming gaiety and abandon of our race. When Canaillard performs that Cavalier seul operation, does lie flinch ? No : he puts on his most vainqueur look, he sticks his thumbs into the armholes of his w’aistcoat, and advances, retreats, pirouettes, and otherwise gambadoes, as though to say, “ Regarde moi, O monde ! Venez, 0 femmes, venez voir danser Canaillard !” When de Bobwitz executes the same measure, he does it with smiling agility, and graceful ease. But poor Hely, if he were advancing to a dentist, his face would not be more cheerful. All the eyes of the room are upon him, he thinks ; and he thinks he looks like a fool. CAVALIER SEUL. mrs. perkins’s ball. 37 Upon my word, if you press the point with me, dear Miss Jones, I think he is not very far from right. I think that while Frenchmen and Germans may dance, as it is their nature to do, there is a natural dignity about us Britons, which debars us from that enjoyment. I am rather of the Turkish opinion, that this should he done for us. I think * * * Good-by, you envious old fox-and-the-grapes, says Miss Jones, and the next moment I see her whirling by in a polka with Tom Tozer, at a pace which makes me shrink back with terror into the little boudoir. M. CANAILLAED, CHEYALIEE OF THE LEGION OF HONOUR LIEUTENANT BAEON DE BOBWITZ. Canaillard. 0 ces Anglais ! quels liommes, mon Dieu ! Comme ils sont babilles, comme ils dansent ! Bobwitz. Ce sont de beaux bommes bourtant ; point de tenue .militaire mais de grands gaillards ; si je les avais dans ma compagnie de la Garde, j’en ferai de bons soldats. Canaillard. Est il bete, cet Allemand! Les grands bommes ne font pas toujours de bons soldats, Monsieur. II me semble que les soldats de France qui sont de ma taille, Monsieur, valent un peu mieux * * Bobwitz. Yous croyez ? Canaillard. Comment je le crois, Monsieur ? J’en suis sur ! II me semble, Monsieur, que nous l’avons prouvA Bobwitz {impatiently). Je m’en vais danser la Bolka. Ser- viteur, Monsieur. Canaillard. Butor ! (He goes and looks at bimself in tbe glass, when be is seized by Mrs. Perkins for tbe Polka.) M. CANAILLAED, LIEUTENANT BAEON DE BOB WITZ. J THE BOUDOIR— MR. SMITH, MR. BROWN, MISS BUSTLETON. THE BOUDOIR. MR. SMITH, MR. BROWN, MISS BUSTLETON. Mr. Brown. You polk, Miss Bustleton ? I’m so delaightecl. Miss Bustleton. [Smiles and prepares to rise.] Mr. Smith. D puppy. (Poor Smith don't polk) GRAND POLKA. Though a quadrille seems to me as dreary as a funeral, yet to look at a polka I own is pleasant. See ! Brown and Emily Bustleton are whirling round as light as two pigeons over a dove-cot; Tozer, with that wicked, whisking, little Jones, spins along as merrily as a May-day sweep ; Miss Joy is the partner of the happj" Fred. Sparks ; and even Miss Ranville is pleased, for the faultless Captain Grig is toe and heel with her. Beau- moris, with rather a nonchalant air, takes a turn with Miss Trotter, at which Lord Methuselah’s wrinkled chops quiver uneasily. See ! how the big Baron de Bobwitz spins lightly, and gravely, and gracefully round ; and lo ! the Frenchman staggering under the weight of Miss Bunion, who tramps and kicks like a young cart-horse. But the most awful sight which met my view in this dance, was the unfortunate Miss Little, to whom fate had assigned The Mulligan as a partner. Like a pavid kid in the talons of an eagle, that young creature trembled in his huge Milesian mrs. Perkins’s ball. 41 grasp. Disdaining the recognised form of the dance, the Irish chieftain accommodated the music to the dance of his own green land, and performed a double shuffle jig, carrying Miss Little along with him. Miss Ranville and her Captain shrank back amazed ; Miss Trotter skirried out of his way into the protection of the astonished Lord Methuselah ; Fred. Sparks could hardly move for laughing ; while, on the contrary, Miss Joy was quite in pain for poor Sophy Little. As Canaillard and the Poetess came up, The Mulligan, in the height of his enthusiasm, lunged out a kick which sent Miss Bunion howling ; and concluded with a tremendous Hurroo ! a war cry which caused every Saxon heart to shudder and quail. O that the earth would open and kindly take me in ! I ex- claimed mentally ; and slunk off into the lower regions, where by this time half the company were at supper. THE SUPPER. The supper is going on behind the screen. There is no need to draw the supper. We all know that sort of transaction : the squabbling, and gobbling, and popping of champagne ; the smell of musk and lobster salad ; the dowagers chumping away at plates of raised pie ; the young lasses nibbling at little titbits, which the dexterous young gentlemen procure. Three large men, like doctors of divinity, wait behind the table, and furnish ever} r thing that appetite can ask for. I never, for my part, can eat any supper for wondering at those men. I believe if you were to ask them for mashed turnips, or a slice of crocodile, those astonishing people would serve you. What a contempt they must have for the guttling crowd to whom they minister — those solemn pastrycook’s men ! How they must hate jellies, and game -pies, and champagne in their hearts ! How they must scorn my poor friend Grundsell, behind the screen, who is sucking at a bottle ! GEORGE GRUXDSELL. mrs. Perkins’s ball. 43 GEORGE GROeSELL, GREEN-GROCER AND SALESMAN, 9 LITTLE POCKLINGTON BUILDINGS, LATE CONFIDENTIAL SERVANT IN TRE FAMILY OF THE LORD MAYOR OF LONDON. Carpets Beat. — Knives and Boots cleaned per contract. — Errands faithfully performed. — Gr. Gr. attends Ball and Dinner parties, and from his knowledge of the most distinguished Families in London, confidently recommends his services to the distinguished neigh- bourhood of Pocklington Square. This disguised green-grocer is a very well-known character in the neighbourhood of Pocklington Square. He waits at the parties of the gentry in the neighbourhood, and though, of course, despised in families where a footman is kept, is a person of much importance in female establishments. Miss Jonas always employs him at her parties, and says to her page, “Vincent, send the butler, or send Desborough to me ; ” by which name she chooses to designate G. G. When the Miss Frumps have posthorses to their carriage, and pay visits, Grundsell always goes behind. Those ladies have the greatest confidence in him, have been godmothers to fourteen of his children, and leave their house in his charge when they go to Bognor for the summer. He attended those 44 mrs. perkins’s ball. ladies when they were presented at the last drawing-room of Her Majesty Queen Charlotte. Mr. Grundsell’s state costume is a blue coat and copper buttons, a white waistcoat, and an immense frill and shirt- collar. He was for many years a private watchman, and once canvassed for the office of parish clerk of St. Peter’s, Pocklington. He can be intrusted with untold spoons ; with any thing, in fact, but liquor ; and it was he who brought round the cards for Mrs. Perkins’s Ball. AFTER SUPPER. I do not intend to say any more about it. After the people had supped, they went back and danced. Some supped again. I gave Miss Bunion, with my own hands, four bumpers of champagne : and such a quantity of goose liver and truffles, that I don’t wonder she took a glass of cherry-brandy after- wards. The grey morning was in Pocklington Square as she drove away in her fly. So did the other people go away. How green and sallow some of the girls looked, and how awfully clear Mrs. Colonel Bludyer’s rouge was ! Lady Jane Ranville’s great coach had roared away down the streets long before. Fred. Minchin pattered off in his clogs : it was I who covered up Miss Meggot, and conducted her, with her two old * sisters, to the. carriage. Good old souls ! They have shown their gratitude by asking me to tea next Tuesday. Methuselah is gone to finish the night at the Club. “ Mind to-morrow,” Miss Trotter says, kissing her hand out of the carriage. Canaillard departs, asking the way to ‘ Lesterre-squar.’ They all go away — life goes away. 46 mrs. perkins’s ball. Look at Miss Martin and young Ward ! How tenderly the rogue is wrapping her up ! how kindly she looks at him ! The old folks are whispering behind as they wait for their carriage. What is their talk, think you ? and when shall that pair make a match? When you see those pretty little creatures with their smiles and their blushes, and their pretty ways, would you like to be the Grand Bashaw ? “Mind and send me a large piece of cake,” I go up and whisper archly to old Mr. Ward : and we look on rather sentimentally at the couple, almost the last in the rooms (there, I declare, go the musicians, and the clock is at five), when Grundsell with an air cjfart, rushes up to me, and says, “ For Ev’n sake, Sir, go into the supper -room : there’s that Hirish gent, a pitchin into Mr. P.” MISS MARTIN AND YOUNG WARD, TIIE MULLIGAN AND MR. PERKINS. THE MULLIGAN AND ME. PEEKINS. — ♦ — It was too true. I had taken him away after supper (he ran after Miss Little’s carriage, who was dying in love with him, as he fancied), hut the brute had come hack again. The doctors of divinity were putting up their condiments : every- body was gone ; hut the abominable Mulligan sate swinging his legs at the lonely supper-table ! Perkins was opposite, gasping at him. The Mulligan. I tell ye, ye are the butler, ye big fat man. Go get me some more champagne : it’s good at this house. Mr. Perkins {with dignity). It is good at this house ; hut — The Mulligan. Bht hwhat ? ye goggling, how-windowed jackass. Go get the wine, and we’ll dthrink it together, my old buck. Mr. Perkins. My name, Sir, is Perkins. The Mulligan. Well, that rhymes with gerkins and Jerkins, LIBRARY — UNIVERSITY OE XiW 48 mrs. perkins’s ball. my man of firkins ; so don’t let us have any more shirkings and lurkings, Mr. Perkins. Mr. Perkins ( with apoplectic energy). Sir, I am the master of this house ; and I order you to quit it. I’ll not he insulted, Sir. I’ll send for a policeman, Sir. What do you mean, Mr. Titmarsh, Sir, by bringing this — this beast into my house, Sir? At this, with a scream like that of a Hyrcanian tiger, Mulligan, of the hundred battles, sprang forward at his prey ; but we were beforehand with him. Mr. Gregory, Mr. Grund- sell, Sir Giles Bacon’s large man, the young gentleman, and myself, rushed simultaneously upon the tipsy chieftain, and confined him. The doctors of divinity looked on with perfect indifference. That Mr. Perkins did not go off in a fit is a wonder. He was led away heaving and snorting frightfully. Somebody smashed Mulligan’s hat over his eyes, and I led him forth into the silent morning. The chirrup of the birds, the freshness of the rosy air, and a penn’orth of coffee that I got for him at a stall in the Begent Circus, revived him some- what. When I quitted him, he was not angr}% hut sad. He was desirous, it is true, of avenging the wrongs of Erin in battle line ; he wished also to share the grave of Sarsfield and Hugh O’Neill ; hut he was sure that Miss Perkins, as well as mbs. perkins’s ball. 49 Miss Little, was desperately in love with him ; and I left him on a door- step in tears. “ Is it best to be laughing-mad, or crying-mad, in the world ? ” says I, moodily, coming into my street. Betsy, the maid, was already up and at work, on her knees, scouring the steps, and cheerfully beginning her honest daily labour. OUR STREET. OUR STREET Our Street, from the little nook which I occupy in it, and whence I and a fellow-lodger and friend of mine cynically observe it, presents a strange motley scene. We are in a state of transition. We are not as yet in the town, and we have left the country where we were when I came to lodge with Mrs. Cammysole, my excellent landlady. I then took second-floor apartments at No. 17, Waddilove Street, and since, although I have never moved (having various little comforts about me), I find myself living at No. 46 a, Pocklington Gardens. Why is this ? Why am I to pay eighteen shillings instead of fifteen ? I was quite as happy in Waddilove Street; but the fact is, a great portion of that venerable old district has passed away, and we are being absorbed into the splendid new white- stuccoed Doric-porticoed genteel Pocklington quarter. Sir Thomas Gibbs Pocklington, M.P. for the borough of Lathan- plaster, is the founder of the district and his own fortune. B 2 OUR STREET. The Pocklington Estate Office is in the Square, on a line with Waddil — with Pocklington Gardens, I mean. The old inn, the Pam and Magpie, where the market-gardeners used to bait, came out this year with a new white face and title, the shield, &c. of the Pocklington Arms. Such a shield it is ! Such quarterings ! Howard, Cavendish, De Pos, De la Zouche, all mingled together. Even our house, 46 a, which Mrs. Cammysole has had painted white in compliment to the Gardens of which it now forms part, is a sort of impostor, and has no business to be called Gardens at all. Mr. Gibbs, Sir Thomas’s agent and nephew, is furious at our daring to take the title which belongs to our betters. The very next door (No. 46, the Honourable Mrs. Mountnoddy) is a house of five stories, shooting up proudly into the air, thirty feet above our old liigh-roofed low- roomed old tenement. It belongs to Captain Bragg, not only the landlord but the son-in-law of Mrs. Cammysole, who lives a couple of hundred yards down the street, at “ The Bungalow.” He was the Commander of the Ram Chunder East Indiaman, and has quarrelled with the Pocklingtons ever since he bought houses in the parish. He it is who will not sell or alter his houses to suit the spirit of the times. He it is who, though he made the widow Cammysole change the name of her street, will not pull down OUR STREET. 3 tlie house next door, nor the baker’s next, nor the iron-bedstead and feather warehouse ensuing, nor the little barber’s with the pole, nor, I am ashamed to say, the tripe shop, still standing. The barber powders the heads of the great footmen from Pock- lington Gardens ; they are so big that they can scarcely sit in his little premises. And the old tavern, The East Indiaman, is kept by Bragg’s ship steward, and protests against the Pocklington Arms. Down the road is Pocklington Chapel, Rev. Oldham Slocum —in brick, with arched windows and a wooden belfry ; sober, dingy, and hideous. In the centre of Pocklington Gardens rises St. Waltheof’s, the Rev. Cyril Thuryfer and assistants — a splendid Anglo-Norman edifice, vast, rich, elaborate, bran new, and intensely old. Down Avemary Lane you may hear the clink of the little Romish Chapel bell. And hard by is a large broad-shouldered Ebenezer (Rev. Jonas Gronow), out of the windows of which the hymns come booming all Sunday long. Going westward along the line we come presently to Coman- dine House (on a part of the gardens of which Comandine Gardens is about to be erected by his lordship) ; farther on, “ The Pineries,” Mr. and Lady Mary Mango : and so we get into the country, and out of Our Street altogether, as I may say. But in the half mile, over which it may be said to 4 OUR STREET. extend, we find all sorts and conditions of people — from the Eight Honourable Lord Comandine down to the present topographer ; who, being of no rank, as it were, has the fortune to be treated on almost friendly footing by all, from his lord- ship down to the tradesman. A STUDIO IN OUR STREET, OUR HOUSE IN OUR STREET. We must begin our little descriptions where, they say, Charity should begin — at home. Mrs. Cammysole, my land- lady, will be rather surprised when she reads this, and finds that a good-natured tenant, who has never complained of her impositions for fifteen years, understands every one of her tricks, and treats them, not with anger, but with scorn — with silent scorn. On the 18th of December, 1837, for instance, coming gently down stairs, and before my usual wont, I saw you seated in my arm-chair, peeping into a letter that came from my aunt in the country, just as if it had been addressed to you, and not to “ M. A. Titmarsh, Esq.” Did I make any disturbance ? far from it ; I slunk back to my bed-room (being enabled to walk silently in the beautiful pair of worsted slippers Miss Penelope J s worked for me ; they are worn out now, dear Penelope !), and then, rattling open the door with a great noise, descended the stairs, singing “ Son vergin vezzosa ” at the top of my voice. You were not in my sitting-room, Mrs. Cammy- sole, when I entered that apartment. 6 OUR STREET. You have been reading all my letters, papers, manuscripts, brouillons of verses, inchoate articles for the Morning Post and Morning Chronicle, invitations to dinner and tea — all my family letters, all Eliza Townley’s letters, from the first, in which she declared that to he the bride of her beloved Michelagnolo was the fondest wish of her maiden heart, to the last, in which she announced that her Thomas was the best of husbands, and signed herself “ Eliza Slogger ; ” all Mary Farmer’s letters, all Emily Delamere’s; all that poor foolish old Miss MacWhirter’s, whom I would as soon marry as ; in a word, I know that you, you hawk-beaked, keen-eyed, sleepless, indefatigable, old Mrs. Cammysole, have read all my papers for these ten years. I know that you cast your curious old eyes over all the manuscripts which you find in my coat pockets and those of my pantaloons, as they hang in a drapery over the door-handle of my bed-room. I know that you count the money in my green and gold purse, which Lucy Netterville gave me, and speculate on the manner in which I have laid out the difference between to-day and yesterday. I know that you have an understanding with the laundress (to whom you say that you are all-powerful with me), threat- ening to take away my practice from her, unless she gets up gratis some of your fine linen. OUR STREET. 7 I know that we both have a pennyworth of cream for breakfast, which is brought in in the same little can ; and I know who has the most for her share. I know how many lumps of sugar you take from each pound as it arrives. I have counted the lumps, you old thief, and for years have never said a word, except to Miss Clapperclaw, the first-floor lodger. Once I put a bottle of pale brandy into that cupboard, of which you and I only have keys, and the liquor wasted and wasted away until it was all gone. You drank the whole of it, you wicked old woman. You a lady, indeed ! I know your rage when they did me the honour to elect me a member of the Poluphloisboiothalasses Club, and I ceased consequently to dine at home. YTien I did dine at home, on a beefsteak, let us say, I should like to know what you had for supper. You first amputated portions of the meat when raw ; you abstracted more when cooked. Do you think I was taken in by your flimsy pretences ? I wonder how you could dare to i do such tilings before your maids (you, a clergyman’s daughter and widow, indeed !), whom you yourself were always charging with roguery. Yes, the insolence of the old woman is unbearable, and I must break out at last. If she goes off in a fit at reading this, I am sure I shan’t mind. She has two unhappy wenches, against whom her old tongue is clacking from morning till night ; 8 OUR STREET. she pounces on them at all hours. It was hut this morning at eight, when poor Molly was brooming the steps, and the baker paying her by no means unmerited compliments, that my land- lady came whirling out of the ground-floor front, and sent the poor girl whimpering into the kitchen. Were it hut for her conduct to her maids I was determined publicly to denounce her. These poor wretches she causes to lead the lives of demons ; and not content with bullying them all day, she sleeps at night in the same room with them, so that she may have them up before daybreak, and scold them while they are dressing. Certain it is, that between her and Miss Clapperclaw, on the first floor, the poor wenches led a dismal life. My dear Miss Clapperclaw, I hope you will excuse me for having placed you in the title-page of my little book, looking out of your accus- tomed window, and having your eye-glasses ready to spy the whole street, which you know better than any inhabitant of it. It is to you that I owe most of my knowledge of our neigh- bours ; from you it is that most of the facts and observations contained in these brief pages are taken. Many a night, over our tea, have we talked amiably about our neighbours and their little failings ; and as I know that you speak of mine pretty freely, why let me say, my dear Bessy, that if we have not built up Our Street between us, at least we have pulled it to pieces. A STREET COURTSHIP. Baker. How them curl papers do become you, Miss Molly. Miss Molly. Git ’long now, Baker, do. CAPTAIN AND MRS. BRAGG OF OUR STREET. THE BUNGALOW— CAPTAIN AND MRS. BRAGG. Long, long ago, when Our Street was the country — a stage- coach between us and London passing four times a-da}^ — I do not care to own that it was a sight of Flora Cammysole’s face, under the card of her mamma’s “ Lodgings to Let,” which first caused me to become a tenant of Our Street, A fine good- humoured lass she was then ; and I gave her lessons (part out of the rent) in French and flower-painting. She has made a fine rich marriage since, although her eyes have often seemed to me to say, “ Ah, Mr. T., why didn’t you, when there was yet time, and we both of us were free, propose — you know what ? ” “ Psha ! Where was the money, my dear madam ? ” Captain Bragg, then occupied in building Bungalow Lodge — Bragg, I say, living on the first floor, and entertaining sea- captains, merchants, and East Indian friends with his grand ship’s plate, being disappointed in a project of marrying a director’s daughter, who was also a second cousin once removed of a peer, sent in a fury for Mrs. Cammysole, his landlady, and proposed to marry Flora off-hand, and settle four hundred 10 OUR STREET. a-year upon her. Flora was ordered from the back parlour (the Ground-floor occupies the Second-floor bed-room), and was on the spot made acquainted with the splendid offer which the First-floor had made her. She has been Mrs. Captain Bragg these twelve years. You see her portrait, and that of the brute, her husband, on the opposite side of the page. Bragg to this day wears anchor-buttons, and has a dress- coat with a gold strap for epaulets, in case he should have a fancy to sport them. His house is covered with portraits, busts, and miniatures of himself. His wife is made to wear one of the latter. On his sideboard are pieces of plate, presented by the passengers of the Bam Chunder to Captain Bragg. “ The Ram Chunder East Indiaman, in a gale, off Table Bay;” “The Outward-bound Fleet, under convoy of Her Majesty’s frigate Loblollyboy, Captain Gutch, beating off the French squadron, under Commodore Leloup (the Ram Chunder, S.E. by E., is represented engaged with the Mirliton corvette) ; ” “ The Ram Chunder standing into the Hooglily, with Captain Bragg, his telescope and speaking-trumpet on the poop ; ” “ Captain Bragg presenting the Officers of the Ram Chunder to General Bona- parte at St. Helena ” — Titmarsh (this fine piece was painted by me when I was in favour with Bragg) ; in a word, Bragg and the Ram Chunder are all over the house. OUR STREET. 11 Although I have eaten scores of dinners at Captain Bragg’s charge, yet his hospitality is so insolent that none of us who frequent his mahogany, feel any obligation to our braggart entertainer. After he has given one of his great heavy dinners he always takes an^ opportunity to tell you, in the most public way, how many bottles of wine were drunk. His pleasure is to make his guests tipsy, and to tell everybody how and when the period of inebriation arose. And Miss Clapperclaw tells me that he often comes over laughing and giggling to her, and pretending that he has brought me into this condition — a calumny which I fling contemptuously in his face. He scarcely gives any hut men’s parties, and invites the whole club home to dinner. What is the compliment of being asked, when the whole club is asked too, I should like to know? Men’s parties are only good for hoys. I hate a dinner where there are no women. Bragg sits at the head of his table, and bullies the solitary Mrs. Bragg. He entertains us with stories of storms which he, Bragg, encountered — of dinners which he, Bragg, has received from the Governor- General of India — of jokes which he, Bragg, has heard; and however stale or odious they may he, poor Mrs. B. is always expected to laugh. Woe he to her if she doesn’t, or if she laughs at anybody 12 OUR STREET. else’s jokes. I have seen Bragg go up to her and squeeze her arm with a savage grind of his teeth, and say, with an oath, “Hang it, madam, how dare you laugh when any man but your husband speaks to you? I forbid you to grin in that way. I forbid you to look sulky. I forbid you to look happy, or to look up, or to keep your eyes down to the ground. I desire you will not be trapesing through the rooms. I order you not to sit as still as a stone.” He curses her if the wine is corked, or if the dinner is spoiled, or if she comes a minute too soon to the club for him, or arrives a minute too late. He forbids her to walk, except upon his arm. And the conse- quence of his ill-treatment is, that Mrs. Cammysole and Mrs. Bragg respect him beyond measure, and think him the first of human beings. “ I never knew a woman who was constantly bullied by her husband who did not like him the better for it,” Miss Clap- perclaw says. And though this speech has some of Clapp’s usual sardonic humour in it, I can’t but think there is some truth in the remark. LEVANT HOUSE CHAMBERS. NIK. RUMBOLD, A.R.A., AND MISS RUMBOLD. When Lord Levant quitted the country and this neighbour- hood, in which the tradesmen still deplore him, No 56, known as Levantine House, was let to the Pococurante Club, which was speedily bankrupt (for we are too far from the centre of town to support a club of our own) ; it was subsequently hired by the West Diddlesex Railroad; and is now divided into sets of Chambers, superintended by an acrimonious housekeeper, and by a porter in a sham livery, who, if you won’t find him at the door, you may as well seek at the Grapes public-house, in the little lane round the corner. He varnishes the japan-hoots of the dandy lodgers ; reads Mr. Pinkney’s Morning Post before he lets him have it; and neglects the letters of the inmates of the Chambers generally. The great rooms, which were occupied as the salons of the noble Levant, the coffee-rooms of the Pococurante (a club where the play was furious, as I am told), and the board-room 14 OUR STREET. and manager’s-room of the West Diddlesex, are tenanted now by a couple of artists; young Pinkney the miniaturist, and George Rumbold the historical-painter. Miss Rumbold, his sister, lives with him, by the way ; but with that young lady of course we have nothing to do. I knew both these gentlemen at Rome, when George wore a velvet doublet and a beard down to his chest, and used to talk about high art at the Cafe Greco. How it smelled of smoke, that velveteen doublet of his, with which his stringy red beard was likewise perfumed ! It was in his studio that I had the honour to be introduced to his sister, the fair Miss Clara ; she had a large casque with a red horse -hair plume (I thought it had been a wisp of her brother’s beard at first), and held a tin-headed spear in her hand, representing a Roman warrior in the great picture of Caractacus George was painting — a piece sixty-four feet by eighteen. The Roman warrior blushed to be discovered in that attitude : the tin-headed spear trembled in the whitest arm in the world. So she put it down, and taking off the helmet also, went and sat in a far corner of the studio, mending George’s stockings ; whilst we smoked a couple of pipes, and talked about Raphael being a good deal overrated. I think he is ; and have never disguised my opinion about the “ Transfiguration.” And all the time we talked, there 0 OUR STREET. 15 were Clara’s eyes looking lucidly out from the dark corner in which she was sitting, working away at the stockings. The lucky fellow ! They were in a dreadful state of bad repair when she came out to him at Rome, after the death of their father, the Reverend Miles Rumbold. George while at Rome painted “ Caractacus ; ” a picture of “ Non Angli sed Angeli,” of course ; a picture of “ Alfred in the Neat-herd’s Cottage,” seventy-two feet by forty-eight; (an idea of the gigantic size and Michael-Angelesque proportions of this picture may be formed, when I state that the mere muffin, of which the outcast king is spoiling the baking, is two feet three in diameter) ; and the deaths of Socrates, of Remus, and of the Christians under Nero respectively. I shall never forget how lovely Clara looked in white muslin, with her hair down, in this latter picture, giving herself up to a ferocious Camifex (for which Bob Gaunter the architect sat), and refusing to listen to the mild suggestions of an insinuating Flamen ; which character was a gross caricature of myself. None of George’s pictures sold. He has enough to tapestry Trafalgar Square. He has painted si-ace he came back to England “ The flaying of Marsyas ; ” “ The smothering of the little boys in the Tower ; ” “A plague scene during the great pestilence;” “Ugolino on the seventh day after he was deprived of victuals,” &c. For although these pictures have great merit, 16 OUR STREET. and tlie writhings of Marsyas, the convulsions of the little prince, the look of agony of St. Lawrence on the gridiron, &c., are quite true to nature, yet the subjects somehow are not agreeable; and if he hadn’t a small patrimony, my friend George would starve. Fondness for art leads me a great deal to this studio. George is a gentleman, and has very good friends, and good pluck too. When we were at Rome there was a great row between him and young Heeltap, Lord Boxmoor’s son, who was uncivil to Miss Rumhold ; (the young scoundrel — had I been a fighting man I should like to have shot him myself!) Lady Betty Bulbul is very fond of Clara, and Tom Bulbul, who took George’s message to Heeltap, is always hanging about the studio. At least I know that I find the young jackanapes there almost every day; bringing a new novel, or some poisonous French poetry, or a basket of flowers, or grapes, with Lady Betty’s love to her dear Clara — a young rascal with white kids, and his hair curled every morning. What business has he to he dangling about George Rumbold’s premises, and sticking up his ugly pug-face as a model for all George’s pictures ? Miss Clapperclaw says Bulbul is evidently smitten, and Clara too. What ! would she put up with such a little fribble as that, when there is a man of intellect and taste who — but I won’t believe it. It is all the jealousy of women. SOME OF OUR GENTLEMEN SOME OF THE SERVANTS IN OUR STREET. These gentlemen have two clubs in our quarter — for the butlers at the Indiaman, and for the gents in livery at the Paddington Arms — of either of which societies I should like to be a member. I am sure they could not be so dull as Our Club at the Poluphloisboio, where one meets the same neat clean respectable old fogies every day. But with the best wishes, it is impossible for the present writer to join either the Plate Club or the Uniform Club (as these reunions are designated), for one could not shake hands with a friend w T ho was standing behind your chair — or nod a how-d’ye-do to the butler who was pouring you out a glass of wine ; — so that what I know about the gents in our neighbour- hood is from mere casual observation. For instance, I have a slight acquaintance with, 1, Thomas Spavin, who commonly wears the above air of injured innocence, and is groom to Mr. Joseph Green, of Our Street. “ I tell why the Brougham oss is out of condition, and why Desperation broke out all in IB OUR STREET. a lather ! Osses will this eavy weather ; and Desperation was always the most mystest hoss I ever see . — I take him out with Mr. Anderson’s ounds — I’m above it. I allis was too timid to ride to ounds hy natur ; and Colonel Sprigs’ groom as says he saw me, is a liar,” &c., &c. Such is the tenor of Mr. Spavin’s remarks to his master. Whereas all the world in Our Street knows that Mr. Spavin spends at least a hundred a-year in beer; that he keeps a betting-hook ; that he has lent Mr. Green’s black Brougham horse to the omnibus driver; and at a time when Mr. G. supposed him at the veterinary surgeon’s has lent him to a livery stable, which has let him out to that gentleman him- self, and actually driven him to dinner behind his own horse. This conduct I can understand, but I cannot excuse — Mr. Spavin may; and I leave the matter to he settled betwixt himself and Mr. Green. The second is Monsieur Sinbad, Mr. Clarence Bulbul’s man, whom we all hate Clarence for keeping. Mr. Sinbad is a foreigner, speaking no known language, but a mixture of every European dialect — so that he may be an Italian brigand, or a TjTolese minstrel, or a Spanish smuggler, for what we know. I have heard say that he is neither of these, but an Irish Jew. He wears studs, hair- oil, jewellery, and linen shirt fronts, OUR STREET. 19 very finely embroidered but not particular for whiteness. He generally appears in faded velvet waistcoats of a morning, and is always perfumed with stale tobacco. He wears large rings on his hands, which look as if he kept them up the chimney. He does not appear to do anything earthly for Clarence Bulbul, except to smoke his cigars, and to practise on his guitar. He will not answer a bell, nor fetch a glass of water, nor go of an errand, on which, au reste, Clarence dares not send him, being entirely afraid of his servant, and not daring to use him, or to abuse him, or to send him away. 3. Adams — Mr. Champignon’s man — a good old man in an old livery coat with old worsted lace — so very old, deaf, surly, and faithful, that you wonder how he should have got into the family at all, who never kept a footman till last year, when they came into the street. Miss Clapperclaw says she believes Adams to be Mrs. Champignon’s father, and he certainly has a look of that lady, as Miss C. pointed out to me at dinner one night, whilst old Adams was blundering about amongst the hired men from Gunter’s, and falling over the silver dishes. 4. Fipps, the buttoniest page in all the street, walks behind Mrs. Grimsby with her prayer-book, and protects her. “ If that woman wants a protector” (a female acquaintance 20 OUR STREET. remarks), “ Heaven be good to us — she is as big as an ogress, and has an upper lip which many a Cornet of the Life Guards might envy. Her poor dear husband was a big man, and she could beat him easily, and did too. Mrs. Grimshy, indeed ! Why, my dear Mr. Titmarsh, it is Glumdalca walking with Tom Thumb.” This observation of Miss C.’s is very true, and Mrs. Grimsby might carry her prayer-book to church herself. But Miss Clapperclaw, who is pretty well able to take care of herself too, was glad enough to have the protection of the page when she went out in the fly to pay visits ; and before Mrs. Grimsby and she quarrelled at whist at Lady Pocklington’s. After this merely parenthetic observation, we come to 5, one of her ladyship’s large men, Mr. Jeames — a gentleman of vast stature and proportions, who is almost nose to nose with us as we pass her ladyship’s door on the outside of the omnibus. I think Jeames has a contempt for a man whom he witnesses in that position. I have fancied something like that feeling showed itself (as far as it may in a well-bred gentleman accus- tomed to society) in liis behaviour, while waiting behind my chair at dinner. But I take Jeames to be, like most giants, good-natured, lazy, stupid, soft-hearted, and extremely fond of drink. One night, his lady being engaged to dinner at Nightingale House, OUR STREET. - 21 I saw Mr. Jeames resting himself on a bench at the Pockling- ton Arms : where, as he had no liquor before him, he had probably exhausted his credit. Little Spitfire, Mr. Clarence Bulbul’s boj', the wickedest- little varlet that ever hung on to a cab, was “ chaffing” Mr. Jeames, holding up to his face a pot of porter almost as big as the young potifer himself. “ Yill you now, Bigun, or vont you ?” Spitfire said ; “ if you’re thirsty, vy don’t you say so and squench it, old boy ?” “ Don’t ago on making fun of me — I can’t abear chaffin,” was the reply of Mr. Jeames, and tears actually stood in his fine eyes, as he looked at the porter and the screeching little imp before him. Spitfire (real name unknown) gave him some of the drink : I am happy to say Jeames’s face wore quite a different look when it rose gasping out of the porter ; and I judge of his dispositions from the above trivial incident. The last boy in the sketch, 6, need scarcely be particular- ised. Doctor’s boy; was a charity-boy; stripes evidently added on to a pair of the doctor’s clothes of last year — Miss Clapperclaw pointed this out to me with a giggle. — Nothing escapes that old woman. As we were walking in Kensington Gardens she pointed me out Mrs. Bragg’s nursery-maid, who sings so loud at church, •OUR STREET. 00 /V engaged •with a Life Guardsman, whom she was trying to convert probably. My virtuous friend rose indignant at the sight. “ That’s why these minxes like Kensington Gardens,” she cried. “ Look at the woman : she leaves the baby on the grass, for the giant to trample upon ; and that little wretch of a Hastings Bragg is riding on the monster’s cane.” Miss C. flew up and seized the infant, waking it out of its sleep, and causing all the gardens to echo with its squalling. “ I’ll teach you to be impudent to me,” she said to the nurser}'- maid, with whom my vivacious old friend, I suppose, has had a difference ; and she would not release the infant until she had rung the hell of Bungalow Lodge, where she gave it up to the footman. The giant in scarlet had slunk down toward Ivnightsbridge meanwhile. The big rogues are always crossing the Park and the Gardens, and hankering about Our Street. WHY OUR NURSEMAIDS LIKE KENSINGTON GARDENS, A STREET CEREMONY WHAT SOMETIMES HAPPENS. IN OUR STREET. It was before olcl Hunkington’s bouse that the mutes were standing, as I passed and saw this group at the door. The charity-boy with the hoop is the son of the jolly-looking mute ; he admires his father, who admires himself too, in those bran- new sables. The other infants are the spawn of the alleys about Our Street. Only the parson and the typhus fever visit those mysterious haunts, which lie couched about our splendid houses like Lazarus at the threshold of Dives. * Those little ones come crawling abroad in the sunshine, to the annoyance of the beadles, and the horror of a number of good people in the street. They will bring up the rear of the procession anon, when the grand omnibus with the feathers, and the fine coaches with the long-tailed black horses, and the gentlemen’s private carriages with the shutters up, pass along to Saint Waltheof’s. You can hear the slow bell tolling clear in the sunshine already, mingling with the crowing of Punch, who is passing 24 OUR STREET. down the street with his show ; and the two musics make a queer medle} r . Not near so many people, I remark, engage Punch now as in the good old times. I suppose our quarter is growing too genteel for him. Miss Bridget Jones,* a poor curate’s daughter in Wales, comes into all Hunkington’s property, and will take his name, as I am told. Nobody ever heard of her before. I am sure Captain Hunkington, and his brother Barnwell Hunkington, must wish that the lucky young lady had never been heard of to the present day. But they will have the consolation of thinking that they did their duty by their uncle, and consoled his declining years. It was but last month that Millwood Hunkington (the Captain) sent the old gentleman a service of plate ; and Mrs. Barnwell got a reclining carriage at a great expense, from Hobbs and Dobbs’s, in which the old gentleman went out only once. “ It is a punishment on those Hunkingtons,” Miss Clap- perclaw remarks ; “ upon those people who have been always living beyond their little incomes, and always speculating upon what the old man would leave them, and always coaxing him with presents which they could not afford, and he did not •want. It is a punishment upon those Hunkingtons to be so disappointed.” OUR STREET. 25 “ Tliink of giving him plate,” Miss C. justly says, “ who had chests- full : and sending him a carriage, who could afford to buy all Long Acre. And everything goes to Miss Jones Hunkington. I wonder will she give the things back ?” Miss Clapperclaw asks. “ I wouldn’t.” And indeed I don’t think Miss Clapperclaw would. SOMEBODY WHOM NOBODY KNOWS. That pretty little house, the last in Pocklington Square, was lately occupied by a young widow lady who wore a pink bonnet, a short silk dress, sustained by crinoline, and a light blue mantle, or over-jacket (Miss C. is not here to tell me the name of the garment) ; or else a black velvet pelisse, a yellow shawl, and a white bonnet ; or else — but never mind the dress, which seemed to be of the handsomest sort money could buy — and who had very long glossy black ringlets, and a peculiarly brilliant complexion, — No. ( JG, Pocklington Square, I say, was lately occupied b}’ a widow lady named Mrs. Stafford Molyneux. The very first day on which an intimate and valued female friend of mine saw Mrs. Stafford Molyneux stepping into a Brougham, with a splendid bay horse, and without a footman (mark, if you please, that delicate sign of respectability), and after a moment’s examination of Mrs. S. M.’s toilette, her manners, little dog, carnation-coloured parasol, & c., Miss THE LADY WHOM NOBODY KNOWS. OUR STREET. 27 Elizabeth Clapperclaw clapped to the opera-glass with which she had been regarding the new inhabitant of Our Street, came away from the window in a great flurry, and began poking her fire in a fit of virtuous indignation. “ She’s very pretty,” said I, who had been looking over Miss C.’s shoulder at the widow with the flashing eyes and drooping ringlets. “ Hold your tongue, sir,” said Miss Clapperclaw, tossing up her virgin head with an indignant blush on her nose. “ It’s a sin and a shame that such a creature should be riding in her carriage, forsooth, when honest people must go on foot.” Subsequent observations confirmed my revered fellow-lodger’s anger and opinion. We have watched Hansom cabs standing before that lady’s house for hours ; we have seen Broughams, with great flaring eyes, keeping watch there in the darkness ; we have seen the vans from the comestible shops drive up and discharge loads of wines, groceries, French plums, and other articles of luxurious horror. We have seen Count Wowski’s drag, Lord Martingale’s carriage, Mr. Deuceace’s cab drive up there time after time ; and (having remarked previously the pastry-cook’s men arrive with the trays and entrees) we have knowm that this widow was giving dinners at the little house in Pocklington Square — dinners such as decent people could not hope to enjoy. 28 OUR STREET. My excellent friend lias been in a perfect fury when Mrs. Stafford Molyneux, in a black velvet riding-liabit, with a hat and feather, has come out and mounted an odious grey horse, and has cantered down the street, followed by her groom upon a bay. “ It won’t last long — it must end in shame and humiliation,” my dear Miss C. lias remarked, disappointed that the tiles and chimney-pots did not fall down upon Mrs. Stafford Molyneux’s head, and crush that cantering audacious woman. But it was a consolation to see her when she walked out with a French maid, a couple of children, and a little dog hanging on to her by a blue ribbon. She always held down her head then-— her head with the drooping black ringlets. The virtuous and well-disposed avoided her. I have seen the Square -keeper himself look puzzled as she passed ; and Lady Kicklebury walking by with Miss K., her daughter, turn away from Mrs. Stafford Molyneux, and fling back at her a ruthless Parthian glance that ought to have killed any woman of decent sensibilitj T . That wretched woman, meanwhile, with her rouged cheeks (for rouge it is, Miss Clapperclaw swears, and who is a better judge?) has walked on conscious, and yet somehow braving out the Street. You could read pride of her beauty, pride of OUR STREET. 29 her fine clothes, shame of her position, in her downcast hlack eyes. As for Mademoiselle Trampoline, her French maid, she would stare the sun itself out of countenance. One day she tossed up her head as she passed under our windows with a look of scorn that drove Miss Clapperclaw hack to the fire- place again. It was Mrs. Stafford Molyneux’s children, however, whom I pitied the most. Once her hoy, in a flaring tartan, went up to speak to Master Roderick Lacy, whose maid was engaged ogling a policeman ; and the children were going to make friends, being united with a hoop which Master Molyneux had, when Master Roderick’s maid, rushing up, clutched her charge to her arms, and hurried away, leaving little Molyneux sad and wondering. “ Why won’t he play with me, mamma ? ” Master Molyneux asked — and his mother's face blushed purple as she walked away. “ Ah — Heaven help us and forgive us ! ” said I ; hut Miss C. can never forgive the mother or child ; and she clapped her hands for joy one day when we saw the shutters up, bills in the windows, a carpet hanging out over the balcony, and a crowd of shabby Jews about the steps — giving token that the reign of Mrs. Stafford Molyneux was over. The pastry- 30 OUR STREET. cooks and their trays, the bay and the grey, the Brougham and the groom, the noblemen and their cabs, were all gone ; and the tradesmen in the neighbourhood were crying out that they were done. “ Serve the odious minx right ! ” says Miss C. ; and she played at picquet that night with more vigour than I have known her manifest for these last ten years. What is it that makes certain old ladies so savage upon certain subjects ? Miss C. is a good woman ; pays her rent and her tradesmen ; gives plenty to the poor ; is brisk with her tongue — kind-hearted in the main ; but if Mrs. Stafford Molyneux and her children were plunged into a cauldron of boiling vinegar, I think my revered friend would not take her out. THE MAN IN POSSESSION. THE MAN IN POSSESSION. For another misfortune which occurred in Our Street we were much more compassionate. We liked Danby Dixon, and his wife Fanny Dixon still more. Miss C. had a paper of biscuits, and a box of preserved apricots always in the cup- board, ready for Dixon’s children — provisions by the way which she locked up under Mrs. Cammysole’s nose, so that our landlady could by no possibility lay a hand on them. Dixon and his wife had the neatest little house possible (No. 16, opposite 96), and were liked and respected by the whole street. He was called Dandy Dixon when he was in the Dragoons, and was a light weight, and rather famous as a gentleman rider. On his marriage, he sold out and got fat ; and was indeed a florid, contented, and jovial gentleman. His little wife was charming — to see her in pink, with some miniature Dixons in pink too, round about her, or in that beautiful grey dress, with the deep black lace flounces, which she wore at my Lord Comandine’s on the night of the private 32 OUR STREET. theatricals, would have done any man good. To hear her sing any of my little ballads, “ Know’st thou the Willow-tree ? ” for instance, or “ The Rose upon my balcony,” or “ The Humming of the Honey-bee ” (far superior, in my judgment, and in that of some good judges likewise, to that humbug Clarence Bulbul’s ballads) — to hear her, I say, sing these, was to be in a sort of small Elysium. Dear, dear, little Faimy Dixon ! she was like a little chirping bird of Paradise. It was a shame that storms should ever ruffle such a tender plumage. Well, never mind about sentiment — Danby Dixon, the owner of this little treasure, an ex-captain of Dragoons, and having nothing to do, and a small income, wisely thought he would employ his spare time, and increase his revenue. He became a Director of the Cornaro Life Insurance Company, of the Tregulpho tin-mines, and of four or five railroad companies. It was amusing to see him swaggering about the City in his clinking boots, and with his high and miglit} r dragoon manners. For a time his talk about shares after dinner was perfectly intolerable ; and I for one was always glad to leave him in the company of sundry very dubious capitalists who frequented his house, and walk up to hear Mrs. Fanny warbling at the piano with her little children about her knees. It was only last season that they set up a carriage — the modestest little vehicle conceivable — driven by Kirby, who had OUR STREET. 33 been in Dixon’s troop in the regiment, and had followed him into private life as coachman, footman, and page. One day lately I went into Dixon’s house, hearing that some calamities had befallen him, the particulars of which Miss Clapperclaw was desirous to know. The creditors of the Tregulpho mines had got a verdict against him as one of the directors of that company ; the engineer of the Little Diddlesex Junction had sued him for two thousand three hundred pounds — the charges of that scientific man for six weeks’ labour in surveying the line. His brother directors were to be discovered nowhere ; Windham, Dodgin, Mizzlington, and the rest, were all gone long ago. When I entered, the door was open — there was a smell of smoke in the dining-room, where a gentleman at noon-day was seated with a pipe and a pot of beer — a man in possession indeed, in that comfortable pretty parlour, by that snug round table where I have so often seen Fanny Dixon’s smiling face. Kirby, the ex- dragoon, was scowling at the fellow, who lay upon a little settee reading the newspaper, with an evident desire to kill him. Mrs. Kirby, his wife, held little Danby, poor Dixon’s son and heir. Dixon’s portrait smiled over the sideboard still, and his wife was up stairs in an agony of fear, with the poor little daughters of this bankrupt, broken family. This poor soul had actually come down and paid a visit 34 OUR STREET. to the man in possession. She had sent wine and dinner to “ the gentleman down stairs,” as she called him in her terror. She had tried to move his heart, by representing to him how innocent Captain Dixon w r as, and how he had always paid, and always remained at home when everybody else had fled. As if her tears, and simple tales and entreaties, could move that man in possession out of the house, or induce him to pay the costs of the action which her husband had lost. Danby meanwhile was at Boulogne, sickening after his wife and children. They sold everything in his house — all his smart furniture, and neat little stock of plate ; his wardrobe and his linen, “ the property of a gentleman gone abroad his carnage by the best maker ; and his wine selected without regard to expense. His house was shut up as completely as his opposite neighbour’s ; and a new tenant is just having it fresh painted inside and out, as if poor Dixon had left an infection behind. Kirby and his wife went across the water with the children and Mrs. Fanny — she has a small settlement ; and I am bound to say that our mutual friend Miss Elizabeth C. went down with Mrs. Dixon in the fly to the Tower Stairs, and stopped in Lombard Street by the way. So it is that the w T orld wags : that honest men and knaves alike are always having ups and downs of fortune, and that we are perpetually changing tenants in Our Street. . TIIE LION OF THE STREET THE LION OF THE STREET. What people can find in Clarence Bulbul, who has lately taken upon himself the rank and dignity of Lion of our Street, I have always been at a loss to conjecture. “ He has written an Eastern book of considerable merit,” Miss Clapperclaw says ; but hang it, has not everybody written an Eastern book ? I should like to meet anybody in society now who has not been up to the second cataract. An Eastern book, forsooth ! My Lord Castleroyal has done one — an honest one ; my Lord Youngent another — an amusing one ; my Lord Woolsey another — a pious one ; there is “ The Cutlet and the Cabob ” — a sentimental one ; “ Timbuctoothen ” — a humorous one, all ludicrously overrated, in my opinion, not including my own little book, of which a copy or two is still to be had by the way. Well, then, Clarence Bulbul, because he has made part of the little tour that all of us know, comes back and gives himself airs, forsooth, and howls as if he were just out of the great Libyan desert. 36 OUR STREET. When we go and see him, that Irish Jew courier, whom I have before had the honour to describe, looks up from the novel which he is reading in the ante-room, and says, “ Mon maitre est au Divan,” or,* “ Monsieur trouvera Monsieur dans son serail,” and relapses into the Comte de Montecliristo again. Yes, the impudent wretch has actually a room in his apart- ments on the ground-floor of his mother’s house, which he calls his harem. When Lady Betty Bulbul (they are of the Nightingale family) or Miss Blanche comes down to visit him, their slippers are placed at the door, and he receives them on an ottoman, and these infatuated women will actually light his pipe for him. Little Spitfire, the groom, hangs about the drawing-room, outside the harem forsooth ! so that he may be ready when Clarence Bulbul claps hands for him to bring the pipes and coffee. He has coffee and pipes for everybody. I should like you to have seen the face of old Bowly, his college-tutor, called upon to sit cross-legged on a divan, a little cup of bitter black Mocha put into his hand, and a large amber-muzzled pipe stuck into his mouth by Spitfire, before he could so much as say it was a fine day. Bowly almost thought he had compromised his principles by consenting so far to this Turkish manner. OUR STREET. 37 Bulbul’s dinners are, I own, very good ; his pilaffs and curries excellent. He tried to make us eat rice with our fingers, it is true; but he scalded his own hands in the business, and invariably bedizened his shirt, so he has left off the Turkish practice, for dinner at least, and uses a fork like a Christian. But it is in society that he is most remarkable ; and here he would, I own, be odious, but he becomes delightful, because all the men hate him so. A perfect chorus of abuse is raised round about him. “ Confounded impostor,” says one ; “ Impu- dent jackass,” says another ; “ Miserable pnppy,” cries a third ; “ I’d like to wring his neck,” says Bruff, scowling over his shoulder at him. Clarence meanwhile nods, winks, smiles, and patronises them all with the easiest good-humour. He is a fellow who would poke an archbishop in the apron, or clap a duke on the shoulder, as coolly as he would address you and me. I saw him the other night at Mrs. Bumpsher’s grand let-off. He flung himself down cross-legged upon a pink satin sofa, so that you could see Mrs. Bumpsher quiver with rage in the distance, Bruff growl with fury from the further room, and Miss Pirn, on whose frock Bulbul’s feet rested, look up like a timid fawn. “Fan me. Miss Pirn,” said he of the cushion. 44 You look like a perfect Peri to-night. You remind me of a girl I once knew in Circassia — Ameena, the sister of Schamjde Bey. Do 38 OUR STREET. you know, Miss Pim, that you would fetch twenty thousand piastres in the market at Constantinople ? ” “Law, Mr. Bulbul!” is all Miss Pim can ejaculate; and having talked over Miss Pim, Clarence goes off to another houri, whom he fascinates in a similar manner. He charmed Mrs. Waddy by telling her that she was the exact figure of the Pacha of Egypt’s second wife. He gave Miss Tokely a piece of the sack in which Zuleikah was drowned ; and he actually persuaded that poor little silly Miss Vain to turn Mahometan, and sent her up to the Turkish Ambassador’s, to look out for a mufti. THE DOVE OF THE STREET. THE DOVE OF OUR STREET. If Bulbul is our Lion, Young Oriel may be described as The Dove of our Colony. He is almost as great a pasha among the ladies as Bulbul, They crowd in flocks to see him at Saint Waltheofs, where the immense height of his forehead, the rigid asceticism of his surplice, the twang with which he intones the service, and the namby-pamby mysticism of his sermons, has turned all the dear girls’- heads for some time past. While we were having a rubber at Mrs. Chauntry’s, whose daughters are following the new mode, I heard the following talk (which made me revoke by the way) going on, in what was formerly called the } r oung lady’s room, but is now styled the Oratory. THE ORATORY. MISS CHAUXTRY. MISS ISABEL CHAUNTRY. MISS DE L’ AISLE. MISS PYX. REY. L. ORIEL. REV. 0. SLOCUM — [In the further room.] Miss Chauntry (sighing ). — Is it wrong to be in the Guards, dear Mr. Oriel ? 40 OUR STREET. Miss Pyx. — She will make Frank cle Boots sell out when he marries. Mr. Oriel. — To be in the Guards, dear sister ? The church has always encouraged the army. Saint Martin of Tours was in the army; Saint Louis was in the army; Saint Waltheof, our patron, Saint Witikind of Aldermanbury, Saint Wamba, and Saint Walloff w r ere in the arm} 7 . Saint Wapshot was captain of the guard of Queen Boadicea ; and Saint Werewolf was a major in the Danish cavalry. The holy Saint Ignatius of Loyola carried a pike, as we know ; and Miss cle V Aisle. — Will you take some tea, dear Mr. Oriel ? Oriel. — This is not one of my feast days, Sister Emma. It is the feast of Saint Wagstaff of Walthamstow. The Young Ladies. — And we must not even take tea ! Oriel. — Dear sisters, I said not so. You may do as you list ; hut I am strong (with a heart-broken sigh) ; don’t ply me (he reels). I took a little water and a parched pea after matins. To-morrow is a flesh day, and — and I shall be better then. Rev. 0. Slocum (from within), — Madam, I take your heart with my small trump. Oriel. — Yes, better ! dear sister ; it is only a passing — a — weakness. Miss I. Chauntry . — He’s dying of fever. OUR STREET. 41 Miss Chauntry . — I’m so glad De Boots [need not leave tlie Blues. Miss Pyx. — He wears sackcloth and cinders inside his waistcoat. Miss De V Aisle. — He’s told me to-night he is going to — to — Ko-o-ome. [Miss De V Aisle bursts into tears .] Rev. 0. Slocum. — My lord, I have the highest club, which gives the trick and two by honours. Thus, you see, we have a variety of clergymen in Our Street. Mr. Oriel is of the pointed Gothic school, while old Slocum is of the good old tawny port-wine school ; and it must be con- fessed that Mr. Gronow, at Ebenezer, has a hearty abhorrence for both. As for Gronow, I pity him, if his future lot should fall where Mr. Oriel supposes that it will. And as for Oriel, he has not even the benefit of purgatory, which he would accord to his neighbour Ebenezer ; while old Slocum pronounces both to be a couple of humbugs ; and Mr. Mole, the demure little beetle-browed chaplain of the little church of Avemary Lane, keeps his sly eyes down to the ground when he passes any one of his black-coated brethren. There is only one point on which, my friends, they seem agreed. Slocum likes port, but who ever heard that he 1*2 OUR STREET. neglected liis poor ? Gronow, if lie comminates liis neigh- bour's congregation, is the affectionate father of his own. Oriel, if he loves pointed Gothic and parched peas for* breakfast, has a prodigious soup-kitchen for his poor; and as for little Father Mole, who never lifts his eyes from the ground, ask our doctor at what bedsides he finds him, and how he soothes poverty and braves misery and infection. THE BUMPSHERS. No. 6, Pocklington Gardens (the house with the quantity of flowers in the windows, and the awning over the entrance), George Bumpslier, Esquire, M.P. for Humborougli (and the Beanstalks, Kent). For some time after this gorgeous family came into our quarter, I mistook a bald-headed stout person, whom I used to see looking through the flowers on the upper windows, for Bumpslier himself or for the butler of the family ; whereas it was no other than Mrs. Bumpslier, without her chestnut wig ; and who is at least three times the size of her husband. The Bumpshers and the house of Mango at the Pineries vie together in their desire to dominate over the neighbourhood ; and each votes the other a vulgar and purse-proud family. The fact is, both are City people. Bumpslier, in his mercantile capacity, is a wholesale stationer in Thames Street ; and his wife was daughter of an eminent bill-broking firm, not a thou- sand miles from Lombard Street. 44 OUR STREET. He does not sport a coronet and supporters upon liis London plate and carriages ; but liis country-house is emblazoned all over with those heraldic decorations. He puts on an order when he goes abroad, and is Count Bumpsher of the Homan States — which title he purchased from the late Pope (through Prince Polonia the banker) for a couple of thousand scudi. It is as good as a coronation to see him and Mrs. Bumpsher go to Court. I wonder the carriage can hold them both. On those days Mrs. Bumpsher holds her own drawing-room before her Majesty’s; and we are invited to come and see her sitting in state, upon the largest sofa in her rooms. She has need of a stout one, I promise you. Her very feathers must weigh some- thing considerable. The diamonds on her stomacher would embroider a full-sized carpet-bag. She has rubies, ribbons, cameos, emeralds, gold serpents, opals, and Valenciennes lace, as if she were an immense sample out of Howell and James’s shop. She took up with little Pinkney at Home, where he made a charming picture of her, representing her as about eighteen, with a cherub in her lap, who has some liking to Bryanstone Bumpsher, her enormous, vulgar son; now a Cornet in the Blues, and anything but a cherub, as those would say who saw him in his uniform jacket. I remember Pinkney when he was painting the picture, VENUS AND CUriD. OUR STREET. 45 Bryanstone being then a youth in what they call a skeleton suit (as if such a pig of a child could ever have been dressed in anything resembling a skeleton) — I remember, I say, Mrs. B. sitting to Pinkney in a sort of Egerian costume, her boy by her side, whose head the artist turned round and directed it towards a piece of gingerbread, which he was to have at the end of the sitting. Pinkney, indeed, a painter ! — a contemptible little humbug, and parasite of the great ! He has painted Mrs. Bumpsher younger every year for these last ten years — and you see in the advertisements of all her parties his odious little name stuck in at the end of the list. I’m sure, for my part, I’d scorn to enter her doors, or be the toady of any woman. JOLLY NEWBOY, ESQ., M.P. How different it is with the Newboys, now, w T here I have an entree — (having indeed had the honour in former days to give lessons to both the ladies) — and where sucli a quack as Pinkney w r ould never be allowed to enter ! A merrier house the whole quarter cannot furnish. It is there you meet people of all ranks and degrees, not only from our quarter but from the rest of the town. It is there that our great man, the Eight Honourable Lord Comandine, came up and spoke to me in so encouraging a manner that I hope to be invited to one of his lordship’s excellent dinners (of which I shall not fail to give a very flattering description) before the season is over. It is there you find yourself talking to states- men, poets, and artists — not sham poets like Bulbul, or quack artists like that Pinkney — but to the best members of all society. It is there I made this sketch while Miss Chester- forth was singing a deep-toned tragic ballad, and her mother scowling behind her. What a buzz and clack and chatter THE SIREN OF OUR STREET. OUR STREET. 47 there was in the room to be sure ! When Miss Chesterforth sings everybody begins to talk. Hicks and old Fogy were on Ireland ; Bass was roaring into old Pump’s ears (or into his horn rather) about the Navigation Laws ; I was engaged talking to the charming Mrs. Short ; while Charley Bonham (a mere prig, in whom I am surprised that the women can see anything) was pouring out his fulsome rhapsodies in the ears of Diana White. Lovely, lovely Diana White ! were it not for three or four other engagements, I know a heart that would suit you to a T. Newboy’s I pronounce to be the jolliest house in the street. He has only of late had a rush of prosperity, and turned Par- liament man ; for his distant cousin, of the ancient house of Newboy of shire, dying, Fred — then making believe to practise at the bar, and living with the utmost modesty in Gray’s Inn Boad — found himself master of a fortune, and a great house in the country, of which getting tired, as in the course of nature he should, he came up to London, and took that fine mansion in our Gardens. He represents Mum- borough in Parliament, a seat which has been time out of mind occupied by a Newboy. Though he does not speak, being a great deal too rich, sensible, and lazy, he somehow occupies himself with reading blue books, and indeed talks a great deal too much good sense 48 OUR STREET. of late over his dinner-table, where there is always a cover for the present writer. He falls asleep pretty assiduously too after that meal — a practice which I can well pardon in him — for, between our- selves, his wife, Maria Newboy, and his sister, Clarissa, are the loveliest and kindest of their sex, and I would rather hear their innocent prattle, and lively talk about their neighbours, than the best wisdom from the wisest man that ever wore a beard. Like a wise and good man he leaves the question of his household entirely to the woman. They like going to the play. They like going to Greenwich. They like coming to a party at bachelor’s hall. They are up to all sorts of fun, in a word ; in which taste the good-natured Newboy acquiesces, provided he is left to follow his own. It was only on the 17th of the month, that, having had the honour to dine at the house, when, after dinner, which took place at eight, we left Newboy to his blue books, and went up stairs and sang a little to the guitar afterwards — it was only on the 17th December, the night of Lady Sowerby’s party, that the following dialogue took place in the boudoir, whither Newboj", blue books in hand, had ascended. He was curled up with his House of Commons boots on his wife’s arm-chair, reading his eternal blue books, when Mrs. N. entered from her apartment, dressed for the evening. THE STREET DOOR KEY. OUR STREET. 49 Mrs. N. — Frederic, won’t you come ? Mr. N. — Where ? Mrs. N. — To Lady Sowerby’s. Mr. N. — I’d rather go to the black hole in Calcutta. Besides, this Sanitary Report is really the most interesting — [he begins to read.] Mrs. N. {piqued) — Well ; Mr. Titmarsh will go with us. Mr . N. — Will he ? I wish him joy ! At this puncture Miss Clarissa Newboy enters in a pink paletot, trimmed with swansdown — looking like an angel — and we exchange glances of — what . shall I say ? — of sympathy on both parts, and consummate rapture on mine. But this is by-play. Mrs. N. — Good night, Frederic. I think we shall be late. Mr. N. — You won’t wake me, I daresay ; and you don’t expect a public man to sit up. Mrs. N. — It’s not you, it’s the servants. Cocker sleeps very heavily. The maids are best in bed, and are all ill with the influenza. I say, Frederic dear, don’t you think you had better give me your chubb key ? This astonishing proposal, which violates every recognised law of society — this demand which alters all the existing state of things — this fact of a woman asking for a door-key, struck me with a terror which I cannot describe, and impressed me 50 OUR STREET. with the fact of the vast progress of Our Street. The door- key ! What would our grandmother, who dwelt in this place when it was a rustic suburb, think of its condition now, when husbands stay at home, and wives go abroad with the latch-key ? The evening at Lady Sowerby’s was the most delicious we have spent for long, long days. Thus it will be seen that everybody of any consideration in Our Street takes a line. Mrs. Minimy (34) takes the homoeo- pathic line, and has soirees of doctors of that faith. Lady Pocklington takes the capitalist line ; and those stupid and splendid dinners of hers are devoured by loan-contractors, and railroad princes. Mrs. Trimmer (38) comes out in the scientific line, and indulges us in rational evenings, where history is the lightest subject admitted, and geology and the sanitary condition of the metropolis form the general themes of conversation. Mrs. Brumby plays finely on the bassoon, and has evenings dedicated to Sebastian Bach, and enlivened with Handel. At Mrs. Maskleyn’s they are mad for charades and theatricals. They performed last Christmas in a French piece, by Alex- andre Dumas, I believe — “ La Duchesse de Montefiasco,” of which I forget the plot, but everybody was in love with every- body else’s wife, except the hero, Don Alonzo, who was ardently A SCENE OF PASSION. OUR STREET. 51 attached to the Duchess, who turned out to he his grandmother. The piece was translated by Lord Fiddle-faddle, Tom Bulbul being the Don Alonzo ; and Mrs. Boland Calidore (who never misses an opportunity of acting in a piece in which she can let down her hair) was the Duchess. Alonzo. You know how well he loves you, and you wonder To see Alonzo suffer, Cunegunda ? — Ask if the chamois suffer when they feel Plunged in their panting sides the hunter’s steel ? Or when the soaring heron or eagle proud. Pierced by my shaft, comes tumbling from the cloud, Ask if the royal birds no anguish know, The victims of Alonzo’s twanging bow ? Then ask him if he suffers — him who dies, Pierced by the poisoned glance that glitters from your eyes ! [He staggers from the effect of the 'poison. The Duchess. Alonzo loves — Alonzo loves ! and whom ? His grandmother ! 0 hide me, gracious tomb ! [ Her Grace faints away. Such acting as Tom Bulbul’s I never saw. Tom lisps atrociously, and uttered the passage, “ You athk me if I tliuffer,” in the most absurd way. Miss Clapperclaw says he acted pretty well, and that I only joke about him because I am envious, and wanted to act a part myself. — I envious indeed ! But of all the assemblies, feastings, junkettings, dejeunes, 52 OUR STREET. soirees, conversaziones, dinner-parties, in Our Street, I know of none pleasanter than the banquets at Tom Fairfax’s; one of which this enormous provision- consumer gives seven times a week. He lives in one of the little houses of the old Waddi- love Street quarter, built long before Pocklington Square and Pocklington Gardens and the Pocklington family itself had made their appearance in this world. Tom, though he has a small income, and lives in a small house, yet sits down one of a party of twelve to dinner every day of his life; these twelve consisting of Mrs. Fairfax, the nine Misses Fairfax, and Master Thomas Fairfax — the son and heir to two-pence halfpenny a year. It is awkward just now to go and beg pot-luck from such a family as this ; because, though a guest is always welcome, we are thirteen at table — an unlucky number, it is said. This evil is only temporary, and will be remedied presently, when the family will be thirteen without the occasional guest, to judge from all appearances. Early in the morning Mrs. Fairfax rises, and cuts bread and butter from six o’clock till eight ; during which time the nursery operations upon the nine little graces are going on. We only see a half dozen of them at this present moment, and in the present authentic picture, the remainder dwindling off upon little chairs b} T their mamma. 1 THE HAPPY FAMILY. OUR STREET. 53 The two on either side of Fairfax are twins — awarded to him by singular good fortune ; and he only knows Nancy from Fanny by having a piece of tape round the former’s arm. There is no need to give you the catalogue of the others. She, in the pinafore in front, is Elizabeth, goddaughter to Miss Clap- perclaw, who has been very kind to the whole family ; that young lady with the ringlets is engaged by the most solemn ties to the present writer, and it is agreed that we are to he married as soon as she is as tall as my stick. If his wife has to rise early to cut the bread and butter, I warrant Fairfax must he up betimes to earn it. He is a clerk in a Government Office ; to which duty he trudges daily, refusing even twopenny omnibuses. Every time he goes to the shoemaker’s he has to order eleven pairs of shoes, and so can’t afford to spare his own. He teaches the children Latin every morning, and is already thinking when Tom shall be inducted into that language. He works in his garden for an hour before breakfast. His work over by three o’clock, he tramps home at four, and exchanges his dapper coat for that dressing-gown in which he appears before you, — a ragged hut honourable garment in which he stood (unconsciously) to the present designer. Which is the best, his old coat or Sir John’s bran new one ? Which is the most comfortable and becoming, Mrs. Fairfax’s 54 OUR STREET. black velvet gown, (which she has worn at the Pocklington Square parties these twelve years, and in which I protest she looks like a queen,) or that new robe which the milliner has just brought home to Mrs. Bumpsher’s, and into which she will squeeze herself on Christmas day ? Miss Clapperclaw says that we are all so charmingly con- tented with ourselves that not one of us would change with his neighbour ; and so, rich and poor, high and low, one person is about as happy as another in Our Street. DR. BIRCH. cX r . JL . A , c kUwdLp DOCTOR BIRCH. THE DOCTOR AND HIS STAFF. There is no need to say wliy I became Assistant Master and Professor of the English and French languages, flower-painting, and the German flute, in Doctor Birch’s Academy, at Bodwell Begis. Good folks may depend on this that it was not for choice , that I left lodgings near London, and a genteel society, for an under-master’s desk in that old school. I promise you the fare at the Usher’s table, the getting up at five o’clock in the morning, the walking out with little boys in the fields, (who used to play me tricks, and never could be got to respect my awful and responsible character as teacher in the school,) Miss Birch’s vulgar insolence, Jack Birch’s glum condescension, and the poor old Doctor’s patronage, were not matters in themselves pleasurable : and that that patronage and those dinners were sometimes cruel hard to swallow. Never mind — my connexion Q DOCTOR BIRCH, with the place is over now, and I hope they have got a more efficient under-master. Jack Birch (Bev. J. Birch, of St. Neot’s Hall, Oxford,) is partner with his father the Doctor, and takes some of the classes. About his Greek I can’t say much; but I will construe him in Latin any day. A more supercilious little prig, (giving himself airs, too, about his cousin, Miss Baby, who lives with the Doctor,) a more empty pompous little coxcomb I never saw. His white neckcloth looked as if it choked him. He used to try and look over that starch upon me and Prince the assistant, as .if we were a couple of footmen. He didn’t do much business in the school ; but occupied his time in writing sanctified letters to the boys’ parents, and in composing dreary sermons to preach to them. The real master of the school is Prince ; an Oxford man too : shy, haughty, and learned ; crammed with Greek and a quantity of useless learning; uncommonly kind to the small boys ; pitiless with the fools and the braggarts; respected of all for his honesty, his learning, his bravery, (for he hit out once in a boat-row in a way which astonished the boys and the bargemen,) and for a latent power about him, which all saw and confessed somehow. Jack Birch could never look him in the face. Old Miss Z. dared not put off any of her airs upon him. Miss Rosa made him the lowest of curtsies. Miss Baby said she was afraid of AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 3 him. Good old Prince ; we have sat many a night smoking in the Doctor’s harness-room, whither we retired when our boys were gone to bed, and our cares and canes put by. After Jack Birch had taken his degree at Oxford — a process which he effected with great difficulty — this place which used to be called “ Birch’s,” “ Dr. Birch’s Academy,” and what not, became suddenly “ Archbishop Wigsby’s College of Bodwell Begis.” They took down the old blue board with the gold letters, w T hich has been used to mend the pig-stye since. Birch had a large school-room, run up in the Gothic taste, -with statuettes, and a little belfry, and a bust of Archbishop Wigsby in the middle of the school. He put the six senior boys into caps and gowns, which had rather a good effect as the lads sauntered down the street of the town, but which certainly provoked the contempt and hostility of the bargemen ; and so great was his rage for academic costumes and ordinances, that he would have put me myself into a lay gown, with red knots and fringes, but that I flatly resisted, and said that a writing- master had no business with such paraphernalia. By the way, I have forgotten to mention the Doctor himself. And what shall I say of him ? Well, he has a very crisp gown and bands, a solemn air, a tremendous loud voice, and a grand and solemn air with the boys’ parents, whom he receives in a study, covered round with the best bound books, which imposes 4 DOCTOR BIRCH, upon many — upon the women especially — and makes them fancy that this is a Doctor indeed. But, Law bless you ! He never reads the books ; or opens one of them, except that in which he keeps his bands — a Dugdale’s Monasticon, which looks like a book, but is in reality a cupboard, where he has his port, almond cakes, and decanter of wine. He gets up his classics with translations, or what the boys call cribs ; they pass wicked tricks upon him when he hears the forms. The elder wags go to his study, and ask him to help them in hard bits of Herodotus or Thucydides : he says he will look over the passage, and flies for refuge to Mr. Prince, or to the crib. He keeps the flogging department in his own hands ; finding that his son was too savage. He has awful brows and a big voice. But his roar frightens nobody. ' It is only a lion’s skin, or, so to say, a muff. Little Mordant made a picture of him with large ears, like a well-known domestic animal, and had his own justly boxed for the caricature. The Doctor discovered him in the fact, and was in a flaming rage, and threatened whipping at first ; but in the course of the day an opportune basket of game arriving from Mordant’s father, the Doctor became mollified, and has burnt the picture with the ears. However I have one wafered up in my desk by the hand of the same little rascal : and the frontispiece of this very book is drawn from it. A young Raphael . AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 5 THE COCK OF THE SCHOOL. I am growing an old fellow — and have seen many great folks in the course of my travels and time — Louis Philippe coming out of the Tuileries, His Majesty the King of Prussia and the Beichsverweser accolading each other, at Cologne at my elbow; Admiral Sir Charles Napier (in an omnibus once), the Duke of Wellington, the immortal Goethe at Weimar, the late benevo- lent Pope Gregory XVI., and a score more of the famous in this world — the whom, whenever one looks at, one has a mild shock of awe and tremor. I like this feeling and decent fear and* trembling with which a modest spirit salutes a Great Man. Well, I have seen Generals capering on horseback at the head of their crimson battalions ; Bishops sailing down cathedral aisles, with downcast eyes, pressing their trencher caps to their hearts with their fat, white hands ; College heads when her Majesty is on a visit ; the Doctor in all his glory at the head of his school on Speech day, a great sight, and all great men these. I have never met the late Mr. Thomas Cribb, but I G DOCTOR BIRCH, have no doubt should have regarded him with the same feeling of awe with which I look every day at George Champion, the Cock of Dr. Birch’s school. When, I say, I reflect as I go up and set him a sum, that he could whop me in two minutes, double up Prince and the other assistant, and pitch the Doctor out of window, I can’t but think how great, how generous, how magnanimous a creature this is, that sits quite quiet and good-natured, and works his equation, and ponders through his Greek play. He might take the school-room pillars and pull the house down if he liked. He might close the door, and demolish every one of us like Antar, the lover of Ibla, but he lets us live. He never thrashes any- body without a cause, when woe betide the tyrant or the sneak ! I think that to be strong, and able to whop everybody, — (not to do it, mind you, but to feel that you were able to do it,) — would be the greatest of all gifts. There is a serene good humour which plays about George Champion’s broad face, which shows the consciousness of this power, and lights up his honest blue eyes with a magnanimous calm. He is invictus. Even when a cub there was no beating this lion. Six years ago the undaunted little warrior actually stood up to Frank Davison, — (the Indian officer now — poor little Charley’s brother, whom Miss Baby nursed so aflectionatel}',) — then seventeen years old, and the Cock of Birch’s. They AND IIIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 7 were obliged to drag off the boy, and Frank, with admiration and regard for him, prophesied the great things he would do. Legends of combats are preserved fondly in schools ; they have stories of such at Rodwell Regis, performed in the old Doctor’s time, foity years ago. Champion’s affair with the Young Tutbury Pet, who was down here in training, — with Black the Bargeman, — with the three head boys of Doctor Wapshot’s academy, whom he caught maltreating an outlying day-boy of ours, &c., — are known to all the Rodwell Regis men. He was always victorious. He is modest and kind, like all great men. He has a good, brave, honest understanding. He cannot make verses like young Pinder, or read Greek like Wells the Prefect, who is a perfect young abyss of learning, and knows enough, Prince says, to furnish any six first-class men; but he does his work in a sound, downright way, and he is made to be the bravest of soldiers, the best of country parsons, an honest English gentleman wherever he may go. Old Champion’s chief friend and attendant is young Jack Hall, whom he saved when drowning, out of the Miller’s Pool. The attachment of the two is curious to witness. The smaller lad gambolling, playing tricks round the bigger one, and per- petually making fun of his protector. They are never far apart, and of holida} T s you may meet them miles away from the 8 DOCTOR BIRCH, school. George sauntering heavily down the lanes with his big stick, and little Jack larking with the pretty gii’ls in the cottage- windows. George has a boat on the river, in which, however, he com- monly lies smoking, whilst Jack sculls him. He does not play at cricket, except when the school plays the county, or at Lord’s in the holidays. The boys can’t stand his bowling, and when he hits, it is like trying to catch a cannon-ball. I have seen him at tennis. It is a splendid sight to behold the young fellow bounding over the court with streaming yellow hair, like young Apollo in a flannel jacket. The other head boys are Lawrence the Captain, Bunce, famous chiefly for his magnificent appetite, and Pitman, sur- named Roscius, for his love of the drama. Add to these Swanky, called Macassar, from his partiality to that condiment, and who has varnished boots, wears white gloves on Sundays, and looks out for Miss Pinkerton’s school (transferred from Chiswick to Rodwell Regis, and conducted by the nieces of the late Miss Barbara Pinkerton, the friend of Our Great Lexico- grapher, upon the principles approved by him, and practised by that admirable woman) as it passes into church. Representations have been made concerning Mr. Horace Swanky’s behaviour ; rumours have been uttered about notes in verse, conveyed in three-cornered puffs, by Mrs. Ruggles, Rival Forces. ’ AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 9 who serves Miss Pinkerton’s young ladies on Fridays, — and how Miss Didow, to whom the tart and enclosure were ad- dressed, tried to make away with herself by swallowing a ball of cotton. But I pass over these absurd reports, as likely to affect the reputation of an admirable Seminary conducted by irreproachable females. As they go into church, Miss P. driving in her flock of lambkins with the crook of her parasol, how can it be helped if her forces and ours sometimes collide, as the boys are on their way up to the organ loft ? And I don’t believe a word about the three-cornered puff, but rather that it was the invention of that jealous Miss Birch, who is jealous of Miss Baby, jealous of everybody who is good and handsome, and who has her oivn ends in view, or I am very much in error. 10 DOCTOR BIRCH, THE LITTLE SCHOOL-ROOM. What they call the little school-room is a small room at the other end of the great school ; through which you go to the Doctor’s private house, and where Miss Raby sits with her pupils. She has a half-dozen very small ones over whom she presides and teaches them in her simple way, until they are big or learned enough to face the great school-room. Many of them are in a hurry for promotion, the graceless little sim- pletons, and know no more than tlieir elders when they are well off. She keeps the accounts, writes out the bills, superintends the linen, and sews on the general shirt-buttons. Think of having such a woman at home to sew on one’s shirt-buttons ! But peace, peace, thou foolish heart ! Miss Raby is the Doctor’s niece. Her mother was a beauty (quite unlike old Zoe therefore) ; and she married a pupil in the Old Doctor’s time, who was killed afterwards, a Captain in the East India service, at the siege of Bliurtpore. Hence a The little school room . . . AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 11 number of Indian children come to the Doctor’s, for Baby was very much liked, and the uncle’s kind reception of the orphan has been a good speculation for the school-keeper. It is wonderful how brightly and gaily that little quick crea- ture does her duty. She is the first to rise, and the last to sleep, if any business is to be done. She sees the other two women go off to parties in the town without even so much as wishing to join them. It is Cinderella, only contented to stay at home — content to bear Zoe’s scorn and to admit Flora’s superior charms, — and to do her utmost to repay her uncle for his great kindness in housing her. So you see she works as much as three maid-servants for the wages of one. She is as thankful when the Doctor gives her a new gown, as if he had presented her with a fortune : laughs at his stories most good-humouredly, listens to Zoe’s scolding most meekly, admires Flora with all her heart, and only goes out of the way when Jack Birch shows his sallow face : for she can’t bear him, and always finds work when he comes near. How different she is when some folks approach her ! I won’t be presumptuous ; but I think, I think, I have made a not unfavourable impression in some quarters. However, let us be mum on this subject. I like to see her, because she always looks good-humoured ; because she is always kind, because she 12 DOCTOR BIRCH, is always modest, because slie is fond of those poor little brats, — orphans some of them — because she is rather pretty, I dare saj", or because I think so, which comes to the same thing. Though she is kind to all, it must be owned she shows the most gross favouritism towards the amiable children. She brings them cakes from dessert, and regales them with Zoe’s preserves ; spends many of her little shillings in presents for her favourites, and will tell them stories by the hour. She has one very sad story about a little boy, who died long ago ; the younger children are never weary of hearing about him ; and Miss Itaby has shown to one of them a lock of the little chap’s hair, which she keeps in her work-box to this day. The Dear Brothers. AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 13 THE DEAR BROTHERS. SC IHclotirama in £cberal Bountis. The Doctor. Mr. Tipper, Uncle to tlie Masters Boxall. Boxall Major, Boxall Mixor, Brown, Joxes, Smith, Robinson, Tiffin Minimus. B. Go it, olcl Boxall ! J. Give it him, j'oung Boxall ! j R. Pitch into him, old Boxall ! S. Two to one on young Boxall ! [ Enter Tiffin Minimus, running .'] Tiffin Minimus. Boxalls ! you’re wanted. ( The Doctor to Mr. Tipper .) Every hoy in the school loves them, my dear sir ; your nephews are a credit to my establish- ment. They are orderly, well-conducted, gentleman-like boys. Let us enter and find them at their studies. [ Enter The Doctor and Mr. Tipper.] GRAND TABLEAU. 14 DOCTOR BIRCH, A HOPELESS CASE. Let us, people who are so uncommonly clever and learned, have a great tenderness and pity for the poor folks who are not endowed with the prodigious talents which we have. I have always had a regard for dunces ; — those of my own scliool-days were amongst the pleasantest of the fellows, and have turned out by no means the dullest in life; whereas many a youth who could turn off Latin hexameters by the yard, and construe Greek quite glibly, is no better than a feeble prig now, with not a pennyworth more brains than were in his head before his beard grew. Those poor dunces ! Talk of being the last man, ah ! what a pang it must be to be the last boy — huge, misshapen, four- teen years of age, and “ taken up ” by a chap who is but six years old, and can’t speak quite plain }^et ! Master Hulker is in that condition at Birch’s. He is the most honest, kind, active, plucky, generous creature. He can do many things better than most boys. He can go up a tree, . AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 15 pump, play at cricket, dive and swim perfectly — he can eat twice as much as almost any lady (as Miss Birch well knows), he has a pretty talent at carving figures with his liack-knife, he makes and paints little coaches, he can take a watch to pieces and put it together again. He can do everything but learn his lesson; and then he sticks at the bottom of the school hopeless. As the little boys are drafted in from Miss Baby’s class, (it is true she is one of the best instructresses in the world,) they enter and hop over poor Hulker. He would he handed over to the governess only he is too big. Sometimes I used to think, that this desperate stupidity was a stratagem of the poor rascal’s ; and that he shammed dulness so that he might be degraded into Miss Baby’s class — if she would teach me, I know, before George, I would put on a pinafore and a little jacket — but no, it is a natural incapacity for the Latin Grammar. If you could see his grammar, it is a perfect curiosity of dog’s ears. The leaves and cover are all curled and ragged. Many of the pages are worn away, with the rubbing of his elbows as he sits poring over the hopeless volume, with the blows of his fists as he thumps it madly, or with the poor fellow’s tears. You see him wiping them away with the back of his hand, as he tries and tries, and can’t do it. When I think of that Latin Grammar, and that infernal IP) DOCTOR BIRCH, As in Prsesenti, and of other things which I was made to learn in my youth : upon my conscience, I am surprised that we ever survived it. When one thinks of the boys who have been caned because they could not master that intolerable jargon ! Good Lord, what a pitiful chorus these poor little creatures send up ! Be gentle with them, ye schoolmasters, and only whop those who wont learn. The Doctor has operated upon Hulker (between ourselves), but the boy was so little affected you would have thought he had taken chloroform. Birch is weary of whipping now, and leaves the boy to go his own gait. Prince, when he hears the lesson, and who cannot help making fun of a fool, adopts the sarcastic manner with Master Hulker, and says, “ Mr. Hulker, may I take the liberty to inquire if your brilliant intellect has enabled you to perceive the difference between those words which grammarians have defined as substantive and adjective nouns? — if not, perhaps Mr. Ferdinand Timmins will instruct you.” And Timmins hops over Hulker’s head. I wish Prince would leave off girding at the poor lad. He is a boy, and his mother is a widow woman, who loves him with all her might. There is a famous sneer about the suck- ling of fools and the chronicling of small beer ; but remember it was a rascal who uttered it. AND HIS YOUNG FHIEXDS. 17 A WORD ABOUT MISS BIRCH. “ The Gentlemen, and especially the younger and more tender of these Pupils, will have the advantage of the constant superintendence and affectionate care of Miss Zoe Birch, sister of the Principal : whose dearest aim will he to supply (as far as may be) the absent maternal friend .” — Prospectus of Rodwell Regis School. This is all very well in the Doctor’s prospectus, and Miss Zoe Birch — (a pretty blossom it is, fifty-five years old, during two score of which she has dosed herself with pills; with a nose as red and a face as sour as a crab-apple) — this is all mighty well in a prospectus. But I should like to know who would take Miss Zoe for a mother, or would have her for one ? The only persons in the house who are not afraid of her are Miss Flora and I — no, I am afraid of her, though I do know the story about the French usher in 1830 — but all the rest tremble before the woman, from the Doctor down to poor 18 DOCTOR BIRCH, Francis the knife-boy, and whom she bullies into his miserable blacking-hole. The Doctor is a pompous and outwardly severe man — hut inwardly weak and easy: loving a joke and a glass of Port wine. I get on with him, therefore, much better than Mr. Prince, who scorns him for an ass, and under whose keen eyes the worthy Doctor writhes like a convicted impostor ; and many a sunshiny afternoon would he have said “ Mr. T., Sir, shall we try another glass of that yellow sealed wine which you seem to like ? ” (and which he likes even better than I do), had not the old harridan of a Flora been down upon us, and insisted on turning me out with her abominable weak coffee. She a mother indeed! A sour milk generation she would have nursed. She is always croaking, scolding, bullying — yowling at the housemaids, snarling at Miss Raby, bowwowing after the little boys, harking after the big ones. She knows how much every hoy eats to an ounce — and her delight is to pi}’ with fat the little ones who can't hear it, and with raw meat those who hate underdone. It was she who caused the Doctor to be eaten out three times; and nearly created a rebellion in the school because she insisted on his flogging Goliath Longman. The only time that woman is happy is when she comes in of a morning to the little boys’ dormitories with a cup of hot AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 19 Epsom salts, and a sippet of bread. Boo ! — the very notion makes me quiver. She stands over them. I saw her do it to young Byles only a few days since — and her presence makes the abomination doubly abominable. As for attending them in real illness, do j r ou suppose that she would watch a single night for any one of them? Not she. When poor little Charley Davison (that child, a lock of whose soft hair I have said how Miss Baby still keeps) lay ill of scarlet fever in the holidays — for the Colonel, the father of these boys, was in India — it was Anne Baby who tended the child, who watched him all through the fever, who never left him while it lasted, or until she had closed the little eyes that were never to brighten or moisten more. Anny watched and deplored him, but it was Miss Birch who wrote the letter announcing his demise, and got the gold chain and locket which the Colonel ordered as a memento of his gratitude. It was through a row with Miss Birch that Frank Davison ran away. I promise you that after he joined his regiment in India, the Ahmednuggar Irregulars, which his gallant father commands, there came over no more annual shawls and presents to Dr. and Miss Birch, and that if she fancied the Colonel was coming home to marry her, (on account of her tenderness to his motherless children, which he was always writing about), that notion was very soon given up. But these affairs are of early date, seven years back, and 20 DOCTOR BIRCH, I only heard of them in a very confused manner from Miss Raby, who was a girl, and had just come to Rodwell Regis. She is always very much moved when she speaks about those boys, which is but seldom. I take it the death of the little one still grieves her tender heart. Yes, it is Miss Birch, who has turned away seventeen ushers and second masters in eleven years, and half as many French masters, I suppose, since the departure of her favourite , M. Grinche, with her gold watch, &c. ; but this is only surmise — that is from hearsay, and from Miss Rosa taunting her aunt, as she does sometimes, in her graceful way ; but besides this, I have another way of keeping her in order. Whenever she is particularl}’ odious or insolent to Miss Raby, I have but to introduce raspberry jam into the conversation, and the woman holds her tongue. She will understand me. I need not say more. Note, 12 tli December . — I may speak now. I have left the place and don’t mind. I say then at once, and without caring twopence for the consequences, that I saw this woman, this mother of the boys, eating jam with a spoon out of Master Wiggins’s trunk in the box-room ; and of this I am ready to take an affidavit any day. ^fho stole the Jam ? A. serious case. AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 21 A TRAGEDY. THIS DRAMA OUGHT TO BE REPRESENTED IN ABOUT SIX ACTS. [The School is hushed. Lawrence the Prefect, and Cuslos of the rods , is marching after the Doctor into the operating-room. Master Backhouse is about to follow .] Master Backhouse. It’s all very well, but you see if I don’t pay you out after school — j^ou sneak, you. Master Lurcher. If you do I’ll tell again. [Exit Backhouse. [The rod is heard from the adjoining apartment. Hwhish — Hwhish — hwish — Jewish — hwish — Jewish — Jewish.] [Re-enter Backhouse. 22 DOCTOR BIRCH, BRIGGS IN LUCK. Kilter the Knife-hoy . — Hamper for Briggses ! % Master Brown. — Hurray, Tom Briggs ! I'll lend you my knife. If tliis story does not carry its own moral, wliat fable does, I wonder ? Before the arrival of that hamper, Master Briggs was in no better repute than any other young gentleman of the lower school ; and in fact I had occasion myself, only lately, to correct Master Brown for kicking his friend's shins during the writing-lesson. But how this basket directed by his mother’s housekeeper, and marked “ Glass with care,” (whence I con- clude that it contains some jam and some bottles of wine pro- bably as well as the usual cake and game-pie, and half a sovereign for the elder Master B., and five new shillings for Master Decimus Briggs)— how, I say, the arrival of this basket alters all Master Briggs’s circumstances in life, and the esti- mation in which many persons regard him ! If he is a good-hearted boy, as I have reason to think, the AND IIIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 23 very first thing lie will do, before inspecting the contents of the hamper, or cutting into them with the knife which Master Brown has so considerately lent him, will be to read over the letter from home which lies on the top of the parcel. He does so, as I remark to Miss Raby (for whom I happened to be mending pens when the little circumstance arose) with a flushed face and winking eyes. Look how the other boys are peering into the basket as he reads. — I say to her, “ Isn’t it a pretty picture ? ” Part of the letter is in a very large hand. That is from his little sister. And I would wager that she netted the little purse which he has just taken out of it, and which Master Lynx is eying. “ You are a droll man, and remark all sorts of queer things,” Miss Raby says, smiling, and plying her swift needle and fingers as quick as possible. “ I am glad we are both on the spot, and that the little fellow lies under our guns as it were, and so is protected from some such brutal school-pirate as young Duval for instance, who would rob him probably of some of those good things, good in themselves, and better because fresh from home. See, there is a pie as I said, and which I daresay is better than those which are served at our table (but you never take any notice of these kind of things, Miss Raby), a cake of course, a bottle of currant wine, jam-pots, and no end of pears in the straw. With their money little Briggs will be able to pay the tick 24 DOCTOR BIRCH, which that imprudent child has run up with Mrs. Buggies ; and I shall let Briggs Major pay for the pencil-case which Bullock sold to him. — It will be a lesson to the young prodigal for the future. “ But, I sa} r , what a change there will he in his life for some time to come, and at least until his present wealth is spent ! The boys who bully him will mollify towards him, and accept his pie and sweetmeats. They will have feasts in the bed-room ; and that wine will taste more deliciously to them than the best out of the Doctor’s cellar. The cronies will be invited. Young Master Wagg will tell his most dreadful story and sing his best song for a slice of that pie. What a folly-night they will have ! when we go the rounds at night, Mr. Prince and I will take care to make a noise before we come to Briggs’s room, so that the hoys may have time to put the light out, .to push the things away, and to scud into bed. Doctor Spry lnay be put in requisition the next morning.” “ Nonsense ! you absurd creature,” cries out Miss Baby, laughing; and I lay down the twelfth pen very nicely mended. “ Yes ; after luxury comes the doctor, I say ; after extrava- gance a hole in the breeches pocket. To judge from his disposition, Briggs Major will not be much better off a couple of days hence than he is now, and, if I am not mistaken, will AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 25 end life a poor man. Braire will be kicking liis shins before a week is over, depend upon it. There are boys and men of all sorts, Miss R. — there are selfish sneaks who hoard until the store they daren’t use grows mouldy — there are spendthrifts who fling away, parasites who flatter and lick its shoes, and snarling curs who hate and envy, good fortune.” — I put down the last of the pens, brushing away with it the quill-chips from her desk first, and she looked at me with a kind wondering face. I brushed them away, clicked the pen-knife into my pocket, made her a bow, and walked off — for the bell was ringing for school. 26 DOCTOR BIRCH, A YOUNG FELLOW WHO IS PRETTY SURE TO SUCCEED. If Master Briggs is destined in all probability to be a poor man, the chances are, that Mr. Bullock will have a very different lot. He is a son of a partner of the eminent banking firm of Bullock and Hulker, Lombard Street, and very high in the upper school — quite out of my jurisdiction, consequently. He writes the most beautiful current hand ever seen ; and the way in which he mastered arithmetic (going away into recondite and wonderful rules in the Tutor’s Assistant, which some masters even dare not approach) is described b} r the Doctor in terms of admiration. He is Mr. Prince’s best algebra pupil ; and a very fair classic, too, doing everything well for which he has a mind. He does not busy himself with the sports of his comrades, and holds a cricket bat no better than Miss Raby would. He employs the play-hours in improving his mind, and reading the newspaper ; he is a profound politician, and, it must be owned, AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 27 on the Liberal side. The elder boys despise him rather ; and when Champion Major passes, he turns his head, and looks down. I don’t like the expression of Bullock’s narrow, green eyes, as they follow the elder Champion, who does not seem to know or care how much the other hates him. No. Mr. Bullock, though perhaps the cleverest and most accomplished boy in the school, associates with the quite little hoys when he is minded for society. To these lie is quite affable, courteous, and winning. He never fagged or thrashed one of them. He has done the verses and corrected the exer- cises of many, and many is the little lad to whom he has lent a little money. It is true he charges at the rate of a penny a week for every sixpence lent out, but many a fellow to whom tarts are a pre- sent necessity is happy to pay this interest for the loan. These transactions are kept secret. Mr. Bullock, in rather a whining tone, when he takes Master Green aside and does the requisite business for him, says, “You know you’ll go and talk about it everywhere. I don’t want to lend you the monej', I want to buy something with it. It’s only to oblige you ; and yet I am sure you will go and make fun of me.” Whereon, of course, Green, eager for the money, vows solemnly that the transaction shall be confidential, and only speaks when the payment of the interest becomes oppressive. 28 DOCTOR BIRCH, Thus it is that Mr. Bullock’s practices are at all known. At a very early period indeed his commercial genius manifested itself ; and by happy speculations in toffey ; by composing a sweet drink made of stick liquorice and brown sugar, and selling it at a profit to the younger children ; by purchasing a series of novels, which he let out at an adequate remuneration ; by doing boys’ exercises for a penny, and other processes, he showed the bent of his mind. At the end of the half year he always w r ent home richer than when he arrived at school, with his purse full of monej 7 . Nobody knows how much he brought : hut the accounts are fabulous. Twenty, thirty, fifty — it is impossible to say how man} 7 sovereigns. 'When joked about his money, he turns pale and swears he lias not a shilling : whereas he has had a banker’s account ever since he was thirteen. At the present moment he is employed in negotiating the sale of a knife with Master Green, and is pointing out to the latter the beauty of the six blades, and that he need not pay until after the holidays. Champion Major has sworn that he will break every bone in his skin the next time that he cheats a little boy, and is bearing down upon him. Let us come away. It is frightful to see that big peaceful clever coward moaning under w r ell deserved blows and whining for mere} 7 . Sure to succeed in life AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 29 DUVAL, THE PIRATE. (Jones Minimus passes, laden with tarts.) Duval. Hullo ! you small boy with the tarts ! Come here, Sir. Jones Minimus. Please, Duval, they ain’t mine. Duval. 0 you abominable young story-teller. [He confiscates the goods. I think I like young Duval’s mode of levying contributions better than Bullock’s. The former’s, at least, has the merit of more candour. Duval is the pirate of Birch’s, and lies in -wait for small boys laden with money or provender. He scents plunder from afar off : and pounces out on it. Wo betide the little fellow when Duval boards him ! There was a youth here whose money I used to keep, as he w r as of an extravagant and weak taste ; and I doled it out to him in weekly shillings, sufficient for the purchase of the necessary tarts. This boy came to me one day for half a sovereign, for a very particular purpose, he said. I afterwards found he wanted to lend the money to Duval. 30 DOCTOR BIRCH, The young ogre burst out laughing, when in a great wrath ancl fury I ordered him to refund to the little hoy : and proposed a bill of exchange at three months. It is true Duval’s father does not pay the Doctor, and the lad never has a shilling, save that which he levies ; and though he is always bragging about the splendour of Freenystown, Co. Cork, and the fox-hounds his father keeps, and the claret they drink there — there comes no remittance from Castle Freeny in these bad times to the honest Doctor, who is a kindly man enough, and never yet turned an insolvent boy out of doors. AND ms YOUNG FRIENDS. 31 THE DORMITORIES. MASTER HEWLETT AND MASTER NIGHTINGALE. (Rather a cold winter night.) Heivlett ( flinging a shoe at Master Nightingale's bed , with which he hits that young gentleman). Hullo ! You ! Get up aud bring me that shoe. Nightingale. Yes, Hewlett. (He gets up.) Hewlett. Don’t drop it, and he very careful of it, Sir. Nightingale . Yes, Hewlett. Heivlett. Silence in the Dormitory! Any boy who opens his mouth TO murder him. Now, Sir, are not you the boy what can sing ? Nightingale. Yes, Hewlett. Hewlett. Chaunt then till I go to sleep, and if I wake when you stop, you’ll have this at your head. [Master Hewlett lays his Bluchers on the bed , ready to shy at Master Nightingale's head in the case contemplated. Nightingale (timidly). Please, Hewlett ? 32 DOCTOR BIRCH, Hewlett. Well, Sir. Nightingale. May I put on my trowsers, please ? Hewlett. No, Sir. Go on, or I’ll — Nightingale. “ Through pleasures and palaces Though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, There’s no place like home.” Home sweet home AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 33 A CAPTURE AND A RESCUE. My young friend, Patrick Champion, George’s younger brother, is a late arrival among us ; has much of the family quality and good-nature ; is not in the least a tyrant to the small boys, but is as eager as Amadis to fight. He is boxing his way up the school, emulating his great brother. He fixes his eye on a boy above him in strength or size, and you hear somehow that a difference has arisen between them at football, and they have their coats off presently. He has thrashed himself over the heads of many youths in this manner : for instance, if Champion can lick Dobson, who can thrash Hob- son, how much more, then, can he thrash Hobson. Thus he works up and establishes his position in the school. Nor does Mr. Prince think it advisable that we ushers should walk much in the way when these little differences are being settled, unless there is some gross disparity, or danger is apprehended. For instance, I own to having seen the row depicted here as 34 DOCTOR BIRCH, I was shaving at my bed-room window. I did not hasten down to prevent its consequences. Fogle had confiscated a top, the property of Snivins, the which, as the little wretch was always pegging it at my toes, I did not regret. Snivins whimpered ; and young Champion came up, lusting for battle. Directly he made out Fogle, he steered for him, pulling up his coat-sleeves, and clearing for action. “ Who spoke to you , young Champion ? ” Fogle said, and he flung down the top to Master Snivins. I knew there would be no fight ; and perhaps Champion, too, was disappointed. A Rescue . AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 35 THE GABDEN, WHERE THE PARLOUR-BOARDERS GO. Noblemen have been rather scarce at Birch’s — but the heir of a great Prince has been living with the Doctor for some years. — He is Lord George Gaunt’s eldest son, the noble Plan- tagenet Gaunt Gaunt, and nephew of the Most Honourable the Marquis of Steyne. They are very proud of him at the Doctor’s — and the two Misses and Papa whenever a stranger comes down whom they want to dazzle, are pretty sure to bring Lord Steyne into the conversation, mention the last party at Gaunt House, and cursorily to remark that they have with them a young friend who will be in all human probability Marquis of Steyne and Earl of Gaunt, &c. Plantagenet does not care much about these future honours : provided he can get some brown sugar on his bread and butter, or sit with three chairs and play at coach and horses, quite quietly by himself, he is tolerably happy. He saunters 36 DOCTOR BIRCH, in and out of school when he likes, and looks at the masters and other hoys with a listless grin. He used to be taken to church, but he laughed and talked in odd places, so they are forced to leave him at home now. He will sit with a bit of string and play cats-cradle for many hours. He likes to go and join the very small children at their games. Some are frightened at him, hut they soon cease to fear, and order him about. I have seen him go and fetch tarts from Mr. Buggies for a boy of eight years old ; and cry bitterly if he did not get a piece. He cannot speak quite plain, but very nearly ; and is not more, I suppose, than three-and-twenty. Of course at home they know his age, though they never come and see him. But they forget that Miss ftosa Birch is no longer a young chit as she was ten years ago, when Gaunt was brought to the school. On the contrary, she has had no small experience in the tender passion, and is at this moment smitten with a disinterested affection for Plantagenet Gaunt. Next to a little doll with a burnt nose, which he hides away in cunning places, Mr. Gaunt is very fond of Miss Bosa too. What a pretty match it would make ! and how pleased they would he at Gaunt House, if the grandson and heir of the great Marquis of Steyne, the descendant of a hundred Gaunts and Tudors, should marry Miss Birch, the schoolmaster’s daughter ! It is true she has the sense on her side, and AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 37 poor Plantagenet is only an idiot : but there he is, a zany, with such expectations and such a pedigree ! If Miss Rosa would run away with Mr. Gaunt, she would leave off bullying her cousin, Miss Anny Raby. Shall I put her up to the notion, and offer to lend her the money to run away ? Mr. Gaunt is not allowed money. He had some once, but Bullock took him into a corner, and got it from him. He has a moderate tick opened at the tart-woman’s. He stops at Rodwell Regis through the year, school-time and holiday-time, it is all the same to him. Nohody asks about him, or thinks about him, save twice a-year, when the Doctor goes to Gaunt House, and gets the amount of his bills, and a glass of wine in the steward’s room. And yet you see somehow that he is a gentleman. His manner is different to that of the owners of that coarse table and parlour at which he is a boarder, (I do not speak of Miss R. of course, for her manners are as good as those of a Duchess). When he caught Miss Rosa boxing little Fiddes’s ears, his face grew red, and he broke into a fierce inarticulate rage. After that, and for some days, he used to shrink from her ; but they are reconciled now. I saw them this afternoon in the garden where only the parlour-boarders walk. He was playful, and touched her with his stick. She raised her handsome eyes in surprise, and smiled on him very kindly. % 38 DOCTOR BIRCH, The thing was so clear, that I thought it my duty to speak to old Zoe about it. The wicked old catamaran told me she wished that some people would mind their own business, and hold their tongues — that some persons were paid to teach writing, and not to tell tales and make mischief : and I have since been thinking whether I ought to communicate with the Doctor. t s Miss Birch's flower garden. AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 39 THE OLD PUPIL. As I came into the play-grounds this morning, I saw a dashing young fellow, with a tanned face and a blonde moustache, who was walking up and down the green arm- in-arm with Champion Major, and followed by a little crowd of hoys. They were talking of old times evidently. “ What had become of Irvine and Smith ? ” — “ Where was Bill Harris and Jones, not Squinny Jones, hut Cocky Jones ? ” — and so forth. The gentleman was no stranger ; he was an old pupil evidently, come to see if any of his old comrades remained, and revisit the cari luogi of his youth. Champion was evidently proud of his arm-fellow. He espied his brother, young Champion, and introduced him. “ Come here, Sir,” he called. “ The young* un wasn’t here in your time, Davison.” “ Pat, Sir,” said he, “ this is Captain Davison, one of Birch’s hoys. Ask him who was among the first in the lines at Sobraon ? ” 40 DOCTOR BIRCH, Pat’s face kindled up as he looked Davison full in the face, and held out his hand. Old Champion and Davison both blushed. The infantry set up a “ Hurray, hurray, hurray,” Champion leading, and waving his wide-awake. I protest that the scene did one good to witness. Here was the hero and cock of the school come hack to see his old haunts and cronies. He had always remembered them. Since he had seen them last, he had faced death and achieved honour. But for my dignity I would have shied up my hat too. With a resolute step, and his arm still linked in Champion’s, Captain Davison now advanced, followed by a wake of little boys, to that corner of the green where Mrs. Buggies has her tart- stand. “ Hullo, Mother Buggies ! don’t you remember me ? ” he said, and shook her by the hand. “ Lor, if it ain’t Davison Major ! ” she said. “ Well, Davison Major, you owe me fourpence for two sausage-rolls from when you went away.” Davison laughed, and all the little crew of boys set up a similar chorus. “ I buy the whole shop,” he said. “ Now, young ’uns — eat away ! ” Then there was such a “ Hurray ! hurray ! ” as surpassed the former cheer in loudness. Everybody engaged in it except AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 41 Piggy Duff, who made an instant dash at the three-cornered puffs, but was stopped by Champion, who said there should be a fair distribution. And so there was, and no one lacked, neither of raspberry, open-tarts, nor of mellifluous bulls’ eyes, nor of polonies, beautiful to the sight and taste. The hurraying brought out the old Doctor himself, who put his hand up to his spectacles and started when he saw the old pupil. Each blushed when he recognised the other ; for seven years ago they had parted not good friends. “ What — Davison ? ” the Doctor said, with a tremulous voice. “ God bless you, my dear fellow ; ” — and they shook hands. “ A half-holiday, of course, hoys,” he added, and there was another hurray : there was to he no end to the cheering that day. “ How’s — how’s the family, Sir ? ” Captain Davison asked. “ Come in and see. Flora’s grown quite a lady. Dine with us, of course. Champion Major, come to dinner at five. Mr. Titmarsh, the pleasure of your company ? ” The Doctor swung open the garden gate : the old master and pupil entered the house reconciled. I thought I would first peep into Miss Raby’s room, and tell her of this event. She was working away at her linen there, as usual quiet and cheerful. “ You should put up,” I said with a smile ; “ the Doctor has given us a half-holiday.” 42 DOCTOR BIRCH, “ I never have holidays,” Miss Baby replied. Then I told her of the scene I had just witnessed, of the arrival of the old pupil, the purchase of the tarts, the proclama- tion of the holiday, and the shouts of the boys of “ Hurray Davison.” “ Who is it ? ” cried out Miss Baby, starting and turning as white as a sheet. I told her it was Captain Davison from India, and described the appearance and behaviour of the Captain. When I had finished speaking, she asked me to go and get her a glass of water ; she felt unwell. But she was gone when I came hack with the water. I know all now. After sitting for a quarter of an hour with the Doctor, who attributed his guest’s uneasiness no doubt to his desire to see Miss Laura Birch, Davison started up and said he wanted to see Miss Baby. “ You remember, Sir, how kind she was to my little brother, Sir,” he said. Whereupon the Doctor, with a look of surprise, that any body should want to see Miss Baby, said she was in the little school-room, whither the Captain went, knowing the way from old times. A few minutes afterwards, Miss B. and Miss Z. returned from a drive with Plantagenet Gaunt in their one-horse fly, and being informed of Davison’s arrival, and that he was closeted Wanted a Governess . AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 43 with Miss Raby in the little school-room, of course made for that apartment at once. I was coming into it from the other door. I wanted to know whether she had drunk the water. This is what both parties saw. The two were in this very attitude. “Well, upon my word!” cries out Miss Zoe; but Davison did not let go his hold ; and Miss Raby’s head only sank down on his hand. “ You must get another governess, Sir, for the little boys,” Frank Davison said to the Doctor. “Anny Raby has pro- mised to come with me.” You may suppose I shut to the door on my side. And when I returned to the little school-room, it was black and empty. Everybody was gone. I could hear the boys shouting at play in the green outside. The glass of water was on the table where I had placed it. I took it and drank it myself, to the health of Anny Raby and her husband. It was rather a choker. But of course I wasn’t going to stop on at Birch’s. When his young friends re-assemble on the 1st of February next, they will have two new masters. Prince resigned too, and is at present living with me at my old lodgings at Mrs. Cammy- sole’s. If any nobleman or gentleman wants a private tutor for his son, a note to the Rev. F. Prince will find him there. Miss Clapperclaw saj^s we are both a couple of old fools ; 44 DOCTOR BIRCH, and that she knew when I set off last year to Rodwell Regis, after meeting the two young ladies at a party at General Champion’s house in our street, that I was going on a goose’s errand. I shall dine there on Christmas-day ; and so I wish a merry Christmas to all young and old boys. AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 45 EPILOGUE. The play is done ; the curtain drops, Slow falling, to the prompter’s bell : A moment yet the actor stops, And looks around, to say farewell. It is an irksome word and task ; And when he’s laughed and said his say, He shows, as he removes the mask, A face that’s anything but gay. One word, ere yet the evening ends, Let ’s close it with a parting rhyme, And pledge a hand to all young friends, As fits the merry Christmas time. On life’s wide scene you, too, have parts, That F ate ere long shall bid you play ; Good night ! with honest gentle hearts A kindly greeting go alway ! 46 DOCTOR BIRCH, Good night ! I ’d say : the griefs, the joys, Just hinted in this mimic page, The triumphs and defeats of boys, Are hut repeated in our age. I ’d say, your woes were not less keen, Your hopes more vain, than those of men ; Your pangs or pleasures of fifteen, At forty-five pla} r ed o’er again. I ’d say, we suffer and we strive Not less nor more as men than hoys ; With grizzled beards at forty-five, As erst at twelve, in corduroys. Amd if, in time of sacred youth, We learned at home to love and pray, Pray Heaven, that early Love and Truth May never wholly pass away. And in the world, as in the school, I ’d say, how fate may change and shift ; The prize be sometimes with the fool, The race not always to the swift. The strong may yield, the good may fall, The great man be a vulgar clown, \ AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 47 The knave be lifted over all. The kind cast pitilessly down. Who knows the inscrutable design ? Blessed he He who took and gave : Why should your mother, Charles, not mine, Be weeping at her darling’s grave ? * We how to Heaven that will’d it so That darkly rules the fate of all, That sends the respite or the blow, That’s free to give or to recal. This crowns his feast with wine and wit : Who brought him to that mirth and state ? His betters, see, below him sit, Or hunger hopeless at the gate. Who bade the mud from Dives’ wheel To spurn the rags of Lazarus ? Come, brother, in that dust we ’ll kneel, Confessing Heaven that ruled it thus. So each shall mourn in life’s advance, Dear hopes, dear friends, untimely killed ; C. B., ob., Dec. 1843, set. 42. 48 DOCTOR BIRCH, Shall grieve for many a forfeit chance, A longing passion unfulfilled. Amen : whatever Fate he sent, — Pray God the heart may kindly glow, Although the heart with cares be bent, And whitened with the winter-snow. Come wealth or want, come good or ill, Let young and old accept their part, And bow before the Awful Will, And bear it with an honest heart. Who misses, or who wins the prize ? Go, lose or conquer as you can : But if you fail, or if you rise, Be each, pray God, a gentleman, A gentleman, or old or young : (Bear kindly with my humble lays), The sacred chorus first was sung Upon the first of Christmas days. The shepherds heard it overhead — The joyful angels raised it there : Glory to heaven on high, it said, And peace on earth to gentle men. AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 49 My song, save this, is little worth ; I lay the weary pen aside, And wish you health, and love, and mirth, As fits the solemn Christmas tide. As fits the holy Christmas birth, Be this, good friends, our carol still — Be peace on earth, be peace on earth, To men of gentle will. BRADBURY AXD EVAXS. PRINTERS, WHITEFRTARS.