Japhet in Search of a Father

“There,” said Timothy, laying down his basket; “no more work for me hanty prandium, is there, Mr Brookes?”

“No, Tim; but post prandium, you’ll post off again.”

Dinner being ready, and Mr Cophagus having returned, he and Mr Brookes went into the back parlour, leaving Timothy and me in the shop to announce customers. And I shall take this opportunity of introducing Mr Timothy more particularly, as he will play a very conspicuous part in this narrative. Timothy was short in stature for his age, but very strongly built. He had an oval face, with a very dark complexion, grey eyes flashing from under their long eyelashes, and eyebrows nearly meeting each other. He was marked with the small pox, not so much as to disfigure him, but still it was very perceptible when near to him. His countenance was always lighted up with merriment; there was such a happy, devil-may-care expression in his face, that you liked him the first minute that you were in his company, and I was intimate with him immediately.

“I say, Japhet,” said he, “where did you come from?”

“The Foundling,” replied I.

“Then you have no friends or relations.”

“If I have, I do not know where to find them,” replied I, very gravely.

“Pooh! don’t be grave upon it. I hav’n’t any either. I was brought up by the parish, in the workhouse. I was found at the door of a gentleman’s house, who sent me to the overseers—I was about a year old then. They call me a foundling, but I don’t care what they call me, so long as they don’t call me too late for dinner. Father and mother, whoever they were, when they run away from me, didn’t run away with my appetite. I wonder how long master means to play with his knife and fork. As for Mr Brookes, what he eats wouldn’t physic a snipe. What’s your other name, Japhet?”

“Newland.”

“Newland—now you shall have mine in exchange: Timothy Oldmixon at your service. They christened me after the workhouse pump, which had ‘Timothy Oldmixon fecit’ on it: and the overseers thought it as good a name to give me as any other; so I was christened after the pump-maker with some of the pump water. As soon as I was big enough, they employed me to pump all the water for the use of the workhouse. I worked at my papa, as I called the pump, all day long. Few sons worked their father more, or disliked him so much; and now, Japhet, you see, from habit, I’m pumping you.”

“You’ll soon pump dry, then, for I’ve very little to tell you,” replied I; “but, tell me, what sort of a person is our master?”

“He’s just what you see him, never alters, hardly ever out of humour, and when he is, he is just as odd as ever. He very often threatens me, but I have never had a blow yet, although Mr Brookes has complained once or twice.”

“But surely Mr Brookes is not cross?”

“No, he is a very good gentleman; but sometimes I carry on my rigs a little too far, I must say that. For as Mr Brookes says, people may die for want of the medicines, because I put down my basket to play. It’s very true; but I can’t give up ‘peg in the ring’ on that account. But then I only get a box of the ear from Mr Brookes, and that goes for nothing. Mr Cophagus shakes his stick, and says, ‘Bad boy—big stick—um—won’t forget—next time—and so on,’” continued Timothy, laughing; “and it is so on, to the end of the chapter.”

By this time Mr Cophagus and his assistant had finished their dinner, and came into the shop. The former looked at me, put his stick to his nose, “Little boys—always hungry—um—like good dinner—roast beef—Yorkshire pudding—and so on,” and he pointed with the stick to the back parlour. Timothy and I understood him very well this time: we went into the parlour, when the housekeeper sat down with us, and helped us. She was a terribly cross, little old woman, but as honest as she was cross, which is all that I shall say in her favour. Timothy was no favourite, because he had such a good appetite; and it appeared that I was not very likely to stand well in her good opinion, for I also ate a great deal, and every extra mouthful I took I sank in her estimation, till I was nearly at the zero, where Timothy had long been for the same offence; but Mr Cophagus would not allow her to stint him, saying, “Little boys must eat—or won’t grow—and so on.”

I soon found out that we were not only well fed, but in every other point well treated, and I was very comfortable and happy. Mr Brookes instructed me in the art of labelling and tying up, and in a very short time I was very expert; and as Timothy predicted, the rudiments were once more handed over to him. Mr Cophagus supplied me with good clothes, but never gave me any pocket-money, and Timothy and I often lamented that we had not even a halfpenny to spend.

Before I had been many months in the shop, Mr Brookes was able to leave when any exigence required his immediate attendance. I made up the pills, but he weighed out the quantities in the prescriptions: if, therefore anyone came in for medicines, I desired them to wait the return of Mr Brookes, who would be in very soon. One day, when Mr Brookes was out, and I was sitting behind the counter, Timothy sitting on it, and swinging his legs to and fro, both lamenting that we had no pocket-money, Timothy said, “Japhet, I’ve been puzzling my brains how we can get some money, and I’ve hit it at last; let you and I turn doctors; we won’t send all the people away who come when Mr Brookes is out, but we’ll physic them ourselves.” I jumped at the idea, and he had hardly proposed it, when an old woman came in, and addressing Timothy, said, “That she wanted something for her poor grandchild’s sore throat.”

“I don’t mix up the medicines, ma’am,” replied Timothy; “you must apply to that gentleman, Mr Newland, who is behind the counter—he understands what is good for everybody’s complaints.”

“Bless his handsome face—and so young too! Why, be you a doctor, sir?”

“I should hope so,” replied I; “what is it you require—a lotion, or an embrocation?”

“I don’t understand those hard words, but I want some doctor’s stuff.”

“Very well, my good woman; I know what is proper,” replied I, assuming an important air. “Here, Timothy, wash out this vial very clean.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Timothy, very respectfully.

I took one of the measures, and putting in a little green, a little blue, and a little white liquid from the medicine bottles generally used by Mr Brookes, filled it up with water, poured the mixture into the vial, corked and labelled it, haustus statim sumendus, and handed it over the counter to the old woman.

“Is the poor child to take it, or is it to rub outside?” inquired the old woman.

“The directions are on the label;—but you don’t read Latin?”

“Deary me, no! Latin! and do you understand Latin? what a nice clever boy!”

“I should not be a good doctor if I did not,” replied I. “On second thoughts, I consider it advisable and safer, that the application should be external, so I translated the label to her—Haustus, rub it in—statim, on the throat—sumendus, with the palm of the hand.”

“Deary me! and does it mean all that? How much have I to pay, sir?”

“Embrocation is a very dear medicine, my good woman; it ought to be eighteen-pence, but as you are a poor woman, I shall only charge you nine-pence.”

“I’m sure I thank you kindly,” replied the old woman, putting down the money, and wishing me a good morning as she left the shop.

“Bravo!” cried Timothy, rubbing his hands; “it’s halves, Japhet, is it not?”

“Yes,” I replied; “but first we must be honest, and not cheat Mr Cophagus; the vial is sold, you know, for one penny, and I suppose the stuff I have taken is not worth a penny more. Now, if we put aside two-pence for Mr Cophagus, we don’t cheat him, or steal his property; the other seven-pence is of course our own—being the profits of the profession.”

“But how shall we account for receiving the two-pence?” said Timothy.

“Selling two vials instead of one: they are never reckoned, you know.”

“That will do capitally,” cried Timothy; “and now for halves.” But this could not be managed until Timothy had run out and changed the sixpence; we then each had our three-pence halfpenny, and for once in our lives could say that we had money in our pockets.

Part 1—Chapter III

I perform a wonderful Cure upon Saint John Long’s Principle, having little or no Principle of my own—I begin to puzzle my Head with a Problem, of all others most difficult to solve.

The success of our first attempt encouraged us to proceed; but afraid that I might do some mischief, I asked of Mr Brookes the nature and qualities of the various medicines, as he was mixing the prescriptions, that I might avoid taking any of those which were poisonous. Mr Brookes, pleased with my continual inquiries, gave me all the information I could desire, and thus I gained, not only a great deal of information, but also a great deal of credit with Mr Cophagus, to whom Mr Brookes had made known my diligence and thirst for knowledge.

“Good—very good,” said Mr Cophagus; “fine boy—learns his business—M.D. one of these days—ride in his coach—um, and so on.” Nevertheless, at my second attempt, I made an awkward mistake, which very near led to detection. An Irish labourer, more than half tipsy, came in one evening, and asked whether we had such a thing as was called “A poor man’s plaster. By the powers, it will be a poor man’s plaster when it belongs to me; but they tell me that it is a sure and sartain cure for the thumbago, as they call it, which I’ve at the small of my back, and which is a hinder to my mounting up the ladder; so as it’s Saturday night, and I’ve just got the money, I’ll buy the plaster first, and then try what a little whisky inside will do; the devil’s in it if it won’t be driven out of me between the two.”

We had not that plaster in the shop, but we had blister plaster, and Timothy, handing one to me, I proffered it to him. “And what may you be after asking for this same?” inquired he.

The blister plasters were sold at a shilling each, when spread on paper, so I asked him eighteen-pence, that we might pocket the extra sixpence.

“By the powers, one would think that you had made a mistake, and handed me the rich man’s plaster instead of the poor one’s. It’s less whisky I’ll have to drink, anyhow; but here’s the money, and the top of the morning to ye, seeing as how it’s jist getting late.”

Timothy and I laughed as we divided the sixpence. It appeared that after taking his allowance of whisky, the poor fellow fixed the plaster on his back when he went to bed, and the next morning found himself in a condition not to be envied. It was a week before we saw him again, and much to the horror of Timothy and myself, he walked into the shop when Mr Brookes was employed behind the counter. Timothy perceived him before he saw us, and pulling me behind the large mortar, we contrived to make our escape into the back parlour, the door of which we held ajar to hear what would take place.

“Murder and turf!” cried the man; “but that was the devil’s own plaster that you gave me here for my back, and it left me as raw as a turnip, taking every bit of my skin off me entirely, forebye my lying in bed for a whole week, and losing my day’s work.”

“I ready do not recollect supplying you with a plaster, my good man,” replied Mr Brookes.

“Then, by the piper that played before Moses, if you don’t recollect it, I’ve an idea that I shall never forget it. Sure enough, it cured me, but wasn’t I quite kilt before I was cured?”

“It must have been some other shop,” observed Mr Brookes. “You have made a mistake.”

“Devil a bit of mistake, except in selling me the plaster. Didn’t I get it of a lad in this same shop?”

“Nobody sells things out of this shop without my knowledge.”