by R S Surtees
When the laughter subsided, Ben was unanimously requested to continue his narrative.
“And what did the old gent say about you?” asked Sam, expecting to hear that Ben got a good thrashing for his dirty, disrespectful conduct.
“O, why,” replied Ben, considering— “O, why, arter he had got all quiet again, and his wipe put back into his pocket, he began handlin’ and lookin’ at me, and then, arter a good examination, he says to Martin, quite consequential-like—’’Ow old’s the rogue?’
“Now Martin know’d no more about me than I know’d about Martin; but knowin’ the h’age that Jorrocks wanted a bye of, why, in course, he said I was just of that age, and knowin’ that I should get a precious good hiding for spittin’ in the old covey’s ‘and, if I staid at the Corderoy’s, why I swore that I was uncommon fond of ‘osses, and gigs, and ‘arness, and such like, and after the old file had felt me well about the neck, for he had an ide that if a bye’s big in the neck in course o’ time he’ll get big all over, he took me away, promising Martin the two quarterages our old gal had run in arrear for my larning — though hang me I never got none — out o’ my wage, and would ye believe it, the old gudgeon kept me goin’ on from quarter to quarter, for I don’t know ’ow many quarters, sayin’ he hadn’t viped off the old score for my schoolin’, just as if I had any business to pay it; at last, one day as I was a rubbin’ down the chesnut ‘oss as he sold to the chap in Tooley Street, he comes into the stable, full of pride, and I thought rather muzzy, for he bumped first agin one stall and then agin another, so says I to him, says I, ‘Please, sir, I vants for to go to the Vells this evening.’
“‘To the Vells!’ repeated he, staring with astonishment— ‘To the Vells! — Wot Vells?’
“‘Bagnigge!’ said I, and that’s a place, Mr. Baconface,” observed Ben, turning to Samuel Strong, “that you shouldn’t be hung without seeing — skittles, bowls, stalls all around the garding, like stables for ‘osses, where parties take their tea and XX — all painted sky-blue with red pannels — gals in shiny vite gowns and short sleeves, bare down the neck, singing behind the h’organ with h’ostrich feathers in their ‘eads — all beautiful — admission tup-pence — a game at skittles for a penna — and every thing elegant and quite genteel — musn’t go in that queer coat of yours though, or they’d take you for a Bedlamite, and may be send you to the hulks — queer chaps the Londoners — Once knowd a feller, quite as queer a lookin’ dog as you, barrin’ his nose, which was a bit better, and not so red. Well, he had a rummish cove of a governor, who clapt him into a nut-brown suit, with bright basket buttons, and a glazed castor, with a broad welwet band ‘all round his ‘at,’ and as he was a mizzlin’ along Gower Street, where his master had just come to live from over t’other side of the vater, vot should he meet, but one of the new polish (police), who seeing such a h’object, insisted he was mad; and nothin’ would sarve him, but that he was mad; and avay he took him to the station ‘ouse, and from thence, afore the beak, at Bow Street, and nothin’ but a sendin’ for the master to swear that they were his clothes, and that he considered them livery, saved the fellow from transportation, for if he’d stolen the clothes he couldn’t have been more galvanised than when the new polish grabbed him.
“Well, but that isn’t what I was a goin’ to tell you about. Blow these boots,” said he, stooping down and turning them again, “they never are goin’ for to dry. Might as well have walked through the Serpentine in them. I was goin’ to tell you of the flare-up the old ‘un and I had about the Vells. ‘Well,’ says I to him, says I, ‘I vants for to go to the Vells.’
“‘Vot Vells?’ said he.
“‘Bagnigge,’ says I. ‘Bagnigge be d — d,’ said he, — no he didn’t say, ‘be d — d,’ for the old ‘un never swears except he’s h’outrageously h’angry. But, howsomever, he said, I shouldn’t go to the Vells, for as ’ow, Mrs. Muffin, and the seven Miss Muffins, from Primrose Hill, were comin’ to take their scald with him that evening, and he vanted me to carry the h’urn, while Batsey buttered and ‘anded round the bread.
“‘Well,’ but says I to him, says I, ‘that don’t h’argufy. If I’m a grum, I’m a grum, if I’m a butler, I’m a butler, but it’s out of all conscience and calkilation expectin’ a man to be both grum and butler. Here ‘ave I been a cleanin’ your useless screws of hosses, and weshing your hugly chay till I’m fit to faint, in h’order that I might have a night of enjoyment to myself, and then you wants me to carry vater to your nasty old boiler. A man should have double wage, ‘stead of none at all, to stand such vork.’
“‘‘Ow do you mean none at all?’ said he, grinnin’ with anger, ‘dosn’t I pay your old mother a sovereign annually four times a-year?’
“Vot’s that to me?’ said I, ‘my mother don’t do your work does she?’
“‘Dash my vig!’ said he, gettin’ into a reglar blaze. ‘You little ungrateful ‘ound, I’ll drown you in a bucket of barley water,’ and so we got on from had to worse, until he swore he’d start me, and get another bouy from the Corderoy’s.
“‘Quite unanimous,’ said I, ‘quite unanimous, in course you’ll pay up my wages afore I go, and that will save me the trouble of taking of you to Hicks Hall.’ At the werry word, ‘Hicks Hall,’ the old gander turned quite green and began to soften. ‘Now, Binjimin,’ said he, ‘that’s werry unkind o’ you. If you had the Hen and Chickens comin’ to take their pumpaginous aqua (which he says is French for tea and coffee) with you, and you wanted your boiler carried, you’d think it werry unkind of Batsey if she wouldn’t give you a lift?’ Then he read a long lector about doing as one would be done by, and all that sort of gammon that Martin used to cram us with of a Sunday. Till at last it ended in his givin’ me a half-crown to do what he wanted, on the understandin’ that it was none of my vork, and I says that a chap wot does everything he’s bid, like that suckin’ Sampson there,” eyeing Samuel Strong with the most ineffable contempt, “is only fit to be a tinker’s jack-ass.” Samuel looked as though he would annihilate the boy as soon as he made up his mind where to hit him, and Benjamin, unconscious of all danger, stooped, and gave the eternal tops another turn.
“We never heard nothin’ of your comin’ until three days afore you cast up,” observed Bill Brown, with a broad grin on his countenance at Benjamin’s audacity and Samuel’s anger.
“It wern’t werry likely that you should,” replied Benjamin, looking up, “for as ’ow we hadn’t got our own consent much afore that. Our old cove is a reg’lar word-and-a-blow man. If he does, he does, and if he don’t, why he lets it alone. Give the old ‘un his due, he’s none o’ your talkin’ chaps, wot’s always for doin’ somethin’, only they don’t. He never promised me a cow-hidin’ yet, but he paid it with interest. As soon as ever he got the first letter, I know’d there was somethin’ good in the wind; for he gave me half a pot of his best marmeylad, and then a few days after he chucked me a golden sovereign, tellin’ me, go and buy a pair of new tops, or as near new as I could get them for the money.”
“And what did you pay for them?” inquired both post-boys at once, for the price of top-boots is always an interesting subject to a stable-servant.
“Guess!” replied Benjamin, holding them up, adding, “mind, they are nothing like now what they were when I bought them; the Jew told me, though it don’t do to believe above half what those gents. tell you, that they belonged to the Markiss of Castlereagh’s own tiger, and that he had parted with them because they didn’t wrinkle in quite as many folds as his Majesty wished. Here was the fault,” continued Benjamin, holding one of the boots upon his hand and pressing the top downwards to make it wrinkle. “You see it makes but eight wrinkles between the top and the ‘eel, and the Markiss’s gen’lman swore as how he would never be seen in a pair wot didn’t make nine, so he parted with them, and as I entered ‘Olyvell Street from the east, I spied them ‘anging on the pegs at Levy Aaron’s, that’s the first Jew vot squints on the left ‘and side of the way, f
or there are about twenty of them in that street with queer eyes.
“‘Veskit!’ said he, ‘vashin’ veskit, werry sheep; half nothin’ in fact,’ just as these barkers always chaff.
“‘No,’ said I, passing on— ‘Yon don’t s’pose I wears cast-offs!’
“‘Clow for shell,’ then said he,— ‘Bes’h price, bes’h price.’
“‘Nor to shell neither,’ said I, mimickin’ of him. ‘I’ll swap my shoes for a pair of tops if you like.’
“‘Vot vill you give in?’ axed Levy Aaron.
“‘Nothin’,’ said I, determined to begin low enough.
“‘Valk in then,’ said he, quite purlite, ‘‘onour of your custom’s quite enough,’ so in I went. Such a shop! full o’ veskits covered with gold and flowers, and lace, and coats, without end, with the shop sides, each as high as a hay-stack, full o’ nothin’ but trousers and livery breeches.
“‘Sit down, shir,’ said he, ‘anding me a chair without a back, while his missis took the long stick from behind the door with a hook, and fished down several pairs of tops. They had all sorts and sizes, and all colours too. Mahogany, vite, rose-colour, painted vons; but I kept my eye on the low pair I had seen outside, till at last Mrs. Levy Aaron handed them through the winder.’ I pulls one on.
“‘Uncommon fit,’ said Levy Aaron, slappin’ the sole to feel if all my foot was in; ‘much better leg than the Markiss o’ Castlereagh’s tiger; you’ll live with a Duke before you die.’
“‘Let’s have on t’other,’ said I.
“‘Von’s as good as both,’ said he. ‘Oh!’ says I, twiggin’ vot he was after,— ‘If you thinks I’m a man to bolt with your boots, you’r mistaken;’ so I kicked off the one I had on, and bid him ‘and me my shoes. Well, then he began to bargain— ‘Thirty shilling and the shoes.’ I was werry angry and wouldn’t treat. ‘Five-and twenty shilling without the shoes then.’ Still I wouldn’t touch. ‘Give me my castor,’ said I, buttonin’ up my pocket with a slap, and lookin’ werry wicious. ‘You’r a nasty suspicious old warmint.’ Then the Jew began to soften. ‘‘Onour bright, he meant no offence.’ ‘One shovereign then he vod take.’ ‘Give me my castor,’ said I.
“‘Good mornin’, Mrs. Jewaster,’ which means female Jew. ‘Seventeen and sixpence!’ ‘Go to the devil,’ said I. ‘Come then, fifteen shillin’ and a paper bag to put them in.’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘I’ll give you ten.’ ‘Done,’ said he, and there they are. A nice polish they had when I got them, but the ploughed land has taken the shine off. Howsomever, I s’pose they’ll touch up again?”
“Not they,” replied Bill Brown, who had been examining one of them very minutely, “they are made of nothing but brown paper!”
“Brown paper be ‘anged!” exclaimed Benjamin. “Your ‘ead’s more like made of brown paper.”
“Look there then!” rejoined Bill Brown, running his thumb through the instep, and displaying the brown paper through the liquid varnish with which it had been plentifully smeared.
“Haw, haw, haw, haw, haw, haw, haw,” pealed the whole of the saddleroom party, in the midst of which Ben bolted with his brown-paper boots.
CHAPTER XVI. SIR ARCHEY DEPECARDE.
AS YET OUR distinguished friend was in no position for taking the field, for though he had got a pack of hounds — such as they were — he had neither huntsman to hunt them, nor horses for a huntsman to ride if he had one. He was therefore in a very unfinished condition. Horses, however, are soon got, if a man has only money to pay for them, and a master of hounds being clearly the proper person to buy all the horses that other people want to sell, Mr. Jorrocks very soon had a great many very handsome offers of that sort. Among others he received a stiflish, presenting-his-compliments note, from the celebrated gambler, Sir Archibald Depecarde, of Pluckwelle Park, and the Albany, London, stating that he had a very fine bay horse that he modestly said was too good for his work, and which he should be glad to see in such good hands as Mr. Jorrocks’s. Sir Archey, as many of our readers doubtless know — some perhaps to their cost — is a very knowing hand, always with good looking, if not good horses, which he is ready to barter, or play for, or exchange in any shape or way that conduces to business. His recherche little dinners in the Albany are not less famous for “do’s” than his more extended hospitality at Pluckwelle Park, whither he brings such of his flats as require more deliberate preparation and treatment than the racket of London allows. Now our friend Mr. Jorrocks, though not exactly swallowing all the butter that was offered him, had no objection to see if there was anything to be made of Sir Archey’s horse, so by way of being upsides with him in dignity, he replied as follows: —
“M.F.H. John Jorrocks presents his compliments to Sir Archibald Depecarde, and in reply to his favour begs to say that he will take an early hopportunity of driven’ over to Pluckwelle Park to look at his quadruped, and as the M.F.H. ‘ears it is a goodish distance from Handley Cross, he will bring his night cap with him, for where the M.F.H. dines he sleeps, and where the M.F.H. sleeps he breakfasts.”
Sir Archey thought the answer rather cool — especially from a mere tradesman to a man of his great self-importance, but being of opinion that there is no account between man and man that money will not settle, he determined to square matters with the M.F.H. by putting an extra 5l. or 10l. on the horse. He therefore resolved to pocket the affront and let matters take their chance.
As good as his word, one afternoon a few days after, our plump friend was seen navigating his vehicle, drawn by a Duncan Nevin screw, along the sinuosities of Sir Archibald’s avenue, in the leisurely way of a gentleman eyeing the estate, and gaining all the information he could by the way, and having arrived at the Corinthian columned portico, where he was kept waiting longer than he liked, he was shocked to find, by the unlocking and unbolting of the door, that Sir Archey was “from home”— “just gone to town” — (to look after a gambling-house in which he had a share on the sly).
“Dash my vig!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, nearly stamping the bottom of the vehicle out with his foot, and thinking whether it was possible to tool Duncan Nevin’s hack back to Handley Cross. “Dash my vig!” repeated he, “didn’t he know I was a comin’?”
“Beg pardon, sir,” replied the footman, rather abashed at the Jorrocks vehemence (who he at first took for a prospectus man or an atlas-monger). “Beg pardon, sir, but I believe Mrs. Markham, sir, has a message for you sir — if you’ll allow me, sir, I’ll go and see, sir.”
“Go,” grunted Mr. Jorrocks, indignant at the slight thus put on his M.F.H.-ship.
The footman presently returned, followed by a very smiling comely-looking personage, dressed in black silk, with sky-blue ribbons in her jaunty little cap and collar, who proceeded in a most voluble manner to express with her hands, and tongue, and eyes, Sir Archibald’s regrets that he had been suddenly summoned to town, adding that he had left word that they were to make the expected guest as comfortable as possible, and show him every possible care and attention.
“Ah, well, that’s summut like,” smiled Mr. Jorrocks, with a jerk of his head, thinking what a good-looking woman she was. In another instant he was on the step of the entrance beside her, giving her soft hand a sly squeeze as she prepared to help him out of his reversible coat. “Take the quad to the stable,” said he to the footman, and bid ’em take great care on ’im — adding, with a leer at the lady, “gave amost a ‘underd for him.” So saying, hack like, the horse was left to take its chance, while our fat friend followed the fair lady into the library.
“I’ll have a fire lighted directly,” observed she, looking round the spacious apartment, which, like many bachelors’ company rooms, felt pretty innocent of fuel.
“Fiddle the fire!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, “fiddle the fire! dessay you’ve got a good ‘un in your room, — I’ll go there.”
“Couldn’t for the world,” whispered Mrs. Markham, with a shake of her head, glancing her large hazel eyes lovingly upon Jorrocks, “What! if S
ir Archey should hear!”
“Oh, he’ll never hear,” rejoined our friend confidently.
“Wouldn’t he?” retorted Mrs. Markham, “you don’t know what servants are if you think that. Bless ye! they watch me just as a cat watches a mouse.”
“Well, then, you must come in to me,” observed Mr. Jorrocks, adding— “I can’t be left mopin’ alone, you know.”
“It must be after they’ve gone to bed then,” whispered the lady.
A hurrying housemaid now appearing with a red hot poker, Mrs. Markham drew back and changed the whispering conversation into an audible,
“And please sir, what would you like to ‘ave for dinner, sir?”
“Oh, I don’t care,” shrugged Mr. Jorrocks, “wot ‘ave you got?”
“There’s soup, and fish, and meat, and game, and poultry; whatever you like to ‘ave I dare say.”
“Humph,” mused Mr. Jorrocks, wishing the housemaid further, “I’ll ‘ave a bit o’ fish, with a beef steak, and a fizzant to follow, say—”
“No soup?” observed Mrs. Markham.
“No; I doesn’t care nothin’ ‘bout soup, ‘less it’s turtle,” replied he with a toss of his head.