Pugg's Portmanteau

by DM Bryan

  The bookseller gently resettled the Hogarth print into its drawer. When it was safely to bed, he turned back to us, saying, “The Overtons have Kirkall’s mezzotints for fifteen shillings. They also have a set of their own for six. But that last is not exactly Hogarth’s own Harlot, and it is on very inferior paper.”

  He watched us as he spoke. This constant assessment of a customer’s purse was surely part of his bookseller’s trade, and he must name sums and examine faces, just as my mistress and I had already noted the grime on the pockets of his coat and the unwashed condition of his ruffles. We three sized each other in the space of that shop, coming to our different judgements.

  “Well then,” he said at last, “if neither the Overtons nor Kirkall will do, you’ll want King’s copies.” Here, his voice took on a plangent tone. “King, that black-hearted villain.”

  “Is Mr. King not honest then?” my mistress said.

  “Honest,” said he, making a face, “I’m sure he is honest—that is not his failing. Rather, he is too nice.”

  “What do you mean?” asked my mistress. “How is he too nice?”

  “It’s all in the broadsheets, madam. King dares to advertise with Mr. Hogarth’s name. He says his prints are “copied from the originals” and baldly adds “by permission,” which is a blessing neither Kirkall nor the Overtons possess. The distinction is too nice, you see, for King leaves the rest of us somewhat … exposed in this matter of obtaining the artist’s agreement to make copies.” The gentleman snorted expressively. “And then, to add insult to injury, he sells the whole for a miserly four shillings. I can never compete with such a price, even if I were to set an apprentice to duplicate Hogarth’s work.”

  “Four shillings,” I said. Still a fearsome price, sister.

  “Only four shillings, my dear, but imagine, Mr. King puts three of Mr. Hogarth’s pictures to a page. Three to a page, while the good Mr. Kirkall prints one per page, and he uses green ink. The Bowles brothers’ copies are splendid, but now all the world will suppose the Bowles’ prints to be inferior to those Mr. King makes by permission. It quite makes my head itch.”

  And astonishingly enough the gentleman lifted his wig again and gave it a good scratch. Indeed, he seemed distracted and had clearly forgotten what kind of company he entertained in that cramped, book-lined room. He rasped at his shaved hairs with his nails and then crammed his wig back on his reddened scalp. “Good God,” he said, “selling paper is no business for a man of honour.”

  I wanted to ask him, sister, if he meant to bemoan a lack of honour in his trade or if he were justifying it, but I did not think the question would receive an honest answer.

  “Is business as bad as that?” said my mistress in a kind voice and touching her gloved fingers to his arm.

  The bookselling gentleman sighed deeply. “You have no idea, madam,” said he.

  My mistress, who understood questions of business very well, only winked at me. “Mr. Hogarth’s Harlot seems to sell very well indeed,” she said.

  “It is true, a general desire for Mr. Hogarth’s recent work spreads like the pox. Alas, securing copies grows as chancy as printing them oneself. No, Mr. Hogarth and Mr. King will soon be the only legal source of that popular work. Did you know, the fellow pushes forward a law so that no honest man can engrave—at his own expense, mind—a popular work for sale? He interferes with every seller’s enterprise. With no freedom to copy, men of business such as myself have no way to increase the store of goods and so satisfy a discerning public, such as you yourselves represent. The effect will be a suppression of trade, a rising of prices, and the end to all prosperity. The Overtons and the Bowles brothers will be clapped in Newgate, and I am sure to end up in the Fleet for my debts.”

  “There, there,” said my mistress, but the bookselling gentleman had exhausted his last ounce of vitality and set his arms against the slope of his desk, his head in his hands.

  My mistress and I thought it best to take our leave of him then. I would have liked to purchase a book to console him, but my purse forbade what my benevolence urged, and so we departed the shop in silence. Out in the street, the cries of chairmen seeking custom and the feathers of dust from horses’ hooves were enough to stun our senses for a moment or two. Hardly had we began to walk back up Pater Noster Row in the direction of home when my mistress stopped me. “Betty,” says she, “I feel very well today, and would not be turned away from our purpose so easily. I understand from the sad gentleman we have just left that there are other print shops in the city of London.”

  “There are, mistress,” said I. “In London and in Westminster besides.”

  “Surely, we needn’t go so far as that.”

  Truth be told, we needn’t go any distance at all. An astonishing number of book and printsellers sprouted in the fairy ring of St. Paul’s. Paper, bound and unbound, flourished here, quires and folios sprouting in the hallowed soil. But I knew my mistress wanted some more particular intelligence.

  “Mistress, I listened carefully to the discourse of the print-selling gentleman. Not far from here is the alley that will put us in the way of the Bowles’ print shop—although, I am not certain we will be welcome there. Such august gentlemen may not, I fear, ’grave for laundresses.”

  “Whether the Bowles make pictures for ladies or laundresses cannot matter much, my dear, if they do not make ’em for a great deal less than four shillings—what a fearsome price that is. But do not fret so, Mrs. Betty, I have a mind to behold the fine goods on offer in the brothers’ window. Or if Mr. Hogarth’s Harlot stands not behind glass, it costs nothing to enter a shop. We may not have so many guineas in our purses, but we can trust to our neat skirts and our clean hands. After all, this is London, Mrs. Betty, where every mercer and hat maker displays his wares for all to see. Even a beggar may gaze for nothing.”

  “This is indeed London,” said I, cheered by her good sense.

  Now we were passing through the alley, which stank of urine but which showed a strip of bluing overhead. A few more steps and the white bulge of the cathedral hove into view. In another moment we came upon St. Paul’s itself, so like a kitchen sideboard, awaiting only cups and saucers to complete the resemblance. We began to circumnavigate the churchyard until I came upon a name painted upon a wooden signpost. I held up my hand to alert my mistress and together we stood in front of the window.

  So it was in the Bowles brothers’ glassed-in shop-front that we finally found the whole of the Harlot. Not the wanton lady herself but a carefully lettered sign advertising her presence. Interested parties were urged to inquire within. I read the notice to my mistress, and then we both stood in silence. I looked at the volumes in that window and saw bindings bloody as a calf’s liver and pages the yellow of fresh cream. Books to sink your teeth into. Books that might bite back. They lay on a rich cloth that glistened in the sun.

  “Velvet,” I said.

  “Velveteen,” said my mistress and opened the door.

  Inside their light-filled shop, as wintergreen as the Thames in January, the Bowles brothers entertained such a crowd as could only gather in this fair city. I saw so many persons that I never learned which, if any, of the coated backs belonged to a Bowles. Prints here did not reside in drawers but filled a single wall, hanging rank upon rank and rising to the ceiling. Before this splendid display stood a crowd of black, brown, and blue coats, jostling for space with fine capes of satin and calash-bonnets lined in coloured silk. A curly, long-eared dog sat by his mistress’ feet, sniffing cautiously at the white stockings of the gentleman beside her. All else was stiff spines, and sloped shoulders, and wigs rising high. Roaring conversation seemed the order of the day, and the whole place was as loud as a playhouse gallery.

  We tucked ourselves in behind this jumble and lifted our eyes heavenward. As we stared, our necks began to ache and our eyes stung at the acrid odour of so many bodies pressed together. Sister
, despite our discomfort, my mistress and I pushed forward, until we found ourselves before Mr. Hogarth’s print series, a single row on a wall equally busy with framed squares. Those pictures were hung so high on the wall, we recommenced our squinting in an effort to bring the contents closer. The Bowles brothers knew what they were about: like a good bawd they put their Harlot on display but left the fullest discovery of her charms to those with a purse full of coins.

  The first of the series, the one Justice Gonson flashed at us, I could make out with tolerable ease because I already knew what it contained. The other five prints showed a pleasing array of shades, as balanced as a well-designed brocade. Upon examination, I could make out the person of the harlot in each print, but never her pretty face, which I remembered from before. Nor could I perceive any of the other details that were so discussed in drawing rooms and garrets alike.

  “Can you see the figure of Justice Gonson?” my mistress asked me, coming close so that I might hear her.

  The din of conversation threatened to drown out my answer. “Is that him, joined to the harlot with a splash of bare page?”

  “That cannot be him, for I have heard he appears in the third print.”

  I counted with my finger and gave that picture a hard stare. “Do I see a figure in the doorway?”

  “I see no doorway. Where is the doorway?”

  A great deal more of this useless discourse we had, sister, and I will not tire us both with an account of the whole. Suffice it to say that by the end my mistress and I were no wiser than we had been, only buffeted on all sides, our toes stepped upon repeatedly.

  “I do not find Mr. Hogarth’s work half as improving as claimed,” said I to my mistress as we pushed to exit the crowd. “My eyesight is a great deal the worse for having been strained, and my patience has been tried and found wanting.”

  “Ha ha,” said a fellow at my elbow, surprising me more than a little, for such was the babble I did not imagine we might be overheard. Now sister, do not suppose I mistake my transcription of the fellow’s speech, for you know the Bread Street school taught us to write plainly and clearly. The person I write of did not laugh; he said, “Ha ha.” I thought it odd, for what kind of a man says, “Ha ha” when he means to laugh? Well, I’ll tell you what sort of man: he was neither tall nor short, but he wore a tan coat with gilt braid come down in the world. His wig belonged to another and so did his shoes, and yet he assumed an air of importance, as if he were someone in the world. I did not reply to his “Ha ha,” but neither did I snub him as I ought to have done—I rather hoped he might be a Bowles brother.

  He was not, as you will have foreseen, Sadie—you always were the cleverer one—but he was a printseller. Or at least, he sold prints.

  “Pardon me, madam,” he said before I could object, “but I have within my means a scheme,” and here he paused in order to locate the right word, “by which you might secure yourself an entirely satisfactory copy of Mr. Hogarth’s very moral series of prints.”

  “You are Mr. Bowles?” said I, undone by his confident way of speaking.

  “I am. Not,” he said. “But if you would rather do your business with a Bowles.” And here he broke off speaking to put his fingers in the air, as if hailing a brother.

  “No, no,” said I, “I would rather not speak with a Bowles, sir. Pray, put down your hand.”

  He put down his hand and looked at me seriously. He seemed to have done me a kindness, although I could not have said exactly what. I said, “I fear the price of the prints is not within my means, sir.” This day seemed to have been about money in different guises. A golden guinea, fifteen silver shillings, six, or even four tarnished moons floated impossibly in my mind.

  “My price,” said the man in the tan coat, “is not the Bowles’ price. My shop, madam, is just outside. Won’t you step this way and see?” And now he gestured at the door, addressing my mistress.

  What a very long letter this has become, Sadie, and by now you will have guessed the end of it all. In short, we were tempted and so stepped out of the neat, crowded shop into the street. After all—as my mistress whispered to me—the stranger couldn’t very well murder us there, in the shadow of great St. Paul’s. We left behind the genteel ladies with their lapdogs, the well-dressed gentlemen in their shining boots, and we followed the man in the tan-coloured coat. Once outside, he led us only a few steps to his shop, but when we got there we found no rooms—only a ragged cloth on the ground, spread with used books.

  A boy kept watch over the books but hopped a few cautious steps away when he saw his master approaching. “No, no, no,” I said, for how could Hogarth’s Harlot be spread out upon a length of homespun stuff? It was in just such a manner that I bought our Moll Flanders in the days when you still lived with me, sister. Yellow, dog-eared Moll made an old book even before we pawed though its ragged pages—newer, crisper goods would never be sold thus. But I was wrong.

  The gentleman opened a box that had served as the boy’s seat. Inside I spied a pile of pamphlets, unbound and cheaply printed, pages flap-cornered, torn, and creased. One of these third-hand wonders the man in the tan coat had already in his hands. He closed the lid of the box, and seating himself upon it, he motioned us closer, holding out his offering.

  Sadie, I was astonished. Having only just left off squinting at the Harlot upon the Bowles’ wall, I could see at once that she likewise graced the cover of this work. It showed the very same unwise Miss meeting the dissembling Baud in the stableyard of our own Bell Inn. But when I took the bundle of pages into my own hands, I could feel that I held many pages, not six.

  “What is this, sir?” I asked, lifting the first page.

  Our new companion said, “What is it, she wants to know. Why, it is no more than a very fine emulation of Mr. Hogarth’s work, much added to and improved upon. To be sure, it is a privilege to be copied as Mr. Hogarth is.”

  I scanned the title upon the page: The Harlot’s Progress: Or, the Humours of Drury Lane. “And the six hudibrastick cantos?” said I, reading the next part out loud, “What’s that, when it’s at home?”

  “That is a superior kind of writing that the gentry and the fine folk like best,” said the other. “They all read it,” he added, perhaps noting perplexity on my face.

  I didn’t care about the cantos, which I imagined must be some manner of versification, but saw, writ below, these words: With a curious Print to each Canto. Now I had no interest in how poesy dressed itself but wanted only to ruffle the layers, looking for what lay beneath. Between pages eight and nine, I discovered one of the curious prints of the title: a full copy of the Harlot’s arrival at the Bell Inn, complete with York Wagon and toppling buckets.

  “The picture is the same,” said my mistress.

  “Why so it is,” said I, and continued turning pages. Between leaf twenty-four and twenty-five, I discovered the next print and learned that the oblong of bare page that had so puzzled my mistress and me was a tea table. It connected the harlot with a gentleman, customer to that lady’s particular trade. Ten or so pages later, we found Justice Gonson, arriving dimly by the door of a chamber that contains the harlot and her companion.

  “ ’Tis him,” said my mistress, very quietly.

  I turned back to the bottom of the first printed page, where I saw a price. Two shillings.

  I sighed and said, “Now that I see Mr. Hogarth’s work,” said I, “I do not know that I desire it so very much after all. It does not seem remarkably moral to me, and I do not like this lady’s way of life.”

  You know my method of doing marketing, Sadie, and you will guess at once I have never wanted to make a purchase so badly.

  “The verse explains the moral parts—you must read to be improved,” said the tan-coated man, with a sour look on his face.

  “Verse,” I said. “Oh, verse. What am I to do with verse?” I stuck out my hip and stood like a laundress,
lacking only the basket of linens to make me one of the Cryes of the City of London. But I kept the book in my hands.

  The man said, “The prints are graved from the originals. It says so on the front.”

  “So says Mr. Kirkall and the Overtons,” said I, meeting his eye very boldly. “But not everything said is true.” Silently, I thanked the Pater Noster Lane bookman for his tutorage.

  “Then don’t buy,” said my opponent. He put out his hands for the book, which I still held. I looked along the churchyard, and the boy came closer and stood near us. He looked fast, and even if I were fleet of foot, my mistress was fat and puffed when she waddled. We would not get far before the boy caught us with our booty.

  “The tableau is stiff and the line constrained,” said I, a little desperately.

  “Ha ha,” said the man in the tan-coloured coat. It did not mean the same as before.

  “Tuppence,” said I. “It’s all I have.”

  Sister, I had rather more than that, but it’s not a lie if it’s bargaining.

  The man attempted but appeared to swallow another ha ha. He waved his hands at my book. “Never,” said he. “Give me back my merchandise. You rob me. The price is a shilling.”

  “A shilling?” said I, pretending to almost swoon away. “I cannot pay that.”

  “Then don’t,” said my opponent.

  “I do not want the book,” said my mistress, “but I will add another tuppence to the price. A foolish act, for I am a poor woman, but I love her dearly.” And here she beamed upon me as if she truly were my mother.

  In answer, the man held out his hands. I placed the book in them, but I did not let go.

  “Another penny then,” I said, forcing a tear to my eye. “God knows how I will eat.”

  The man set his thumbs firmly on the cover of The Harlot’s Progress: Or, the Humours of Drury Lane. “Sixpence,” he said. “Or it is my motherless children who will starve.”

  A tanner. I was certain we’d found his true price. I looked at my mistress, and she nodded, untying her skirts and taking out a time-blacked coin. I felt the book slide into my hands, even as the man took the money and held it up to check for clipping. Satisfied, he said, “You got a bargain there, you did. If you’d bought that off Mrs. Dod over by Temple-bar you’d have paid the two shillings or be withered at a glance. But she’s above doing business with ladies what have white hands and red knuckles, and I’m happy to make everybody a fair price. Now, ladies, I’ve other items just as delicious as this Harlot.”