 5 The Parlor Orator We had been lounging one evening down Oxford Street, Holburn, Chief Side, Coleman Street, Finsbury Square, and so on, with the intention of returning westward by Pintonville and the New Road when we began to feel rather thirsty and disposed to rest for five or ten minutes. So we turned back towards an old, quiet, decent public house, which we remember to have passed but a moment before it was not far from the city-road for the purpose of solacing ourselves with a glass of ale. The house was none of your stuccoed, French-polished, illuminated palaces, but a modest public house of the old school, with a little bar and a little old landlord who, with a wife and daughter of the same pattern, was comfortably seated in the bar aforesaid. A snug little room with a cheerful fire, protected by a large screen, from behind which the young lady emerged on our representing our inclination for a glass of ale. "'Won't you walk into the Parlor, sir?' said the young lady in seductive tones. "'You had better walk into the Parlor, sir,' said the little old landlord, throwing his chair back and looking round one side of the screen to survey our appearance. "'You had much better step into the Parlor, sir,' said the little old lady, popping out her head on the other side of the screen. We cast a slight glance around, as if to express our ignorance of the locality so much recommended. The little old landlord observed it, bustling out of the small door of the small bar, and forthwith ushered us into the Parlor itself. It was an ancient dark-looking room, with oaken wanes-cotting, a sanded floor, and a high mantelpiece. The walls were ornamented with three or four odd-coloured prints in black frames, each print representing a naval engagement, with a couple of men of war banging away at each other most vigorously, while another vessel or two were blowing up in distance, and the foreground presented a miscellaneous collection of broken masts and blue legs sticking up after the water. Depending from the ceiling in the centre of the room, were a gas-light and a bell-pull, on each side were three or four long, narrow tables, behind which was a thickly planted row of those slippery, shiny-looking wooden chairs peculiar to hostilities of this description. The monotonous appearance of the sanded boards was relieved by an occasional spittoon, and a triangular pile of those useful articles adorned the two upper corners of the apartment. At the furthest table, nearest the fire, with his face towards the door at the bottom of the room, sat a stoutish man of about forty, whose short, stiff, black hair curled closely round a broad, high forehead, and a face to which something besides water and exercise had communicated a rather inflamed appearance. He was smoking a cigar, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and had that confident oracular air which marked him as the leading politician, general authority, and universal anecdote-relator of the place. He had evidently just delivered himself of something very weighty, for the remainder of the company were puffing at their respective pipes and cigars in a kind of solemn abstraction, as if quite overwhelmed with the magnitude of the subject recently under discussion. On his right hand sat an elderly gentleman with a white head and broad brimmed brown hat, on his left a sharp-nosed, light-haired man in a brown surtoot reaching nearly to his heels, who took a whiff at his pipe at an admiring glance at the red-faced man alternately. "'Very extraordinary,' said the light-haired man, after a pause of five minutes, a murmur of assent ran through the company. "'Not at all extraordinary, not at all,' said the red-faced man, beginning subtly from his reverie, and turning upon the light-haired man the moment he had spoken. "'Why should it be extraordinary? Why is it extraordinary? Prove it to be extraordinary!' "'Oh, if you come to that,' said the light-haired man, meekly, "'come to that,' ejaculated the man with the red face. "'But we must come to that. We stand in these times upon a calm elevation of intellectual attainment, and not to the dark recess of mental deprivation. Proof is what I require, proof, and not assertions in these stirring times. Every gentleman that knows me knows what was the nature and effect of my observations, when it was in the contemplation of the old street suburban representative discovery society, to recommend a candidate for that place in Cornwall there. I forget the name of it. Mr. Snowbie,' said Mr. Wilson, is a fit and proper person to represent the borough in Parliament. Prove it, says I. He is a friend to reform, says Mr. Wilson. Prove it, says I. The abolitionist of the national debt. The unflinching opponent of pensions. The uncompromising advocate of the Negro. The reducer of psychic yours, and the generation of parliaments. The extender of nothing but the suffragers of the people,' says Mr. Wilson. Prove it, says I. His acts prove it, says he. Prove them, says I. And he could not prove them,' said the red-faced man, looking round triumphantly, and the borough didn't have him, and if you carried this principle to the full extent you would have no debt, no pensions, no psychic yours, no Negroes, no nothing, and then standing upon an elevation of intellectual attainment and having reached the suburb of popular prosperity you might bid defiance to the nations of the earth and erect yourselves in the proud confidence of wisdom and superiority. This is my argument. This always has been my argument. And if I was a member of the House of Commons tomorrow I'd make them shake in their shoes with it. And the red-faced man, having struck the table very hard with his clenched fist to add weight to the declaration, smoked away like a brewery. Well, said the sharp-nosed man, in a very slow and soft voice addressing the company in general, I always do say, that of all the gentlemen I have the pleasure of meeting in this room there is not one whose conversation I like to hear so much as Mr. Rogers, or you, is such improving company. Improving company, said Mr. Rogers, for that it seen was the name of the red-faced man, you may say I am improving company, for I've improved you all to some purpose, though as to my conversation being as my friend Mr. Ellis here describes it, that is not for me to say anything about. You, gentlemen, are the best judges on that point. But this I will say, when I came in to this parish, and first used this room ten years ago, I don't believe there was one man in it who knew he was a slave, and now you all know it and writhe under it, and scribe that upon my tomb, and I am satisfied. Why, as to describing it on your tomb, said a little green grocer with a chubby face, of course you can have anything chalked up as you like to pay for, so far as it relates to yourself and your affairs, but when you come to talk about slaves, and that their abuse, you'd better keep it in the family, because I for one don't like to be called their names night after night. You are a slave, said the red-faced man, and the most pitiable of all slaves. Very hard if I am, interrupted the green grocer, for I got no good out with a twenty million that was paid for emancipation anyhow. A willing slave ejaculated the red-faced man, getting more red with eloquence and contradiction, resigning the dearest birthright of your children, neglecting the sacred call of liberty, who, standing imploringly before you, appeals to the warmest feelings of your heart, and points to your helpless infants, but in vain, prove it, said the green grocer. Prove it, sneered the man with the red face. What! Bending beneath the yoke of an insolent and factious oligarchy, bowed down by the domination of cruel laws, groaning beneath tyranny and oppression on every hand at every side and in every corner, prove it! The red-faced man abruptly broke off, sneered mellow dramatically, and buried his countenance and his indignation together at a court-pot. Ah! to be sure, Mr. Rogers, said a stout broker in a large waistcoat, who had kept his eyes fixed on this luminary all the time he was speaking. Ah! to be sure, said the broker, with a sigh, that's the point. Of course, of course, said diverse members of the company, who understood almost as much about the matter as the broker himself. You had better let him alone, Tommy, said the broker, by way of advice to the little green grocer. He can tell what's o'clock by an eight day, without looking at the minute hand he can. Try it on, on some other suit it won't do with him, Tommy. What is a man, continued the red-faced specimen of the species, jerking his hat indignantly from its peg on the wall. What is an Englishman? Is he to be trampled upon by every oppressor? Is he to be knocked down at everybody's bidding? What's freedom? Not a standing army? What's a standing army? Not freedom? What's general happiness? Not universal misery? Liberty ain't the window-tax, is it? The lords ain't the commons, are they? And the red-faced man, gradually bursting into a radiating sentence, in which such adjectives as dastardly, oppressive, violent, and sanguinary, formed the most conspicuous words, knocked his hat indignantly over his eyes, left the room, and slammed the door after him. Wonderful man, said he of the sharp nose. Splendid speaker, added the broker. Great power, said everybody but the greengrocer, and as they said it, the whole party shook their heads mysteriously, and one by one retired, leaving us alone in the old parlor. If we had followed the established precedent in all such instances, we should have fallen into a fit of musing, without delay. The ancient appearance of the room, the old panelling of the wall, the chimney blackened with smoke and age, would have carried us back a hundred years at least, and we should have gone dreaming on until the pewter-pot on the table, or the little beer-chiller on the fire, had started into life and addressed to us a long story of days gone by. But by some means or other we were not in a romantic humor, but although we tried very hard to invest the furniture with vitality, it remained perfectly unmoved, obstinate, and sullen. Being thus reduced to the unpleasant necessity of musing about ordinary matters, our thoughts reverted to the red-faced man and his oratorical display. A numerous race are these red-faced men. There is not a parlor or club-room or benefit-society or humble-party of any kind without its red-faced man. Big patted dotes they are, and a great deal of mischief they do to their cause, however good. So just to hold a pattern one up, to know the others by, we took his likeness at once, and put him in here. And that is the reason why we have written this paper. CHAPTER VI In our rambles through the streets of London after evening has set in, we often pause beneath the windows of some public hospital and picture to ourselves the gloomy and mournful scenes that are passing within. The sudden moving of a taper as its feeble ray shoots from window to window until its light gradually disappears as if it were carried farther back into the room to the bedside of some suffering patient is enough to waken a whole crowd of reflections. The mere glimmering of the low-burning lamps, which, when all other habitations are wrapped in darkness and slumber, denote the chamber where so many forms are writhing with pain or wasting with disease, is sufficient to check the most boisterous merriment. Who can tell the anguish of those weary hours when the only sound the sick man hears is the disjointed wanderings of some feverish slumberer near him, the low moan of pain, or perhaps the muttered long-forgotten prayer of a dying man? Who but they who have felt it can imagine the sense of loneliness and desolation which must be the portion of those who, in the hour of dangerous illness, are left to be tended by strangers, for what hands, be they ever so gentle, can wipe the clammy brow or smooth the restless bed like those of mother, wife, or child? Impressed with these thoughts, we have turned away through the nearly deserted streets, and the sight of the few miserable creatures still hovering about them has not tended to lessen the pain which such meditations awaken. The hospital is a refuge and resting place for hundreds, who but for such institutions must die in the streets and doorways. But what can be the feelings of some outcast when they are stretched on the bed of sickness with scarcely a hope of recovery? The wretched woman who lingers about the pavement hours after midnight, and the miserable shadow of a man, the ghastly remnant that wanton drunkenness have left, which crouches beneath a window-edge to sleep where there is some shelter from the rain, have little to bind them to life, but what have they to look back upon in death? What are the unwanted comforts of a roof and a bed to them, when the recollections of a whole life of debasement stalk before them? When repentance seems a mockery, and sorrow comes too late. About a twelve-month ago, as we were strolling through Covent Garden, we had been thinking about these things overnight. We were attracted by the very prepossessing appearance of a pickpocket, who having declined to take the trouble of walking to the police office on the ground that he hadn't the slightest wish to go there at all, was being conveyed thither in a wheel-barrow to the huge delight of a crowd. Now we can never resist joining a crowd. So we turned back with the mob and entered the office, in company with our friend the pickpocket, a couple of policemen, and as many dirty-faced spectators as could squeeze their way in. There was a powerful, ill-looking young fellow at the bar, who was undergoing an examination on the very common charge of having, on the previous night, ill-treated a woman with whom he lived in some court-hard by. Several witnesses bore testimony to acts of the grossest brutality, and a certificate was read from the house surgeon of a neighboring hospital, describing the nature of the injuries the woman had received, and intimating that her recovery was extremely doubtful. Some question appeared to have been raised about the identity of the prisoner, for when it was agreed that the two magistrates should visit the hospital at eight o'clock that evening to take her deposition, it was settled that the man should be taken there also. He turned pale at this, and we saw him clinch the bar very hard when the order was given. He was removed directly afterwards, and he spoke not a word. We felt an irrepressible curiosity to witness this interview, although it is hard to tell why at this instant, for we knew it must be a painful one. It was no very difficult matter for us to gain permission, and we obtained it. The prisoner and the officer who had him in custody were already at the hospital when we reached it, and waiting the arrival of the magistrates in a small room below stairs. The man was handcuffed, and his hat was pulled forward over his eyes. It was easy to see, though, by the whiteness of his countenance, and the constant twitching of the muscles of his face that he dreaded what was to come. After a short interval the magistrates and Clark were bowed in by the house-surgeon and a couple of young men who smelt very strong of tobacco smoke. They were introduced as dressers, and after one magistrate had complained bitterly of the cold and the other of the absence of any news in the evening paper it was announced that the patient was prepared, and we were conducted to the casualty ward in which she was lying. The dim light which burned in the spacious room increased rather than diminish the ghastly appearance of the hapless creatures in the beds which were ranged in two long rows on either side. In one bed lay a child enveloped in bandages with its body half consumed by fire. In another a female reddered hideous by some dreadful accident was wildly beating her clenched fists on the coverlet in pain. On the third there lay stretched a young girl, apparently in the heavy stupor over the immediate precursor of death. Her face was stained with blood, and her breast and arms were bound up in folds of linen. Two or three of the beds were empty, and their recent occupants were sitting beside them but with faces so wan and eyes so bright and glassy that it was fearful to meet their gaze. On every face was stamped the expression of anguish and suffering. The object of the visit was lying at the upper end of the room. She was a fine young woman of about two or three and twenty. Her long black hair which had been hastily cut from near the wounds on her head streamed over the pillow in jagged and matted locks. Her face bore deep marks of the ill usage she had received. Her hand was pressed upon her side, as if her chief pain were there. Her breathing was short and heavy, and it was plain to see that she was dying fast. She murmured a few words in reply to the magistrate's inquiry whether she was in great pain, and having been raised on the pillow by the nurse, looked vacantly upon the strange countenances that surrounded her bed. The magistrate nodded to the officer to bring the man forward. He did so, and stationed him at the bedside. The girl looked on with a wild and troubled expression of face, but her sight was dim, and she did not know him. "'Take off his hat,' said the magistrate. The officer did as he was desired, and the man's features were disclosed. The girl started up, with an energy quite preternatural. The fire gleamed in her heavy eyes, had the blood rushed to her pale and sunken cheeks. It was a convulsive effort. She fell back upon her pillow, and covering her scarred and bruised face with her hands, burst into tears. The man cast an anxious look towards her, but otherwise appeared wholly unmoved. After a brief pause the nature of the errand was explained, and the oath tendered. "'Oh, no, gentlemen,' said the girl, raising herself once more, and folding her hands together. "'No, gentlemen, for God's sake. I did it myself. It was nobody's fault. It was an accident. He didn't hurt me. He wouldn't, for all the world. Jack, dear Jack, you know you wouldn't.' Her sight was fast failing her, and her hand groped over the bed-clothes in search of his. As rude as the man was, he was not prepared for this. He turned his face from the bed and sobbed. The girl's colour changed, and her breathing grew more difficult. She was evidently dying. "'We respect the feelings which prompt you to this,' said the gentleman who had spoken first. "'But let me warn you not to persist in what you know to be untrue until it is too late. It cannot save him.' "'Jack,' murmured the girl, laying her hand upon his arm, "'they shall not persuade me to swear your life away. He didn't do it, gentlemen. He never hurt me.' She grasped his arm tightly and at it in a broken whisper. I hope God Almighty will forgive me all the wrong I have done, and the life I have led.' "'God bless you, Jack.' Some kind gentleman take my love to my poor old father. Five years ago he said he wished I had died as a child. Oh, I wish I had—I wish I had—' The nurse bent over the girl for a few seconds, and then drew the sheet over her face. It covered a corpse. End of Section 38 Sketches by Baas. Section 39 This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Reading by Brad Philippines. Sketches by Baas by Charles Dickens. Section 39 Characters Chapter 7 The misplaced attachment of Mr. John Downes If we had to make a classification of society, there is a particular kind of men whom we should immediately set down under the head of old boys, and a column of most extensive dimensions the old boys would require. To what precise causes the rapid advance of old boy population is to be traced, we are unable to determine. It would be an interesting and curious speculation, but as we have not sufficient space to devote to it here, we simply state the fact that the numbers of the old boys have been gradually augmenting within the last few years, and that they are at this moment alarmingly on the increase. Upon a general review of the subject, and without considering it minutely in detail, we should be disposed to subdivide the old boys into two distinct classes, the gay old boys and the steady old boys. The gay old boys are ponchy old men in the disguise of young ones who frequent the quadrant and region street in the daytime, the theatres, especially theatres under lady management at night, and who assume all the foppishness and levity of boys without the excuse of youth or inexperience. The steady old boys are a certain stout old gentleman of clean appearance, who are always to be seen in the same taverns at the same hours every evening, smoking and drinking in the same company. There was once a fine collection of old boys to be seen round the circular table at Offleys every night, between the hours of half-past eight and half-past eleven. We have lost sight of them for some time. There were, and may be still for ought we know, two splendid specimens in full blossom at the rainbow tavern in Fleet Street, who always used to sit in the box nearest to the fireplace, and smoked long cherry-stick pipes which went under the table with the bowls resting on the floor. Grand old boys they were, fat red-faced white-headed old fellows, always there, one on one side the table and the other opposite, puffing and drinking away in great state. Everybody knew them, and it was supposed by some people that they were both immortal. Mr. John Downs was an old boy of the latter class, we don't mean immortal but steady, a retired glove-and-braces-maker, a widower resident with three daughters, all grown up and all unmarried, in Curseter Street, Chancellery Lane. He was a short round, large-faced, tubby sort of man, with a broad-brimmed hat and a square coat, and head that grave-but-confident kind of roll, peculiar to old boys in general. Regular as clockwork, breakfast at nine, dress and tit-fait a little, down to the Sir Somebody's head, a glass of ale and the paper, come back again and take daughters out for a walk, dinner at three, glass of grog and pipe, nap, tea, little walk, Sir Somebody's head again, capital house, delightful evenings. There were Mr. Harris, the law-stationer, and Mr. Jennings, the robe-maker, two jolly young fellows like himself, and Jones, the barristers' clock, rum-fellow, that Jones, capital company, full of anecdote, and there they sat every night till just ten minutes before twelve, drinking their brandy and water, and smoking their pipes and telling stories, and enjoying themselves with a kind of solemn joviality, particularly edifying. Sometimes Jones would propose a half-price visit to Drury Lane or Covent Garden, to see two acts of a five-act play, and a new farce, perhaps, or a ballet, on which occasions the whole four of them went together, none of your hurrying and nonsense, but having their water and brandy first, comfortably, and ordering a steak and some oysters for their supper against they came back, and then walking coolly into the pit when the rush had gone in, as all sensible people do, and did when Mr. Downs was a young man except when the celebrated Master Betty was at the height of his popularity, and then, Sir, then Mr. Downs perfectly well remembered getting a holiday from business and going to the pit doors at eleven o'clock at the four-noon, and waiting there till six in the afternoon with some sandwiches and a pocket-hankerchief, and some wine in a file, and fainting after all with the heat and fatigue before the play began, in which situation he was lifted out of the pit into one of the dress-boxes, Sir, by five of the finest women of that day, Sir, who compassionate his situation and administered restoratives, and sent a black servant six-foot high in blue and silver livery, next morning with their compliments, and to know how he found himself, Sir, by God, between the acts Mr. Downs and Mr. Harris and Mr. Jennings used to stand up and look round the house, and Jones, knowing fellow that Jones, knew everybody, pointed out the fashionable and celebrated lady so-and-so in the boxes, at the mention of whose name Mr. Downs, after brushing up his hair and adjusting his neckerchief, would inspect the aforesaid lady so-and-so through an immense glass, and remark either that she was a fine woman, very fine woman indeed, or that there might be a little more of her, eh, Jones? Just as the case might happen to be. When the dancing began, John Downs and the other boys were particularly anxious to see what was going forward on the stage, and Jones, wicked dog that Jones, whispered little critical remarks into the ears of John Downs, which John Downs retailed to Mr. Harris, and Mr. Harris to Mr. Jennings, and then they all for laughed until the tears ran down out of their eyes. When the curtain fell, they walked back together, two-and-two, to the steaks and oysters, and when they came to the second glass of brandy and water, Jones, hoaxing, scamp that Jones, used to recount how he had observed a lady in white feathers in one of the pit-boxes, gazing intently on Mr. Downs all the evening, and how he had caught Mr. Downs whenever he thought no one was looking at him, bestowing ardent looks of intense devotion on the lady in return, on which Mr. Harris and Mr. Jennings used to laugh very heartily, and drawn Downs more heartily than either of them, acknowledging, however, that the time had been when he might have done such things, upon which Mr. Jones used to poke him in the ribs and tell him he had been a sad dog in his time, which John Downs with chuckles confessed, and after Mr. Harris and Mr. Jennings had preferred their claims to the character of having been sad dogs, too, they separated harmoniously and trotted home. The decrees of fate and the means by which they are brought about are mysterious and inscrutable. John Downs had led this life for twenty years and upwards without wish for change or care for variety, with his whole social system was suddenly upset and turned completely topsy-turvy, not by an earthquake or by some other dreadful convulsion of nature, as the reader would be inclined to suppose, but by the simple agency of an oyster, and thus it happened. Mr. John Downs was returning one night from the Sir Somebody's Head to his residence in Curseter Street, not tipsy but rather excited, for it was Mr. Jennings' birthday, and they could head a brace of cartridges for supper, and a brace of extra glasses afterwards, and John's had been more than ordinarily amusing, with his eyes rested on a newly opened oyster-shop on a magnificent scale, with natives laid one deep in circular marble basins in the windows, together with little round barrels of oysters directed to lords and baronettes and kernels and captains in every part of the habitable globe. Behind the natives were the barrels, and behind the barrels was a young lady of about five and twenty, all in blue, and all alone, splendid creature, charming face and lovely figure. It is difficult to say whether Mr. John Downs's red countenance, illuminated as it was by the flickering gas-light in the window before which he paused, excited the lady's risibility, or whether a natural exuberance of animal spirits proved too much for that stateness of demeanor which the forms of society rather dictatorially prescribe. But certain it is that the lady smiled, then put her finger upon her lip with a striking recollection of what was due to herself and finally retired in oyster-like bashfulness to the very back of the counter. The sad dog sort of feeling came strongly upon John Downs. He lingered. The lady in blue made no sign. He coughed. Until she came not. He entered the shop. "'Can you open me an oyster, my dear?' said Mr. John Downs. "'Dare say I can, sir,' replied the lady in blue, with playfulness. And Mr. John Downs ate one oyster, and then looked at the young lady, and then eat another, and then squeezed the young lady's hand as she was opening the third and so forth, until he had devoured a dozen of those at eight pence in less than no time. "'Can you open me half a dozen more, my dear?' inquired Mr. John Downs. "'I'll see what I can do for you, sir,' replied the young lady in blue, even more bewitchingly than before, and Mr. John Downs ate half a dozen more of those at eight pence. "'You could have managed to get me a glass of brandy and water, my dear, I suppose,' said Mr. John Downs, when he had finished the oysters, in a tone which clearly implied his supposition that he could. "'I'll see, sir,' said the young lady, and away she ran out of the shop and down the street, her long, auburn ringlets shaking in the wind, in the most enchanting manner, and back she came again, tripping over the coals that are lids like a whipping-top, with a tumbler of brandy and water, which Mr. John Downs insisted on her taking a share of, as it was regular ladies' grog, hot, strong, sweet, and plenty of it. So the young lady sat down with Mr. John Downs in a little red box with a green curtain, and took a small sip of the brandy and water, and a small look at Mr. John Downs, and then turned her head away and went through various other serial pantomimic fascinations, which forcibly reminded Mr. John Downs of the first time he courted his first wife, and which made him feel more affectionate than ever. In pursuance of which affection, and actuated by which feeling, Mr. John Downs sounded the young lady on her matrimonial engagements, when the young lady denied having formed any such engagements at all. She couldn't have bear the men, they were such deceivers. Thereupon Mr. John Downs inquired whether this sweeping condemnation was meant to include other than very young men, on which the young lady blushed deeply. At least she turned away her head, and said Mr. John Downs had made her blush. So, of course, she did blush, and Mr. John Downs was a long time drinking the brandy and water, and at last John Downs went home to bed, and dreamed of his first wife, and his second wife, and the young lady, and partridges and oysters, and brandy and water, and disinterested attachments. The next morning John Downs was rather feverish with the extra brandy and water of the previous night, and partly in the hope of cooling himself with an oyster, and partly with the view of ascertaining whether he owed the young lady anything or not, went back to the oyster shop. If the young lady had appeared beautiful by night she was perfectly irresistible by day, and from this time forward a change came over the spirit of John Downs's dream. He brought shirtpins, or a ring on his third finger, red poetry, bribed a cheap miniature painter to perpetuate a faint resemblance to a youthful face, with a curtain over his head, six large books in the background, and an open country in the distance, this he called his portrait, went on altogether in such an uproarious manner that the three missed Downs's went off on small pensions, he having made the tenement of Curseter Street too warm to contain them, and in short comported and demeaned himself in every respect like an unmitigated old Saracen as he was. As to his ancient friends, the other old boys at the Sir Somebody's Head, he dropped off from them by gradual degrees, for even when he did go there, Jones, vulgar fellow that Jones, instead in asking when it was to be, and whether he was to have any gloves, together with other inquiries of an equally offensive nature, at which not only Harris laughed, but Jennings also, so he cut the two all together, and attached himself solely to the blue young lady at the Smart Oystershop. Now comes the moral of the story, for it has a moral after all. The last mentioned young lady, having derived sufficient profit and emoliment from John Downs's attachment, not only refused when matters came to a crisis to take him for better or worse, but expressly declared to use her own forcible words that she wouldn't have him at no price, and John Downs, having lost his old friends, alienated his relations, and rendered himself ridiculous to everybody, made offers successively to a school mistress, a landlady, a feminine tobaccoist, and a housekeeper, and being directly rejected by each and every of them, was accepted by his cook, with whom he now lives, a hen-pecked husband, a melancholy monument of antiquated misery, and a living warning to all luxurious old boys. CHAPTER VIII The mistaken milliner, a tale of ambition. Miss Amelia Martin was pale, tallish, thin, and two-and-thirty, what ill-natured people would call plain, and police reports interesting. She was a milliner and dressmaker, living on her business and not above it. If you had been a young lady in service and had wanted Miss Martin, as a great many young ladies in service did, you would just have stepped up in the evening to number forty-seven Drummond Street, George Street, Euston Square, and after casting your eye on a brass door plate, one foot ten by one-and-a-half, ornamented with a great brass knob at each of the four quarters, and bearing the inscription Miss Martin, millinery and dressmaking in all its branches, you just have knocked two loud knocks at the street door, and down would have come Miss Martin herself in a marino gown of the newest fashion, black velvet bracelets on the gentilist principle, and other little elegancies of the most approved description. If Miss Martin knew the young lady who called, or if the young lady who called had been recommended by any other young lady whom Miss Martin knew, Miss Martin would forthwith show her upstairs into the two-pair front, and chat she would, so kind, so comfortable. It really wasn't like a matter of business she was so friendly. And then Miss Martin, after contemplating the figure and general appearance of the young lady in service with great apparent admiration, would say how well she would look, to be sure, in a low dress with short sleeves, made very full in the skirts with four tucks in the bottom, to which the young lady in service would reply in terms expressive of her entire concurrence in the notion, and of the virtuous indignation with which she reflected on the tyranny of Mrs., who wouldn't allow a young girl to wear a short sleeve of an afternoon, no nor nothing smart nor even a pair of air-rings, let alone hiding people's heads of hair under them frightful caps. At the termation of this complaint, Miss Amelia Martin would distinctly suggest certain dark suspicions that some people were jealous on account of their own daughters, and were obliged to keep their servants' charms under, for fear they should get married first, which was no uncommon circumstance. Least ways she had known two or three young ladies in service who had married a great deal better than their Mrs., and they were not very good looking either, and then the young lady would inform Miss Martin in confidence that how one of their young ladies was engaged to a young man and was going to be married, and Mrs. was so proud about it that there was no bearing of her, but how she needn't hold her head quite so high neither, for, after all, he was only a clerk. And after expressing due contempt for clerks in general, and the engaged clerk in particular, and the highest opinion possible of themselves and each other, Miss Martin and the young lady in service would bid each other good night in a friendly but perfectly genteel manner, and the one went back to her place, and the other to her room on the second floor front. There is no saying how long Miss Amelia Martin might have continued this course of life, how extensive of connection she might have established among young ladies in service, or what a amount her demands upon their quarterly receipts might have ultimately attained, had not an unforeseen train of circumstances directed her thoughts to a sphere of action very different from dressmaking or millinery. A friend of Miss Martin's, who had long been keeping company with an ornamental painter and decorator's journeyman, at last consented on being at last asked to do so, to name the day which would make the aforesaid journeyman a happy husband. It was a Monday that was appointed for the celebration of the nuptials, and Miss Amelia Martin was invited among others to honour the wedding dinner with her presence. It was a charming party, summer's town, the locality, at a front parlor at the apartment. The ornamental painter and decorator's journeyman had taken a house, no lodgings nor vulgarity of that kind, but a house, four beautiful rooms and a delightful little wash-house at the end of the passage, which was the most convenient thing in the world, where the bridesmaids could sit in the front parlor and receive the company, and then run into the little wash-house and see how the pudding-and-boiled work were getting on the copper, and then pop back into the parlor again as snug and comfortable as possible. And such a parlor it was! Beautiful kid of Instacarpet, six brand new cane bottom stained chairs, three wine-glasses and a tumbler on each sideboard, farmer's girl and farmer's boy on the mantelpiece, girl tumbling over a stile and boy spitting himself on the handle of a pitchfork, long white dimity-curtains in the windows, and in short everything on the most genteel scale imaginable. Then the dinner. There was baked leg of mutton at the top, boiled leg of mutton at the bottom, pair of fouls and leg of pork in the middle, porter-pots at the corners, pepper, mustard and vinegar in the center, vegetables on the floor, and plum-pudding and apple pie and tartnuts without number, to say nothing of cheese and celery and water-cresses and all that sort of thing. As to the company, Miss Amelia Martin herself declared on a subsequent occasion that much as she had heard of the ornamental painter's journeyman's connection she never could have supposed it was half so genteel. There was his father, such a funny old gentleman, and his mother, such a dear old lady, and his sister, such a charming girl, and his brother, such a manly-looking young man, with such an eye. But even all these were as nothing when compared with his musical friends, Mr. and Mrs. Jennings Rodolf from White Conduit, with whom the ornamental painter's journeyman had been fortunate enough to contract an intimacy while engaged in decorating the concert-room of that noble institution. To hear them sing separately was divine, but when they went through the tragic duet of Red Ruffian retire, it was as Miss Martin afterwards remarked thrilling. And why, as Mr. Jennings Rodolf observed, why were they not engaged at one of the patent theatres? If he was to be told that their voices were not powerful enough to fill the house, his only reply was that he would be back himself for any amount to fill Russell Square, a statement in which the company, after hearing the duet, expressed their full belief, so they all said it was shameful treatment, and both Mr. and Mrs. Jennings Rodolf said it was shameful, too, and Mr. Jennings Rodolf looked very serious and said he knew who his malignant opponents were, but that they had better take care of how far they went, for if they irritated him too much, he had not quite made up his mind whether he wouldn't bring the subject before Parliament, and they all agreed that it would serve and quite right, and it was very proper that such people should be made an example of. So Mr. Jennings Rodolf said he'd think of it. When the conversation resumed its former tone, Mr. Jennings Rodolf claimed his right to call upon a lady, and the right being conceded, trusted Miss Martin would favour the company, a proposal which met with unanimous approbation, whereupon Miss Martin, after sundry hesitating and coffings with a preparatory choke or two, had an introductory declaration that she was frightened to death to attempt it before such great judges of the art, commenced a species of treble-chirruping containing frequent allusions to some young gentleman of the name of Henry, with an occasional reference to madness and broken hearts. Mr. Jennings Rodolf frequently interrupted the progress of the song by ejaculating beautiful, charming, brilliant, oh splendid, etc., and at its close the admiration of himself and his lady knew no bounds. Did you ever hear so sweet a voice, my dear, inquired Mr. Jennings Rodolf of Mrs. Jennings Rodolf? Never indeed I never did, love, replied Mrs. Jennings Rodolf. Don't you think Miss Martin, with a little cultivation, would be very like Signora Marabotti, my dear, asked Mr. Jennings Rodolf? Just exactly the very thing that struck me, my love, answered Mrs. Jennings Rodolf. And thus the time passed away. Mr. Jennings Rodolf played tunes on a walking-stick, and then went behind the parlor door and gave his celebrated invitations of actors, edge-tools, and animals. Miss Martin sang several other songs with increased admiration every time, and even the funny old gentleman began singing. His song had properly seven verses, but as he couldn't recollect more than the first one he sang that over seven times, apparently very much to his own personal gratification. And then all the company sang the national anthem with national independence, each for himself without reference to the other, and finally separated, all declaring that they never had spent so pleasant an evening, and Miss Martin inwardly resolving to adopt the advice of Mr. Jennings Rodolf and to come out without delay. Now coming out, either in acting, or singing, or society, or facetiousness, or anything else, is all very well, and remarkably pleasant to the individual principally concerned, if he or she can but manage to come out with a burst, and being out to keep out and not go in again. But it does, unfortunately, happen that both conservations are extremely difficult to accomplish, and that the difficulties of getting out at all in the first instance, and if you surmount them of keeping out in the second, are pretty much on a par, and no slight ones, either. And so Miss Amelia Martin shortly discovered. It is a singular fact, there being ladies in the case, that Miss Amelia Martin's principal foible was vanity, and the leading characteristic of Mrs. Jennings Rodolf an attachment to dress. Dismal wailings were heard to issue from the second floor front of No. 47 Drummond Street, George Street, Houston Square. It was Miss Martin practicing. Half-suppressed murmurs disturbed the calm dignity of the White Conduit Orchestra at the commencement of the season. It was the appearance of Mrs. Jennings Rodolf in full dress that occasioned them. Miss Martin studied incessantly. The practicing was the consequence. Mrs. Jennings Rodolf taught gratuitously now and then the dresses were the result. Weeks passed away, the White Conduit season had begun, and progressed, and was more than half over. The dress-making business had fallen off from neglect, and its profits had dwindled away almost imperceptibly. A benefit-night approached. Mr. Jennings Rodolf yielded to the earnest solicitations of Miss Amelia Martin, and introduced her personally to the comic gentleman whose benefit it was. The comic gentleman was all smiles and blends. He had composed a duet expressly for the occasion, and Miss Martin should sing it with him. The night arrived. There was an immense room, ninety-seven six-peneths of gin and water, thirty-two small glasses of brandy and water, five and twenty bottled ales and forty-one new uses. And the ornamental painter's journeymen, with his wife and a select circle of acquaintance, were seated at one of the side-tables near the orchestra. The concert began, song sentimental by a light-haired young gentleman in a blue coat and bright basket-buttons, applause, another song doubtful by another gentleman in another blue coat and more bright basket-buttons, increased applause. Duet, Mr. Jennings Rodolf, and Mrs. Jennings Rodolf, red ruffian retire, great applause. Solo, Miss Julia Montague, positively on this occasion only. I am a friar, enthusiasm. Occasional duet, comic, Mr. H. Taplin, the comic gentleman, and Miss Martin, the time of day. Bravo, bravo, cried the ornamental painter's journeymen's party, as Miss Martin was gracefully led in by the comic gentleman. Go to work, Harry, cried the comic gentleman's personal friends. Tap, tap, tap, went the leader's bow on the music desk. The symphony began, and was soon afterwards followed by a faint kind of ventricle chirping, proceeding, apparently, from the deepest recesses of the interior of Miss Amelia Martin. Sing out, shouted one gentleman in a white greatcoat. Don't be afraid to put the steam on, old gal, exclaimed another. Sssss went the five and twenty bottled ales. Shame, shame, demonstrated the ornamental painter's journeymen's party. Sssss went the bottled ales again, accompanied by all the gins and a majority of the brandies. Turn them geese out, cried the ornamental painter's journeymen's party, with great indignation. Sing out, whispered Mr. Jennings Rudolph. So I do, responded Miss Amelia Martin. Sing louder, said Mrs. Jennings Rudolph. I can't, replied Miss Amelia Martin. Off, off, off, cried the rest of the audience. Bravo, shouted at the painter's party. It wouldn't do. Miss Amelia Martin left the orchestra with much less ceremony than she had entered it, and as she couldn't sing out, never came out. The general Good Humor was not restored until Mr. Jennings Rudolph had become purple in the face, by imitating diverse quadrupeds for half an hour without being able to render himself audible, and to this day neither has Miss Amelia Martin's Good Humor been restored, nor the dresses made for and presented to Mrs. Jennings Rudolph, nor the local abilities which Mr. Jennings Rudolph once staked his professional reputation that Miss Martin possessed. THE DANCING ACADEMY Of all the dancing academies that ever were established, there never was one more popular in its immediate vicinity than Signor Bel-Smithy's, of the King's Theatre. It was not in Spring Gardens, or Newman Street, or Burner Street, or Gower Street, or Charlotte Street, or Percy Street, or any other of the numerous streets which have been devoted time out of mind to professional people, dispensaries and boarding-houses. It was not in the West End at all. It rather approximated the eastern portion of London, being situated in the populous and improving neighbourhood of Grey's Inn Lane. It was not a dear dancing academy. Four and six pence a quarter is decidedly cheap upon the whole. It was very select, the number of pupils being strictly limited to seventy-five at a quarter's payment in advance being rigidly exacted. There was public tuition and private tuition, an assembly room and a parlor. Signor Bel-Smithy's family were always thrown in with the parlor, and included in Parlor Price, that is to say, a private pupil had Signor Bel-Smithy's parlor to dance in, and Signor Bel-Smithy's family to dance with, and when he had been sufficiently broken in in the parlor, he began to run in couples in the assembly room. Such was the dancing academy of Signor Bel-Smithy's. When Mr. Augustus Cooper of Fetter Lane first saw an unstamped advertisement walking leisurely down Holburn Hill, announcing to the world that Signor Bel-Smithy of the King's Theatre intended opening for the season with a grand ball. Now Mr. Augustus Cooper was in the oil and colour line, just of age, with a little money, a little business, and a little mother, who, having managed her husband and his business in his lifetime, took to managing her son and his business after his decease, and so, somehow or other, he had been cooped up in the little back parlor behind the shop on weekdays, and in a little deal-box without a lid, called by courtesy a pew, at Bethel Chapel on Sundays, and had seen no more of the world than if he had been an infant all his days, whereas young White, at the gas-fitters over the way, three years younger than him, had been flaring away like Winkin, going to the theatre, supping at harmonic meetings, eating oysters by the barrel, drinking stout by the gallon, even out all night and coming home as cool in the morning as if nothing had happened. So Mr. Augustus Cooper made up his mind that he would not stand at any longer, and had that very morning expressed to his mother a firm determination to be blowed in the event of his not being instantly provided with a street-door-key. As he was walking down Holburn Hill, thinking about all these things, and wondering how he could manage to get introduced into Gentile society for the first time, when his eyes rested on Sr. Bel-Smithy's announcement, which it immediately struck him with just the very thing he wanted, for he should not only be able to select a Gentile circle of acquaintance at once, out of the five and seventy pupils at four and six pence a quarter, but should qualify himself at the same time to go through a horn-pipe in private society with perfect ease to himself and great delight to his friends. So he stopped the unstamped advertisement, an animated sandwich composed of a boy between two boards, and having procured a very small card with the Signor's address indented thereon, walked straight at once to the Signor's house, and very fast he walked to, for fear the list should be filled up, and the five and seventy completed before he got there. The Signor was at home, and what was still more gratifying, he was an Englishman, such a nice man and so polite. The list was not full, but it was a most extraordinary circumstance that there was just one vacancy, and even that one would have been filled up that very morning, only Signor Bill Smithy was dissatisfied with the reference, and being very much afraid that the lady wasn't select, wouldn't take her. And very much delighted I am, Mr. Cooper, said Signor Bill Smithy, that I did not take her. I can assure you, Mr. Cooper, I don't say it to flatter you, for I know you are above it, that I consider myself extremely fortunate in having a gentleman of all manners at appearance. I am very glad of it too, sir, said Augustus Cooper, and I hope we shall be better equated, sir, said Signor Bill Smithy, and I am sure I hope we shall too, sir, responded Augustus Cooper. Just then the door opened, and in came a young lady, with her hair curled in a crop all over her head, and her shoes tied in sandals all over her ankles. Don't run away, my dear, said Signor Bill Smithy, for the young lady didn't know Mr. Cooper was there when she ran in, and was going to run out again in her modesty, all in confusion like. Don't run away, my dear, said Signor Bill Smithy. This is Mr. Cooper. Mr. Cooper of Fatter Lane. Mr. Cooper, my daughter, sir, Miss Bill Smithy, sir, who I hope will have the pleasure of dancing many a quadril, minuet, gavotte, country dance, fandango, double hornpipe, and farina hoca jingle with you, sir. She dances them all, sir, and so shall you, sir, before you're a quarter-old, sir. And Signor Bill Smithy slapped Mr. Augustus Cooper on the back as if he had known him a dozen years, so friendly, and Mr. Cooper bowed to the young lady, and the young lady curtsied to him, and Signor Bill Smithy said they were as handsome a pair as ever he'd wished to see, upon which the young lady exclaimed, Law, Pa! and blushed as red as Mr. Cooper himself. You might have thought they were both standing under a red lamp at a chemist shop, and before Mr. Cooper went away it was settled that he should join the family circle that very night, taking them just as they were, no ceremony nor nonsense of that kind, and learn his positions in order that he might lose no time, and be able to come out at the forthcoming ball. Well, Mr. Augustus Cooper went away to one of the cheap shoemaker shops in Halburn, where gentlemen's dress pumps are seven and six pence, and men's strong walking just nothing at all, and bought a pair of the regular seven-and-sixpony long-quartered town-maids in which he astonished himself quite as much as his mother, and sallied fault to Signor Bill Smithy's. There were four other private pupils in the parlor, two ladies and two gentlemen, such nice people, not a bit of pride about them. One of the ladies in particular, who was training for a Columbine, was remarkably affable, and she and Miss Bill Smithy took such an interest in Mr. Augustus Cooper, and joked, and smiled, and looked so bewitching that he got quite at home, and learned his steps in no time. After the practicing was over, Signor Bill Smithy, and Miss Bill Smithy, and Master Bill Smithy, and a young lady, and the two ladies and the two gentlemen danced a quadril. None of you are slipping and sliding about, but regular warm work, flying into corners, and diving among chairs, and shooting out at the door, something like dancing. Signor Bill Smithy in particular, notwithstanding his having a little fiddle to play all the time, was out on the landing every figure, and Master Bill Smithy, when everybody else was breathless, danced a hornpipe with a king in his hand, and a cheese-plate on his head, to the unqualified admiration of the whole company. Then Signor Bill Smithy insisted, as they were so happy that they should all stay to supper, and proposed sending Master Bill Smithy for the beer and spirits, when upon the two gentlemen's war, strike him well good if they'd stand that, and were just going to quarrel who should pay for it, when Mr. Augustus Cooper said he would, if they'd have the kindness to allow him, and they had the kindness to allow him, and Master Bill Smithy brought a beer in a can, and the rum in a quart pot. They had a regular night of it, and Miss Bill Smithy squeezed Mr. Augustus Cooper's hand under the table, and Mr. Augustus Cooper returned the squeeze, and returned home to it, something to six o'clock in the morning, when he was put to bed by main force by the apprentice, after repeatedly expressing an uncontrollable desire to pitch his revered parent out of the second floor window, and to throttle the apprentice with his own neck haggardchief. Weeks had worn on, and the seven and six many town maids had nearly worn out, when the night arrived for the ground dress ball at which the whole of the five and seventy pupils were to meet together for the first time that season, and to take out some portion of their respective foreign sixpences in lamp oil and fiddlers. Mr. Augustus Cooper had ordered a new coat for the occasion, a two-pound tenor from Ternstile. It was his first appearance in public, and after a grand Sicilian shawl dance by fourteen young ladies in character, he was about to open the quadral department with Miss Bill Smithy herself, with whom she had become quite intimate since his first introduction. It was a night. Everything was admirably arranged. The sandwich boy took the hats and bonnets at the street door. There was a turn-up bedstead in the back parlor on which Miss Bill Smithy made tea and coffee for such a gentleman as chose to pay for it, and such of the ladies as the gentlemen treated, Red Port Wine Negus and Lemonade were handed round at eighteen pence ahead, and in pursuance of a previous engagement with the public house at the corner of the street, an extra pot boy was laid on for the occasion. In short, nothing could exceed the arrangements except the company. Such ladies, such pink silk stockings, such artificial flowers, such a number of cabs. No sooner had one cab set down with a couple of ladies than another cab drove up and set down another couple of ladies, and they all knew, not only one another, but the majority of the gentlemen into the bargain, which made it all as pleasant and lively as could be. Senior Bill Smithy, in black tights with a large blue bow in his buttonhole, introduced the ladies to such a gentleman as were strangers, and the ladies talked away, and laughed they did. It was delightful to see them. As to the shawl dance, it was the most exciting thing that ever was beheld. There was such a whisking and rustling and fanning and getting ladies into a tangle with artificial flowers, and then disentangling them again. And as to Mr. Augustus Cooper's share in the Quadril, he got through it admirably. He was missing from his partner now and then certainly and discovered on such occasions to be either dancing with laudable perseverance in another set, or sliding about in perspective without any definite object, but generally speaking they managed to shove him through the figure until he turned up at the right place. Be this as it may, when he had finished, a great many ladies and gentlemen came up and complimented him very much, and said they had never seen a beginner do anything like it before, and Mr. Augustus Cooper was perfectly satisfied with himself and everybody else into the bargain, and stood considerable quantities of spirits and water, negas and compounds for the use and behoof of two or three dozen very particular friends selected from the select circle of five and seventy pupils. Now, whether it was the strength of the compounds or the beauty of the ladies or what not, it did so happen that Mr. Augustus Cooper encouraged rather than repel the very flattering attentions of a young lady in brown gauze over white calico who had appeared particularly struck with him from the first, and when the encouragements had been prolonged for some time, Miss Belsmithie betrayed her spite and jealousy there at by calling the young lady in brown gauze a creature, which induced the young lady in brown gauze to retort, in certain sentences containing a taunt founding on the payment of four and six pence a quarter, which referenced Mr. Augustus Cooper being then in there and a stated considerable bewilderment expressed his entire concurrence in. Miss Belsmithie then renounced forthwith began screaming in the loudest key of her voice at the rate of fourteen screams a minute, and being unsuccessful in an onslaught on the eyes and face first of the lady in gauze and then of Mr. Augustus Cooper, called distractedly on the other three and seventy pupils to furnish her with oxalic acid for her own private drinking, and the call not being honoured made another rush at Mr. Cooper, and then had her stale lace cotton was carried off to bed. Mr. Augustus Cooper not being remarkable for quickness of apprehension was at all lost to understand what all this meant, until Senior Belsmithie explained it in a most satisfactory manner by stating to the pupils that Mr. Augustus Cooper had made and confirmed divers promises of marriage to his daughter on divers occasions, and had now basely deserted her on which the indignation of the pupils became universal, and as several chivalrous gentlemen inquired rather pressingly of Mr. Augustus Cooper whether he required anything for his own use, or in other words whether he wanted anything for himself, he deemed it prudent to make a precipitant retreat, and the upshot of the matter was that a lawyer's letter came next day and an action was commenced next week, and that Mr. Augustus Cooper, after walking twice to the serpentine for the purpose of drowning himself and coming twice back without doing it, made a confidant of his mother, who compromised the matter with twenty pounds from the till, which made twenty pounds for shillings and sixpence paid to Senior Belsmithie exclusive of treats and pumps. And Mr. Augustus Cooper went back and lived with his mother, and there he lives to this day, and as he has lost his ambition for society and never goes into the world, he will never see this account of himself, and will never be any the wiser. End Section 41. There are certain descriptions of people who, oddly enough, appear exclusively to the metropolis. You meet them every day in the streets of London, but no one ever encounters them elsewhere. They seem indigitous to the soil, and to belong as exclusively to London as its own smoke, or the dingy bricks and mortar. We could illustrate the remark by a variety of examples, but in our present sketch we will only advert to one class as a specimen, that class which is so aptly and expressively designated as Shabby Gentile. Now Shabby people, God knows, may be found anywhere, and Gentile people are not articles of greater scarcity out of London than in it. But this compound of the two, this Shabby Gentility, is as purely local as the statue at Charing Cross or the pump at Aldgate. It is worthy of remark, too, that only men are Shabby Gentile. A woman is always either dirty or slovenly in the extreme, or neat and respectable, however poverty-stricken in appearance. A very poor man, who has seen better days as the phrase goes, is a strange compound of dirty slovenliness and wretched attempts at faded smartness. We will endeavour to explain our conception of the term which forms the title of this paper. If you meet a man lounging up a jury lane, or leaning with his back against a post in Longacre, with his hands in the pockets of a pair of drab trousers plentifully besprinkled with grease-pots, the trousers made very full over the boots and ornamented with two cords down the outside of each leg, wearing also what has been a brown coat with bright buttons, and a hat very much pinched up at the side, cocked over his right eye, don't pity him. He is not Shabby Gentile. The harmonic meetings at some forth-rate public house, or the purlews of a private theatre, are his chosen haunts. He entertains a rooted antipathy to any kind of work, and is on familiar terms with several pantomime men at the large houses. But if you see hurrying along a by-street, keeping as close as he can to the area railings, a man of about forty or fifty, clad in an old rusty suit of thread-bear black cloth, which shines with constant wear as if it had been beeswaxed, the trousers tightly strapped down, partly for the look of the thing, and partly to keep his old shoes from slipping off at the heels, if you observe too that his yellowish white neckochiff is carefully pinned up to conceal the tattered garment underneath, and that his hands are encased in the remains of an old pair of beaver-gloves, you may set him down as a shabby Gentile man. A glance at that depressed face and timorous air of conscious poverty will make your heart ache, always supposing that you are neither a philosopher nor a political economist. We were once haunted by a shabby Gentile man. He was bodily present to our senses all day, and he was in our mind's eye all night. The man of whom Sir Walter Scott speaks in his demonology did not suffer half the persecution from his imaginary gentleman usher in black velvet that we sustained from our friend in quantum black cloth. He first attracted our notice by sitting opposite to us in the reading-room at the British Museum, and what made the man more remarkable was that he always had before him a couple of shabby Gentile books, two old dogs-eared folios in moldy, worm-eaten covers which had once been smart. He was in his chair every morning just as the clock struck ten. He was always the last to leave the room in the afternoon, and when he did he quitted it with the air of a man who knew not where else to go for warmth and quiet. There he used to sit all day as close to the table as possible in order to conceal the lack of buttons on his coat with his old hat carefully deposited at his feet, where he evidently flattered himself in escaped observation. About two o'clock you would see him munching a French roll or a penny-loaf, not taking it boldly out of his pocket at once like a man who knew he was only making a lunch, but breaking off little bits in his pocket and eating them by stealth. He knew too well it was his dinner. When we first saw this poor object we thought it quite impossible that his attire could ever become worse. We even went so far as to speculate on the possibility of his shortly appearing in a decent second-hand suit. We knew nothing about the matter. He grew more and more shabby gentile every day. The buttons dropped off his waistcoat one by one, then he buttoned his coat, and when one side of the coat was reduced to the same condition as the waistcoat he buttoned it over, on the other side. He looked somewhat better at the beginning of the week than at the conclusion, because the neckerchief, though yellow, was not quite so dingy, and in the midst of all this wretchedness he never appeared without gloves and straps. He remained in the state for a week or two. At length one of the buttons on the back of the coat fell off, and then the man himself disappeared, and we thought he was dead. We were sitting at the same table about a week after his disappearance, and as our eyes rested on his vacant chair we insensibly fell into a train of meditation on the subject of his retirement from public life. We were wondering whether he had hung himself or thrown himself off a bridge, whether he really was dead or had only been arrested, when our conjectures were suddenly set at rest by the entry of the man himself. He had undergone some strange metamorphosis and walked up the center of the room with an air which showed he was fully conscious of the improvement in his appearance. He was very odd. His clothes were a fine deep glossy black, and yet they looked like the same suit. Nay, there were the very darns with which old acquaintance had made us familiar. The hat, too, nobody could mistake the shape of that hat, with its high crown gradually increasing in circumference towards the top. Long service had imparted to it a reddish-brown tint, but now it was as black as the coat. The truth flashed suddenly upon us. They had been revived. It is a deceitful liquid, that black and blue reviver. We have watched its effects on many a shabby, genteel man. It portrays its victims into a temporary assumption of importance, possibly into the purchase of a new pair of gloves, or a cheap stock, or some other trifling article of dress. It elevates their spirits for a week, only to depress them if possible below their original level. It was so in this case the transient dignity of the unhappy man decreased in exact proportion as the reviver wore off. The knees of the unmentionables and the elbows of the coat and the seams generally soon began to get alarmingly white. The hat was once more deposited under the table, and its owner crept into his seat as quietly as ever. There was a week of incessant small rain and mist. At its expiration the reviver had entirely vanished, and the shabby, genteel man never afterwards attempted to effect any improvement in his outward appearance. It would be difficult to name any particular part of town as the principal resort of shabby, genteel men. We have met a great many persons of this description in the neighborhood of the Inns of Court. They may be met with in wholeburn between eight and ten any morning, and whoever has the curiosity to enter the unsolvent debtor's court will observe, both among spectators and practitioners, a great variety of them. We never went on change by any chance without seeing some shabby, genteel men, and we have often wondered what earthly business they can have there. They will set there for hours leaning on great dropsicle, mildewed umbrellas, or eating Abernethy biscuits. Nobody speaks to them nor they to any one. On consideration we remember to have occasionally seen two shabby, genteel men conversing together on change, but our experience assures us that this is an uncommon circumstance occasioned by the offer of a pinch of snuff or some such civility. It would be a task of equal difficulty either to assign any particular spot for the residents of these beings, or to endeavor to enumerate their general occupations. We were never engaged in business with more than one shabby, genteel man, and he was a drunken engraver and lived in a damp backpatter in a new row of houses at Camden Town, Half Street, Half Brickfield, somewhere near the canal. A shabby, genteel man may have no occupation, or he may be a corn agent, or a coal agent, or a wine merchant, or a collector of debts, or a broker's assistant, or a broken down attorney. He may be a clerk of the lowest description, or a contributor to the press of the same grade. Whether our readers have noticed these men in their walks as often as we have, we know not. This we know that the miserably poor man, no matter whether he owes his distresses to his own conduct or that of others, who feels his poverty and vainly strives to conceal it, is one of the most pitiful objects in human nature. Such objects, with few exceptions, are shabby, genteel people. Reading by Brad Philopone. Damon and Pythias were undoubtedly very good fellows in their way, the former for his extreme readiness to put in special bail for a friend, and the latter for a certain trump-like punctuality in turning up just in the very nick of time scarcely less remarkable. Many points in their character have, however, grown obsolete. Damon's are rather hard to find in these days of imprisonment for debt, except the sham ones, and they cost half a crown. And, as to the Pythias's, the few that have existed in these degenerate times have had an unfortunate lack of making themselves scarce at the very moment when their appearance would have been strictly classical. If the actions of these heroes, however, can find o' parallel in modern times, their friendship can. We have a Damon and Pythias on the one hand. We have Potter and Smithers on the other. Unless the two last mentioned names should never have reached the ears of our unenlightened readers, we can do no better than make them acquainted with the owners thereof. Mr. Thomas Potter, then, was a clerk of the city, and Mr. Robert Smithers was a ditto in the same. Their incomes were limited, but their friendship was unbounded. They lived in the same street, walked into town every morning at the same hour, dined at the same slap-bang every day, and reveled in each other's company very night. They were knit together by the closest ties of intimacy and friendship. Or, as Mr. Thomas Potter touchingly observed, they were thick and thin piles and nothing but it. There was a spice of romance in Mr. Smithers' disposition, a ray of poetry, a gleam of misery, a sort of consciousness of he didn't exactly know what, coming across him he didn't precisely know why, which stood out in fine relief against the offhand dashing amateur pickpocket sort of matter which distinguished Mr. Potter in an eminent degree. The peculiarity of their respective dispositions extended itself to their individual costume. Mr. Smithers generally appeared in public in a sertote and shoes, with a narrow black neckerchief and a brown hat very much turned up at the sides, peculiarities which Mr. Potter wholly eschewed, for it was his ambition to do something in the celebrated kitty or stage-coach way, and he had even gone so far as to invest capital in the purchase of a rough blue coat with wooden buttons made upon the fireman's principle, in which, with the addition of a low-crowned, flower-pot saucer-shaped hat, he had created no inconsiderable sensation at the Albion in Little Russell Street and divers other places of public and fashionable resort. Mr. Potter and Mr. Smithers had mutually agreed that on the receipt of their quarter salary they would jointly and in company spend the evening an evident misnomer, the spending applying, as everybody knows, not to the evening itself, but to all the money the individual made chance to be possessed of, on the occasion to which references made, and they had likewise agreed that on the evening foresaid they would make a night of it, an expressive term, implying the borrowing of several hours from to-morrow morning, adding them to the night before, and manufacturing a compound night of the whole. The quarter-day arrived at last, we say at last, because quarter-days aren't as eccentric as comets, moving wonderfully quick when you have a good deal to pay and marvellously slow when you have a little to receive. Mr. Thomas Potter and Mr. Robert Smithers met by appointment to begin the evening with a dinner, and a nice snug, comfortable dinner they had, consisting of a little procession of four chops and four kidneys following each other, supported on either side by a pot of the real draught stout, and attended by divers cushions of bread and wedges of cheese. When the cloth was removed, Mr. Thomas Potter ordered the waiter to bring in two goes of his best scotch whiskey with warm water and sugar, and a couple of his very mildest Havana's, which the waiter did. Mr. Thomas Potter mixed his grog and lighted his cigar. Mr. Robert Smithers did the same. And then Mr. Thomas Potter jocularly proposed, as the first toast, the abolition of all offices whatever—not sinecures, but counting houses—which was immediately drunk by Mr. Robert Smithers with enthusiastic applause. So they went on, talking politics, puffing cigars, and sipping whiskey and water, until the goes, most appropriately so called, were both gone, which Mr. Robert Smithers, perceiving immediately ordered in two more goes of the best scotch whiskey, and two more of the very mildest Havana's, and the goes kept coming in, and the mild Havana's kept going out, until what with the drinking, and lighting, and puffing, and the stale ashes on the table, and the tallow grease on the cigars, Mr. Robert Smithers began to doubt the mildest of the Havana's, and to feel very much as if he had been sitting in a hackney-coach with his back to the horses. As to Mr. Thomas Potter, he would keep laughing out loud, and volunteering in articulate declarations that he was all right, in proof of which he feebly bespoke the evening paper after the next gentleman, but finding it a matter of some difficulty to discover any news in its columns, or to ascertain distinctly whether it had any columns at all, walked slowly out to look for the moon, and after coming back quite pale with looking up at the sky so long, and attempting to express mirth at Mr. Robert Smithers having fallen asleep by various galvanic chuckles, laid his head on his arm, and went to sleep also. When he awoke again, Mr. Robert Smithers awoke too, and they both very gravely agreed that it was extremely unwise to eat so many pickled walnuts with the chops, as it was a notorious fact that they always made people queer and sleepy. Indeed, if it had not been for the whisk and cigars, there was no knowing what harm they mightn't have done them. So they took some coffee, and after paying the bill, twelve entopments for the dinner, and the odd tempings for the waiter, thirteen shillings and all, started out on their expedition to manufacture a night. It was just half-past eight, so they thought they couldn't do better than to go at half-price to the slips at the City Theatre, which they did accordingly. Mr. Robert Smithers, who had become extremely poetical after the settlement of the bill, enlivened the walk by informing Mr. Thomas Potter in confidence that he felt an inward presentment of approaching dissolution and subsequently embellishing the theatre by falling asleep with his head and both arms gracefully drooping over the front of the boxes. Such was the quiet demeanor of the unassuming Smithers, and such were the happy effects of Scotch whisky and Havana's on that interesting person. But Mr. Thomas Potter, whose great aim it was to be considered as a knowing card, a fast goer, and so forth, conducted himself in a very different manner and commenced going very fast indeed, rather too fast at last, for the patience of the audience to keep pace with him. On his first entry he contented himself by earnestly calling upon the gentleman in the gallery to flare up, accompanying the demand with another request, expressive of his wish that they would instantaneously form a union, both which requisitions were responded to in the manner most in vogue on such occasions. Give that dog a bone! cried one gentleman in his shirtsleeves. Where have you all been a-having half a pint of intermediate beer? cried a second. Taylor screamed a third. Barbers' clock shouted a fourth. Throw him over! roared a fifth, while numerous voices concurred in desiring Mr. Thomas Potter to go home to his mother. All these taunts Mr. Thomas Potter received, with supreme contempt, caulking the low-crowned hat a little more on one side whenever any reference was made to his personal appearance, and standing up with his arms akimbo expressing defiance melodramatically. The overture, to which these various sounds had been an ab-libitum accompaniment, concluded the second piece began, and Mr. Thomas Potter, emboldened by impunity, proceeded to behave in a most unprecedented and outrageous manner. First of all, he imitated the shake of the principal female singer, then groaned at the blue fire, then affected to be frightened into convulsions of terror at the appearance of the ghost, and lastly not only made a running commentary in an audible voice upon the dialogue on the stage, but actually awoke Mr. Robert Smithers, who hearing his companion making a noise and having a very indistinct notion where he was, or what was required of him, immediately, by way of imitating a good example, set up the most unearthly, unremitting and appalling howling that ever audience heard. It was too much. Turn them out, was the general cry. A noise as of shuffling of feet and men being knocked up with violence against wainscotting was heard. A hurried dialogue of, come out, I won't, you shall, I shan't, give me your cards, sir, your escoundrel, sir, and so forth succeeded. A round of applause betoken the approbation of the audience, and Mr. Robert Smithers and Mr. Thomas Potter found themselves shot with astonishing swiftness into the road, without having had the trouble of once putting foot on the ground during the whole progress of their rapid descent. Mr. Robert Smithers being constitutionally one of the slow-goers, and having had quite enough of fast-going in the course of his recent expulsion, to last until the quarter-day, then next ensuing at the very least, had no sooner emerged with his companion from the precincts of Milton Street than he proceeded to indulge in circuitous references to the beauties of sleep, mingled with distant illusions to the propriety of returning to Islington, and testing the influence of their patient bramas over the street's door locks to which they respectively belonged. Mr. Thomas Potter, however, was valorous and peremptory. They had come out to make a night of it, and a night must be made, so Mr. Robert Smithers, who was three parts dull and the other dismal, despairingly assented, and they went into a wine vault to get materials for assisting them in making a night, where they found a good many young ladies and various old gentlemen, and a plentiful sprinkling of hackney-coachmen and cab-drivers, all drinking and talking together. And Mr. Thomas Potter and Mr. Robert Smithers drank small glasses of brandy and large glasses of soda, until they began to have a very confused idea, either of things in general, or of anything in particular. And when they had done treating themselves, they began to treat everybody else, and the rest of the entertainment was a confused mixture of heads and heels, black eyes and blue uniforms, mud and gas lights, thick doors and stone paving. Then, as standard novelists expressively inform us, all was a blank, and in the morning the blank was filled up with the words Station House, and the Station House was filled up with Mr. Thomas Potter, Mr. Robert Smithers, and the major part of their wine vault companions of the preceding night, with a comparatively small portion of clothing of any kind. And it was disclosed, at the police office, to the indignation of the bench, and the astonishment of the spectators, how one Robert Smithers, aided and abetted by one Thomas Potter, had knocked down and beaten in diverse streets at different times, five men, four boys, and three women, how the said Thomas Potter had feloniously obtained possession of five door-knockers, two bell-handles, and a bonnet. How Robert Smithers, his friend, had sworn at least forty pounds worth of oaths, at the rate of five shillings apiece, terrified whole streets full of Her Majesty's subjects with awful streaks and alarms of fire, destroyed the uniforms of five policemen, and committed various other atrocities too numerous to recapitulate. And the magistrate, after an appropriate reprimand, fined Mr. Thomas Potter and Mr. Thomas Smithers, five shillings each, for being what the law vulgarly terms, drunk, and thirty-four pounds for seventeen assaults at forty shillings ahead, with liberty to speak to the prosecutors. The prosecutors were spoken to, and Mr. Potter and Smithers lived on credit for a quarter as best they might, and, although the prosecutors expressed their readiness to be assaulted twice a week on the same terms, they have never since been detected in making a night of it. We waited two, a few minutes, but nothing occurred. So, we turned round to an unshorn, sallow-looking cobbler, and, after a few minutes, we turned up the street. There were thirty or forty people standing on the pavement and half across the road, and a few stragglers were patiently stationed on the opposite side of the way, all evidently waiting in expectation of some arrival. We waited two, a few minutes, but nothing occurred. Mr. Potter and Smithers were looking cobbler, who was standing next to us with his hands under the bib of his apron, and put the usual question of, what's the matter? The cobbler eyed us, from head to foot, with superlative contempt, and iconically replied, nothing. Now, we were perfectly aware that if two men stopped in the street to look at any given object, or even to gaze in the air, two hundred men would be assembled in no time. But as we knew very well that no crowd of people could buy possibility of remaining in the street for five minutes, without getting up a little amusement among themselves, unless they had some absorbing object in view, the natural inquiry next in order was, what are all these people waiting here for? Her Majesty's carriage, replied the cobbler. This was still more extraordinary. We could not imagine what earthly business Her Majesty's carriage could have at the public office, Bow Street. We were beginning to ruminate on the possible causes of such an uncommon appearance, when a general exclamation from all the boys in the crowd of, here's the one, caused us to raise our heads and look up the street. The covered vehicle in which prisoners are conveyed from the police offices to the different prisons, was coming along at full speed. It then occurred to us for the first time that Her Majesty's carriage was merely another name for the prisoner's van, conferred upon it not only by reason of the superior gentility of the term, but because the aforesaid van is maintained at Her Majesty's expense, having been originally started for the exclusive accommodation of ladies and gentlemen under the necessity of visiting the various houses of call known by the general denomination of Her Majesty's jails. The van drew up at the office door, and the people thronged to round the steps, just leaving a little alley for the prisoners to pass through. Our friend the cobbler and the other stragglers crossed over, and we followed their example. The driver and another man who had been seated by his side in front of the vehicle dismounted and were admitted into the office. The office door was closed after them, and the crowd were on the tiptoe of expectation. After a few minutes delay the door again opened, and the first two prisoners appeared. They were a couple of girls of whom the elder could not be more than sixteen, and the younger of whom had certainly not attained her fourteenth year. That they were sisters was evident from the resemblance which still subsisted between them, though two additional years of depravity had fixed their brand upon the elder girl's features as legibly as if a red-hot iron had seared them. They were godly dressed, the younger one especially, and although there was a strong similarity between them in both respects, which was rendered the more obvious by their being handcuffed together, it is impossible to conceive a greater contrast than the demeanor of the two presented. The younger girl was weeping bitterly, not for display or in the hope of producing effect, but for very shame. Her face was buried in her handkerchief, and her whole manner was but too expressive of bitter and unavailing sorrow. How long are you for, Emily? screamed a red-faced woman in the crowd. Six weeks and labour replied the elder girl with a flaunting laugh, and that's better than the stone jog anyhow. The mills are deal'd better than the sessions, and here's Bella a-going too for the first time. Hold up your head, you chicken! she continued, boisterously tearing the other girl's handkerchief away. Hold up your head and show me your face, I ain't jealous, but I'm blessed if I ain't game. That's right, old gal, exclaimed a man at a paper cap, who, in common with the greater part of the crowd, had been inexpressably delighted with this little incident. Right, replied the girl, ah, to be sure. What's the odds, eh? Come in with you, interrupted the driver. Don't you be in a hurry, couchman, replied the girl, and recollect I want to be sent down in cold bath fields, large house with a high garden wall and front, you can't mistake it. Hello? Bella, where are you going to? He'll pull my precious arm off. This was addressed to the younger girl, who, in her anxiety to hide herself in the caravan, had ascended the steps first and forgotten the strain upon the handcuff. Come down, let's show you the way, and after jerking the miserable girl down with a force which made her stagger on the pavement, she got into the vehicle and was followed by her wretched companion. These two girls had been thrown upon London streets, their vices and debauchery, by a sordid and rapacious mother. What the younger girl was then, the elder had been once, and what the elder then was the younger must soon become. A melancholy prospect, but how surely to be realized. A tragic drama, but how often acted. Turn to the prisons and police offices of London. Nay, look into the very streets themselves. These things pass before our eyes day after day and hour after hour. They have become such matters, of course, that they are utterly disregarded. The progress of these girls in crime will be as rapid as the flight of a pestilence, resembling it too in its baneful influence and wide-spreading infection. Step by step, how many wretched females within the sphere of every man's observation have become involved in a career of vice frightful to contemplate, hopeless at its commencement, loathsome and repulsive in its course, friendless forlorn and unpityed at its miserable conclusion. There were other prisoners, boys of ten, as hardened in vice as men of fifty, a houseless, vagrant, going joyfully to prison as a place of food and shelter, handcuffed to a man whose prospects were ruined, character lost, and family rendered destitute by his first offense. Our curiosity, however, was satisfied. The first group had left an impression on our mind we would gladly have avoided and would willingly have effaced. The crowd dispersed. The vehicle rolled away with its load of guilt and misfortune, and we saw no more of the prisoner's van.