BARBOX BROTHERS AND CO.

With good will and earnest purpose, the gentleman for Nowhere began, on the very next day, his researches at the heads of the seven roads.  The results of his researches, as he and Phœbe afterwards set them down in fair writing, hold their due places in this veracious chronicle, from its seventeenth page, onward.  But they occupied a much longer time in the getting together than they ever will in the perusal.  And this is probably the case with most reading matter, except when it is of that highly beneficial kind (for Posterity) which is “thrown off in a few moments of leisure” by the superior poetic geniuses who scorn to take prose pains.

It must be admitted, however, that Barbox by no means hurried himself.  His heart being in his work of good-nature, he revelled in it.  There was the joy, too (it was a true joy to him), of sometimes sitting by, listening to Phœbe as she picked out more and more discourse from her musical instrument, and asher natural taste and ear refined daily upon her first discoveries.  Besides being a pleasure, this was an occupation, and in the course of weeks it consumed hours.  It resulted that his dreaded birthday was close upon him before he had troubled himself any more about it.

The matter was made more pressing by the unforeseen circumstance that the councils held (at which Mr. Lamps, beaming most brilliantly, on a few rare occasions assisted) respecting the road to be selected, were, after all, in no wise assisted by his investigations.  For, he had connected this interest with this road, or that interest with the other, but could deduce no reason from it for giving any road the preference.  Consequently, when the last council was holden, that part of the business stood, in the end, exactly where it had stood in the beginning.

“But, sir,” remarked Phœbe, “we have only six roads after all.  Is the seventh road dumb?”

“The seventh road?  O!” said Barbox Brothers, rubbing his chin.  “That is the road I took, you know, when I went to get your little present.  That isitsstory, Phœbe.”

“Would you mind taking that road again, sir?” she asked with hesitation.

“Not in the least; it is a great high road after all.”

“I should like you to take it,” returned Phœbe, with a persuasive smile, “for the love of that little present which must ever be so dear to me.  I should like you to take it, because that road can never be again, like any other road to me.  I should like you to take it, in remembrance of your having done me so much good: of your having made me so much happier!  If you leave me by the road you travelled when you went to do me this great kindness,” sounding a faint chord as she spoke, “I shall feel, lying here watching at my window, as if it must conduct you to a prosperous end, and bring you back some day.”

“It shall be done, my dear; it shall be done.”

So at last the gentleman for Nowhere took a ticket for Somewhere, and his destination was the great ingenious town.

He had loitered so long about the Junction that it was the eighteenth of December when he left it.  “High time,” he reflected, as he seated himself in the train, “that I started in earnest!  Only one clear day remains between me and the day I am running away from.  I’ll push onward for the hill-country to-morrow.  I’ll go to Wales.”

It was with some pains that he placed before himself the undeniable advantages to be gained in the way of novel occupation for his senses from misty mountains, swollen streams, rain,cold, a wild seashore, and rugged roads.  And yet he scarcely made them out as distinctly as he could have wished.  Whether the poor girl, in spite of her new resource, her music, would have any feeling of loneliness upon her now—just at first—that she had not had before; whether she saw those very puffs of steam and smoke that he saw, as he sat in the train thinking of her; whether her face would have any pensive shadow on it as they died out of the distant view from her window; whether, in telling him he had done her so much good, she had not unconsciously corrected his old moody bemoaning of his station in life, by setting him thinking that a man might be a great healer, if he would, and yet not be a great doctor; these and other similar meditations got between him and his Welsh picture.  There was within him, too, that dull sense of vacuity which follows separation from an object of interest, and cessation of a pleasant pursuit; and this sense, being quite new to him, made him restless.  Further, in losing Mugby Junction he had found himself again; and he was not the more enamoured of himself for having lately passed his time in better company.

But surely, here not far ahead, must be the great ingenious town.  This crashing and clashing that the train was undergoing, and this coupling on to it of a multitude of newechoes, could mean nothing less than approach to the great station.  It did mean nothing less.  After some stormy flashes of town lightning, in the way of swift revelations of red-brick blocks of houses, high red-brick chimney-shafts, vistas of red-brick railway arches, tongues of fire, blots of smoke, valleys of canal, and hills of coal, there came the thundering in at the journey’s end.

Having seen his portmanteaus safely housed in the hotel he chose, and having appointed his dinner-hour, Barbox Brothers went out for a walk in the busy streets.  And now it began to be suspected by him that Mugby Junction was a Junction of many branches, invisible as well as visible, and had joined him to an endless number of byways.  For, whereas he would, but a little while ago, have walked these streets blindly brooding, he now had eyes and thoughts for a new external world.  How the many toiling people lived, and loved, and died; how wonderful it was to consider the various trainings of eye and hand, the nice distinctions of sight and touch, that separated them into classes of workers, and even into classes of workers at subdivisions of one complete whole which combined their many intelligences and forces, though of itself but some cheap object of use or ornament in common life; how good it was to know that such assembling in a multitude on their part,and such contribution of their several dexterities towards a civilising end, did not deteriorate them as it was the fashion of the supercilious May-flies of humanity to pretend, but engendered among them a self-respect and yet a modest desire to be much wiser than they were (the first evinced in their well-balanced bearing and manner of speech when he stopped to ask a question; the second, in the announcements of their popular studies and amusements on the public walls); these considerations, and a host of such, made his walk a memorable one.  “I too am but a little part of a great whole,” he began to think; “and to be serviceable to myself and others, or to be happy, I must cast my interest into, and draw it out of, the common stock.”

Although he had arrived at his journey’s end for the day by noon, he had since insensibly walked about the town so far and so long that the lamplighters were now at their work in the streets, and the shops were sparkling up brilliantly.  Thus reminded to turn towards his quarters, he was in the act of doing so, when a very little hand crept into his, and a very little voice said:

“O!  If you please, I am lost.”

He looked down, and saw a very little fair-haired girl.

“Yes,” she said, confirming her words with a serious nod.  “I am indeed.  I am lost.”

Greatly perplexed, he stopped, looked about him for help, descried none, and said, bending low: “Where do you live, my child?”

“I don’t know where I live,” she returned.  “I am lost.”

“What is your name?”

“Polly.”

“What is your other name?”

The reply was prompt, but unintelligible.

Imitating the sound, as he caught it, he hazarded the guess, “Trivits?”

“O no!” said the child, shaking her head.  “Nothing like that.”

“Say it again, little one.”

An unpromising business.  For this time it had quite a different sound.

He made the venture: “Paddens?”

“O no!” said the child.  “Nothing like that.”

“Once more.  Let us try it again, dear.”

A most hopeless business.  This time it swelled into four syllables.  “It can’t be Tappitarver?” said Barbox Brothers, rubbing his head with his hat in discomfiture.

“No!  It ain’t,” the child quietly assented.

On her trying this unfortunate name once more, with extraordinary efforts at distinctness, it swelled into eight syllables at least.

“Ah! I think,” said Barbox Brothers, with a desperate air of resignation, “that we had better give it up.”

“But I am lost,” said the child, nestling her little hand more closely in his, “and you’ll take care of me, won’t you?”

If ever a man were disconcerted by division between compassion on the one hand, and the very imbecility of irresolution on the other, here the man was.  “Lost!” he repeated, looking down at the child.  “I am sureIam.  What is to be done!”

“Where doyoulive?” asked the child, looking up at him, wistfully.

“Over there,” he answered, pointing vaguely in the direction of his hotel.

“Hadn’t we better go there?” said the child.

“Really,” he replied, “I don’t know but what we had.”

So they set off, hand in hand.  He, through comparison of himself against his little companion, with a clumsy feeling on him as if he had just developed into a foolish giant.  She, clearly elevated in her own tiny opinion by having got him so neatly out of his embarrassment.

“We are going to have dinner when we get there, I suppose?” said Polly.

“Well,” he rejoined, “I—yes, I suppose we are.”

“Do you like your dinner?” asked the child.

“Why, on the whole,” said Barbox Brothers, “yes, I think I do.”

“I do mine,” said Polly.  “Have you any brothers and sisters?”

“No.  Have you?”

“Mine are dead.”

“Oh!” said Barbox Brothers.  With that absurd sense of unwieldiness of mind and body weighing him down, he would have not known how to pursue the conversation beyond this curt rejoinder, but that the child was always ready for him.

“What,” she asked, turning her soft hand coaxingly in his, “are you going to do to amuse me, after dinner?”

“Upon my soul, Polly,” exclaimed Barbox Brothers, very much at a loss, “I have not the slightest idea!”

“Then I tell you what,” said Polly.  “Have you got any cards at your house?”

“Plenty,” said Barbox Brothers, in a boastful vein.

“Very well.  Then I’ll build houses, and you shall look at me.  You mustn’t blow, you know.”

“O no!” said Barbox Brothers.  “No, no, no.  No blowing.  Blowing’s not fair.”

He flattered himself that he had said this pretty well for an idiotic Monster; but the child, instantly perceiving the awkwardness of his attempt to adapt himself to her level, utterly destroyed his hopeful opinion of himselfby saying, compassionately: “What a funny man you are!”

Feeling, after this melancholy failure, as if he every minute grew bigger and heavier in person, and weaker in mind, Barbox gave himself up for a bad job.  No giant ever submitted more meekly to be led in triumph by all-conquering Jack, than he to be bound in slavery to Polly.

“Do you know any stories?” she asked him.

He was reduced to the humiliating confession: “No.”

“What a dunce you must be, mustn’t you?” said Polly.

He was reduced to the humiliating confession: “Yes.”

“Would you like me to teach you a story?  But you must remember it, you know, and be able to tell it right to somebody else afterwards.”

He professed that it would afford him the highest mental gratification to be taught a story, and that he would humbly endeavour to retain it in his mind.  Whereupon Polly, giving her hand a new little turn in his, expressive of settling down for enjoyment, commenced a long romance, of which every relishing clause began with the words: “So this” or “And so this.”  As, “So this boy;” or, “So this fairy;” or, “And so this pie was four yards round, and two yards and a quarter deep.”The interest of the romance was derived from the intervention of this fairy to punish this boy for having a greedy appetite.  To achieve which purpose, this fairy made this pie, and this boy ate and ate and ate, and his cheeks swelled and swelled and swelled.  There were many tributary circumstances, but the forcible interest culminated in the total consumption of this pie, and the bursting of this boy.  Truly he was a fine sight, Barbox Brothers, with serious attentive face, and ear bent down, much jostled on the pavements of the busy town, but afraid of losing a single incident of the epic, lest he should be examined in it by-and-by and found deficient.

Thus they arrived at the hotel.  And there he had to say at the bar, and said awkwardly enough: “I have found a little girl!”

The whole establishment turned out to look at the little girl.  Nobody knew her; nobody could make out her name, as she set it forth—except one chambermaid, who said it was Constantinople—which it wasn’t.

“I will dine with my young friend in a private room,” said Barbox Brothers to the hotel authorities, “and perhaps you will be so good as let the police know that the pretty baby is here.  I suppose she is sure to be inquired for, soon, if she has not been already.  Come along, Polly.”

Perfectly at ease and peace, Polly camealong, but, finding the stairs rather stiff work, was carried up by Barbox Brothers.  The dinner was a most transcendent success, and the Barbox sheepishness, under Polly’s directions how to mince her meat for her, and how to diffuse gravy over the plate with a liberal and equal hand, was another fine sight.

“And now,” said Polly, “while we are at dinner, you be good, and tell me that story I taught you.”

With the tremors of a civil service examination on him, and very uncertain indeed, not only as to the epoch at which the pie appeared in history, but also as to the measurements of that indispensable fact, Barbox Brothers made a shaky beginning, but under encouragement did very fairly.  There was a want of breadth observable in his rendering of the cheeks, as well as the appetite, of the boy; and there was a certain tameness in his fairy, referable to an under-current of desire to account for her.  Still, as the first lumbering performance of a good-humoured monster, it passed muster.

“I told you to be good,” said Polly, “and you are good, ain’t you?”

“I hope so,” replied Barbox Brothers.

Such was his deference that Polly, elevated on a platform of sofa-cushions in a chair at his right hand, encouraged him with a pat or two on the face from the greasy bowl of her spoon, and even with a gracious kiss.  In getting onher feet upon her chair, however, to give him this last reward, she toppled forward among the dishes, and caused him to exclaim as he effected her rescue: “Gracious Angels!  Whew!  I thought we were in the fire, Polly!”

“What a coward you are, ain’t you?” said Polly, when replaced.

“Yes, I am rather nervous,” he replied.  “Whew!  Don’t, Polly!  Don’t flourish your spoon, or you’ll go over sideways.  Don’t tilt up your legs when you laugh, Polly, or you’ll go over backwards.  Whew!  Polly, Polly, Polly,” said Barbox Brothers, nearly succumbing to despair, “we are environed with dangers!”

Indeed, he could descry no security from the pitfalls that were yawning for Polly, but in proposing to her, after dinner, to sit upon a low stool.  “I will, if you will,” said Polly.  So, as peace of mind should go before all, he begged the waiter to wheel aside the table, bring a pack of cards, a couple of footstools, and a screen, and close in Polly and himself before the fire, as it were in a snug room within the room.  Then, finest sight of all, was Barbox Brothers on his footstool, with a pint decanter on the rug, contemplating Polly as she built successfully, and growing blue in the face with holding his breath, lest he should blow the house down.

“How you stare, don’t you?” said Polly, in a houseless pause.

Detected in the ignoble fact, he felt obliged to admit, apologetically: “I am afraid I was looking rather hard at you, Polly.”

“Why do you stare?” asked Polly.

“I cannot,” he murmured to himself, “recall why.—I don’t know, Polly.”

“You must be a simpleton to do things and not know why, mustn’t you?” said Polly.

In spite of which reproof, he looked at the child again, intently, as she bent her head over her card-structure, her rich curls shading her face.  “It is impossible,” he thought, “that I can ever have seen this pretty baby before.  Can I have dreamed of her?  In some sorrowful dream?”

He could make nothing of it.  So he went into the building trade as a journeyman under Polly, and they built three stories high, four stories high: even five.

“I say.  Who do you think is coming?” asked Polly, rubbing her eyes after tea.

He guessed: “The waiter?”

“No,” said Polly, “the dustman.  I am getting sleepy.”

A new embarrassment for Barbox Brothers!

“I don’t think I am going to be fetched to-night,” said Polly; “what do you think?”

He thought not, either.  After another quarter of an hour, the dustman not merely impending but actually arriving, recourse was had to the Constantinopolitan chambermaid:who cheerily undertook that the child should sleep in a comfortable and wholesome room, which she herself would share.

“And I know you will be careful, won’t you,” said Barbox Brothers, as a new fear dawned upon him, “that she don’t fall out of bed.”

Polly found this so highly entertaining that she was under the necessity of clutching him round the neck with both arms as he sat on his footstool picking up the cards, and rocking him to and fro, with her dimpled chin on his shoulder.

“O what a coward you are, ain’t you!” said Polly.  “Doyoufall out of bed?”

“N—not generally, Polly.”

“No more do I.”

With that, Polly gave him a reassuring hug or two to keep him going, and then giving that confiding mite of a hand of hers to be swallowed up in the hand of the Constantinopolitan chambermaid, trotted off, chattering, without a vestige of anxiety.

He looked after her, had the screen removed and the table and chairs replaced, and still looked after her.  He paced the room for half an hour.  “A most engaging little creature, but it’s not that.  A most winning little voice, but it’s not that.  That has much to do with it, but there is something more.  How can it be that I seem to know this child?  Whatwas it she imperfectly recalled to me when I felt her touch in the street, and, looking down at her, saw her looking up at me?”

“Mr. Jackson!”

With a start he turned towards the sound of the subdued voice, and saw his answer standing at the door.

“O Mr. Jackson, do not be severe with me.  Speak a word of encouragement to me, I beseech you.”

“You are Polly’s mother.”

“Yes.”

Yes.  Polly herself might come to this, one day.  As you see what the rose was, in its faded leaves; as you see what the summer growth of the woods was, in their wintry branches; so Polly might be traced, one day, in a care-worn woman like this, with her hair turned grey.  Before him, were the ashes of a dead fire that had once burned bright.  This was the woman he had loved.  This was the woman he had lost.  Such had been the constancy of his imagination to her, so had Time spared her under its withholding, that now, seeing how roughly the inexorable hand had struck her, his soul was filled with pity and amazement.

He led her to a chair, and stood leaning on a corner of the chimney-piece, with his head resting on his hand, and his face half averted.

“Did you see me in the street, and show me to your child?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Is the little creature, then, a party to deceit?”

“I hope there is no deceit.  I said to her, ‘We have lost our way, and I must try to find mine by myself.  Go to that gentleman and tell him you are lost.  You shall be fetched by-and-by.’  Perhaps you have not thought how very young she is?”

“She is very self-reliant.”

“Perhaps because she is so young?”

He asked, after a short pause, “Why did you do this?”

“O Mr. Jackson, do you ask me?  In the hope that you might see something in my innocent child to soften your heart towards me.  Not only towards me, but towards my husband.”

He suddenly turned about, and walked to the opposite end of the room.  He came back again with a slower step, and resumed his former attitude, saying:

“I thought you had emigrated to America?”

“We did.  But life went ill with us there, and we came back.”

“Do you live in this town?”

“Yes.  I am a daily teacher of music here.  My husband is a book-keeper.”

“Are you—forgive my asking—poor?”

“We earn enough for our wants.  That is not our distress.  My husband is very, very ill of a lingering disorder.  He will never recover—”

“You check yourself.  If it is for want of the encouraging word you spoke of, take it from me.  I cannot forget the old time, Beatrice.”

“God bless you!” she replied, with a burst of tears, and gave him her trembling hand.

“Compose yourself.  I cannot be composed if you are not, for to see you weep distresses me beyond expression.  Speak freely to me.  Trust me.”

She shaded her face with her veil, and after a little while spoke calmly.  Her voice had the ring of Polly’s.

“It is not that my husband’s mind is at all impaired by his bodily suffering, for I assure you that is not the case.  But in his weakness, and in his knowledge that he is incurably ill, he cannot overcome the ascendancy of one idea.  It preys upon him, embitters every moment of his painful life, and will shorten it.”

She stopping, he said again: “Speak freely to me.  Trust me.”

“We have had five children before this darling, and they all lie in their little graves.  He believes that they have withered away under a curse, and that it will blight this child like the rest.”

“Under what curse?”

“Both I and he have it on our conscience that we tried you very heavily, and I do not know but that, if I were as ill as he, I might suffer in my mind as he does.  This is the constant burden:—‘I believe, Beatrice, I was the only friend that Mr. Jackson ever cared to make, though I was so much his junior.  The more influence he acquired in the business, the higher he advanced me, and I was alone in his private confidence.  I came between him and you, and I took you from him.  We were both secret, and the blow fell when he was wholly unprepared.  The anguish it caused a man so compressed, must have been terrible; the wrath it awakened, inappeasable.  So, a curse came to be invoked on our poor pretty little flowers, and they fall.’”

“And you, Beatrice,” he asked, when she had ceased to speak, and there had been a silence afterwards: “how say you?”

“Until within these few weeks I was afraid of you, and I believed that you would never, never, forgive.”

“Until within these few weeks,” he repeated.  “Have you changed your opinion of me within these few weeks?”

“Yes.”

“For what reason?”

“I was getting some pieces of music in a shop in this town, when, to my terror, youcame in.  As I veiled my face and stood in the dark end of the shop, I heard you explain that you wanted a musical instrument for a bedridden girl.  Your voice and manner were so softened, you showed such interest in its selection, you took it away yourself with so much tenderness of care and pleasure, that I knew you were a man with a most gentle heart.  O Mr. Jackson, Mr. Jackson, if you could have felt the refreshing rain of tears that followed for me!”

Was Phœbe playing at that moment, on her distant couch?  He seemed to hear her.

“I inquired in the shop where you lived, but could get no information.  As I had heard you say that you were going back by the next train (but you did not say where), I resolved to visit the station at about that time of day, as often as I could, between my lessons, on the chance of seeing you again.  I have been there very often, but saw you no more until to-day.  You were meditating as you walked the street, but the calm expression of your face emboldened me to send my child to you.  And when I saw you bend your head to speak tenderly to her, I prayed toGodto forgive me for having ever brought a sorrow on it.  I now pray to you to forgive me, and to forgive my husband.  I was very young, he was young too, and in the ignorant hardihood of such a time of life we don’t know what we do to thosewho have undergone more discipline.  You generous man!  You good man!  So to raise me up and make nothing of my crime against you!”—for he would not see her on her knees, and soothed her as a kind father might have soothed an erring daughter—“thank you, bless you, thank you!”

When he next spoke, it was after having drawn aside the window-curtain and looked out a while.  Then, he only said:

“Is Polly asleep?”

“Yes.  As I came in, I met her going away up-stairs, and put her to bed myself.”

“Leave her with me for to-morrow, Beatrice, and write me your address on this leaf of my pocket-book.  In the evening I will bring her home to you—and to her father.”

* * * * *

“Hallo!” cried Polly, putting her saucy sunny face in at the door next morning when breakfast was ready: “I thought I was fetched last night?”

“So you were, Polly, but I asked leave to keep you here for the day, and to take you home in the evening.”

“Upon my word!” said Polly.  “You are very cool, ain’t you?”

However, Polly seemed to think it a good idea, and added, “I suppose I must give you a kiss, though youarecool.”  The kiss givenand taken, they sat down to breakfast in a highly conversational tone.

“Of course, you are going to amuse me?” said Polly.

“Oh, of course,” said Barbox Brothers.

In the pleasurable height of her anticipations, Polly found it indispensable to put down her piece of toast, cross one of her little fat knees over the other, and bring her little fat right hand down into her left hand with a business-like slap.  After this gathering of herself together, Polly, by that time, a mere heap of dimples, asked in a wheedling manner: “What are we going to do, you dear old thing?”

“Why, I was thinking,” said Barbox Brothers, “—but are you fond of horses, Polly?”

“Ponies, I am,” said Polly, “especially when their tails are long.  But horses—n—no—too big, you know.”

“Well,” pursued Barbox Brothers, in a spirit of grave mysterious confidence adapted to the importance of the consultation, “I did see yesterday, Polly, on the walls, pictures of two long-tailed ponies, speckled all over—”

“No, no,no!” cried Polly, in an ecstatic desire to linger on the charming details.  “Not speckled all over!”

“Speckled all over.  Which ponies jump through hoops—”

“No, no,no!” cried Polly, as before.  “They never jump through hoops!”

“Yes, they do.  O I assure you, they do.  And eat pie in pinafores—”

“Ponies eating pie in pinafores!” said Polly.  “What a story-teller you are, ain’t you?”

“Upon my honour.—And fire off guns.”

(Polly hardly seemed to see the force of the ponies resorting to fire-arms.)

“And I was thinking,” pursued the exemplary Barbox, “that if you and I were to go to the Circus where these ponies are, it would do our constitutions good.”

“Does that mean, amuse us?” inquired Polly.  “What long words you do use, don’t you?”

Apologetic for having wandered out of his depth, he replied: “That means, amuse us.  That is exactly what it means.  There are many other wonders besides the ponies, and we shall see them all.  Ladies and gentlemen in spangled dresses, and elephants and lions and tigers.”

Polly became observant of the teapot, with a curled-up nose indicating some uneasiness of mind.  “They never get out, of course,” she remarked as a mere truism.

“The elephants and lions and tigers?  O dear no!”

“O dear no!” said Polly.  “And ofcourse nobody’s afraid of the ponies shooting anybody.”

“Not the least in the world.”

“No, no, not the least in the world,” said Polly.

“I was also thinking,” proceeded Barbox, “that if we were to look in at the toy-shop, to choose a doll—”

“Not dressed!” cried Polly, with a clap of her hands.  “No, no,no, not dressed!”

“Full dressed.  Together with a house, and all things necessary for housekeeping—”

Polly gave a little scream, and seemed in danger of falling into a swoon of bliss.  “What a darling you are!” she languidly exclaimed, leaning back in her chair.  “Come and be hugged, or I must come and hug you!”

This resplendent programme was carried into execution with the utmost rigour of the law.  It being essential to make the purchase of the doll its first feature—or that lady would have lost the ponies—the toy-shop expedition took precedence.  Polly in the magic warehouse, with a doll as large as herself under each arm, and a neat assortment of some twenty more on view upon the counter, did indeed present a spectacle of indecision not quite compatible with unalloyed happiness, but the light cloud passed.  The lovely specimen oftenest chosen, oftenest rejected, and finally abided by, was of Circassian descent, possessingas much boldness of beauty as was reconcilable with extreme feebleness of mouth, and combining a sky-blue silk pelisse with rose-coloured satin trousers, and a black velvet hat: which this fair stranger to our northern shores would seem to have founded on the portraits of the late Duchess of Kent.  The name this distinguished foreigner brought with her from beneath the glowing skies of a sunny clime was (on Polly’s authority) Miss Melluka, and the costly nature of her outfit as a housekeeper, from the Barbox coffers, may be inferred from the two facts that her silver teaspoons were as large as her kitchen poker, and that the proportions of her watch exceeded those of her frying-pan.  Miss Melluka was graciously pleased to express her entire approbation of the Circus, and so was Polly; for the ponieswerespeckled, and brought down nobody when they fired, and the savagery of the wild beasts appeared to be mere smoke—which article, in fact, they did produce in large quantities from their insides.  The Barbox absorption in the general subject throughout the realisation of these delights was again a sight to see, nor was it less worthy to behold at dinner, when he drank to Miss Melluka, tied stiff in a chair opposite to Polly (the fair Circassian possessing an unbendable spine), and even induced the waiter to assist in carrying out with due decorum the prevailing glorious idea.  To wind up, there came theagreeable fever of getting Miss Melluka and all her wardrobe and rich possessions into a fly with Polly, to be taken home.  But by that time Polly had become unable to look upon such accumulated joys with waking eyes, and had withdrawn her consciousness into the wonderful Paradise of a child’s sleep.  “Sleep, Polly, sleep,” said Barbox Brothers, as her head dropped on his shoulder; “you shall not fall out of this bed, easily, at any rate!”

What rustling piece of paper he took from his pocket, and carefully folded into the bosom of Polly’s frock, shall not be mentioned.  He said nothing about it, and nothing shall be said about it.  They drove to a modest suburb of the great ingenious town, and stopped at the forecourt of a small house.  “Do not wake the child,” said Barbox Brothers, softly, to the driver, “I will carry her in as she is.”

Greeting the light at the opened door which was held by Polly’s mother, Polly’s bearer passed on with mother and child into a ground-floor room.  There, stretched on a sofa, lay a sick man, sorely wasted, who covered his eyes with his emaciated hands.

“Tresham,” said Barbox, in a kindly voice, “I have brought you back your Polly, fast asleep.  Give me your hand, and tell me you are better.”

The sick man reached forth his right hand, and bowed his head over the hand into whichit was taken and kissed it.  “Thank you, thank you!  I may say that I am well and happy.”

“That’s brave,” said Barbox.  “Tresham, I have a fancy—can you make room for me beside you here?”

He sat down on the sofa as he said the words, cherishing the plump peachy cheek that lay uppermost on his shoulder.

“I have a fancy, Tresham (I am getting quite an old fellow now, you know, and old fellows may take fancies into their heads sometimes), to give up Polly, having found her, to no one but you.  Will you take her from me?”

As the father held out his arms for the child, each of the two men looked steadily at the other.

“She is very dear to you, Tresham?”

“Unutterably dear.”

“God bless her!  It is not much, Polly,” he continued, turning his eyes upon her peaceful face as he apostrophised her, “it is not much, Polly, for a blind and sinful man to invoke a blessing on something so far better than himself as a little child is; but it would be much—much upon his cruel head, and much upon his guilty soul—if he could be so wicked as to invoke a curse.  He had better have a millstone round his neck, and be cast into the deepest sea.  Live and thrive, my pretty baby!”  Here he kissed her.  “Liveand prosper, and become in time the mother of other little children, like the Angels who behold The Father’s face!”

He kissed her again, gave her up gently to both her parents, and went out.

But he went not to Wales.  No, he never went to Wales.  He went straightway for another stroll about the town, and he looked in upon the people at their work, and at their play, here, there, everywhere, and where not.  For he was Barbox Brothers and Co. now, and had taken thousands of partners into the solitary firm.

He had at length got back to his hotel room, and was standing before his fire refreshing himself with a glass of hot drink which he had stood upon the chimney-piece, when he heard the town clocks striking, and, referring to his watch, found the evening to have so slipped away, that they were striking twelve.  As he put up his watch again, his eyes met those of his reflection in the chimney-glass.

“Why it’s your birthday already,” he said, smiling.  “You are looking very well.  I wish you many happy returns of the day.”

He had never before bestowed that wish upon himself.  “By Jupiter!” he discovered, “it alters the whole case of running away from one’s birthday!  It’s a thing to explain to Phœbe.  Besides, here is quite a long story to tell her, that has sprung out of the roadwith no story.  I’ll go back, instead of going on.  I’ll go back by my friend Lamps’s Up X presently.”

He went back to Mugby Junction, and in point of fact he established himself at Mugby Junction.  It was the convenient place to live in, for brightening Phœbe’s life.  It was the convenient place to live in, for having her taught music by Beatrice.  It was the convenient place to live in, for occasionally borrowing Polly.  It was the convenient place to live in, for being joined at will to all sorts of agreeable places and persons.  So, he became settled there, and, his house standing in an elevated situation, it is noteworthy of him in conclusion, as Polly herself might (not irreverently) have put it:

There was an Old Barbox who lived on a hill,And if he ain’t gone, he lives there still.

There was an Old Barbox who lived on a hill,And if he ain’t gone, he lives there still.

Here follows the substance of what was seen,heard,or otherwise picked up,by the Gentleman for Nowhere,in his careful study of the Junction.

I am The Boy at Mugby.  That’s about whatIam.

You don’t know what I mean?  What a pity!  But I think you do.  I think you must.  Look here.  I am the Boy at what is called The Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, and what’s proudest boast is, that it never yet refreshed a mortal being.

Up in a corner of the Down Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, in the height of twenty-seven cross draughts (I’ve often counted ’em while they brush the First Class hair twenty-seven ways), behind the bottles, among the glasses, bounded on the nor’-west by thebeer, stood pretty far to the right of a metallic object that’s at times the tea-urn and at times the soup-tureen, according to the nature of the last twang imparted to its contents which are the same groundwork, fended off from the traveller by a barrier of stale sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and lastly exposed sideways to the glare of our Missis’s eye—you ask a Boy so sitiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby, for anything to drink; you take particular notice that he’ll try to seem not to hear you, that he’ll appear in a absent manner to survey the Line through a transparent medium composed of your head and body, and that he won’t serve you as long as you can possibly bear it.  That’s Me.

What a lark it is!  We are the Model Establishment, we are, at Mugby.  Other Refreshment Rooms send their imperfect young ladies up to be finished off by our Missis.  For some of the young ladies, when they’re new to the business, come into it mild!  Ah!  Our Missis, she soon takes that out of ’em.  Why, I originally come into the business meek myself.  But Our Missis she soon took that out ofme.

What a delightful lark it is!  I look upon us Refreshmenters as ockipying the only proudly independent footing on the Line.  There’s Papers for instance—my honourable friend if he will allow me to call him so—him as belongs to Smith’s bookstall.  Why he no moredares to be up to our Refreshmenting games, than he dares to jump atop of a locomotive with her steam at full pressure, and cut away upon her alone, driving himself, at limited-mail speed.  Papers, he’d get his head punched at every compartment, first, second and third, the whole length of a train, if he was to ventur to imitate my demeanour.  It’s the same with the porters, the same with the guards, the same with the ticket clerks, the same the whole way up to the secretary, traffic manager, or very chairman.  There ain’t a one among ’em on the nobly independent footing we are.  Did you ever catch one ofthem, when you wanted anything of him, making a system of surveying the Line through a transparent medium composed of your head and body?  I should hope not.

You should see our Bandolining Room at Mugby Junction.  It’s led to, by the door behind the counter which you’ll notice usually stands ajar, and it’s the room where Our Missis and our young ladies Bandolines their hair.  You should see ’em at it, betwixt trains, Bandolining away, as if they was anointing themselves for the combat.  When you’re telegraphed, you should see their noses all a going up with scorn, as if it was a part of the working of the same Cooke and Wheatstone electrical machinery.  You should hear Our Missis give the word “Here comes the Beast to be Fed!”and then you should see ’em indignantly skipping across the Line, from the Up to the Down, or Wicer Warsaw, and begin to pitch the stale pastry into the plates, and chuck the sawdust sangwiches under the glass covers, and get out the—ha ha ha!—the Sherry—O my eye, my eye!—for your Refreshment.

It’s only in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which of course I mean to say Britannia) that Refreshmenting is so effective, so ’olesome, so constitutional, a check upon the public.  There was a foreigner, which having politely, with his hat off, beseeched our young ladies and Our Missis for “a leetel gloss hoff prarndee,” and having had the Line surveyed through him by all and no other acknowledgment, was a proceeding at last to help himself, as seems to be the custom in his own country, when Our Missis with her hair almost a coming un-Bandolined with rage, and her eyes omitting sparks, flew at him, cotched the decanter out of his hand, and said: “Put it down!  I won’t allow that!”  The foreigner turned pale, stepped back with his arms stretched out in front of him, his hands clasped, and his shoulders riz, and exclaimed: “Ah!  Is it possible this!  That these disdaineous females and this ferocious old woman are placed here by the administration, not only to empoison the voyagers, but to affront them!  Great Heaven!  How arrives it?  The Englishpeople.  Or is he then a slave?  Or idiot?”  Another time, a merry wideawake American gent had tried the sawdust and spit it out, and had tried the Sherry and spit that out, and had tried in vain to sustain exhausted natur upon Butter-Scotch, and had been rather extra Bandolined and Line-surveyed through, when, as the bell was ringing and he paid Our Missis, he says, very loud and good-tempered: “I tell Yew what ’tis, ma’arm.  I la’af.  Theer!  I la’af.  I Dew.  I oughter ha’ seen most things, for I hail from the Onlimited side of the Atlantic Ocean, and I haive travelled right slick over the Limited, head on through Jee-rusalemm and the East, and likeways France and Italy, Europe Old World, and am now upon the track to the Chief Europian Village; but such an Institution as Yew, and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin’s solid and liquid, afore the glorious Tarnal I never did see yet!  And if I hain’t found the eighth wonder of monarchical Creation, in finding Yew, and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin’s solid and liquid, all as aforesaid, established in a country where the people air not absolute Loo-naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a Nip and Frizzle to the innermostest grit!  Wheerfur—Theer!—I la’af!  I Dew, ma’arm.  I la’af!”  And so he went, stamping and shaking his sides, along the platform all the way to his own compartment.

I think it was her standing up agin the Foreigner, as giv’ Our Missis the idea of going over to France, and droring a comparison betwixt Refreshmenting as followed among the frog-eaters, and Refreshmenting as triumphant in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which of course I mean to say agin, Britannia).  Our young ladies, Miss Whiff, Miss Piff, and Mrs. Sniff, was unanimous opposed to her going; for, as they says to Our Missis one and all, it is well beknown to the hends of the herth as no other nation except Britain has a idea of anythink, but above all of business.  Why then should you tire yourself to prove what is aready proved?  Our Missis however (being a teazer at all pints) stood out grim obstinate, and got a return pass by South-Eastern Tidal, to go right through, if such should be her dispositions, to Marseilles.

Sniff is husband to Mrs. Sniff, and is a regular insignificant cove.  He looks arter the sawdust department in a back room, and is sometimes when we are very hard put to it let in behind the counter with a corkscrew; but never when it can be helped, his demeanour towards the public being disgusting servile.  How Mrs. Sniff ever come so far to lower herself as to marry him, I don’t know; but I supposehedoes, and I should think he wished he didn’t, for he leads a awful life.  Mrs. Sniff couldn’t be much harder with him if he was public.  Similarly,Miss Whiff and Miss Piff; taking the tone of Mrs. Sniff, they shoulder Sniff about when he is let in with a corkscrew, and they whisk things out of his hands when in his servility he is a going to let the public have ’em, and they snap him up when in the crawling baseness of his spirit he is a going to answer a public question, and they drore more tears into his eyes than ever the mustard does which he all day long lays on to the sawdust.  (But it ain’t strong.)  Once, when Sniff had the repulsiveness to reach across to get the milk-pot to hand over for a baby, I see Our Missis in her rage catch him by both his shoulders and spin him out into the Bandolining Room.

But Mrs. Sniff.  How different!  She’s the one!  She’s the one as you’ll notice to be always looking another way from you, when you look at her.  She’s the one with the small waist buckled in tight in front, and with the lace cuffs at her wrists, which she puts on the edge of the counter before her, and stands a smoothing while the public foams.  This smoothing the cuffs and looking another way while the public foams, is the last accomplishment taught to the young ladies as come to Mugby to be finished by Our Missis; and it’s always taught by Mrs. Sniff.

When Our Missis went away upon her journey, Mrs. Sniff was left in charge.  She did hold the public in check most beautiful!In all my time, I never see half so many cups of tea given without milk to people as wanted it with, nor half so many cups of tea with milk given to people as wanted it without.  When foaming ensued, Mrs. Sniff would say: “Then you’d better settle it among yourselves, and change with one another.”  It was a most highly delicious lark.  I enjoyed the Refreshmenting business more than ever, and was so glad I had took to it when young.

Our Missis returned.  It got circulated among the young ladies, and it as it might be penetrated to me through the crevices of the Bandolining Room, that she had Orrors to reveal, if revelations so contemptible could be dignified with the name.  Agitation become awakened.  Excitement was up in the stirrups.  Expectation stood a tiptoe.  At length it was put forth that on our slackest evening in the week, and at our slackest time of that evening betwixt trains, Our Missis would give her views of foreign Refreshmenting, in the Bandolining Room.

It was arranged tasteful for the purpose.  The Bandolining table and glass was hid in a corner, a arm-chair was elevated on a packing-case for Our Missis’s ockypation, a table and a tumbler of water (no sherry in it, thankee) was placed beside it.  Two of the pupils, the season being autumn, and hollyhocks and daliahs beingin, ornamented the wall with three devices in those flowers.  On one might be read, “May Albion never Learn;” on another, “Keep the Public Down;” on another, “Our Refreshmenting Charter.”  The whole had a beautiful appearance, with which the beauty of the sentiments corresponded.

On Our Missis’s brow was wrote Severity, as she ascended the fatal platform.  (Not that that was anythink new.)  Miss Whiff and Miss Piff sat at her feet.  Three chairs from the Waiting Room might have been perceived by a average eye, in front of her, on which the pupils was accommodated.  Behind them, a very close observer might have discerned a Boy.  Myself.

“Where,” said Our Missis, glancing gloomily around, “is Sniff?”

“I thought it better,” answered Mrs. Sniff, “that he should not be let to come in.  He is such an Ass.”

“No doubt,” assented Our Missis.  “But for that reason is it not desirable to improve his mind?”

“O!  Nothing will ever improvehim,” said Mrs. Sniff.

“However,” pursued Our Missis, “call him in, Ezekiel.”

I called him in.  The appearance of the low-minded cove was hailed with disapprobationfrom all sides, on account of his having brought his corkscrew with him.  He pleaded “the force of habit.”

“The force!” said Mrs. Sniff.  “Don’t let us have you talking about force, for Gracious sake.  There!  Do stand still where you are, with your back against the wall.”

He is a smiling piece of vacancy, and he smiled in the mean way in which he will even smile at the public if he gets a chance (language can say no meaner of him), and he stood upright near the door with the back of his head agin the wall, as if he was a waiting for somebody to come and measure his heighth for the Army.

“I should not enter, ladies,” says Our Missis, “on the revolting disclosures I am about to make, if it was not in the hope that they will cause you to be yet more implacable in the exercise of the power you wield in a constitutional country, and yet more devoted to the constitutional motto which I see before me;” it was behind her, but the words sounded better so; “‘May Albion never learn!’”

Here the pupils as had made the motto, admired it, and cried, “Hear!  Hear!  Hear!”  Sniff, showing an inclination to join in chorus, got himself frowned down by every brow.

“The baseness of the French,” pursued Our Missis, “as displayed in the fawning nature of their Refreshmenting, equals, if not surpasses,anythink as was ever heard of the baseness of the celebrated Buonaparte.”

Miss Whiff, Miss Piff and me, we drored a heavy breath, equal to saying, “We thought as much!”

Miss Whiff and Miss Piff seeming to object to my droring mine along with theirs, I drored another, to aggravate ’em.

“Shall I be believed,” says Our Missis, with flashing eyes, “when I tell you that no sooner had I set my foot upon that treacherous shore—”

Here Sniff, either busting out mad, or thinking aloud, says, in a low voice: “Feet.  Plural, you know.”

The cowering that come upon him when he was spurned by all eyes, added to his being beneath contempt, was sufficient punishment for a cove so grovelling.  In the midst of a silence rendered more impressive by the turned-up female noses with which it was pervaded, Our Missis went on:

“Shall I be believed when I tell you that no sooner had I landed,” this word with a killing look at Sniff, “on that treacherous shore, than I was ushered into a Refreshment Room where there were, I do not exaggerate, actually eatable things to eat?”

A groan burst from the ladies.  I not only did myself the honour of jining, but also of lengthening it out.

“Where there were,” Our Missis added,“not only eatable things to eat, but also drinkable things to drink?”

A murmur, swelling almost into a scream, ariz.  Miss Piff, trembling with indignation, called out: “Name!”

“Iwillname,” said Our Missis.  “There was roast fowls, hot and cold; there was smoking roast veal surrounded with browned potatoes; there was hot soup with (again I ask shall I be credited?) nothing bitter in it, and no flour to choke off the consumer; there was a variety of cold dishes set off with jelly; there was salad; there was—mark me!—freshpastry, and that of a light construction; there was a luscious show of fruit.  There was bottles and decanters of sound small wine, of every size and adapted to every pocket; the same odious statement will apply to brandy; and these were set out upon the counter so that all could help themselves.”

Our Missis’s lips so quivered, that Mrs. Sniff, though scarcely less convulsed than she were, got up and held the tumbler to them.

“This,” proceeds Our Missis, “was my first unconstitutional experience.  Well would it have been, if it had been my last and worst.  But no.  As I proceeded further into that enslaved and ignorant land, its aspect became more hideous.  I need not explain to this assembly, the ingredients and formation of the British Refreshment sangwich?”

Universal laughter—except from Sniff, who, as sangwich-cutter, shook his head in a state of the utmost dejection as he stood with it agin the wall.

“Well!” said Our Missis, with dilated nostrils.  “Take a fresh crisp long crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and best flower.  Cut it longwise through the middle.  Insert a fair and nicely fitting slice of ham.  Tie a smart piece of ribbon round the middle of the whole to bind it together.  Add at one end a neat wrapper of clean white paper by which to hold it.  And the universal French Refreshment sangwich busts on your disgusted vision.”

A cry of “Shame!” from all—except Sniff, which rubbed his stomach with a soothing hand.

“I need not,” said Our Missis, “explain to this assembly, the usual formation and fitting of the British Refreshment Room?”

No, no, and laughter.  Sniff agin shaking his head in low spirits agin the wall.

“Well,” said Our Missis, “what would you say to a general decoration of everythink, to hangings (sometimes elegant), to easy velvet furniture, to abundance of little tables, to abundance of little seats, to brisk bright waiters, to great convenience, to a pervading cleanliness and tastefulness positively addressing the public and making the Beast thinking itself worth the pains?”

Contemptuous fury on the part of all the ladies.  Mrs. Sniff looking as if she wanted somebody to hold her, and everybody else looking as if they’d rayther not.

“Three times,” said our Missis, working herself into a truly terrimenjious state, “three times did I see these shamful things, only between the coast and Paris, and not counting either: at Hazebroucke, at Arras, at Amiens.  But worse remains.  Tell me, what would you call a person who should propose in England that there should be kept, say at our own model Mugby Junction, pretty baskets, each holding an assorted cold lunch and dessert for one, each at a certain fixed price, and each within a passenger’s power to take away, to empty in the carriage at perfect leisure, and to return at another station fifty or a hundred miles further on?”

There was disagreement what such a person should be called.  Whether revolutionist, atheist, Bright (Isaid him), or Un-English.  Miss Piff screeched her shrill opinion last, in the words: “A malignant maniac!”

“I adopt,” says Our Missis, “the brand set upon such a person by the righteous indignation of my friend Miss Piff.  A malignant maniac.  Know then, that that malignant maniac has sprung from the congenial soil of France, and that his malignant madness was in unchecked action on this same part of my journey.”

I noticed that Sniff was a rubbing his hands, and that Mrs. Sniff had got her eye upon him.  But I did not take more particular notice, owing to the excited state in which the young ladies was, and to feeling myself called upon to keep it up with a howl.

“On my experience south of Paris,” said Our Missis, in a deep tone, “I will not expatiate.  Too loathsome were the task!  But fancy this.  Fancy a guard coming round, with the train at full speed, to inquire how many for dinner.  Fancy his telegraphing forward, the number of diners.  Fancy every one expected, and the table elegantly laid for the complete party.  Fancy a charming dinner, in a charming room, and the head-cook, concerned for the honour of every dish, superintending in his clean white jacket and cap.  Fancy the Beast travelling six hundred miles on end, very fast, and with great punctuality, yet being taught to expect all this to be done for it!”

A spirited chorus of “The Beast!”

I noticed that Sniff was agin a rubbing his stomach with a soothing hand, and that he had drored up one leg.  But agin I didn’t take particular notice, looking on myself as called upon to stimilate public feeling.  It being a lark besides.

“Putting everything together,” said Our Missis, “French Refreshmenting comes to this, and O it comes to a nice total!  First:eatable things to eat, and drinkable things to drink.”

A groan from the young ladies, kep’ up by me.

“Second: convenience, and even elegance.”

Another groan from the young ladies, kep’ up by me.

“Third: moderate charges.”

This time, a groan from me, kep’ up by the young ladies.

“Fourth:—and here,” says Our Missis, “I claim your angriest sympathy—attention, common civility, nay, even politeness!”

Me and the young ladies regularly raging mad all together.

“And I cannot in conclusion,” says Our Missis, with her spitefullest sneer, “give you a completer pictur of that despicable nation (after what I have related), than assuring you that they wouldn’t bear our constitutional ways and noble independence at Mugby Junction, for a single month, and that they would turn us to the right-about and put another system in our places, as soon as look at us; perhaps sooner, for I do not believe they have the good taste to care to look at us twice.”

The swelling tumult was arrested in its rise.  Sniff, bore away by his servile disposition, had drored up his leg with a higher and a higher relish, and was now discovered to be waving his corkscrew over his head.  It was at thismoment that Mrs. Sniff, who had kep’ her eye upon him like the fabled obelisk, descended on her victim.  Our Missis followed them both out, and cries was heard in the sawdust department.

You come into the Down Refreshment Room, at the Junction, making believe you don’t know me, and I’ll pint you out with my right thumb over my shoulder which is Our Missis, and which is Miss Whiff; and which is Miss Piff; and which is Mrs. Sniff.  But you won’t get a chance to see Sniff, because he disappeared that night.  Whether he perished, tore to pieces, I cannot say; but his corkscrew alone remains, to bear witness to the servility of his disposition.

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