Reprinted Pieces

by Dickens, Charles

  Ducasse), where the people - really THE PEOPLE - dance on the green

  turf in the open air, round a little orchestra, that seems itself

  to dance, there is such an airy motion of flags and streamers all

  about it. And we do not suppose that between the Torrid Zone and

  the North Pole there are to be found male dancers with such

  astonishingly loose legs, furnished with so many joints in wrong

  places, utterly unknown to Professor Owen, as those who here

  disport themselves. Sometimes, the fete appertains to a particular

  trade; you will see among the cheerful young women at the joint

  Ducasse of the milliners and tailors, a wholesome knowledge of the

  art of making common and cheap things uncommon and pretty, by good

  sense and good taste, that is a practical lesson to any rank of

  society in a whole island we could mention. The oddest feature of

  these agreeable scenes is the everlasting Roundabout (we preserve

  an English word wherever we can, as we are writing the English

  language), on the wooden horses of which machine grown-up people of

  all ages are wound round and round with the utmost solemnity, while

  the proprietor's wife grinds an organ, capable of only one tune, in

  the centre.

  As to the boarding-houses of our French watering-place, they are

  Legion, and would require a distinct treatise. It is not without a

  sentiment of national pride that we believe them to contain more

  bores from the shores of Albion than all the clubs in London. As

  you walk timidly in their neighbourhood, the very neckcloths and

  hats of your elderly compatriots cry to you from the stones of the

  streets, 'We are Bores - avoid us!' We have never overheard at

  street corners such lunatic scraps of political and social

  discussion as among these dear countrymen of ours. They believe

  everything that is impossible and nothing that is true. They carry

  rumours, and ask questions, and make corrections and improvements

  on one another, staggering to the human intellect. And they are

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  for ever rushing into the English library, propounding such

  incomprehensible paradoxes to the fair mistress of that

  establishment, that we beg to recommend her to her Majesty's

  gracious consideration as a fit object for a pension.

  The English form a considerable part of the population of our

  French watering-place, and are deservedly addressed and respected

  in many ways. Some of the surface-addresses to them are odd

  enough, as when a laundress puts a placard outside her house

  announcing her possession of that curious British instrument, a

  'Mingle;' or when a tavern-keeper provides accommodation for the

  celebrated English game of 'Nokemdon.' But, to us, it is not the

  least pleasant feature of our French watering-place that a long and

  constant fusion of the two great nations there, has taught each to

  like the other, and to learn from the other, and to rise superior

  to the absurd prejudices that have lingered among the weak and

  ignorant in both countries equally.

  Drumming and trumpeting of course go on for ever in our French

  watering-place. Flag-flying is at a premium, too; but, we

  cheerfully avow that we consider a flag a very pretty object, and

  that we take such outward signs of innocent liveliness to our heart

  of hearts. The people, in the town and in the country, are a busy

  people who work hard; they are sober, temperate, good-humoured,

  light-hearted, and generally remarkable for their engaging manners.

  Few just men, not immoderately bilious, could see them in their

  recreations without very much respecting the character that is so

  easily, so harmlessly, and so simply, pleased.

  BILL-STICKING

  IF I had an enemy whom I hated - which Heaven forbid! - and if I

  knew of something which sat heavy on his conscience, I think I

  would introduce that something into a Posting-Bill, and place a

  large impression in the hands of an active sticker. I can scarcely

  imagine a more terrible revenge. I should haunt him, by this

  means, night and day. I do not mean to say that I would publish

  his secret, in red letters two feet high, for all the town to read:

  I would darkly refer to it. It should be between him, and me, and

  the Posting-Bill. Say, for example, that, at a certain period of

  his life, my enemy had surreptitiously possessed himself of a key.

  I would then embark my capital in the lock business, and conduct

  that business on the advertising principle. In all my placards and

  advertisements, I would throw up the line SECRET KEYS. Thus, if my

  enemy passed an uninhabited house, he would see his conscience

  glaring down on him from the parapets, and peeping up at him from

  the cellars. If he took a dead wall in his walk, it would be alive

  with reproaches. If he sought refuge in an omnibus, the panels

  thereof would become Belshazzar's palace to him. If he took boat,

  in a wild endeavour to escape, he would see the fatal words lurking

  under the arches of the bridges over the Thames. If he walked the

  streets with downcast eyes, he would recoil from the very stones of

  the pavement, made eloquent by lamp-black lithograph. If he drove

  or rode, his way would be blocked up by enormous vans, each

  proclaiming the same words over and over again from its whole

  extent of surface. Until, having gradually grown thinner and

  paler, and having at last totally rejected food, he would miserably

  perish, and I should be revenged. This conclusion I should, no

  doubt, celebrate by laughing a hoarse laugh in three syllables, and

  folding my arms tight upon my chest agreeably to most of the

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  examples of glutted animosity that I have had an opportunity of

  observing in connexion with the Drama - which, by-the-by, as

  involving a good deal of noise, appears to me to be occasionally

  confounded with the Drummer.

  The foregoing reflections presented themselves to my mind, the

  other day, as I contemplated (being newly come to London from the

  East Riding of Yorkshire, on a house-hunting expedition for next

  May), an old warehouse which rotting paste and rotting paper had

  brought down to the condition of an old cheese. It would have been

  impossible to say, on the most conscientious survey, how much of

  its front was brick and mortar, and how much decaying and decayed

  plaster. It was so thickly encrusted with fragments of bills, that

  no ship's keel after a long voyage could be half so foul. All

  traces of the broken windows were billed out, the doors were billed

  across, the water-spout was billed over. The building was shored

  up to prevent its tumbling into the street; and the very beams

  erected against it were less wood than paste and paper, they had

  been so continually posted and reposted. The forlorn dregs of old

  posters so encumbered this wreck, that there was no hold for new

  posters, and the stickers had abandoned the place in despair,

  except one enterprising man who had hoisted the last
masquerade to

  a clear spot near the level of the stack of chimneys where it waved

  and drooped like a shattered flag. Below the rusty cellar-grating,

  crumpled remnants of old bills torn down, rotted away in wasting

  heaps of fallen leaves. Here and there, some of the thick rind of

  the house had peeled off in strips, and fluttered heavily down,

  littering the street; but, still, below these rents and gashes,

  layers of decomposing posters showed themselves, as if they were

  interminable. I thought the building could never even be pulled

  down, but in one adhesive heap of rottenness and poster. As to

  getting in - I don't believe that if the Sleeping Beauty and her

  Court had been so billed up, the young Prince could have done it.

  Knowing all the posters that were yet legible, intimately, and

  pondering on their ubiquitous nature, I was led into the

  reflections with which I began this paper, by considering what an

  awful thing it would be, ever to have wronged - say M. JULLIEN for

  example - and to have his avenging name in characters of fire

  incessantly before my eyes. Or to have injured MADAME TUSSAUD, and

  undergo a similar retribution. Has any man a self-reproachful

  thought associated with pills, or ointment? What an avenging

  spirit to that man is PROFESSOR HOLLOWAY! Have I sinned in oil?

  CABBURN pursues me. Have I a dark remembrance associated with any

  gentlemanly garments, bespoke or ready made? MOSES and SON are on

  my track. Did I ever aim a blow at a defenceless fellow-creature's

  head? That head eternally being measured for a wig, or that worse

  head which was bald before it used the balsam, and hirsute

  afterwards - enforcing the benevolent moral, 'Better to be bald as

  a Dutch cheese than come to this,' - undoes me. Have I no sore

  places in my mind which MECHI touches - which NICOLL probes - which

  no registered article whatever lacerates? Does no discordant note

  within me thrill responsive to mysterious watchwords, as 'Revalenta

  Arabica,' or 'Number One St. Paul's Churchyard'? Then may I enjoy

  life, and be happy.

  Lifting up my eyes, as I was musing to this effect, I beheld

  advancing towards me (I was then on Cornhill, near to the Royal

  Exchange), a solemn procession of three advertising vans, of firstclass

  dimensions, each drawn by a very little horse. As the

  cavalcade approached, I was at a loss to reconcile the careless

  deportment of the drivers of these vehicles, with the terrific

  announcements they conducted through the city, which being a

  summary of the contents of a Sunday newspaper, were of the most

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  thrilling kind. Robbery, fire, murder, and the ruin of the United

  Kingdom - each discharged in a line by itself, like a separate

  broad-side of red-hot shot - were among the least of the warnings

  addressed to an unthinking people. Yet, the Ministers of Fate who

  drove the awful cars, leaned forward with their arms upon their

  knees in a state of extreme lassitude, for want of any subject of

  interest. The first man, whose hair I might naturally have

  expected to see standing on end, scratched his head - one of the

  smoothest I ever beheld - with profound indifference. The second

  whistled. The third yawned.

  Pausing to dwell upon this apathy, it appeared to me, as the fatal

  cars came by me, that I descried in the second car, through the

  portal in which the charioteer was seated, a figure stretched upon

  the floor. At the same time, I thought I smelt tobacco. The

  latter impression passed quickly from me; the former remained.

  Curious to know whether this prostrate figure was the one

  impressible man of the whole capital who had been stricken

  insensible by the terrors revealed to him, and whose form had been

  placed in the car by the charioteer, from motives of humanity, I

  followed the procession. It turned into Leadenhall-market, and

  halted at a public-house. Each driver dismounted. I then

  distinctly heard, proceeding from the second car, where I had dimly

  seen the prostrate form, the words:

  'And a pipe!'

  The driver entering the public-house with his fellows, apparently

  for purposes of refreshment, I could not refrain from mounting on

  the shaft of the second vehicle, and looking in at the portal. I

  then beheld, reclining on his back upon the floor, on a kind of

  mattress or divan, a little man in a shooting-coat. The

  exclamation 'Dear me' which irresistibly escaped my lips caused him

  to sit upright, and survey me. I found him to be a good-looking

  little man of about fifty, with a shining face, a tight head, a

  bright eye, a moist wink, a quick speech, and a ready air. He had

  something of a sporting way with him.

  He looked at me, and I looked at him, until the driver displaced me

  by handing in a pint of beer, a pipe, and what I understand is

  called 'a screw' of tobacco - an object which has the appearance of

  a curl-paper taken off the barmaid's head, with the curl in it.

  'I beg your pardon,' said I, when the removed person of the driver

  again admitted of my presenting my face at the portal. 'But -

  excuse my curiosity, which I inherit from my mother - do you live

  here?'

  'That's good, too!' returned the little man, composedly laying

  aside a pipe he had smoked out, and filling the pipe just brought

  to him.

  'Oh, you DON'T live here then?' said I.

  He shook his head, as he calmly lighted his pipe by means of a

  German tinder-box, and replied, 'This is my carriage. When things

  are flat, I take a ride sometimes, and enjoy myself. I am the

  inventor of these wans.'

  His pipe was now alight. He drank his beer all at once, and he

  smoked and he smiled at me.

  'It was a great idea!' said I.

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  'Not so bad,' returned the little man, with the modesty of merit.

  'Might I be permitted to inscribe your name upon the tablets of my

  memory?' I asked.

  'There's not much odds in the name,' returned the little man, ' -

  no name particular - I am the King of the Bill-Stickers.'

  'Good gracious!' said I.

  The monarch informed me, with a smile, that he had never been

  crowned or installed with any public ceremonies, but that he was

  peaceably acknowledged as King of the Bill-Stickers in right of

  being the oldest and most respected member of 'the old school of

  bill-sticking.' He likewise gave me to understand that there was a

  Lord Mayor of the Bill-Stickers, whose genius was chiefly exercised

  within the limits of the city. He made some allusion, also, to an

  inferior potentate, called 'Turkey-legs;' but I did not understand

  that this gentleman was invested with much power. I rather

  inferred that he derived his title from some peculiarity of gait,

  and that it was of an honorary character.

  'My father,' pursued the King of the Bill-Stickers, 'was Engineer,

  Beadle, and Bill-Sticker to the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, in

  the y
ear one thousand seven hundred and eighty. My father stuck

  bills at the time of the riots of London.'

  'You must be acquainted with the whole subject of bill-sticking,

  from that time to the present!' said I.

  'Pretty well so,' was the answer.

  'Excuse me,' said I; 'but I am a sort of collector - '

  ''Not Income-tax?' cried His Majesty, hastily removing his pipe

  from his lips.

  'No, no,' said I.

  'Water-rate?' said His Majesty.

  'No, no,' I returned.

  'Gas? Assessed? Sewers?' said His Majesty.

  'You misunderstand me,' I replied, soothingly. 'Not that sort of

  collector at all: a collector of facts.'

  'Oh, if it's only facts,' cried the King of the Bill-Stickers,

  recovering his good-humour, and banishing the great mistrust that

  had suddenly fallen upon him, 'come in and welcome! If it had been

  income, or winders, I think I should have pitched you out of the

  wan, upon my soul!'

  Readily complying with the invitation, I squeezed myself in at the

  small aperture. His Majesty, graciously handing me a little threelegged

  stool on which I took my seat in a corner, inquired if I

  smoked.

  'I do; - that is, I can,' I answered.

  'Pipe and a screw!' said His Majesty to the attendant charioteer.

  'Do you prefer a dry smoke, or do you moisten it?'

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  As unmitigated tobacco produces most disturbing effects upon my

  system (indeed, if I had perfect moral courage, I doubt if I should

  smoke at all, under any circumstances), I advocated moisture, and

  begged the Sovereign of the Bill-Stickers to name his usual liquor,

  and to concede to me the privilege of paying for it. After some

  delicate reluctance on his part, we were provided, through the

  instrumentality of the attendant charioteer, with a can of cold

  rum-and-water, flavoured with sugar and lemon. We were also

  furnished with a tumbler, and I was provided with a pipe. His

  Majesty, then observing that we might combine business with

  conversation, gave the word for the car to proceed; and, to my

  great delight, we jogged away at a foot pace.

  I say to my great delight, because I am very fond of novelty, and

  it was a new sensation to be jolting through the tumult of the city

  in that secluded Temple, partly open to the sky, surrounded by the

  roar without, and seeing nothing but the clouds. Occasionally,