CHAPTER XXIV
BELINDA’S BEAU
AS Mr. Jorrocks sat at a late breakfast—his wigless aching head enveloped in a damp towel—the pawing of a horse at the trellised archway of Diana Lodge caused him to look up from his well-spread table to reconnoitre the movement.
“Dash my vig, if here ba’int Stobbs!” exclaimed he, jumping up in ecstasy, and bolting his bottom piece of muffin.
“Stobbs!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks, rushing to the eagle-topped mirror.
“Stobbs!” ejaculated Belinda, almost involuntarily, with a blush and a smile, and Jorrocks ran foul of Betsy in the passage, as she came to announce that “Mr. Stobbs was at the gate.”
Charley Stobbs was just four-and-twenty—handsome, lively, and gay, he was welcome wherever he went. In height he was just five feet ten, full-limbed, but not coarse, with a cleanness of make and shape that bespoke strength and muscular activity. His dark brown hair clustered in unstudied locks upon a lofty forehead, while bright brown eyes beamed through the long fringes, giving life and animation to an open, intelligent countenance.
Charles was the only son of a rich Yorkshire yeoman —of a man who, clinging to the style of his ancestors, called himself gentleman instead of esquire—Gentlemen they had been styled for many generations, and son had succeeded sire without wishing for a change.
The old lattice-windowed manor-house, substantial and stone-roofed, stood amid lofty oaks, upon a gentle eminence above the bend of a rapid river—myriads of rooks nestled in the branches, and the rich meadows around were studded with gigantic oaks, and venerable weather-beaten firs. The finest flocks and herds grazed in the pastures, ducks were on the pond, pigs and geese revelled in the stubbles, while the spacious yard at the back of the house contained Dorking fowls, the finest turkeys, and the best of cows. Old Stobbs was, in short, a gentleman farmer. His wife had been dead some years, and Charles and a daughter were the only ties that bound him to the world.
The laudable desire of seeing one’s son better than one’s self induced old Stobbs to give Charles a good education, not that he sent him to college, but he placed him at a good Yorkshire school, which, just as he was leaving, and the old gentleman was wondering “what to make of him,” he happened, while serving at York assizes, to be struck with the easy eloquence or “grand tongue,” as the country people call it, of a neighbour’s son, whom he remembered a most unpromising boy, that he determined to see if Charles would not train from the saddle and gun and make a grand-tongued barrister too.
Having ascertained the line of study that gentleman had pursued, in due course, old Stobbs and his son started for London, and after a week’s sight-seeing, during which they each had their pockets picked half a dozen times while staring into shop windows, they found themselves one fine morning at the chambers of the great Mr. Twister, in Lincoln’s Inn Square.
Mr. Twister was one of those legal nuisances called conveyancers, whom it is to be hoped some contrivance will be found to extinguish, and he could find a loop-hole for an unwilling purchaser to creep out at in the very best of titles. Having plenty to do himself, he took as many pupils as ever he could get, to help each other to do nothing. Each of these paid him a hundred guineas a year, in return for which they had the run of a dingey, carpetless room, the use of some repulsive-looking desks, and liberty to copy twenty volumes of manuscript precedents, that the great Mr. Twister had copied himself when a pupil with great Mr. Somebody-else.
The chapel clock was striking nine as father and son entered the dismal precincts of Lincoln’s Inn, and before they got to the uncouth outer door that shuts in the chamber set, the great conveyancer had handed his old macintosh to his bustling clerk, and was pulling a little brown wig straight, preparatory to setting to for the day. The newly-lit fire shed a scanty ray over the cheerless, comfortless apartment, which was fitted up with a large library-table piled with red-taped dusty papers, the representatives most likely of many thousand acres of land, and the rag of a carpet under it, three or four faded morocco chairs, and a large glass book-case, with a twenty-year-old almanack flopping in front.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” said the parchment-faced old man, as the clerk ushered the fresh fly into the spider’s web. “Hope to make your better acquaintance,” bowing to each.
Old Stobbs would have sat down and told Twister all hopes and fears, but the latter, though a voluminous conveyancer, was a concise conversationalist, and soon cut short the dialogue by looking at his watch, and producing a little red volume indorsed cash book, he politely inquired what Christian name he should enter, and then observing that his clerk would receive the fee, and show Mr Charles what to do, he civilly bowed them into the outer room.
Contrasting Twister’s brevity with his country solicitor’s loquacity, old Stobbs told over his hundred guineas to Mr. Bowker, the aforesaid clerk: and just as he was leaving Lincoln’s Inn, his mind received consolation for the otherwise unpromising investment, by seeing the Lord Chancellor arrive in his coach, and enter his court, preceded by the mace and other glittering insignia of office. “Who knows,” thought old Stobbs to himself, “but Charles may some day occupy that throne;” and an indistinct vision flitted across the old man’s mind, of stuffing the woolsack with the produce of his own sheep.
Shortly after, with an aching heart and fervent prayers for his son’s happiness, the old gentleman returned to Yorkshire; and Charles, having removed his portmanteau from the Piazza to a first-floor lodging in Hadlow Street, Burton Crescent, made his second appearance at the chambers of Mr. Twister.
“Oh, it’s you!” exclaimed Mr. Bowker, answering the gentle rat-tat-tat at the outer door, “come in, Sir, come in—no occasion to knock! No ceremony!—Paid your footing you know—One of us.”
Mr. Bowker, or Bill Bowker, as he was generally called, was a stout, square-built, ruddy-complexioned, yellow-haired, bustling, middle-aged man, with a great taste for flash clothes and jewellery. On the present occasion, he sported a smart nut-brown coat, with a velvet collar; a sky-blue satin stock, secured by numerous pins and brooches; a double-breasted red tartan waistcoat, well laid back; with brownish drab stockingette pantaloons, and Hessian boots. A great bunch of Mosaic seals dangled from a massive chain of the same material; and a cut steel guard, one passing over his waistcoat, secured a pair of mother-of-pearl-cased eye-glasses, though Bill was not in the least short-sighted.
“You’re early,” said Bowker, as Charles deposited a dripping umbrella in the stand. “You don’t look like a sap either,” added he, eyeing Charles in a free and easy sort of way, for Bill was a real impudent fellow.
“What is the right hour?” inquired Charles, with a schoolboy sort of air.
“Right hour?” exclaimed Bill, “any time you like—saps come at opening, others at noon, the Honourable not till afternoon. There are two chaps copying precedents now, that the laundress left here at ten last night—(tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, went a little hand-bell). There’s the old file himself,” observed Bill, bundling off adding, as he went, “be back to you directly.”
“Confound these covenants for quiet enjoyment!” muttered he, returning and opening a pigeon-holed cupboard, labelled like the drawers against a chemist’s shop wall with all sorts of titles; “I get no quiet enjoyment for them, I know. One, two, three—there—three and one left,” returning a few sheets of manuscript to their hole “free from incumbrances.” “Wish I was,” thought Bill—“and for further assurance—one, two, three,” counted Bill, “now let’s see if he’ll have the further assurance to ask for any more to-day.”
“Well now, what can I do for you?” inquired he, returning from the delivery of his “common forms.” “There’s Squelchback’s settlement, that most pupils copy—five hundred pages! Great precedent! produced ten issues, an arbitration, and a Chancery suit.
“But I think I’ve something in my pea-jacket that will suit you better,” observed Bill, taking up a great coarse large-buttoned pilot jacket, and producing a paper from the pocket. “There,” said he, opening it out, “there’s Bell’s Life in London; you’ll see a letter from me signed ‘Ajax.’ Bring it back when you’ve done, and don’t let the Honourable catch it or he’ll burn it.” Saying which, Bill presented our pupil with the paper, and opening the door of an adjoining apartment, ushered Charles into a room on the right, in which sat two youths in very seedy, out at elbow coats, copying away out of manuscript books.
“Mr. Stobbs, gentlemen!” exclaimed Bill with an air of importance, “Mr. Frost, Mr. Stobbs; Mr. Stobbs, Mr. Frost; Mr. Jones, Mr. Stobbs; Mr. Stobbs, Mr. Jones.”
Mr. Frost and Mr. Jones half rose from their chairs, and greeted Mr. Stobbs much in the manner of debtors receiving a chum into their already overcrowded apartment. Frost and Jones were both working men; with their ways to make in the world, they had paid their hundred guineas for a high-sounding name, and betaken themselves to the mechanical drudgery of precedent copying, with an industry worthy of a better direction.
Stobbs’ early appearance at chambers inspired hopes that he was going to be a working man, but the sight of Bell’s Life demolished the idea, and the conversation died out as the pupils gradually resumed their weary occupations.
The Life was uncommonly lively that morning; there had been a great fight at No Man’s Land, between Big-headed Bob and the Pet of the Fancy, which appeared in the glowing language in which poor Vincent Dowling, as good a man as ever lived, used to clothe his pugilistic accounts. How Big-head was caught, and his nob put in chancery, how he sent the Pet’s Teeth down his trap in return, how both were floored, and picked up by their seconds with their claret corks out.
Then there was a host of correspondence; complaints against stewards; accounts of races; hints to judges; and Ajax’s letter, in which he assumed the toga of his master, and dating from Lincoln’s Inn, gave some very queer law respecting landlord and tenant. The challenges too were numerous. Ugly Borrock of Bristol would eat boiled mutton and turnips with any man in England; Tom Jumper had a terrier he would match against any dog of his weight for ten sovereigns, to be heard of at the Jew’s Harp, City Road; Joe Scamp could be backed to whistle; Tom King to run on all fours; and the Lord knows what else.
The advertisements, too, were peculiar. In addition to the usual inquiry after hounds, and offers of horses, there were a suit of Daniel Lambert’s clothes for sale, a preserved boa constrictor serpent, notice of vocalization and frontal frapidigitation, and the meeting of the judge and jury society at the Coal-hole.
Charles kept reading and wondering, amid occasional interruptions from the arrival and introduction of pupils. They were mostly gentlemenly men, somewhat choked into idleness by the prolixity of Squelchback’s settlement. Indeed, their chief claims to the title of reading men consisted in the perusal of the newspapers, of which old Twister furnished the Times, and they clubbed together for the Chronicle, Bowker’s Life was well known, and what with it and a pair of cord trousers Charles had on, they made up their minds that he was a “sporting gent.”
Between twelve and one o’clock all the gentlemen except the Honourable had arrived, and the old question of “fire” or “no fire” was broached. This had been an open question in the chambers ever since old Twister commenced taking double the number of pupils the room would accommodate, and as it furnished great scope for eloquence and idleness, the debate frequently lasted a couple of hours, during which time the saps used to sneak out to dinner, generally getting back in time to vote. This day they stayed, expecting the new pupil would “hold forth,” but he was so absorbed with Bell’s Life, that when called upon by the chair, he gave a silent vote; and just as Bill Bowker answered the bell, and let off his old joke about issuing a fiery facias, “the Honourable” arrived, and the room was full.
The Hon. Henry Lollington, the ninth son of an Earl, was quite a used-up West-end man. He was a tall, drawling, dancing sort of a man, in great request at balls, and had a perfect abhorrence of anything coarse or common-place. He was a mortal enemy to Mr. Bowker, whom he kept at arm’s length, instead of treating as an equal, as some of the pupils did.
“Mr. Bowkar,” drawled he, as he encountered that worthy in the passage, “bring me a piece of papar, and let me give you orders about my lettars—I’m going to Bath.”
“Yes, my Lud!” responded Bill, in a loud tone, to let Charles hear what a great man they had among them.
“Dem you, Mr. Bowkar, I’m not a Lord,” responded the Hon. Mr. Lollington.
“Beg pardon, my Lud!” replied the imperturbable Bill, bustling out.
Charles at this moment had got into the notices to correspondents, and was chuckling at their humorous originality:—
“ ‘Suppose one man to wilfully fire at another with intention of taking away his life, but accidentally misses his aim and kills another, will the laws of our country find this man guilty of wilful murder?’ asked a correspondent.
“ ‘No,’ replied the Editor, ‘but a jury will, and he will be comfortably hanged.’
“ ‘A snake is not a “barber,” although he “curls.” ’ ‘The querist is not “snake-headed,” ’ was the answer to another.
“ ‘We are not aware that a negro boiled, turns white. If Niger will boil one of his children and it turns black, the problem will be solved,’ he observed to another.
“J. G.—The ‘respectable class of servants’ alluded to, are very properly employed in turning the mangle; we wish, in their leisure hours, they would turn J. G. inside out.
“The best cure for carbuncles is to rub them with cheese, and sleep in the domicile of mice, who will eat them off in a night.
“The masculine for ‘flirt’ is cock flirt, if there be such a wretch.
“Apropos.—Hand-shaking is vulgar in polite society upon merely meeting ladies. Pay your respects to the ladies first, married before single.
“Magdalen.—A gentleman may jilt as well as a lady.”
The following American story graced the columns of general information:—
“The Negro and the Cheese.—The Boston Post says that up at the west-end of that city there is a good-natured, fun-making negro, named Parsis, who hovers round the grocery stores in that neighbourhood rather more than is desirable. Like many other gentlemen of colour, he prides himself upon the thickness of his skull, and he is always up for a bet upon his butting powers, and well he may be, for his head is hard enough for a battering-ram. The other day he made a bet in a store that he could butt in the head of a flour-barrel, and he succeeded. He then took up a bet to drive it through a very large cheese, which was to be covered with a crash-cloth to keep his wool clear of cheese-crumbs. The cheese, thus enveloped, was placed in a proper position, and Parsis starting off like a locomotive, buried his head up to his ears in the inviting target. Parsis now began to feel himself irresistible, and talked up ‘purty considerable.’ A plan, however, was soon contrived to take the conceit out of him. There being some grindstones in the store for sale, one of them was privately taken up, and wrapped up in the same manner as the cheese had been, and looked precisely as if it were a second cheese, and Parsis readily took another bet for 9d. that he would butt his head through it as easy as he had sent it through the first. The interest of the spectators in the operation became intense. Everything was carefully adjusted, and upon the word being given, Parsis darted like an arrow at the ambush grindstone; he struck it fair in the centre, and in the next instant lay sprawling on the floor, upon which he recoiled. For some minutes he lay speechless, and then he raised himself slowly on his knees, and scratching his head, said, with a squirming voice, ‘Bery hard cheese dat, massa! Dey skim de milk too much altogether before dey make him, dat’s a fact.’ ”
At length, amid many chuckles, having fairly exhausted its contents, in compliance with Bill Bowker’s request, Charles left the room for the purpose of returning his paper. As he departed, Mr. Lollington eyed him through his glass, and with an air of well-feigned astonishment, exclaimed, as Charles closed the door,—
“Surely, we’ve got the Tipton Slasher among us!”
“Well,” said Bill Bowker, flourishing his great mosaic seals, as he received the paper from Charles, “that’s something like, isn’t it? And how do you like the Honourable? By the way, I forgot to introduce you! Never mind, soon get acquainted—manner against him—but a good-hearted fellow when you know him. Saw him give a gal half-a-crown once for picking up his glove—noble, wasn’t it? Your fiddle-strings will begin to grumble, I guess, for want of your dinner; and by the way, that reminds me, if you haven’t got yourself suited for lodging, we have an excellent first-floor disengaged, and Mrs. B. and her sister will be happy to do for you.—Smart gal—Dances at the ‘Cobourg;’ ” and thereupon Bill, who had exchanged his fine brown coat for a little grey thing that seemed undetermined whether to be a jacket or a coat, kimbo’d his arms, pointed his toe, and pirouetted in the middle of his office.
Charles replied that he had just taken lodgings in Hadlow Street.
“What, at the feather-maker’s?” inquired Bowker, balancing on one leg.
“No,” replied Charles; “at Mrs. Hall’s, a widow woman’s, number twenty something.”
“I know her!” exclaimed Bill, resuming both feet, “left-hand side of the way, going up;—D—d bitch she is, too (aside); pawned her last lodger’s linen—Well, perhaps you’ll bear us in mind, in case she don’t suit—Quiet house—no children—private door—sneck key—social party. You’ll find London deuced dull without acquaintance.”
This last observation came home with uncommon keenness, for Charles had begun to feel the full force of that London loneliness, which damps the spirit of many an ardent genius from the country. At their own market town of Boroughbridge, he met familiar faces at every turn, while, in London, all hurried on, or looked as they would at an indifferent object—a dog or a post. The style of living, too, disgusted him.
Instead of the comfortable, well-stored table and cheerful fire he had been accustomed to at home, he had to stew into hot chop-houses, where they doled out their dinners in portions, and a frowsy waiter kept whisking a duster, to get him away the moment his dinner was done. The dull freedom of manhood did not compensate for the joyousness of boyish restraint.
Mr. Bowker did not give him much time for reflection—“Should have been glad to have taken you to the Cobourg to-night,” observed he, “but have a particular engagement; and that reminds me, I must get one of our saps to answer the door when I go, for I must be off before seven. Have to meet a particular friend of mine, a great fox-hunter, to introduce him at the Blue Dragon Yard, where he wants to choose a terrier for the great hunt in Surrey he belongs to. Des say I could take you if you liked?”
Charles had a taste for terriers, and no taste for his own society, and without ascertaining what Bowker’s offer amounted to, he gladly accepted it, and just as that worthy had fixed for him to meet him at his snuff and cigar warehouse in Eagle Street, Red Lion Square, old Snarle tinkled the bell for his biscuit, and Charles returned to the pupils’ room.
Having settled, on the motion of Mr. Lollington, that Charles was a snob, he met with little encouragement from his brother pupils. They answered his questions, and were civil, but that was all. There was no approach to sociality, and as a dirty, slip-shod straw-bonneted hag of a laundress scattered some block tin candlesticks with thick wicked candles about the pupils’ room, Charles repaired to a neighbouring chop-house, to kill time, until he was due at Mr. Bowker’s.
At the appointed hour, a fan-tailed gas-light revolving between miniature negroes, stopped his progress up the poverty-stricken region of Eagle Street, and looking up—“Bowker and Co.’s Wholesale and Retail Snuff Warehouse,” figured in gilt capitals above the shop-front, while a further notification of “The Trade Supplied” appeared in the window, though the coal-shed, milk-shop, pawn-broking, huckstering appearance of the dirty, narrow, irregularly built street, gave a palpable contradiction to the assertion. Large gilt-lettered barrels were ranged along the walls and floor of the shop, and the lower part of the window was strewed with snuff-boxes, meerschaums, loose cigars, and wooden rolls of tobacco.
“Come in!” exclaimed a female voice, through the sash-door, drawing a green curtain aside and showing a fire in the little back parlour—as Charley hesitated about entering, on seeing the shop empty—“Oh, it’s Mr. Stobbs!” continued the voice, and a fine fat tawdry woman in ringlets and a yellow gauze gown with short sleeves made her appearance. The pleasure of being recognized in London was grateful, and Charley readily accepted the lady’s invitation to enter and sit down.
“Bill ’ll be here presently,” observed she, sweeping a handful of filbert shells off the green baize table cover, and throwing them on to the fire. “Take a glass of brandy,” said she, handing a tumbler off a side table, and passing the bottle to Charley, to help himself and replenish her glass.
“ ’Ot with? or cold without?” inquired Mrs. Bowker, pointing to a little black kettle singing on the stand on the upper bar of the fire.
Charles took hot with, and so did Mrs. Bowker; and the handsome dancer from the Cobourg coming in, they all had hot together.
“Is Stobbs here?” now exclaimed Bowker, bursting into the shop, with his pea-jacket collar up to his ears, and a low-crowned broad-brimmed hat on his head.—“Ah, you rogue!—what, you’ve found your way to the ladies, have you?” continued he, throwing open the sash-door.—“Well, sorry to interrupt you, but my friend’s awaiting, so come along and renew your acquaintance here another time. Always happy to see you, you know.” Charles bid his fair friends a hasty adieu, and Bowker, thrusting his arm through his, led the way along Eagle Street to the turning down of Dean Street. Under the lamp at the Holborn end stood a man, in shape, make, and dress the exact counterpart of Bowker. Low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat, pea-jacket up to his ears, tights, and Hessian boots, too.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting, sir,” said Bowker, in the most respectful tone, as he approached the figure. “Allow me to introduce my friend Mr. Stobbs—Yorkshire gentleman, sir, of great property—Mr. Stobbs, Mr. Jorrocks; Mr. Jorrocks, Mr. Stobbs,” adding, sotto voce, to Stobbs, “member of the Right Worshipful Company of Grocers.”
Mr. Jorrocks raised his hat, and Mr. Stobbs did the same, and then Bowker offering an arm to each, they proceeded on their way.
High Holborn, what with its carts, coaches, busses, and general traffic, affords little opportunity for conversation, and it was as much as the trio could do to keep their place on the flags.
“Cross here,” observed Mr. Bowker, as they neared the narrower part of the street, and passing under an archway, they suddenly entered upon darkness.
Savage yells, mingled with the worrying, barking, and howling of dogs, issued from the upper part of a building on the right, and Bowker with difficulty made himself heard as he halloaed for Slender Bill.
“I ’opes it’s all right,” observed Mr. Jorrocks, twisting his watch in his fob, and tripping over a heap of something that lay in his way.
“Oh, all right, I assure you, sir,” replied Bowker, tripping up also. “Confound the rascals,” continued he, “near as a toucher broke my neck.”
“Slender, a-hooi!” roared he, after three or four ineffectual halloas. “Coming, masters! coming!” exclaimed a voice, and a person appeared on the top of a step-ladder, holding a blacking-bottle, with a candle stuck in the neck.
“Come, Billy! come!” exclaimed Mr. Bowker, peevishly, “didn’t I tell you to be on the look-out for company, and here you’re letting us break our necks in the dark: pretty way to treat gents: show a light, come!”
Billy, all apologies, tripped down the ladder, and holding the candle low enough to discover the steps, crawled backwards, followed by Mr. Bowker and his party.
“What’s to pay?” inquired Mr. Jorrocks, as he reached the landing, of a forbidding-looking one-eyed hag, sitting in a little curtained corner, partitioned from the scene of action by a frowsy green counterpane.
“Oh, Mr. Bowker’s free here,” observed Bill to his gentle wife, drawing aside the curtain and exhibiting the interior. What a scene presented itself! From the centre of the unceiled, hugely-rafted roof of a spacious building, hung an iron hoop, stuck round with various lengths of tallow candles, lighting an oval pit, in which two savage bull-dogs were rolling and tearing each other about, under the auspices of their coatless masters, who stood at either end applauding their exertions. A vast concourse of ruffianly spectators occupied the benches rising gradually from the pit towards the rafters, along which some were carelessly stretched, lost in ecstasy at the scene below.
Ponderous draymen, in coloured plush breeches, with their enormous calves clad in dirty white cotton stockings, sat with their red-capp’d heads resting on their hands, or uproariously applauding as their favourite got the turn. Smithfield drovers, with their badges and knotty clubs; huge coated hackney coachmen; coatless butchers’ boys; dingy dustmen, with their great sou’-westers; sailors, with their pipes; and Jews, with oranges, were mingled with Cyprians of the lowest order, dissolute boys, swell pickpockets, and a few simple countrymen. At the far end of the loft, a partition concealed from view, bears, badgers, and innumerable bull-dogs; while “gentlemen of the fancy” sat with the great round heads and glaring eye-balls of others between their knees, straining for their turn in the pit. The yells and screams of the spectators, the baying of the dogs, the growling of the bears, the worrying of the combatants, and the appearance of the company, caused a shudder through the frames of Mr. Jorrocks and the Yorkshireman.
A volley of yells and plaudits rent the building as the white dog pinned the brindled one for the fourteenth time, and the lacerated animal refused to come to the scratch, and as the pit was cleared for a fresh “set-to,” Slender Billy, with a mildness of manner contrasting with the rudeness of the scene, passed our party on, and turned out two coal-heavers and a ticket-porter, to place them advantageously near the centre. This was a signal for renewed uproar.
“Make vay for the real swells wot pay!” roared a stentorian voice from the rafters.
“Crikey, it’s the Lord Mayor!” responded a shrill one from below.
“Does your mother know you’re out?” inquired a squeaking voice just behind.
“There’s a brace of plummy ones!” exclaimed another, as Bowker and Jorrocks stood up together.
“Luff, there! luff! be serene!” exclaimed Slender Billy, stepping into the centre of the pit, making a sign that had the effect of restoring order on the instant. Three cheers for the Captain were then called for by some friend of Bowker’s, as he opened his pea-jacket; and while they were in course of payment, two more bull-dogs entered the pit, and the sports were resumed. After several dog-fights, Billy’s accomplished daughter lugged in a bear, which Billy fastened by his chain to a ring in the centre of the pit.
“Any gentleman,” said he, looking round, “may have a run at this ’ere hanimal for sixpence;” but though many dogs struggled to get at him, they almost all turned tail on finding themselves solus with Bruin. Those that did seize were speedily disposed of, and the company being satisfied, the bear took his departure, and Billy announced the badger as the next performer.
Slender Billy’s boy, a lad of nine years old, had the first run at him, and brought the badger out in his mouth, after which it was drawn by terriers at so much a run, during which Mr. Jorrocks criticized their performances, and with the aid of Charley Stobbs succeeded in selecting one for the glorious old Surrey.
But enough of Slender Billy and his bull-dogs. He was a well-known character, but all we have to do with him just now is as the medium of introduction between Jorrocks and Stobbs. That introduction ripened into intimacy, and many were the excursions our friends had together, Jorrocks finding cash, and the Yorkshireman company. But for Jorrocks, and perhaps Belinda, Stobbs would very soon have left the law whose crotchety quibbles are enough to disgust any one with a taste for truth and straightfoward riding; and this lengthened episode brings us back to the point from which we started, namely, Charley’s arrival at Handley Cross.
“ ’Ow are ye, my lad o’ wax?” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, bouncing out in his sky-blue dressing-gown and slippers, as Charley appeared at the garden gate, where we have most unceremoniously kept him standing during his introduction.
“Delighted to see you!” continued Mr. Jorrocks, wringing his hand, and hopping about on one leg; “most ’appy indeed! Bed for yourself—stable for your ’oss; all snug and comfey, in fact. Binjimin!—I say, Binjimin!”
“Coming, sir!—coming!” replied the boy, setting himself into a fustian coat.
“Take this ’ere ’oss to the stable, and bid Pigg treat him as one of his own—warm stall—thick blanket—lots o’ straw—and crushed corn without end. Now, come in,” said he to Stobbs, “and get some grub; and let’s hear all about it.” In, then, they bundled together.
Pretty Belinda took Charles’s proffered hand with a blush, and Mrs. Jorrocks re-entered the room in a clean cap and collar just as the trio were settling into seats. What a burst of inquiries followed!
“ ’Ow’s the dad?” asked Mr. Jorrocks.
“ ’Ow did you come?” inquired Mrs. Jorrocks.
“How is your sister?” half whispered Belinda.
“Where have you been since we last saw you?” was demanded before Stobbs had answered any of the preceding, and a great cry of conversation was got up.
In the evening Mr. Jorrocks celebrated the event with a couple of bottles of fine fruity port, and a night-cap of the usual beverage—“B. and W.” as he briefly designates his brandy and water.
