Section 2 of 10 - Table of Contents
LEVANT HOUSE CHAMBERS. MR. RUMBOLD, A.R.A., AND MISS RUMBOLD. When Lord Levant quitted the country and this neighborhood, in which the tradesmen still deplore him, No. 56, known as Levantine House, was let to the "Pococurante Club," which was speedily bankrupt (for we are too far from the centre of town to support a club of our own); it was subsequently hired by the West Diddlesex Railroad; and is now divided into sets of chambers, superintended by an acrimonious housekeeper, and by a porter in a sham livery: whom, if you don't find him at the door, you may as well seek at the "Grapes" public-house, in the little lane round the corner. He varnishes the japan-boots of the dandy lodgers; reads Mr. Pinkney's Morning Post before he lets him have it; and neglects the letters of the inmates of the chambers generally. The great rooms, which were occupied as the salons of the noble Levant, the coffee-rooms of the "Pococurante" (a club where the play was furious, as I am told), and the board-room and manager's- room of the West Diddlesex, are tenanted now by a couple of artists: young Pinkney the miniaturist, and George Rumbold the historical painter. Miss Rumbold, his sister lives with him, by the way; but with that young lady of course we have nothing to do. I knew both these gentlemen at Rome, where George wore a velvet doublet and a beard down to his chest, and used to talk about high art at the "Caffe Greco." How it smelled of smoke, that velveteen doublet of his, with which his stringy red beard was likewise perfumed! It was in his studio that I had the honor to be introduced to his sister, the fair Miss Clara: she had a large casque with a red horse-hair plume (I thought it had been a wisp of her brother's beard at first), and held a tin-headed spear in her hand, representing a Roman warrior in the great picture of "Caractacus" George was painting--a piece sixty-four feet by eighteen. The Roman warrior blushed to be discovered in that attitude: the tin-headed spear trembled in the whitest arm in the world. So she put it down, and taking off the helmet also, went and sat in a far corner of the studio, mending George's stockings; whilst we smoked a couple of pipes, and talked about Raphael being a good deal overrated. I think he is; and have never disguised my opinion about the "Transfiguration.". And all the time we talked, there were Clara's eyes looking lucidly out from the dark corner in which she was sitting, working away at the stockings. The lucky fellow! They were in a dreadful state of bad repair when she came out to him at Rome, after the death of their father, the Reverend Miles Rumbold. George, while at Rome, painted "Caractacus;" a picture of "Non Angli sed Angeli" of course; a picture of "Alfred in the Neatherd's Cottage," seventy-two feet by forty-eight--(an idea of the gigantic size and Michel-Angelesque proportions of this picture may be formed, when I state that the mere muffin, of which the outcast king is spoiling the baking, is two feet three in diameter) and the deaths of Socrates, of Remus, and of the Christians under Nero respectively. I shall never forget how lovely Clara looked in white muslin, with her hair down, in this latter picture, giving herself up to a ferocious Carnifex (for which Bob Gaunter the architect sat), and refusing to listen to the mild suggestions of an insinuating Flamen: which character was a gross caricature of myself. None of George's pictures sold. He has enough to tapestry Trafalgar Square. He has painted, since he came back to England, "The Flaying of Marsyas," "The Smothering of the Little Boys in the Tower," "A Plague Scene during the Great Pestilence," "Ugolino on the Seventh Day after he was deprived of Victuals," &c. For although these pictures have great merit, and the writhings of Marsyas, the convulsions of the little prince, the look of agony of St. Lawrence on the gridiron, &c. are quite true to nature, yet the subjects somehow are not agreeable; and if he hadn't a small patrimony, my friend George would starve. Fondness for art leads me a great deal to his studio. George is a gentleman, and has very good friends, and good pluck too. When we were at Rome, there was a great row between him and young Heeltap, Lord Boxmoor's son, who was uncivil to Miss Rumbold; (the young scoundrel--had I been a fighting man, I should like to have shot him myself!). Lady Betty Bulbul is very fond of Clara; and Tom Bulbul, who took George's message to Heeltap, is always hanging about the studio. At least I know that I find the young jackanapes there almost every day, bringing a new novel, or some poisonous French poetry, or a basket of flowers, or grapes, with Lady Betty's love to her dear Clara--a young rascal with white kids, and his hair curled every morning. What business has HE to be dangling about George Rumbold's premises, and sticking up his ugly pug-face as a model for all George's pictures? Miss Clapperclaw says Bulbul is evidently smitten, and Clara too. What! would she put up with such a little fribble as that, when there is a man of intellect and taste who--but I won't believe it. It is all the jealousy of women. SOME OF THE SERVANTS IN OUR STREET. These gentlemen have two clubs in our quarter--for the butlers at the "Indiaman," and for the gents in livery at the "Pocklington Arms"--of either of which societies I should like to be a member. I am sure they could not be so dull as our club at the "Poluphloisboio," where one meets the same neat, clean, respectable old fogies every day. But with the best wishes, it is impossible for the present writer to join either the "Plate Club" or the " Uniform Club" (as these reunions are designated); for one could not shake hands with a friend who was standing behind your chair, or nod a How-d'ye-do? to the butler who was pouring you out a glass of wine;--so that what I know about the gents in our neighborhood is from mere casual observation. For instance, I have a slight acquaintance with (1) Thomas Spavin, who commonly wears an air of injured innocence, and is groom to Mr. Joseph Green, of Our Street. "I tell why the brougham 'oss is out of condition, and why Desperation broke out all in a lather! 'Osses will, this 'eavy weather; and Desperation was always the most mystest hoss I ever see.--I take him out with Mr. Anderson's 'ounds--I'm above it. I allis was too timid to ride to 'ounds by natur; and Colonel Sprigs' groom as says he saw me, is a liar," &c. &c. Such is the tenor of Mr. Spavin's remarks to his master. Whereas all the world in Our Street knows that Mr. Spavin spends at least a hundred a year in beer; that he keeps a betting-book; that he has lent Mr. Green's black brougham horse to the omnibus driver; and, at a time when Mr. G. supposed him at the veterinary surgeon's, has lent him to a livery stable, which has let him out to that gentleman himself, and actually driven him to dinner behind his own horse. This conduct I can understand, but I cannot excuse--Mr. Spavin may; and I leave the matter to be settled betwixt himself and Mr. Green. The second is Monsieur Sinbad, Mr. Clarence Bulbul's man, whom we all hate Clarence for keeping. Mr. Sinbad is a foreigner, speaking no known language, but a mixture of every European dialect--so that he may be an Italian brigand, or a Tyrolese minstrel, or a Spanish smuggler, for what we know. I have heard say that he is neither of these, but an Irish Jew. He wears studs, hair-oil, jewellery, and linen shirt-fronts, very finely embroidered, but not particular for whiteness. He generally appears in faded velvet waistcoats of a morning, and is always perfumed with stale tobacco. He wears large rings on his hands, which look as if he kept them up the chimney. He does not appear to do anything earthly for Clarence Bulbul, except to smoke his cigars, and to practise on his guitar. He will not answer a bell, nor fetch a glass of water, nor go of an errand on which, au reste, Clarence dares not send him, being entirely afraid of his servant, and not daring to use him, or to abuse him, or to send him away. 3. Adams--Mr. Champignon's man--a good old man in an old livery coat with old worsted lace--so very old, deaf, surly, and faithful, that you wonder how he should have got into the family at all; who never kept a footman till last year, when they came into the street. Miss Clapperclaw says she believes Adams to be Mrs. Champignon's father, and he certainly has a look of that lady; as Miss C. pointed out to me at dinner one night, whilst old Adams was blundering about amongst the hired men from Gunter's, and falling over the silver dishes. 4. Fipps, the buttoniest page in all the street: walks behind Mrs. Grimsby with her prayer-book, and protects her. "If that woman wants a protector" (a female acquaintance remarks), "heaven be good to us! She is as big as an ogress, and has an upper lip which many a cornet of the Lifeguards might envy. Her poor dear husband was a big man, and she could beat him easily; and did too. Mrs. Grimsby indeed! Why, my dear Mr. Titmarsh, it is Glumdalca walking with Tom Thumb." This observation of Miss C.'s is very true, and Mrs. Grimsby might carry her prayer-book to church herself. But Miss Clapperclaw, who is pretty well able to take care of herself too, was glad enough to have the protection of the page when she went out in the fly to pay visits, and before Mrs. Grimsby and she quarrelled at whist at Lady Pocklington's. After this merely parenthetic observation, we come to 5, one of her ladyship's large men, Mr. Jeames--a gentleman of vast stature and proportions, who is almost nose to nose with us as we pass her ladyship's door on the outside of the omnibus. I think Jeames has a contempt for a man whom he witnesses in that position. I have fancied something like that feeling showed itself (as far as it may in a well-bred gentleman accustomed to society) in his behavior, while waiting behind my chair at dinner. But I take Jeames to be, like most giants, good-natured, lazy, stupid, soft-hearted, and extremely fond of drink. One night, his lady being engaged to dinner at Nightingale House, I saw Mr. Jeames resting himself on a bench at the "Pocklington Arms:" where, as he had no liquor before him, he had probably exhausted his credit. Little Spitfire, Mr. Clarence Bulbul's boy, the wickedest little varlet that ever hung on to a cab, was "chaffing" Mr. Jeames, holding up to his face a pot of porter almost as big as the young potifer himself. "Vill you now, Big'un, or von't you?" Spitfire said. "If you're thirsty, vy don't you say so and squench it, old boy?" "Don't ago on making fun of me--I can't abear chaffin'," was the reply of Mr. Jeames, and tears actually stood in his fine eyes as he looked at the porter and the screeching little imp before him. Spitfire (real name unknown) gave him some of the drink: I am happy to say Jeames's face wore quite a different look when it rose gasping out of the porter; and I judge of his dispositions from the above trivial incident. The last boy in the sketch, 6, need scarcely be particularized. Doctor's boy; was a charity-boy; stripes evidently added on to a pair of the doctor's clothes of last year--Miss Clapperclaw pointed this out to me with a giggle. Nothing escapes that old woman. As we were walking in Kensington Gardens, she pointed me out Mrs. Bragg's nursery-maid, who sings so loud at church, engaged with a Lifeguardsman, whom she was trying to convert probably. My virtuous friend rose indignant at the sight. "That's why these minxes like Kensington Gardens," she cried. "Look at the woman: she leaves the baby on the grass, for the giant to trample upon; and that little wretch of a Hastings Bragg is riding on the monster's cane." Miss C. flew up and seized the infant, waking it out of its sleep, and causing all the gardens to echo with its squalling. "I'll teach you to be impudent to me," she said to the nursery-maid, with whom my vivacious old friend, I suppose, has had a difference; and she would not release the infant until she had rung the bell of Bungalow Lodge, where she gave it up to the footman. The giant in scarlet had slunk down towards Knightsbridge meanwhile. The big rogues are always crossing the Park and the Gardens, and hankering about Our Street. WHAT SOMETIMES HAPPENS IN OUR STREET. It was before old Hunkington's house that the mutes were standing, as I passed and saw this group at the door. The charity-boy with the hoop is the son of the jolly-looking mute; he admires his father, who admires himself too, in those bran-new sables. The other infants are the spawn of the alleys about Our Street. Only the parson and the typhus fever visit those mysterious haunts, which lie crouched about our splendid houses like Lazarus at the threshold of Dives. Those little ones come crawling abroad in the sunshine, to the annoyance of the beadles, and the horror of a number of good people in the street. They will bring up the rear of the procession anon, when the grand omnibus with the feathers, and the line coaches with the long-tailed black horses, and the gentleman's private carriages with the shutters up, pass along to Saint Waltheof's. You can hear the slow bell tolling clear in the sunshine already, mingling with the crowing of "Punch," who is passing down the street with his show; and the two musics make a queer medley. Not near so many people, I remark, engage "Punch" now as in the good old times. I suppose our quarter is growing too genteel for him. Miss Bridget Jones, a poor curate's daughter in Wales, comes into all Hunkington's property, and will take his name, as I am told. Nobody ever heard of her before. I am sure Captain Hunkington, and his brother Barnwell Hunkington, must wish that the lucky young lady had never been heard of to the present day. But they will have the consolation of thinking that they did their duty by their uncle, and consoled his declining years. It was but last month that Millwood Hunkington (the Captain) sent the old gentleman a service of plate; and Mrs. Barnwell got a reclining carriage at a great expense from Hobbs and Dobbs's, in which the old gentleman went out only once. "It is a punishment on those Hunkingtons," Miss Clapperclaw remarks: "upon those people who have been always living beyond their little incomes, and always speculating upon what the old man would leave them, and always coaxing him with presents which they could not afford, and he did not want. It is a punishment upon those Hunkingtons to be so disappointed." "Think of giving him plate," Miss C. justly says, "who had chests- full; and sending him a carriage, who could afford to buy all Long Acre. And everything goes to Miss Jones Hunkington. I wonder will she give the things back?" Miss Clapperclaw asks. "I wouldn't." And indeed I don't think Miss Clapperclaw would. SOMEBODY WHOM NOBODY KNOWS. That pretty little house, the last in Pocklington Square, was lately occupied by a young widow lady who wore a pink bonnet, a short silk dress, sustained by a crinoline, and a light blue mantle, or over-jacket (Miss C. is not here to tell me the name of the garment); or else a black velvet pelisse, a yellow shawl, and a white bonnet; or else--but never mind the dress, which seemed to be of the handsomest sort money could buy--and who had very long glossy black ringlets, and a peculiarly brilliant complexion,--No. 96, Pocklington Square, I say, was lately occupied by a widow lady named Mrs. Stafford Molyneux. The very first day on which an intimate and valued female friend of mine saw Mrs. Stafford Molyneux stepping into a brougham, with a splendid bay horse, and without a footman, (mark, if you please, that delicate sign of respectability,) and after a moment's examination of Mrs. S. M.'s toilette, her manners, little dog, carnation-colored parasol, &c., Miss Elizabeth Clapperclaw clapped to the opera-glass with which she had been regarding the new inhabitant of Our Street, came away from the window in a great flurry, and began poking her fire in a fit of virtuous indignation. "She's very pretty," said I, who had been looking over Miss C.'s shoulder at the widow with the flashing eyes and drooping ringlets. "Hold your tongue, sir," said Miss Clapperclaw, tossing up her virgin head with an indignant blush on her nose. "It's a sin and a shame that such a creature should be riding in her carriage, forsooth, when honest people must go on foot." Subsequent observations confirmed my revered fellow-lodger's anger and opinion. We have watched Hansom cabs standing before that lady's house for hours; we have seen broughams, with great flaring eyes, keeping watch there in the darkness; we have seen the vans from the comestible-shops drive up and discharge loads of wines, groceries, French plums, and other articles of luxurious horror. We have seen Count Wowski's drag, Lord Martingale's carriage, Mr. Deuceace's cab drive up there time after time; and (having remarked previously the pastry-cook's men arrive with the trays and entrees), we have known that this widow was giving dinners at the little house in Pocklington Square--dinners such as decent people could not hope to enjoy. My excellent friend has been in a perfect fury when Mrs. Stafford Molyneux, in a black velvet riding-habit, with a hat and feather, has come out and mounted an odious gray horse, and has cantered down the street, followed by her groom upon a bay. "It won't last long--it must end in shame and humiliation," my dear Miss C. has remarked, disappointed that the tiles and chimney-pots did not fall down upon Mrs. Stafford Molyneux's head, and crush that cantering, audacious woman. But it was a consolation to see her when she walked out with a French maid, a couple of children, and a little dog hanging on to her by a blue ribbon. She always held down her head then--her head with the drooping black ringlets. The virtuous and well-disposed avoided her. I have seen the Square-keeper himself look puzzled as she passed; and Lady Kicklebury walking by with Miss K., her daughter, turn away from Mrs. Stafford Molyneux, and fling back at her a ruthless Parthian glance that ought to have killed any woman of decent sensibility. That wretched woman, meanwhile, with her rouged cheeks (for rouge it IS, Miss Clapperclaw swears, and who is a better judge?) has walked on conscious, and yet somehow braving out the Street. You could read pride of her beauty, pride of her fine clothes, shame of her position, in her downcast black eyes. As for Mademoiselle Trampoline, her French maid, she would stare the sun itself out of countenance. One day she tossed up her head as she passed under our windows with a look of scorn that drove Miss Clapperclaw back to the fireplace again. It was Mrs. Stafford Molyneux's children, however, whom I pitied the most. Once her boy, in a flaring tartan, went up to speak to Master Roderick Lacy, whose maid was engaged ogling a policeman; and the children were going to make friends, being united with a hoop which Master Molyneux had, when Master Roderick's maid, rushing up, clutched her charge to her arms, and hurried away, leaving little Molyneux sad and wondering. "Why won't he play with me, mamma?" Master Molyneux asked--and his mother's face blushed purple as she walked away. "Ah--heaven help us and forgive us!" said I; but Miss C. can never forgive the mother or child; and she clapped her hands for joy one day when we saw the shutters up, bills in the windows, a carpet hanging out over the balcony, and a crowd of shabby Jews about the steps--giving token that the reign of Mrs. Stafford Molyneux was over. The pastry-cooks and their trays, the bay and the gray, the brougham and the groom, the noblemen and their cabs, were all gone; and the tradesmen in the neighborhood were crying out that they were done. "Serve the odious minx right!" says Miss C.; and she played at piquet that night with more vigor than I have known her manifest for these last ten years. What is it that makes certain old ladies so savage upon certain subjects? Miss C. is a good woman; pays her rent and her tradesmen; gives plenty to the poor; is brisk with her tongue-- kind-hearted in the main; but if Mrs. Stafford Molyneux and her children were plunged into a caldron of boiling vinegar, I think my revered friend would not take them out. THE MAN IN POSSESSION. For another misfortune which occurred in Our Street we were much more compassionate. We liked Danby Dixon, and his wife Fanny Dixon still more. Miss C. had a paper of biscuits and a box of preserved apricots always in the cupboard, ready for Dixon's children-- provisions by the way which she locked up under Mrs. Cammysole's nose, so that our landlady could by no possibility lay a hand on them. Dixon and his wife had the neatest little house possible, (No. 16, opposite 96,) and were liked and respected by the whole street. He was called Dandy Dixon when he was in the dragoons, and was a light weight, and rather famous as a gentleman rider. On his marriage, he sold out and got fat: and was indeed a florid, contented, and jovial gentleman. His little wife was charming--to see her in pink with some miniature Dixons, in pink too, round about her, or in that beautiful gray dress, with the deep black lace flounces, which she wore at my Lord Comandine's on the night of the private theatricals, would have done any man good. To hear her sing any of my little ballads, "Knowest Thou the Willow-tree?" for instance, or "The Rose upon my Balcony," or "The Humming of the Honey-bee," (far superior in MY judgment, and in that of SOME GOOD JUDGES likewise, to that humbug Clarence Bulbul's ballads,)--to hear her, I say, sing these, was to be in a sort of small Elysium. Dear, dear little Fanny Dixon! she was like a little chirping bird of Paradise. It was a shame that storms should ever ruffle such a tender plumage. Well, never mind about sentiment. Danby Dixon, the owner of this little treasure, an ex-captain of Dragoons, and having nothing to do, and a small income, wisely thought he would employ his spare time, and increase his revenue. He became a director of the Cornaro Life Insurance Company, of the Tregulpho tin-mines, and of four or five railroad companies. It was amusing to see him swaggering about the City in his clinking boots, and with his high and mighty dragoon manners. For a time his talk about shares after dinner was perfectly intolerable; and I for one was always glad to leave him in the company of sundry very dubious capitalists who frequented his house, and walk up to hear Mrs. Fanny warbling at the piano with her little children about her knees. It was only last season that they set up a carriage--the modestest little vehicle conceivable--driven by Kirby, who had been in Dixon's troop in the regiment, and had followed him into private life as coachman, footman, and page. One day lately I went into Dixon's house, hearing that some calamities had befallen him, the particulars of which Miss Clapperclaw was desirous to know. The creditors of the Tregulpho Mines had got a verdict against him as one of the directors of that company; the engineer of the Little Diddlesex Junction had sued him for two thousand three hundred pounds--the charges of that scientific man for six weeks' labor in surveying the line. His brother directors were to be discovered nowhere: Windham, Dodgin, Mizzlington, and the rest, were all gone long ago. When I entered, the door was open: there was a smell of smoke in the dining-room, where a gentleman at noonday was seated with a pipe and a pot of beer: a man in possession indeed, in that comfortable pretty parlor, by that snug round table where I have so often seen Fanny Dixon's smiling face. Kirby, the ex-dragoon, was scowling at the fellow, who lay upon a little settee reading the newspaper, with an evident desire to kill him. Mrs. Kirby, his wife, held little Danby, poor Dixon's son and heir. Dixon's portrait smiled over the sideboard still, and his wife was up stairs in an agony of fear, with the poor little daughters of this bankrupt, broken family. This poor soul had actually come down and paid a visit to the man in possession. She had sent wine and dinner to "the gentleman down stairs," as she called him in her terror. She had tried to move his heart, by representing to him how innocent Captain Dixon was, and how he had always paid, and always remained at home when everybody else had fled. As if her tears and simple tales and entreaties could move that man in possession out of the house, or induce him to pay the costs of the action which her husband had lost. Danby meanwhile was at Boulogne, sickening after his wife and children. They sold everything in his house--all his smart furniture and neat little stock of plate; his wardrobe and his linen, "the property of a gentleman gone abroad;" his carriage by the best maker; and his wine selected without regard to expense. His house was shut up as completely as his opposite neighbor's; and a new tenant is just having it fresh painted inside and out, as if poor Dixon had left an infection behind. Kirby and his wife went across the water with the children and Mrs. Fanny--she has a small settlement; and I am bound to say that our mutual friend Miss Elizabeth C. went down with Mrs. Dixon in the fly to the Tower Stairs, and stopped in Lombard Street by the way. So it is that the world wags: that honest men and knaves alike are always having ups and downs of fortune, and that we are perpetually changing tenants in Our Street. THE LION OF THE STREET. What people can find in Clarence Bulbul, who has lately taken upon himself the rank and dignity of Lion of Our Street, I have always been at a loss to conjecture. "He has written an Eastern book of considerable merit," Miss Clapperclaw says; but hang it, has not everybody written an Eastern book? I should like to meet anybody in society now who has not been up to the second cataract. An Eastern book forsooth! My Lord Castleroyal has done one--an honest one; my Lord Youngent another-- an amusing one; my Lord Woolsey another--a pious one; there is "The Cutlet and the Cabob"--a sentimental one; "Timbuctoothen"--a humorous one, all ludicrously overrated, in my opinion: not including my own little book, of which a copy or two is still to be had, by the way. Well, then, Clarence Bulbul, because he has made part of the little tour that all of us know, comes back and gives himself airs, forsooth, and howls as if he were just out of the great Libyan desert. When we go and see him, that Irish Jew courier, whom I have before had the honor to describe, looks up from the novel which he is reading in the ante-room, and says, "Mon maitre est au divan," or, "Monsieur trouvera Monsieur dans son serail," and relapses into the Comte de Montecristo again. Yes, the impudent wretch has actually a room in his apartments on the ground-floor of his mother's house, which he calls his harem. When Lady Betty Bulbul (they are of the Nightingale family) or Miss Blanche comes down to visit him, their slippers are placed at the door, and he receives them on an ottoman, and these infatuated women will actually light his pipe for him. Little Spitfire, the groom, hangs about the drawing-room, outside the harem forsooth! so that he may be ready when Clarence Bulbul claps hands for him to bring the pipes and coffee. He has coffee and pipes for everybody. I should like you to have seen the face of old Bowly, his college-tutor, called upon to sit cross-legged on a divan, a little cup of bitter black Mocha put into his hand, and a large amber-muzzled pipe stuck into his mouth by Spitfire, before he could so much as say it was a fine day. Bowly almost thought he had compromised his principles by consenting so far to this Turkish manner. Bulbul's dinners are, I own, very good; his pilaffs and curries excellent. He tried to make us eat rice with our fingers, it is true; but he scalded his own hands in the business, and invariably bedizened his shirt; so he has left off the Turkish practice, for dinner at least, and uses a fork like a Christian. But it is in society that he is most remarkable; and here he would, I own, be odious, but he becomes delightful, because all the men hate him so. A perfect chorus of abuse is raised round about him. "Confounded impostor," says one; "Impudent jackass," says another; "Miserable puppy," cries a third; "I'd like to wring his neck," says Bruff, scowling over his shoulder at him. Clarence meanwhile nods, winks, smiles, and patronizes them all with the easiest good- humor. He is a fellow who would poke an archbishop in the apron, or clap a duke on the shoulder, as coolly as he would address you and me. I saw him the other night at Mrs. Bumpsher's grand let-off. He flung himself down cross-legged on a pink satin sofa, so that you could see Mrs. Bumpsher quiver with rage in the distance, Bruff growl with fury from the further room, and Miss Pim, on whose frock Bulbul's feet rested, look up like a timid fawn. "Fan me, Miss Pim," said he of the cushion. "You look like a perfect Peri to-night. You remind me of a girl I once knew in Circassia--Ameena, the sister of Schamyl Bey. Do you know, Miss Pim, that you would fetch twenty thousand piastres in the market at Constantinople?" "Law, Mr. Bulbul!" is all Miss Pim can ejaculate; and having talked over Miss Pim, Clarence goes off to another houri, whom he fascinates in a similar manner. He charmed Mrs. Waddy by telling her that she was the exact figure of the Pasha of Egypt's second wife. He gave Miss Tokely a piece of the sack in which Zuleika was drowned; and he actually persuaded that poor little silly Miss Vain to turn Mahometan, and sent her up to the Turkish ambassador's to look out for a mufti. THE DOVE OF OUR STREET. If Bulbul is our Lion, Young Oriel may be described as The Dove of our colony. He is almost as great a pasha among the ladies as Bulbul. They crowd in flocks to see him at Saint Waltheof's, where the immense height of his forehead, the rigid asceticism of his surplice, the twang with which he intones the service, and the namby-pamby mysticism of his sermons, have turned all the dear girls' heads for some time past. While we were having a rubber at Mrs. Chauntry's, whose daughters are following the new mode, I heard the following talk (which made me revoke by the way) going on, in what was formerly called the young ladies' room, but is now styled the Oratory:-- THE ORATORY. MISS CHAUNTRY. MISS ISABEL CHAUNTRY. MISS DE L'AISLE. MISS PYX. REV. L. ORIEL. REV. O. SLOCUM--[In the further room.] Miss Chauntry (sighing).--Is it wrong to be in the Guards, dear Mr. Oriel? Miss Pyx.--She will make Frank de Boots sell out when he marries. Mr. Oriel.--To be in the Guards, dear sister? The church has always encouraged the army. Saint Martin of Tours was in the army; Saint Louis was in the army; Saint Waltheof, our patron, Saint Witikind of Aldermanbury, Saint Wamba, and Saint Walloff were in the army. Saint Wapshot was captain of the guard of Queen Boadicea; and Saint Werewolf was a major in the Danish cavalry. The holy Saint Ignatius of Loyola carried a pike, as we know; and-- Miss De l'Aisle.--Will you take some tea, dear Mr. Oriel? Oriel.--This is not one of MY feast days, Sister Emma. It is the feast of Saint Wagstatf of Walthamstow. The Young Ladies.--And we must not even take tea? Oriel.--Dear sisters, I said not so. YOU may do as you list; but I am strong (with a heart-broken sigh); don't ply me (he reels). I took a little water and a parched pea after matins. To-morrow is a flesh day, and--and I shall be better then. Rev. O. Slocum (from within).--Madam, I take your heart with my small trump. Oriel.--Yes, better! dear sister; it is only a passing--a-- weakness. Miss I. Chauntry.--He's dying of fever. Miss Chauntry.--I'm so glad De Boots need not leave the Blues. Miss Pyx.--He wears sackcloth and cinders inside his waistcoat. Miss De l'Aisle.--He's told me to-night he's going to--to-- Ro-o-ome. [Miss De l'Aisle bursts into tears.] Rev. O. Slocum.--My lord, I have the highest club, which gives the trick and two by honors. Thus, you see, we have a variety of clergymen in Our Street. Mr. Oriel is of the pointed Gothic school, while old Slocum is of the good old tawny port-wine school: and it must be confessed that Mr. Gronow, at Ebenezer, has a hearty abhorrence for both. As for Gronow, I pity him, if his future lot should fall where Mr. Oriel supposes that it will. And as for Oriel, he has not even the benefit of purgatory, which he would accord to his neighbor Ebenezer; while old Slocum pronounces both to be a couple of humbugs; and Mr. Mole, the demure little beetle-browed chaplain of the little church of Avemary Lane, keeps his sly eyes down to the ground when he passes any one of his black-coated brethren. There is only one point on which, my friends, they seem agreed. Slocum likes port, but who ever heard that he neglected his poor? Gronow, if he comminates his neighbor's congregation, is the affectionate father of his own. Oriel, if he loves pointed Gothic and parched peas for breakfast, has a prodigious soup-kitchen for his poor; and as for little Father Mole, who never lifts his eyes from the ground, ask our doctor at what bedsides he finds him, and how he soothes poverty, and braves misery and infection.Prev Next All
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