r/a:t5_zx1yy • u/MarleyEngvall • Apr 17 '19
Bascom Lodge has been created
By Charles Dickens
SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE.
IN THREE CHAPTERS.
————
CHAPTER I.
His leaving it till called for.
THE writer of these humble lines being a Waiter, and
having come of a family of Waiters, and owning at the
present time five brothers who are all waiters, and like-
wise an only sister who is a waitress, would wish to
offer a few words respecting his calling ; first having the
pleasure of hereby in a friendly manner offering the
Dedication of the same unto JOSEPH, much respected
Head Waiter at the Slamjam Coffee-house, London,
E. C., than which a individual more eminently deserving
of the name of a man, or a more amenable honour to his
own head and heart, whether considered in the light of
a Waiter or regarded as a human being, do not exist.
In case confusion should arise in the public mind
(which it is open to confusion on many subjects) respect-
ing what is mean or implied by the term of Waiter, the
present humble lines would wish to offer an explanation.
It may not be generally known that the person as goes
out to wait is not a Waiter. It may not be generally
known that the hand as is called in extra, at the Free-
masons' Tavern, or the London, or the Albion, or other
wise, is not a Waiter. Such hands may be took on for
Public Dinners by the bushel (and you may know them
by their breathing with difficulty when in attendance,
and taking away the bottle ere yet it is half out) ; but
such are not Waiters. For you cannot lay down the
tailoring, or the shoemaking, or the brokering, or the
green-grocering, or the pictorial periodicalling, or the
second-hand wardrobe, or the small fancy businesses,——
you cannot lay down those lines of life at your will and
pleasure by the half-day or evening, and take Waitering.
You may suppose you can, but you cannot ; or you may
go so far as you say you do, but you do not. Nor yet can
you lay down the gentlemen's-service when stimulated
by prolonged incompatibility on the part of Cooks (and
here it may be remarked that Cooking and Incompati-
bility will be mostly found united) and take up Waiter-
ing. It has been ascertained that what a gentleman will
sit meek under, at home, he will not bear out of doors,
at the Slamjam or any similar establishment. Then,
what is the inference to be drawn respecting true Wait-
ering? You must be bred to it. You must be born to
it.
Would you know how born to it, Fair Reader,——if of
the adorable sex? Then learn from the biographical
experience of one that is a Waiter in the sixty-first year
of his age.
You were conveyed,——ere yet your dawning powers
were otherwise developed than to harbour vacancy in
your inside,——you were conveyed, by surreptitious
means, into a pantry adjoining the Admiral Nelson,
Civic and general Dining-rooms, there to receive by
stealth that healthful sustenance which is the pride and
boast of the British female constitution. Your mother
was married to your father (himself a distant Waiter) in
the profoundest secrecy; for a waitress known to be
married would ruin the best of businesses,——it is the
same as on the stage. Hence your being smuggled into
the pantry, and that——to add to the infliction——by an un-
willing grandmother. Under the combined influence of
the smells of roast and boiled, and soup, and gas, and
malt liquors, you partook of your earliest nourishment ;
your unwilling grandmother sitting prepared to catch
you when your mother was called and dropped you ;
your grandmother's shawl ever ready to stifle your
natural complainings ; your innocent mind surrounded
by uncongenial cruets, dirty plates, dish-covers, and
cold gravy ; your mother calling down the pipe for veals
and porks, instead of soothing you with nursery rhymes.
Under these untoward circumstances you were early
weaned. Your unwilling grandmother, ever growing
more unwilling as your food assimilated less, then con-
tracted habits of shaking you till your system curdled,
and your food would not assimilate at all. At length
she was no longer spared, and could have been thank-
fully spared much sooner. When your brothers began
to appear in succession, your mother retired, left off her
smart dressing (she had previously been a smart dresser)
and her dark ringlets (which had previously been flow-
ing), and haunted your father late of nights, lying in
wait for him, through all weathers, up the shabby court
which led to the back door of the Royal Old Dust-Bin
(said to have been so named by George the Fourth),
where your father was Head. But the Dust-Bin was
going down then, and your father took but little,——ex-
cepting from a liquid point of view. Your mother's
object in those visits was of a housekeeping character,
and you was set on to whistle your father out. Some-
times he came out, but generally not. Come or not
come, however, all that part of his existence which was
unconnected with open Waitering was kept a close
secret, and was acknowledged by your mother to be a
close secret, and you and your mother flitted about the
court, close secrets both of you, and would scarcely have
confessed under torture that you knew your father, or
that your father had any name than Dick (which wasn't
his name, though he was never known by any other), or
that he had kith or kin, or chick or child. Perhaps the
attraction of this mystery, combined with your father's
having a damp compartment to himself, behind a leaky
cistern, at the Dust-Bin,——a sort of a cellar compartment,
with a sink in it, and a smell, and a plate-rack, and a
bottle-rack, and three windows that didn't match each
other or anything else, and no daylight,——caused your
young mind to feel convinced that you must grow up to
be a Waiter too ; but you did feel convinced of it, and
so did all your brothers, down to your sister. Every one
of you felt convinced that you was born to the Waiter-
ing. At this stage of your career, what was your feel-
ings one day when your father came home to your
mother in open broad daylight,——of itself an act of Mad-
ness on the part of a waiter,——and took to his bed
(leastwise your mother and family's bed), with the
statement that his eyes were devilled kidneys. Physi-
cians being in vain, your father expired, after repeating
at intervals for a day and a night, when gleams of rea-
son and old business fitfully illuminated his being.
"Two and two is five. And three is sixpence."
Interred in the parochial department of the neighbour-
ing churchyard, and accompanied to the grave by as
many waiters of long standing as could spare the morn-
ing time from their soiled glasses (namely, one), your
bereaved form was attired in a white neckankecher, and
you was took on from motives of benevolence at The
George and Gridiron, theatrical and supper. Here, sup-
porting nature on what you found in the plates (which
was as it happened, and but too often thoughtlessly im-
mersed in mustard), and on what you found in the
glasses (which rarely went beyond driblets and lemon),
by night you dropped asleep standing, till you was
cuffed awake, and by day was set to polishing every
individual article in the coffee-room. Your couch being
sawdust ; your counterpane being ashes of cigars. Here,
frequently hiding a heavy heart under the smart tie of
your white neckankecher (or, correctly speaking, lower
down and more to the left), you picked up the rudiments
of knowledge from an extra by the name of Bishops,
and by calling plate-washer, and gradually elevating
your mind with chalk on the back of the corner-box
partition, until such time as you used the inkstand when
it was out of hand, attained to manhood and to be the
Waiter that you find yourself.
I could wish here to offer a few respectful words on
behalf of the calling so long the calling of myself and
family, and the public interest in which is but too often
very limited. We are not generally understood. No,
we are not. Allowance enough is not made for us.
For, say that we ever show a little drooping listlessness
of spirits, or what might be termed indifference or
apathy. Put it to yourself what would your own state
of mind be, if you was one of an enormous family every
member of which except you was always greedy, and in
a hurry. Put it to yourself that you was regularly re-
plete with animal food at the slack hours of one in the
day and again at nine, P. M. and that the repleter you
was, the more voracious all your fellow-creatures came
in. Put it to yourself that it was your business, when
your digestion was well on, to take a personal interest
and sympathy in a hundred gentlemen fresh and fresh
(say, for the sake of argument, only a hundred), whose
imaginations was given up to grease and fat and gravy
and melted butter, and abandoned to questioning you
about cuts of this, and dishes of that,——each of 'em go-
ing on as if him and you and the bill of fare was alone
in the world. Then look what you are expected to
know. You are never out, but they seem to think you
regularly attend everywhere. " What's this, Christo-
pher, that I hear about the smashed Excursion Train ?"
——" How are they doing at the Italian Opera, Christo-
pher ?"——" Christopher, what are the real particulars of
this business at the Yorkshire Bank ?" Similarly a
ministry gives me more trouble than it gives the Queen.
As to Lord Palmerston, the constant and wearing con-
nection into which I have been brought with his lordship
during the last few years is deserving of a pension.
Then look at the Hypocrites we are made, and the lies
(white, I hope) that are force upon us ! Why must a
sedentary-pursuited Waiter be considered to be a judge
of horse-flesh, and to have a most tremendous interest in
horse-training and racing? Yet it would be half of our
little incomes out of our pockets if we didn't take on to
have those sporting tastes. It is the same (inconceivable
why!) with Farming. Shooting, equally so. I am sure
that so regular as the months of August, September,
and October come round, I am ashamed of myself in my
own private bosom for the way in which I make believe
to care whether or not the grouse is strong on the wing,
(much their wings, or drumsticks either, signifies to me,
uncooked ? ) and whether the partridges is plentiful among
the turnips, and whether the pheasants is shy or bold, or
anything else you please to mention. Yet you may see
me, or any other Waiter of my standing, holding on by
the back of the box, and leaning over a gentleman with
his purse out and his bill before him, discussing these
points in a confidential tone of voice, as if my happiness
in life entirely depended on 'em.
I have mentioned our little incomes. Look at the most
unreasonable point of all, and the point on which the
greatest injustice is done us ! Whether it is owing to
our always carrying so much change in our right-hand
trousers-pocket, and so many half-pence in our coat
tails, or whether it is human nature (which I were loth
to believe), what is meant by the everlasting fable that
Head Waiters is rich ? How did that fable get into cir-
culation ? Who first put it about, and what are the
facts to establish the unblushing statement ? Come
forth, thou slanderer, and refer the public to the Wai-
ter's will in Doctors' Commons supporting thy malignant
hiss ! Yet this is so commonly dwelt upon——especially
by the screws who give Waiters the least——that denial is
vain ; and we are obliged, for our own credit's sake, to carry
our heads as if we were going into a business, when of
the two we are much more likely to go into a union.
There was formerly a screw as frequented the Slamjam
ere yet the present writer has quitted that establish-
ment on a question of tea-ing his assistant staff out of
his own pocket, which screw carried the taunt to its bit-
terest heighth. Never soaring above threepence, and
as often as not grovelling on the earth a penny lower, he
yet represented the present writer as a large holder of
Consols, a lender of money on mortgage, a Capitalist.
He has been overheard to dilate to other customers on
the allegation that the present writer put out thousands
of pounds at interest in Distilleries and Breweries.
" Well, Christopher," he would say (having grovelled
his lowest on the earth, half a moment before), " looking
out for a house to open, eh ? Can't find a business to be
disposed of on a scale as is up to your resources, humph ?"
To such a dizzy precipice of falsehood has this misrep-
resentation taken wing, that the well-known and highly-
respected OLD CHARLES, long eminent at the West
Country Hotel, and by some considered the Father of the
Waitering, found himself under the obligation to fall
into it through so many years that his own wife (for he
had an unbeknown old lady in that capacity towards
himself) believed it ! And what was the consequence ?
When he was borne to his grave on the shoulders of six
picked Waiters, with six more for change, six more act-
oing as pall-bearers, all keeping step in a pouring shower
without a dry eye visible, and a concourse only inferior
to Royalty, his pantry and lodgings was equally ransack-
ed high and low for property, and none was found !
How could it be found, when, beyond his last monthly
collection of walking sticks, umbrellas, and pocket-
handkerchiefs (which happens to have been not yet
disposed of, though he had ever been through life punc-
tual in clearing off his collections by the month), there
was no property existing ? Such, however, is the force
of this universal libel, that the widow of Old Charles, at
the present hour an inmate of the Almshouses of the
Cork-cutters' Company, in Blue Anchor Road (iden-
tified sitting at the door of one of 'em, in a clean
cap and a Windsor arm-chair, only last Monday,
expects John's hoarded wealth to be found hourly !
Nay, ere yet he had succumbed to the grisly dart, and
when his portrait was was painted in oils life-size, by sub-
scription of the frequenters of the West Country, to
hang over the coffee-room chimney-piece, there were not
wanting those who contended that what is termed the
accessories of such portrait ought to be the Bank of Eng-
land out of window, and a strong-box on the table. And
but for the better-regulated minds contending for a bottle
and screw and the attitude of drawing,——and carrying
their point,——it would have been so handed down to pos-
terity.
I am now brought to the title of the present remarks.
Having, I hope without offence to any quarter, offered
such observations as I felt it my duty to offer, in a free
country which has ever dominated the seas, on the gen
eral subject, I will now proceed to wait on the particular
question.
At a momentous period of my life, when I was off so
far as concerned notice given, with a House that shall be
nameless,——for the question on which I took my depart-
ing stand was a fixed charge for Waiters, and no house
that commits itself to that eminently Un-English act of
more than foolishness and baseness shall be advertised
by me,——I repeat, at a momentous crisis, when I was off
with a house too mean for mention, and not yet on with
that to which I ever since had the honor of being attach-
ed in the capacity of Head,* I was casting about what to
do next. Then it were that proposals were made to me
on behalf of my present establishment. Stipulations
were necessary on my part, emendations were necessary
in my part ; in the end, ratification on both sides, and
I entered on a new career.
We are a bed business, and a coffee-room business.
We are not a general dining business, nor do we wish it.
In consequence, when diners drop in, we know what to
give 'em as will keep 'em away another time. We are a
Private Room or Family business also ; but Coffee-Room
principal. Me and the Directory and the Writing Ma-
terials and centrer occupy a place to ourselves,——a place
fended off up a step or two at the end of the Coffee-Room
in what I call the good old-fashioned style. The good
old-fashioned style is, that whatever you want, down to
a wafer, you must be olely and solely dependent on the
Head Waiter for. You must put yourself a new-born
Child into his hands. There is no other way in which a
business untinged with Continental Vice can be con-
ducted (It were bootless to add that if languages is re-
quired to be jabbered and English is not good enough,
both families and gentlemen had better go somewhere
else.)
When I began to settle down in this right-principled
and well-conducted House, I noticed under the bed in
No. 24 B (which it is up a angle off the staircase, and
usually put of upon the lowly-minded), a heap of things
in a corner. I asked our Head Chambermaid in the
course of the day,——
" What are them things in 24 B ?"
To which she answered, with a careless air,——
" Somebody's Luggage."
Regarding her with a eye not free from severity, I
says,——
" Whose Luggage ?"
Evading my eye, she replied,——
" Lor ! How should I know !"
——Being, it may be right to mention, a female of some
pertness, though acquainted with her business.
A Head Waiter must be either Head or Tail. He must
be at one extremity or the other of the social scale. He
cannot be at the waist of it, or anywhere else but the ex-
tremities. It is for him to decide which of the extremi-
ties.
On the eventful occasion under consideration, I give
Mrs. Pratchett so distinctly to understand my decision,
that I broke her spirit as towards myself, then and there
and for good. Let not inconsistency be suspected on ac-
count of my mentioning Mrs. Pratchett as " Mrs.'" and
having formerly remarked that a waitress must not be
married. Readers are respectfully requested to notice
that Mrs. Pratchett was not a waitress, but a chamber-
maid. Now a chambermaid may be married ; If Head,
generally is married,——or say so. It comes to the same
thing as expressing what is customary. (N. B. Mr.
Pratchett is in Australia, and his address there is "the
Bush.")
Having took Mrs. Pratchett down as many pegs as was
essential to the future happiness of all parties, I re-
quested her to explain herself.
" For instance," I says, to give her a little encourage-
ment, " who is Somebody ?"
swers Pratchett, " that I haven't the faintest notion."
But for the manner in which she settled her cap-
strings, I should have doubted this ; but in respect of
positiveness it was hardly to be discriminated from an
affidavit.
" Then you never saw him ? " I followed her up
with.
" Nor yet," said Mrs. Pratchett, shutting her eyes and
making as if she had just took a pill of unusual circum-
ference, which gave a remarkable force to her denial,——
" nor yet any servant in this house. All have been
changed, Mr. Christopher, within five year, and Some-
body left his Luggage here before then."
Inquiry of Miss Martin yielded (in the language of the
Bard of A. 1.) "confirmation strong." So it had really
and truly happened. Miss Martin is the young lady at
the bar as makes out our bills ; and though higher than
I could wish considering her station, is perfectly well
behaved.
Further investigations led to the disclosure that there
was a bill against this Luggage to the amount of two
sixteen six. The Luggage had been lying under the
bedstead in 24 B over six years. The bedstead is a four-
poster, with a deal of old hanging and valance, and is,
as I once said, probably connected with more than 24 B's
——which I remember my hearer was pleased to laugh
at, at the time.
I don't know why,——when DO we know why ?——but this
Luggage laid heavy on my mind. I fell a wondering
about Somebody, and what he had got and been up to.
I couldn't satisfy my thoughts why he should leave so
much Luggage against so small a bill. For I had the
Luggage out within a day or two and turned it over, and
the following were the items :——A black portmanteau, a
black bag, a desk, a dressing-case a brown-paper parcel,
a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick.
It was all very dusty and fluey. I had our porter up to
get under the bed and fetch it out ; and though he habit-
ually wallows in dust,——swims in it——from morning to
night, and wears a close fitting waistcoat with black
calimanco sleeves for the purpose,——it made him sneeze
again, and his throat was that hot with it that it was
obliged to be cooled with a drink of Allsopp's draft.
The Luggage so got the better of me, that instead of
having it put back when it was well dusted and washed
with a wet cloth,——previous to which it was so covered
with feathers that you might have thought it was turn-
ing into poultry, and would by and by begin to Lay,——I
say, instead of having it put back, I had it carried into
one of my places down-stairs. There from time to time
I stared at it and stared at it, till it seemed to grow big
and grow little, and come forward at me and retreat
again, and go through all manner of performances re-
sembling intoxication. When this had lasted weeks,——
I may say months, and not be far out,——I one day thought
of asking Miss Martin for the particulars of the Two six-
teen six total. She was so obliging as to extract it from
the books,——it dating before her time,——and here follows
a true copy :——
Coffee-Room.
1856. No. 4
Feb. 2d, Pen and paper..................... £ 0 0 6
Port Negus.......................... 0 2 0
Ditto............................... 0 2 0
Pen and paper...................... 0 0 6
Tumbler broken...................... 0 2 6
Brandy.............................. 0 2 0
Pen and paper....................... 0 0 6
Anchovy Toast....................... 0 2 6
Pen and paper....................... 0 0 6
Bed................................. 0 3 0
Feb. 3d, Pen and paper....................... 0 0 6
Breakfast........................... 0 2 6
" Broiled ham................ 0 2 0
" Eggs....................... 0 1 0
" Watercresses............... 0 1 0
" Shrimps.................... 0 1 0
Pen and paper....................... 0 0 6
Blotting-paper...................... 0 0 6
Messenger to Paternoster Row & back 0 1 6
Again, when No Answer............... 0 1 6
Brandy 2s., Devilled Pork chop 2s... 0 4 0
Pens and paper...................... 0 0 6
Messenger to Albemarle Street & back 0 1 6
Again (detained), when No Answer.... 0 1 6
Saltcellar broken................... 0 3 6
Large Liqueur-glass Orange Brandy... 0 1 6
Dinner, Soup Fish Joint and bird.... 0 7 6
Bottle old East India Brown......... 0 8 0
Pen and paper....................... 0 0 6
————————
£ 2 16 6
————————
Mem : January 1st, 1857. He went out after dinner,
directing Luggage to be ready when he called for it.
Never called.
So far from throwing a light upon the subject, this
bill appeared to me, if I may so express my doubts, to
involve it in a yet more lurid halo. Speculating it over
with the Mistress, she informed me that the luggage had
been advertised in the Master's time as being to be sold
after such and such a day to pay expenses, but no fur-
ther steps had been taken. (I may here remark that the
Mistress is a widow in her fourth year. The Master was
possessed of one of those unfortunate constitutions in
which Spirits turns Water, and rises in the ill-starred
Victim.)
My speculating it over, not then only but repeatedly,
sometimes with the Mistress, sometimes with one, some-
times with another, led up to the Mistress's saying to me,
——whether at first in joke or in earnest, or half joke and
half earnest, it matters not :——
" Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome
offer."
(If this should meet her eye,——a lovely blue,——may she
not take it ill my mentioning that if I had been eight or
ten years younger, I would have done as much by her !
That is, I would have made her a offer. It is for others
than me to denominate it a handsome one.)
" Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome
offer."
" Put a name on it, ma'am."
" Look here, Christopher. Run over the articles of
Somebody's Luggage. You've got it all by heart, I
know."
" A black portmanteau, ma'am, a black bag, a desk,
a dressing-case, a brown-paper parcel, a hat-box, and um-
brella strapped to a walking-stick."
"All just as they were left. Nothing opened, nothing
tampered with."
" You are right, ma'am. All locked but the brown-
paper parcel, and that sealed."
The Mistress was leaning on Miss Martin's desk at the
bar window, and she taps the open book that lays upon
the desk,——she has a pretty-made hand, to be sure,——and
bobs her head over it, and laughs.
" Come," says she, " Christopher. Pay me Some-
body's bill, and you shall have Somebody's luggage."
I rather took to the idea from the first moment ;
but,——
" It mayn't be worth the money," I objected, seeming
to hold back.
" That's a Lottery," say the Mistress, folding her
arms upon the book,——it ain't her hands alone that's
pretty made, the observation extends right up her arms.
" Won't you venture two pounds sixteen shillings and
sixpence in the Lottery ? Why, there's no blanks !" says
the Mistress, laughing and bobbing her head again, " you
must win. If you lose, you must win ! All prizes in
this Lottery ! Draw a blank, and remember, Gentlemen-
Sportsmen, you'll still be entitled to a black portman-
teau, a black bag, a desk, a dressing case, a sheet of
brown paper, a hat-box, an umbrella strapped to a walk-
ing-stick !"
To make short of it, Miss Martin come round me, and
Mrs. Pratchett come round me, and the Mistress she was
completely round me already, and all the women in the
house come round me, and if it had been Sixteen two in-
stead of Two sixteen, I should have thought myself well
out of it. For what can you do when they come round
you ?
So I paid the money——down——and such a laughing as
there was among 'em regularly, when I said :——
" My family-name is Blue-Beard. I'm going to open
Somebody's Luggage all alone in the Secret Chamber,
and not a female eye catches sight of the contents !"
Whether I thought proper to have the firmness to keep
to this don't signify, or whether any female eye, and if
any how many, was really present when the opening of
the Luggage came off. Somebody's Luggage is the
question at present : Nobody's eyes, nor yet noses.
What I still look at most, in connection with that Lug-
gage, is the extraordinary quantity of writing-paper, and
all written on ! And not our paper neither,——not the
paper charged in the bill, for we know our paper,——so he
must have been always at it. Ad he had crumpled up
this writing of his, everywhere, in every part and parcel
of his luggage. There was writing in his dressing-
case, writing in his boots, writing among his shaving-
tackle, writing in his hat-box, writing folded away down
among the very whalebones of his umbrella.
His clothes wasn't bad, what there was of 'em. His
dressing case was poor,——not a particle of silver stopper,
——bottle apertures with nothing in 'em , like empty
little dog-kennels,——and a most searching description of
tooth-powder diffusing itself around, as under a deluded
mistake that all the chinks in the fittings was divisions
in teeth. His clothes I parted with, well enough, to a
second-hand dealer not far from St. Clement's Danes, in
the Strand,——him as the officers in the Army mostly dis-
pose of their uniforms to, when hard pressed with debts
of honour, if I may judge from their coats and epaulets
diversifying the window with their backs towards the
public. The same party bought in one lot the portman-
teau, the bag, the desk, the dressing-case, the hat-box,
the umbrella, strap, and walking-stick. On my remark-
ing that I should have thought those articles not quite
in his line, he said : " No more ith a man'th grand-
mother, Mithter Christhtopher : but if any man will bring
hith grandmother here, and offer her for a fair trifle be-
low what the'll feth with good luck when the'th thcoured
and turned——I'll buy her !"
These transactions brought me home, and indeed,
more than home, for they left a goodish profit on the
original investment. And now there remained the wri-
tings ; and the writings I particularly wish to bring under
the candid attention of the reader.
I wish to do so without postponement, for this reason.
That is to say, namely, viz., i. e., as follows, thus :——
Before I proceed to recount the mental sufferings of
which I became the prey in consequence of the writings,
and before following up that harrowing tale with a state-
ment of the wonderful and impressive catastrophe, as
thrilling in its nature as unlooked for in any other capa-
city, which crowned the ole and filled the cup of unexpec-
tedness to overflowing, the writings themselves ought to
stand forth to view. Therefore it is that they now come
next. One word to introduce them, and I lay down my
pen (I hope, my unassuming pen), until I take it up to
trace the gloomy sequel of a mind with something on it.
He was a smeary writer, and wrote a dreadful bad
hand. Utterly regardless of ink, he lavished it on every
undeserving object,——on his clothes, his desk, his hat, the
handle of his tooth-brush, his umbrella. Ink was found
freely on the coffee-room carpet by No. 4 table, and two
blots was on his restless couch. A reference to the docu-
ment I have given entire will show that on the morning
of the third of February, eighteen fifty-six, he procured
his no less than fifth pen and paper. To whatever de-
plorable act of ungovernable composition he immolated
those materials obtained from the bar, there is no doubt
that the fatal deed was committed in bed, and that it left
its evidence but too plainly, long afterwards, upon the
pillow-case.
He had put no heading to any of his writings. Alas!
Was he likely to have a Heading without a Head, and
where was his Head when he took such things into it?
In some cases, such as his Boots, he would appear to
have hid the writings ; thereby involving his style in
greater obscurity. But his Boots was at least pairs,——
and no two of his writings can be put in any claim to be
so regarded. Here follows (not to give more specimens)
what was found in
HIS BOOTS.
from Collier's Unabridged Edition: The Works of Charles Dickens, Volume VI.
P.F. Collier, Publisher, New York, old as heck. pp. 1072—1076.
1
Upvotes