‘D’you think I don’t know it is? I saw him at the meeting down the road.’ He waved a shaking finger towards the liner working on the political report. The drunkard pulled from his pocket a folded newspaper, the True Sun, which he proceeded to unfold with some difficulty. He pointed to the paper’s price. ‘Look at that! Disgrace. Sevenpence. And fourpence of that is tax. Get rid of the tax, tell the public what’s what.’
The political liner quoted, in a pompous, mocking style, from his notebook: ‘Remove the tax, inform the population, men will no longer be fooled, universal liberty and happiness will follow, and nothing will stop our progress!’
‘A “hear hear” is deserved after that,’ said the fire reporter.
‘Hang that – I’m putting a “hear hear” after every point.’
‘You’re right,’ said the drunkard, ‘You’re completely right.’ He staggered away.
The three grinned at each other and resumed their work, ale and oysters.
Seymour finished his brandy, for he had an appointment at a nearby bookshop, whose principles were exactly those espoused by the drunkard, sans liquor. The shop’s regular customers would undoubtedly have attended the lunchtime political meeting if they had the time, and the proprietor in all likelihood had a hand in the meeting’s organisation. Yet, somewhat strangely, the proprietor had written to Seymour, specifically asking for comic, light-hearted pictures for publication, without any politics. Seymour picked up his portfolio, whose contents he hoped would comply, and walked the short distance to 62 Fleet Street.
When Seymour entered the bookshop, there was no sign of the proprietor, just a man, apparently a customer, with a long-nosed busybody face bred for peering. The customer gave the briefest of looks when Seymour entered, then completed his study of a list – which was pinned to a wall, and was at least a yard from top to bottom – whereupon he walked towards the rear of the shop. Here were two curious slits with a ledge below each. The man placed a banknote on one ledge, and then turned a dial above the other, towards the number twelve. A hand emerged to take the money and give change, and then a minute later a copy of a pamphlet appeared at the other ledge. When this was done, the man left the shop.
Seymour approached the list and noted that it referred to radical publications, and one concerning Thomas Paine was number twelve. He looked down the list, but before his eyes reached the last entry the door opened and a tall curly-headed man, no more than twenty years old, with an enthusiastic face, entered. He carried a loaf of bread.
‘Mr Seymour?’
‘I am. You must be Richard Carlile Junior.’
After shaking hands, Seymour said: ‘What is the purpose of the dial and the slits?’
‘Oh that. A little device of my father’s. The identity of the sales assistant is concealed, which could be useful in a court of law. And – between you and me – I think my father finds it amusing, in a dry sort of way.’
‘I see that I am number twenty-three on the list, with Figaro in London.’
‘You would be higher, if Figaro were more radical. But do sit down. I can offer you tea and bread. I am afraid I have no meat to put between the slices, though I could bring you fruit. My father does not permit us food that others eat without thinking.’
‘Just a tea, I think.’
Seymour opened his portfolio, and after Carlile had returned from a back room with a hot herbal brew, the two men examined a series of drawings, including a female drunk in a wheelbarrow, a village cricket match, a comical coaching disaster, and a picnic. Amusing scenes of sportsmen figured prominently: one titled September 1st showed a young gentleman rigged out for shooting, with all the coxcombry that a sporting outfitter could supply, but standing forlornly in the rain, holding an umbrella as well as a gun.
‘You are obviously amused by the affectations of sportsmen,’ said Carlile.
‘And a man receiving pellets in his arse or falling off his horse is instantly seen as ridiculous,’ said Seymour.
To each of the pictures Carlile gave little noises of approval, until he stopped at a drawing showing two boys who had acquired a rusty pistol and were about to shoot a tabby cat – while an old lady shrieked a plea to stop the slaughter of the pet she obviously loved.
‘This one is horrible,’ said Carlile. ‘It makes me shudder. Do you hate cats?’
‘There are times when I love them. I was not feeling in the best of spirits when I did this picture. You may prefer this one.’ It was called Looking for Snipes: a sportsman had stepped on to a frozen pool, and had fallen straight through the ice.
‘I wish to buy them all for reproduction,’ said Carlile. ‘Even the one with the cat. I think we could come to an arrangement for others you produce.’
‘If I may say so – my pictures do not seem in keeping with the spirit of the shop.’
‘It is true my father is not one for life’s frivolities,’ said Carlile, ‘but he believes that if men laugh, they might rid themselves of deference to falsehood.’ The uppermost picture in the pile showed a man shooting a gun from a riverbank, about to fall into the river from the recoil. ‘Besides, things like this,’ said Carlile, tapping the drawing, ‘will help to divert the attention of the authorities if we display them in the window.’
‘The authorities surely know about your real work already.’
‘I suppose it is like the dial and the slits. We play a game with the authorities which in a dry sort of way tickles my father, even if he does not laugh heartily. I do know that when he was twelve years old he amused himself by drawing and colouring pictures which he sold in my grandmother’s shop. Oh, here he is now.’
A pudgier version of Richard Carlile entered, carrying a bundle of miscellaneous pamphlets. Introduced to Seymour, he gasped an unhealthy greeting. ‘I have been walking the streets, and getting a few sales,’ he said, his breathing laboured. ‘Every penny helps. Now let me take a look at your pictures.’
One that especially caught the senior Carlile’s attention showed a man who had ordered ‘A portion of veal and ham, well done,’ in a public house, which the waiter heard as ‘A portion of veal – and damn well done.’ Carlile gave a repeated nod, which apparently signalled enjoyment, for he did not laugh, and indeed had not emitted one chuckle or any sound conventionally associated with humour.
‘Any sort of misunderstanding can produce an idea for a funny drawing,’ said Seymour.
Instead of replying, Carlile said to his son: ‘Did you offer Mr Seymour something to eat?’
‘I did, Father.’
‘I had already eaten, sir,’ said Seymour.
Carlile Senior looked straight at the artist. ‘I am glad you did not greedily ask for extra. Moderation, sir, is our principle, not excess. We can offer you food and drink that will nourish you, in accordance with human well-being and nature, and no more.’
He turned to the picture of the sportsman in the rain. ‘When I was a boy in the country, I chased squirrels and tortured badgers. What a waste of young life. But it is what I did. It amused me then. And if we sell these pictures – every penny helps.’
*
‘YOU WILL REMEMBER THAT Beckett called our artist “the ubiquitous Seymour”,’ said Mr Inbelicate, as he, Mary and I sat sipping crème de menthe frappé in the garden, on a summer afternoon – that drink, because Mary said she wanted ‘anything but a tipple from the usual catalogue’, as she put it, and Mr Inbelicate said that the colour of crème de menthe was very acceptable to him. Of course, maids do not normally choose the drinks for their employers, nor sit and sip on terms of friendly association, but no normal servant would find employment with Mr Inbelicate.
‘Seymour here, Seymour there, Seymour everywhere,’ he continued. ‘But what does everywhere mean?’
‘It’s where some men’s eyes go sometimes when they look at me,’ said Mary with a smile in my direction. Later that day, I would ask her out for the first time.
‘Do you have any idea how many pictures Seymour produced, Scripty?�
��
‘I presume you do.’
‘No one knows. It is thousands. How many more of his pictures are yet to be found? Many were unsigned. He signed the ones for Carlile, because he felt no need to be surreptitious when he brushed against radicalism. He wasn’t so bold when he drew for the conservative end of the spectrum. We may infer he was a little ashamed to be associated with the privileged classes, but still took their money when they commissioned his work. Let us adjourn to the library, and I shall show you.’
Mr Inbelicate brought down the volumes of the New Sporting Magazine, the publication that Ackermann had started with Surtees, and showed me a succession of portraits of wealthy racegoers and hunters, including the Earls of Albermarle and Chesterfield, the Duke of Grafton, and many other fine fellows with roman noses, top hats and canes, posed before the Jockey Club Rooms at Newmarket, or the Royal Stand at Ascot. Some pictures were anonymous, some bore an ‘RS’ monogram, while in the text of the magazine, Seymour was sometimes referred to as ‘Our talented friend S—’.
‘But towards Christmas 1833,’ said Mr Inbelicate, ‘Surtees asked Seymour to include in this series one celebrated sporting gentleman who was not rich. He was in fact a debtor on the run from his creditors. I refer to Charles Apperley, better known as Nimrod.’
There followed a memorable performance by Mr Inbelicate. As he strutted around the library, it was as though he had practised the words he used many times before; or that he had reviewed the arguments so often in his head, they had become second nature to him. It had something of the quality of a one-man show.
‘Imagine the scene, Scripty,’ he said. ‘Surtees takes Seymour to meet the great hunter at an undisclosed location. Nimrod is now in his mid-fifties, and he has chanced a trip back to England for Christmas. He is tanned, because of all the time he is forced to stay on the Continent, and looks in good health. Artist and hunter shake hands. Surtees praises Seymour to Nimrod, talking of the artist’s great ability to capture a likeness – “You need have no fear of the outcome, Mr Apperley,” says Surtees, “Mr Seymour can carry away a man in his eye with all the ease that a lion can a lamb.”
‘So Nimrod sits in a relaxed pose beside a table, pretending to examine a paper. Seymour begins the portrait, and to give a suggestion of sport, he draws a fox’s head, with crossed fox brushes, on the wall behind Nimrod.
‘Well, artist and subject chat away. “How do you find France?” says Seymour. “I live on a pleasant street, the house is very comfortable,” says Nimrod. “And the tradesmen?” “Very civil. Never attempt to defraud you, in my experience.” “And the drink?” “Good wine can be dear. The vin ordinaire is like vinegar.” “And the sport?” “If you are asking whether I miss fox-hunting, yes I do, and I dream of it as well.” Then Nimrod says: “You are aware of the legal prohibition on the use of my name, Mr Seymour?” “Who in sporting circles does not know?” And Nimrod says, “I will not be free until the end of 1835. Another two years to wait! Until then I can only write about animals – agriculture – my recollections – matters on the fringes of sport – whatever Mr Surtees and I think we can get away with, without the owners of the old Sporting Magazine slapping on an injunction. But my first-favourite subject is prohibited to me.” It is obviously a source of terrible frustration to the man. “But when you are free,” says Surtees, “you will come back like a giant refreshed.” And by that he meant that when Nimrod could use his name, he would be the star attraction of the New Sporting Magazine, and make plenty of money for himself and Ackermann.
‘Now, Scripty, we have spoken about Seymour’s pet idea, inspired by the Daffy Club. I want you to consider how Nimrod would have reacted if, at the very time that he could finally throw off the shackles on his name, at the end of 1835, Seymour had decided to publish his pet idea and call it “the Nimrod Club”.’
The one-man show provided the answer.
‘“Damn you, Seymour!” says Nimrod. “Why do you have to do this now, of all times! Years of frustration I have had, when I could not use the name, and now, when I finally can, you come along, and grab the limelight, and what’s more you attempt to ruin the reputation of the name, and use it to poke fun at sportsmen! Nimrod is known for sporting excellence – and you want to associate it with cockneys and sporting incompetence! I am not standing for it!”’ He made gestures, as though Nimrod were strangling Seymour. ‘“You’re out, Seymour,” says Surtees. “You will never work for me again,” says Ackermann.’
‘Did Seymour have some grievance against the New Sporting Magazine?’ I asked.
‘There is no evidence of that at all,’ said Mr Inbelicate, instantly throwing off the performance, and calmly lifting the glass of crème de menthe. ‘The magazine praised his powers as an artist. Of course, Seymour was not whiter-than-white. As we know, he once used a roguish variation on Cruikshank’s name. But the significant thing is that he was stopped from using it by McLean! That should have made him even less likely to use the name Nimrod. It would have been a warning about the dangers of using a name associated with someone else – once bitten, twice shy, Scripty.’
‘Let me ask you this. Did Seymour’s family claim that he wanted to call his pet idea the Nimrod Club?’
‘They did not. And when I discovered that, I became very suspicious. The claim about the Nimrod Club comes from one person, and you know full well who that person is, Scripty.’
‘Chatham Charlie. Or the Morning Chronicle’s reporter.’
‘It is a claim made years after these events. A claim made by a person who had no association with sporting circles, so in all probability would have had no knowledge of the legal restriction on Nimrod’s name – and so did not realise the glaring improbability of the assertion he had made. He would have heard of Nimrod the writer, yes, for the man was famous, but not the details of Nimrod’s career. But think about what is gained by suggesting that Seymour wanted to use Nimrod’s name. It carries the suggestions of staleness and lack of originality, as though Seymour could not think of anything better. It is a rather useful slur.’
‘Why is this restriction on Nimrod’s name not more generally known? You are the first person I have ever heard mention it.’
Though not French himself, Mr Inbelicate gave what Nimrod must have experienced in France – a Gallic shrug.
‘Let us bring Seymour and Chatham Charlie a little closer together. Suppose we are at the point when Chatham Charlie had just turned to creative writing. A few stories of his had been published, including one called “The Bloomsbury Christening”. Let us consider the circumstances under which this story became the very first of his works to be illustrated.’
*
NO PUBLISHER’S OFFICE IN LONDON had a look, sound, smell or congestion like William Kidd’s on Regent Street. In every spare nook was a cage devoted to the joys of canaries or linnets, if not already occupied by the consoling pleasures of goldfish.
‘Watch, Mr Seymour.’
The proprietor, with a look compounded of mischief and enthusiasm, proceeded to tear a morsel from a loaf, which he placed between his teeth. He dangled his head over a bowl upon his desk. A solitary goldfish rose within and took the bread straight from Kidd’s mouth.
‘Ha ha!’ He clapped his hands. ‘But you do not seem impressed.’
‘I was recalling a goldfish I had as a child,’ said Seymour. ‘The day after I brought it home, it was found dead.’
‘They are here for much too short a time. As are we ourselves, of course.’
‘I found my childish picture of the goldfish among my mother’s possessions when she died. It was deeply affecting to think she had kept it all those years.’
Kidd seemed embarrassed by this revelation, and tapped the glass, and the fish investigated the magnified fingertips. ‘I sometimes believe he watches me when I am snipping away. Perhaps he sees the glint of the scissor blades as my scales. That reminds me. There is a story I found for you yesterday. An anonymous piece, “The Bloomsbury Christening”. It was i
n the latest Monthly Magazine.’
‘A publication with a more distinguished past than present.’
‘I think we can put a bit of the story in the Comic Album we propose. One moment.’ He picked up his scissors and cut a section from the story, which he passed to Seymour. ‘I’ll just put the rest to use.’ He gathered up the excluded part of ‘The Bloomsbury Christening’ and approached a linnet’s cage. ‘Something new for you to read, eh girl?’ He made a kissing noise, opened the door in the bars, and carefully placed the paper on the floor of the cage. ‘Now let me just find some more pieces for you, Mr Seymour,’ he said as he closed the miniature jail-like door.
At a bench were various piles of clippings extracted from publications such as Blackwood’s, The Metropolitan Magazine and Chambers’ Journal. Kidd made a selection, paying attention to the principles of forming a pleasant illustrated miscellany while not giving a second thought to asking publishers or authors for permission to use their material at no charge.
Seymour read the paragraphs that Kidd had passed to him. They told of a miserable day in London, when it rained without cessation for three and a half hours. The story’s protagonist, Nicodemus Dumps, was habitually as miserable as that day throughout the entire year, and he was persuaded – virtually abducted – by the conductor of the Admiral Napier horse-omnibus to come on board. The conductor seized Dumps by the waist, and thrust him into the middle of the vehicle, so as to reach the capacity of sixteen passengers inside.
*
At home, Seymour produced a small and simple sketch, showing the omnibus, rain, a bandy-legged conductor, and the unhappy and pot-bellied Dumps, all buttoned up in his waistcoat and carrying an umbrella. Afterwards, he worked on pictures for the various texts stolen by Kidd, which, together with the omnibus sketch, would form Seymour’s Comic Album. Next, he considered a request from McLean to produce ‘something in the nature of a parable’, as McLean had put it, to praise the work of temperance campaigners.
Seymour placed his hands behind his head, leant back, closed his eyes, and imagined himself as a boy, standing in the pulpit delivering a solemn sermon.
Death and Mr. Pickwick Page 46