The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Volume 1 of 2

Now Mr. Winkle had opened his eyes, and his ears too, when he heard his adversary call out for a cessation of hostilities; and perceiving by what he had afterwards said, that there was, beyond all question, some mistake in the matter, he at once foresaw the increase of reputation he should inevitably acquire by concealing the real motive of his coming out: he therefore stepped boldly forward, and said —

“I am not the person. I know it.”

“Then, that,” said the man with the camp-stool, “is an affront to Dr. Slammer, and a sufficient reason for proceeding immediately.”

“Pray be quiet, Payne,” said the Doctor’s second. “Why did you not communicate this fact to me this morning, sir?”

“To be sure – to be sure,” said the man with the camp-stool, indignantly.

“I entreat you to be quiet, Payne,” said the other. “May I repeat my question, sir?”

“Because, sir,” replied Mr. Winkle, who had had time to deliberate upon his answer, “because, sir, you described an intoxicated and ungentlemanly person as wearing a coat which I have the honour, not only to wear, but to have invented – the proposed uniform, sir, of the Pickwick Club in London. The honour of that uniform I feel bound to maintain, and I therefore, without inquiry, accepted the challenge which you offered me.”

“My dear sir,” said the good-humoured little Doctor, advancing with extended hand, “I honour your gallantry. Permit me to say, sir, that I highly admire your conduct, and extremely regret having caused you the inconvenience of this meeting, to no purpose.”

“I beg you won’t mention it, sir,” said Mr. Winkle.

“I shall feel proud of your acquaintance, sir,” said the little Doctor.

“It will afford me the greatest pleasure to know you, sir,” replied Mr. Winkle. Thereupon the Doctor and Mr. Winkle shook hands, and then Mr. Winkle and Lieutenant Tappleton (the Doctor’s second), and then Mr. Winkle and the man with the camp-stool, and finally, Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass – the last-named gentleman in an excess of admiration at the noble conduct of his heroic friend.

“I think we may adjourn,” said Lieutenant Tappleton.

“Certainly,” added the Doctor.

“Unless,” interposed the man with the camp-stool, “unless Mr. Winkle feels himself aggrieved by the challenge; in which case, I submit, he has a right to satisfaction.”

Mr. Winkle, with great self-denial, expressed himself quite satisfied already.

“Or possibly,” said the man with the camp-stool, “the gentleman’s second may feel himself affronted with some observations which fell from me at an early period of this meeting: if so, I shall be happy to give him satisfaction immediately.”

Mr. Snodgrass hastily professed himself very much obliged with the handsome offer of the gentleman who had spoken last, which he was only induced to decline by his entire contentment with the whole proceedings. The two seconds adjusted the cases, and the whole party left the ground in a much more lively manner than they had proceeded to it.

“Do you remain long here?” inquired Dr. Slammer of Mr. Winkle, as they walked on most amicably together.

“I think we shall leave here the day after to-morrow,” was the reply.

“I trust I shall have the pleasure of seeing you and your friend at my rooms, and of spending a pleasant evening with you after this awkward mistake,” said the little Doctor; “are you disengaged this evening?”

“We have some friends here,” replied Mr. Winkle, “and I should not like to leave them to-night. Perhaps you and your friend will join us at the Bull?”

“With great pleasure,” said the little Doctor; “will ten o’clock be too late to look in for half an hour?”

“Oh dear no,” said Mr. Winkle. “I shall be most happy to introduce you to my friends, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman.”

“It will give me great pleasure, I am sure,” replied Dr. Slammer, little suspecting who Mr. Tupman was.

“You will be sure to come?” said Mr. Snodgrass.

“Oh, certainly.”

By this time they had reached the road. Cordial farewells were exchanged, and the party separated. Doctor Slammer and his friends repaired to the barracks, and Mr. Winkle, accompanied by Mr. Snodgrass, returned to their inn.

CHAPTER III

A New Acquaintance. The Stroller’s Tale. A Disagreeable Interruption, and an Unpleasant Encounter

Mr. Pickwick had felt some apprehensions in consequence of the unusual absence of his two friends, which their mysterious behaviour during the whole morning had by no means tended to diminish. It was, therefore, with more than ordinary pleasure that he rose to greet them when they again entered; and with more than ordinary interest that he inquired what had occurred to detain them from his society. In reply to his questions on this point, Mr. Snodgrass was about to offer an historical account of the circumstances just now detailed, when he was suddenly checked by observing that there were present, not only Mr. Tupman and their stage-coach companion of the preceding day, but another stranger of equally singular appearance. It was a care-worn looking man, whose sallow face, and deeply sunken eyes, were rendered still more striking than nature had made them, by the straight black hair which hung in matted disorder half way down his face. His eyes were almost unnaturally bright and piercing; his cheek-bones were high and prominent; and his jaws were so long and lank, that an observer would have supposed that he was drawing the flesh of his face in, for a moment, by some contraction of the muscles, if his half-opened mouth and immovable expression had not announced that it was his ordinary appearance. Round his neck he wore a green shawl, with the large ends straggling over his chest, and making their appearance occasionally beneath the worn buttonholes of his old waistcoat. His upper garment was a long black surtout; and below it he wore wide drab trousers, and large boots, running rapidly to seed.

It was on this uncouth-looking person that Mr. Winkle’s eye rested, and it was towards him that Mr. Pickwick extended his hand, when he said, “A friend of our friend’s here. We discovered this morning that our friend was connected with the theatre in this place, though he is not desirous to have it generally known, and this gentleman is a member of the same profession. He was about to favour us with a little anecdote connected with it when you entered.”

“Lots of anecdote,” said the green-coated stranger of the day before, advancing to Mr. Winkle and speaking in a low and confidential tone. “Rum fellow – does the heavy business – no actor – strange man – all sorts of miseries – Dismal Jemmy we call him on the circuit.” Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass politely welcomed the gentleman, elegantly designated as “Dismal Jemmy!” and calling for brandy and water, in imitation of the remainder of the company, seated themselves at the table.

“Now, sir,” said Mr. Pickwick, “will you oblige us by proceeding with what you were going to relate?”

The dismal individual took a dirty roll of paper from his pocket, and turning to Mr. Snodgrass, who had just taken out his note-book, said in a hollow voice, perfectly in keeping with his outward man – “Are you the poet?”

“I – I do a little in that way,” replied Mr. Snodgrass, rather taken aback by the abruptness of the question.

“Ah! poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage – strip the one of its false embellishments, and the other of its illusions, and what is there real in either to live or care for?”

“Very true, sir,” replied Mr. Snodgrass.

“To be before the footlights,” continued the dismal man, “is like sitting at a grand court show, and admiring the silken dresses of the gaudy throng – to be behind them is to be the people who make that finery, uncared for and unknown, and left to sink or swim, to starve or live, as fortune wills it.”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Snodgrass: for the sunken eye of the dismal man rested on him, and he felt it necessary to say something.

“Go on, Jemmy,” said the Spanish traveller, “like black-eyed Susan – all in the Downs – no croaking – speak out – look lively.”

“Will you make another glass before you begin, sir?” said Mr. Pickwick.

The dismal man took the hint, and having mixed a glass of brandy and water, and slowly swallowed half of it, opened the roll of paper, and proceeded, partly to read, and partly to relate, the following incident, which we find recorded on the Transactions of the club as “The Stroller’s Tale.”

THE STROLLER’S TALE

“There is nothing of the marvellous in what I am going to relate,” said the dismal man; “there is nothing even uncommon in it. Want and sickness are too common in many stations of life, to deserve more notice than is usually bestowed on the most ordinary vicissitudes of human nature. I have thrown these few notes together, because the subject of them was well known to me for many years. I traced his progress downwards, step by step, until at last he reached that excess of destitution from which he never rose again.

“The man of whom I speak was a low pantomime actor; and like many people of his class, an habitual drunkard. In his better days, before he had become enfeebled by dissipation and emaciated by disease, he had been in the receipt of a good salary, which, if he had been careful and prudent, he might have continued to receive for some years – not many; because these men either die early, or, by unnaturally taxing their bodily energies, lose, prematurely, those physical powers on which alone they can depend for subsistence. His besetting sin gained so fast upon him, however, that it was found impossible to employ him in the situations in which he really was useful to the theatre. The public-house had a fascination for him which he could not resist. Neglected disease and hopeless poverty were as certain to be his portion as death itself, if he persevered in the same course; yet he did persevere, and the result may be guessed. He could obtain no engagement, and he wanted bread.

“Everybody who is at all acquainted with theatrical matters knows what a host of shabby, poverty-stricken men hang about the stage of a large establishment – not regularly engaged actors, but ballet people, procession men, tumblers, and so forth, who are taken on during the run of a pantomime, or an Easter piece, and are then discharged, until the production of some heavy spectacle occasions a new demand for their services. To this mode of life the man was compelled to resort; and taking the chair every night at some low theatrical house, at once put him in possession of a few more shillings weekly, and enabled him to gratify his old propensity. Even this resource shortly failed him; his irregularities were too great to admit of his earning the wretched pittance he might thus have procured, and he was actually reduced to a state bordering on starvation, only procuring a trifle occasionally by borrowing it of some old companion, or by obtaining an appearance at one or other of the commonest of the minor theatres; and when he did earn anything it was spent in the old way.

“About this time, and when he had been existing for upwards of a year no one knew how, I had a short engagement at one of the theatres on the Surrey side of the water, and here I saw this man whom I had lost sight of for some time; for I had been travelling in the provinces, and he had been skulking in the lanes and alleys of London. I was dressed to leave the house, and was crossing the stage on my way out, when he tapped me on the shoulder. Never shall I forget the repulsive sight that met my eye when I turned round. He was dressed for the pantomime, in all the absurdity of a clown’s costume. The spectral figures in the Dance of Death, the most frightful shapes that the ablest painter ever portrayed on canvas, never presented an appearance half so ghastly. His bloated body and shrunken legs – their deformity enhanced a hundred fold by the fantastic dress – the glassy eyes, contrasting fearfully with the thick white paint with which the face was besmeared; the grotesquely ornamented head, trembling with paralysis, and the long skinny hands, rubbed with white chalk – all gave him a hideous and unnatural appearance, of which no description could convey an adequate idea, and which, to this day, I shudder to think of. His voice was hollow and tremulous, as he took me aside, and in broken words recounted a long catalogue of sickness and privations, terminating as usual with an urgent request for the loan of a trifling sum of money. I put a few shillings in his hand, and as I turned away I heard the roar of laughter which followed his first tumble on the stage.

“A few nights afterwards, a boy put a dirty scrap of paper in my hand, on which were scrawled a few words in pencil, intimating that the man was dangerously ill, and begging me, after the performance, to see him at his lodging in some street – I forget the name of it now – at no great distance from the theatre. I promised to comply, as soon as I could get away; and, after the curtain fell, sallied forth on my melancholy errand.

“It was late, for I had been playing in the last piece; and as it was a benefit night, the performances had been protracted to an unusual length. It was a dark cold night, with a chill damp wind, which blew the rain heavily against the windows and house fronts. Pools of water had collected in the narrow and little-frequented streets, and as many of the thinly-scattered oil-lamps had been blown out by the violence of the wind, the walk was not only a comfortless, but most uncertain one. I had fortunately taken the right course, however, and succeeded, after a little difficulty, in finding the house to which I had been directed – a coal-shed, with one storey above it, in the back room of which lay the object of my search.

“A wretched-looking woman, the man’s wife, met me on the stairs, and, telling me that he had just fallen into a kind of doze, led me softly in, and placed a chair for me at the bedside. The sick man was lying with his face turned towards the wall; and as he took no heed of my presence, I had leisure to observe the place in which I found myself.