A House to Let (8 page)

He had what I consider a fine mind—a poetic mind. His ideas respectin
his property never come upon him so strong as when he sat upon a barrel-
organ and had the handle turned. Arter the wibration had run through him
a little time, he would screech out, "Toby, I feel my property
coming—grind away! I'm counting my guineas by thousands, Toby—grind
away! Toby, I shall be a man of fortun! I feel the Mint a jingling in
me, Toby, and I'm swelling out into the Bank of England!" Such is the
influence of music on a poetic mind. Not that he was partial to any
other music but a barrel-organ; on the contrary, hated it.

He had a kind of a everlasting grudge agin the Public: which is a thing
you may notice in many phenomenons that get their living out of it. What
riled him most in the nater of his occupation was, that it kep him out of
Society. He was continiwally saying, "Toby, my ambition is, to go into
Society. The curse of my position towards the Public is, that it keeps
me hout of Society. This don't signify to a low beast of a Indian; he
an't formed for Society. This don't signify to a Spotted Baby;
he
an't
formed for Society.—I am."

Nobody never could make out what Chops done with his money. He had a
good salary, down on the drum every Saturday as the day came round,
besides having the run of his teeth—and he was a Woodpecker to eat—but
all Dwarfs are. The sarser was a little income, bringing him in so many
halfpence that he'd carry 'em for a week together, tied up in a pocket-
handkercher. And yet he never had money. And it couldn't be the Fat
Lady from Norfolk, as was once supposed; because it stands to reason that
when you have a animosity towards a Indian, which makes you grind your
teeth at him to his face, and which can hardly hold you from Goosing him
audible when he's going through his War-Dance—it stands to reason you
wouldn't under them circumstances deprive yourself, to support that
Indian in the lap of luxury.

Most unexpected, the mystery come out one day at Egham Races. The Public
was shy of bein pulled in, and Chops was ringin his little bell out of
his drawing-room winder, and was snarlin to me over his shoulder as he
kneeled down with his legs out at the back-door—for he couldn't be
shoved into his house without kneeling down, and the premises wouldn't
accommodate his legs—was snarlin, "Here's a precious Public for you; why
the Devil don't they tumble up?" when a man in the crowd holds up a
carrier-pigeon, and cries out, "If there's any person here as has got a
ticket, the Lottery's just drawed, and the number as has come up for the
great prize is three, seven, forty-two! Three, seven, forty-two!" I was
givin the man to the Furies myself, for calling off the Public's
attention—for the Public will turn away, at any time, to look at
anything in preference to the thing showed 'em; and if you doubt it, get
'em together for any indiwidual purpose on the face of the earth, and
send only two people in late, and see if the whole company an't far more
interested in takin particular notice of them two than of you—I say, I
wasn't best pleased with the man for callin out, and wasn't blessin him
in my own mind, when I see Chops's little bell fly out of winder at a old
lady, and he gets up and kicks his box over, exposin the whole secret,
and he catches hold of the calves of my legs and he says to me, "Carry me
into the wan, Toby, and throw a pail of water over me or I'm a dead man,
for I've come into my property!"

Twelve thousand odd hundred pound, was Chops's winnins. He had bought a
half-ticket for the twenty-five thousand prize, and it had come up. The
first use he made of his property, was, to offer to fight the Wild Indian
for five hundred pound a side, him with a poisoned darnin-needle and the
Indian with a club; but the Indian being in want of backers to that
amount, it went no further.

Arter he had been mad for a week—in a state of mind, in short, in which,
if I had let him sit on the organ for only two minutes, I believe he
would have bust—but we kep the organ from him—Mr. Chops come round, and
behaved liberal and beautiful to all. He then sent for a young man he
knowed, as had a wery genteel appearance and was a Bonnet at a gaming-
booth (most respectable brought up, father havin been imminent in the
livery stable line but unfort'nate in a commercial crisis, through
paintin a old gray, ginger-bay, and sellin him with a Pedigree), and Mr.
Chops said to this Bonnet, who said his name was Normandy, which it
wasn't:

"Normandy, I'm a goin into Society. Will you go with me?"

Says Normandy: "Do I understand you, Mr. Chops, to hintimate that the
'ole of the expenses of that move will be borne by yourself?"

"Correct," says Mr. Chops. "And you shall have a Princely allowance
too."

The Bonnet lifted Mr. Chops upon a chair, to shake hands with him, and
replied in poetry, with his eyes seemingly full of tears:

"My boat is on the shore,
And my bark is on the sea,
And I do not ask for more,
But I'll Go:—along with thee."

They went into Society, in a chay and four grays with silk jackets. They
took lodgings in Pall Mall, London, and they blazed away.

In consequence of a note that was brought to Bartlemy Fair in the autumn
of next year by a servant, most wonderful got up in milk-white cords and
tops, I cleaned myself and went to Pall Mall, one evening appinted. The
gentlemen was at their wine arter dinner, and Mr. Chops's eyes was more
fixed in that Ed of his than I thought good for him. There was three of
'em (in company, I mean), and I knowed the third well. When last met, he
had on a white Roman shirt, and a bishop's mitre covered with leopard-
skin, and played the clarionet all wrong, in a band at a Wild Beast Show.

This gent took on not to know me, and Mr. Chops said: "Gentlemen, this is
a old friend of former days:" and Normandy looked at me through a eye-
glass, and said, "Magsman, glad to see you!"—which I'll take my oath he
wasn't. Mr. Chops, to git him convenient to the table, had his chair on
a throne (much of the form of George the Fourth's in the canvass), but he
hardly appeared to me to be King there in any other pint of view, for his
two gentlemen ordered about like Emperors. They was all dressed like May-
Day—gorgeous!—And as to Wine, they swam in all sorts.

I made the round of the bottles, first separate (to say I had done it),
and then mixed 'em all together (to say I had done it), and then tried
two of 'em as half-and-half, and then t'other two. Altogether, I passed
a pleasin evenin, but with a tendency to feel muddled, until I considered
it good manners to get up and say, "Mr. Chops, the best of friends must
part, I thank you for the wariety of foreign drains you have stood so
'ansome, I looks towards you in red wine, and I takes my leave." Mr.
Chops replied, "If you'll just hitch me out of this over your right arm,
Magsman, and carry me down-stairs, I'll see you out." I said I couldn't
think of such a thing, but he would have it, so I lifted him off his
throne. He smelt strong of Maideary, and I couldn't help thinking as I
carried him down that it was like carrying a large bottle full of wine,
with a rayther ugly stopper, a good deal out of proportion.

When I set him on the door-mat in the hall, he kep me close to him by
holding on to my coat-collar, and he whispers:

"I ain't 'appy, Magsman."

"What's on your mind, Mr. Chops?"

"They don't use me well. They an't grateful to me. They puts me on the
mantel-piece when I won't have in more Champagne-wine, and they locks me
in the sideboard when I won't give up my property."

"Get rid of 'em, Mr. Chops."

"I can't. We're in Society together, and what would Society say?"

"Come out of Society!" says I.

"I can't. You don't know what you're talking about. When you have once
gone into Society, you mustn't come out of it."

"Then if you'll excuse the freedom, Mr. Chops," were my remark, shaking
my head grave, "I think it's a pity you ever went in."

Mr. Chops shook that deep Ed of his, to a surprisin extent, and slapped
it half a dozen times with his hand, and with more Wice than I thought
were in him. Then, he says, "You're a good fellow, but you don't
understand. Good-night, go along. Magsman, the little man will now walk
three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain." The last
I see of him on that occasion was his tryin, on the extremest werge of
insensibility, to climb up the stairs, one by one, with his hands and
knees. They'd have been much too steep for him, if he had been sober;
but he wouldn't be helped.

It warn't long after that, that I read in the newspaper of Mr. Chops's
being presented at court. It was printed, "It will be recollected"—and
I've noticed in my life, that it is sure to be printed that it
will
be
recollected, whenever it won't—"that Mr. Chops is the individual of
small stature, whose brilliant success in the last State Lottery
attracted so much attention." Well, I says to myself, Such is Life! He
has been and done it in earnest at last. He has astonished George the
Fourth!

(On account of which, I had that canvass new-painted, him with a bag of
money in his hand, a presentin it to George the Fourth, and a lady in
Ostrich Feathers fallin in love with him in a bag-wig, sword, and buckles
correct.)

I took the House as is the subject of present inquiries—though not the
honour of bein acquainted—and I run Magsman's Amusements in it thirteen
months—sometimes one thing, sometimes another, sometimes nothin
particular, but always all the canvasses outside. One night, when we had
played the last company out, which was a shy company, through its raining
Heavens hard, I was takin a pipe in the one pair back along with the
young man with the toes, which I had taken on for a month (though he
never drawed—except on paper), and I heard a kickin at the street door.
"Halloa!" I says to the young man, "what's up!" He rubs his eyebrows
with his toes, and he says, "I can't imagine, Mr. Magsman"—which he
never could imagine nothin, and was monotonous company.

The noise not leavin off, I laid down my pipe, and I took up a candle,
and I went down and opened the door. I looked out into the street; but
nothin could I see, and nothin was I aware of, until I turned round
quick, because some creetur run between my legs into the passage. There
was Mr. Chops!

"Magsman," he says, "take me, on the old terms, and you've got me; if
it's done, say done!"

I was all of a maze, but I said, "Done, sir."

"Done to your done, and double done!" says he. "Have you got a bit of
supper in the house?"

Bearin in mind them sparklin warieties of foreign drains as we'd guzzled
away at in Pall Mall, I was ashamed to offer him cold sassages and gin-
and-water; but he took 'em both and took 'em free; havin a chair for his
table, and sittin down at it on a stool, like hold times. I, all of a
maze all the while.

It was arter he had made a clean sweep of the sassages (beef, and to the
best of my calculations two pound and a quarter), that the wisdom as was
in that little man began to come out of him like prespiration.

"Magsman," he says, "look upon me! You see afore you, One as has both
gone into Society and come out."

"O! You
are
out of it, Mr. Chops? How did you get out, sir?"

"SOLD OUT!" says he. You never saw the like of the wisdom as his Ed
expressed, when he made use of them two words.

"My friend Magsman, I'll impart to you a discovery I've made. It's
wallable; it's cost twelve thousand five hundred pound; it may do you
good in life—The secret of this matter is, that it ain't so much that a
person goes into Society, as that Society goes into a person."

Not exactly keepin up with his meanin, I shook my head, put on a deep
look, and said, "You're right there, Mr. Chops."

"Magsman," he says, twitchin me by the leg, "Society has gone into me, to
the tune of every penny of my property."

I felt that I went pale, and though nat'rally a bold speaker, I couldn't
hardly say, "Where's Normandy?"

"Bolted. With the plate," said Mr. Chops.

"And t'other one?" meaning him as formerly wore the bishop's mitre.

"Bolted. With the jewels," said Mr. Chops.

I sat down and looked at him, and he stood up and looked at me.

"Magsman," he says, and he seemed to myself to get wiser as he got
hoarser; "Society, taken in the lump, is all dwarfs. At the court of St.
James's, they was all a doing my old business—all a goin three times
round the Cairawan, in the hold court-suits and properties. Elsewheres,
they was most of 'em ringin their little bells out of make-believes.
Everywheres, the sarser was a goin round. Magsman, the sarser is the
uniwersal Institution!"

I perceived, you understand, that he was soured by his misfortunes, and I
felt for Mr. Chops.

"As to Fat Ladies," he says, giving his head a tremendious one agin the
wall, "there's lots of
them
in Society, and worse than the original.
Hers
was a outrage upon Taste—simply a outrage upon Taste—awakenin
contempt—carryin its own punishment in the form of a Indian." Here he
giv himself another tremendious one. "But
theirs
, Magsman,
theirs
is
mercenary outrages. Lay in Cashmeer shawls, buy bracelets, strew 'em and
a lot of 'andsome fans and things about your rooms, let it be known that
you give away like water to all as come to admire, and the Fat Ladies
that don't exhibit for so much down upon the drum, will come from all the
pints of the compass to flock about you, whatever you are. They'll drill
holes in your 'art, Magsman, like a Cullender. And when you've no more
left to give, they'll laugh at you to your face, and leave you to have
your bones picked dry by Wulturs, like the dead Wild Ass of the Prairies
that you deserve to be!" Here he giv himself the most tremendious one of
all, and dropped.