CHAPTER XI.

OF THE DIRTY SLUT OF A GIRL THAT CAME IN TO MIND MY BABY, AND THE EXTRAORDINARY CHARACTER WE HAD TO CLEAN EDWARD’S BOOTS AND SHOES.

“Let us speak of a man as we find him,And censure alone what we see;And should any one blame, let’s remind him,That from faults we are none of us free.”“Let us speak of a Man as we find him.”

“She wander’d forlorn, without guardian or guide,To the brink of the flood o’er the precipice side.”“Ah! did you not hear of a poor Silly Maid.”

AfterSusan left me, I had one or two maids; but I really can’t say what on earth had come to all the creatures, for none of them would suit me. However, as there was nothing particular about their goings on, and the annoyances they caused me were not of sufficient consequence to interest my readers, I shall merely say that, as I wasn’t going to have any more pretty maids in my house so long as those dreadful barracks remained in the neighbourhood, I took good care to choose the very ugliest that I could pitch upon. I declare to goodness if the woman wasn’t the very image of an ourang-outang in petticoats! Goodness gracious! I never saw such a head on a woman’s shoulders before in all my life. Lord-a’-mercy upon the woman, if she hadn’t nose enough for six! and it was of that peculiar shape which mother calls a bottle, and hairs all growing on the end of it, just like a large ripe red gooseberry. But I’m sorry to say that I had overshot my mark this time; for, upon my word, the woman was so shamefully ill-favoured, and so frightfully bad-looking, that after she came into the house, instead of growing accustomed to her face, as I expected I should, it only seemed to me to grow more and more ugly every day; and Edward vowed that he couldn’t bear to look upon her, and wouldn’t have such a buck-horse, as he called her, in his service; and, more than that, I declare my little ducks-o’-diamonds of a Kate used to scream itself nearly into fits directly the woman came near her. So I was obliged to get rid of her, though I must do thewoman the justice to say that she answered my purpose very well, and did capitally for what I had engaged her—viz., to scare all the life-guardsmen away from my larder, which she did so effectually, that from the day after she entered my service, till the time she left, I never saw but one near the place, and he was a red-headed Irishman, and, I suppose, thought that, as the woman was so ugly, she must have a good bit of money in the savings bank; but evenheonly came once.

The next maid I had was too grand by half to please me, and ought to have been a duchess instead of a servant; as she told me, plump and plain, “that she couldn’t a’bear the taste of ’ashes, and warn’t a-going to have none of the scraps warmed up twice, and shoved off upon her.” So, of course, I soon let the stuck-up thing know that she wouldn’t suit me, and that I only hoped that the day might come when she would be glad to jump out of her skin to get a dishful of sweet and wholesome mutton, instead of standing there turning up her nose at it, as if she were a lady of fashion.

The servant that I had after my fine lady was really a good one; but she objected to clean boots and knives, declaring that she had lived as maid-of-all-work in the first of families—(I never knew such first of families—I had her character from a tobacconist),—where every morning a man used to come in and do them. Indeed, she positively refused to touch either; so, as I wasn’t going to give into her—even if she had been the treasure that my mother promised to find me when I first got married—I determined to let her see who was mistress, and paying her a month in advance, I told her to go back and show her airs in her first of families, for she shouldn’t in mine.

Really, what with all this worry and bother, and what with my nursing at the time, I declare it was pulling me down so low, that my poor bones were all starting through my poor skin, and positively I hadn’t a bit of fat left upon my cheeks. If I drank one pint of porter throughout the day, I must have drunk near upon a dozen; and although the beer in the neighbourhood certainly was very good, still it seemed to be all thrown away upon me; and dear Edward very truly observed, that such a great big child as my Kitty was too much for me, and that either I must make up my mind to wean thepoor little dear, (which I couldn’t bear the thoughts of,) or I must take more substantial food, and keep always having something strengthening, and a glass of port wine every two hours throughout the day; for he said, he didn’t wish me to go drinking so much porter; and that, as it was, there was nothing but one series of cries now at our door of “pots” and “beer,” from the first thing in the morning to the last thing at night. Really, he felt quite ashamed to look at our area rails when he got up, for there wasn’t a spike that hadn’t got a pewter-pot hanging to it, so that any one to see the sight would imagine that porter after all was the real blessing to mothers, and that Barclay and Perkins ought to be looked upon as the gigantic wet-nurses to the infants of the metropolis, while Truman and Hanbury might, at the same time, be regarded in the light of the extensive purveyors of milk to the blessed babes of London.

I told him, for goodness’ sake, to hold his tongue, and talk about something that he understood, and that I was sure I didn’t take half as much stout as many ladies that I knew, for that ever since the little pet had been born, I had accustomed it to the bottle.

“Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he replied; “teaching a little innocent creature like that to fly for consolation to the bottle already. For my part,” he continued, “I shouldn’t at all wonder if she could, even now, at her tender age, manage her six bottles without being under the cradle.”

“Well, I’m sure!” I exclaimed. “I think you might find something better to joke upon, Mr. Sk—n—st—n, and not go turning your own flesh and blood into ridicule.”

“You know, my dear,” he continued, sipping his wine in the coolest way possible, “I’ve told you at least a hundred times that it’s one of the prettiest and most innocent little lambs I ever saw: so, come, my love, let’s drink the darling’s health; and I’ll give you a toast—‘May we ne’er want a baby, nor a bottle to give it!’”

I let him go on, for I saw that he was in a nasty, tantalizing humour, and that nothing would please him better than to get my blood up; but I wasn’t going to let him. Accordingly, I rang the bell for tea, and asked him, as I was nursing the child, and he seemed to want something to do, just to make it.

I declare I never knew such poor, helpless, ignorant things as the men are!—for, positively and truly, Edward was obliged to ask me to tell him how many spoonfuls he was to put in. And he calls himself a lord of the creation, too! Pretty lord of the creation, indeed, not even to know how to make so much as a simple cup of tea! So I had my laugh at him, and asked him, in my sly, quiet way, how he would ever be able to manage without us. Then I told him, of course, that he was to put in one spoonful for each of us, and one for the pot.

“One for the pot!” he exclaimed; “what do you mean by that? How can the pot want a spoonful? I shan’t do anything of the kind.”

I really thought I should have died of laughter at seeing any one so stupid, and said—“Lord! how foolish you are, Edward! Why, of course it’s only an extra spoonful, to make it better for ourselves; only it’s always customary, when you’re making tea, to say that it is for the pot.”

“Ah!” he returned—“I see! It’s the old story over again: doing something for ourselves, and making it out as if for another. And I’m very much afraid that, in these days of excessive philanthropy, more than one-half of what is termed charity is, after all, nothing more than ‘one for the pot.’”

I knew, if I answered him, he would go on all night, so I held my tongue; and I declare if he didn’t go putting almost every virtue down as “one for the pot,” and had the impudence to say that the shilling I put into the plate after the charity sermon, the Sunday before last, was not done for the sake of the orphans, but out of fear of not doing as other people did, and consequently was really and truly “one for the pot;” and that the beer which I drank, and which I said I took solely on dear little Kitty’s account, might also be put down as “one for the pot.”

After a world of bother, I at length obtained a servant. To be sure she was as stupid as she could well be; but when I came to think of it, what on earth could that matter to me? For, as I said to myself, we don’t want geniuses to wash up our dishes, or women of mind, indeed, to boil our potatoes. So I didn’t care about the poor thing’s deficiency of intellect, especially as it was muscles, and not brains, that I wanted, and she had a very good character from her last place; thoughreally and truly the poor thing seemed to be half-witted, and I had to take great care about what I said to her, or she would be sure to go and take it literally. However, I had had so many knaves in the house before, that really I thought a fool would be agreeable, if it was only for the change. But whilst she was with me, the blunders she kept continually making were such that, whenever she came into my presence, I couldn’t help saying to myself, I never knew a woman approaching so near an idiot, in all my life.

However, my lady had got sense enough left to object to cleaning the knives and the boots and shoes, and to stipulate, when I engaged her, that I should get somebody else to do them; so I told her, if I found she suited me, I should not make that an objection, as, indeed, I should not have done with the other one, had she asked for it with the proper respect that was due to me as her mistress. So there I was again as deep in the mire as ever, and obliged to go trotting about among the tradesmen, asking them if they could recommend me any honest, well-disposed person, that had got his mornings disengaged, and would like to turn an honest penny or two by polishing our knives and boots.

Moreover, as I found that my little girl was getting far too heavy for me, in my weak state, to carry, I, at the same time, told the tradespeople that I should feel obliged if they would send me round any respectable little girl that they might hear of, who was competent to take care of a child.

Next day, the oilman sent a girl round to me. She was a little round fat body, with what I thought at the time was dark brown hair, (though I since found out that it was a bright red, only greased for the occasion into a chestnut;) and she looked so clean and neat, that I was delighted with her. As the oilman said that he knew her father—who was a highly respectable journeyman-painter—and that the girl was a well-behaved child, I made no bones about taking her, but told her she might come, and I should give her two shillings a-week, and food, which would be a great help to her parents, who, I dare say, were anxious that a girl of her age should begin to turn her hand to something for a living.

She went on very well at first, as they all do, indeed, and came with her hair nicely brushed, and her face and handsand apron beautifully clean, for two or three mornings; and then, all of a sudden, a change came o’er the spirit of my dream, as the poet says, and anybody that had seen her look so tidy before, would never have known her again in the grubby state she appeared; for she used to come with her hair just the same as when she got up in the morning, and all frayed out like so much red worsted, and looking as coarse and fuzzy as cocoa-nut fibre—and with the hooks and eyes nearly all off her gown behind—and her nasty rusty black petticoat hanging down below her frock, all caked over with old mud—and her boots burst out, and laced up three holes at a time, just to save herself trouble, with the ends of the laces dangling about her heels, and allowed to drag in the wet, till they really looked for all the world like a bit of string—whilst her apron, I declare, was as dirty as a coal-heaver’s stockings at the end of the week.

At last I found out who and what my lady was. For one day, after I had spoken to her about the disgraceful state of her clothing, and had told her that she really must get her boots mended if she wished to stop in my service, lo, and behold! my little monkey appeared the next day in a pair of old, dirty, worn-out, white satin shoes. And when I asked her what on earth could possess her to think of ever coming into my house in such disgraceful things as she had got on her feet, I declare, if she didn’t tell me that they were the shoes that she wore when she used to dance, as “La Petite Saqui,” on the tight-rope at the Queen’s Theatre, in Tottenham-court-road, until she grew too stout for the business.

I uttered a faint scream at the idea of my sweet cherub being intrusted to the care of such a creature, and asked her what in the world could have induced her to take to such an extraordinary means of getting a living? But she merely said that her father had a large family, and he had apprenticed her at a very early age to her uncle, who, together with her cousin, and a young gentleman of the name of Biler, were the original Bedouin Brothers, and who, she told me, were declared by the public press and her father to be the first posture-masters of the day.

I could scarcely restrain my feelings on hearing this, for, of course, after what I had heard, I imagined that I should go up suddenly into the nursery some fine morning, andcatch “La Petite Saqui” doing with my little daughter the same as I had seen Mr. Risley do with his little boy—viz., lying down on her back, tossing up the little pet with the soles of her feet, and catching it again on the palms of her hand. However, I restrained my feelings, and determined to go round that very afternoon to the oilman, and give it him well for sending such a creature to me, with the character he did, and try if I could hear of any other girl in the neighbourhood.

Accordingly, as soon as my little angel of a Kate was fast asleep, I put on my bonnet, and stepped out. To make sure that neither of the girls could be up to any of their tricks in my absence, I took the key of the street-door, and locked them both in.

I couldn’t have been gone above half an hour, and when I got home again, I opened the door with as little noise as I could, in the hopes of seeing what the minxes had been doing in my absence. I had scarcely got half way down the passage, before—goodness gracious me!—if I didn’t see “La Petite Saqui,” as the young monkey called itself, out in the garden, with my longest clothes-pole in her hand, figuring on a tight-rope, which she had made by tying my clothes line from the railings to the garden-seat.

Yes, there she was, now springing up in the air, and now coming down, and sitting on the rope for a minute, and then bounding up again, just like an Indian-rubber ball, and then coming down again, and balancing herself on one leg, whilst she held the other out for a few seconds; and then running along the line towards the house as quick as she could put one foot over the other, and stopping suddenly, with a graceful curtsy, in the first position, just as I made my appearance at the back door. And when I went out into the garden, bless us and save us! if the place wasn’t just like a fair, with all the servants round about stretching their necks out of the windows or poking their noses over the garden walls, and that fool of a maid-of-all-work of an Emma of mine, standing by looking on, with a ball of whiting in her hand, and her mouth wide open with wonder.

They no sooner saw me, than down jumped that fat lump of goods, “La Petite Saqui,” and off she scampered, and I after her, all round the garden, with my parasol, trying togive it her well, amidst roars of laughter from all the servants looking on.

As for my tight-rope dancer, I wasn’t long in getting her out of the house, for directly I caught her, I took her by the scruff of the neck, and, bundling her into the street, threw her bonnet out after her.

Then I went down-stairs, and told that stupid thing of an Emma, that if ever I caught her idling her time away, instead of minding her work—which, I was sure, was quite enough for her to do, and if it wasn’t, I could easily find her some more—I’d serve her just in the same way, and not give her a character into the bargain. For I felt that if a stop were not put to such goings-on, at their very commencement, that really there would be no saying to what lengths such a simpleton as Emma might not go.

All the stupid thing kept saying was, that I had promised her she was not to clean the boots and shoes, and knives and forks, and that she had had to do them ever since she had been with me—as if that had got anything to do with it. But my experience has taught me, that servants, directly one begins to find fault with anything they’ve been doing, have a clever knack of bringing up against one any little indulgence that one may have foolishly promised them, and very naturally forgotten to carry out.

I told Miss Emma that she needn’t be frightened about soiling her delicate hands with the blacking brushes, as she wouldn’t have to do it much longer, for I had engaged a man who was to come in on the day after to-morrow, and would take the boots off her hands.

The publican sent me a very nice, sharp, active man, of the name of Richard Farden, though, he told me, he was better known as Dick Farden. He said, in the low London dialect, “He should be werry glad on the place, as it was just the thing he had been a looken out for for these three weeks gone, as his perfession didn’t require looking arter till it were gone three, or so.”

“Indeed!” I said, in the hopes that he would go on, for really the idea of a professional gentleman coming in to clean my boots and shoes did strike me as being somewhat singular. “And where may your place of business be?”

“Why, marm,” he replied, twiddling his bushy whiskers,“you see, my place o’ business is wery like this ere climate of ourn—wariable. Ven the brometer points to wery vet, then, on course, I knows that it’s a-going to be fine, and then I hangs out in Regent Street; and ven it stands at wery dry, then, as I knows it’s goin’ to rain, I hemigrates to that there public humbrella, the Lowther Harcade.”

As I could make neither head nor tail of what he said, my curiosity was excited all the more; so I told Edward, when he came home, of what a strange creature I had picked up to do the boots and shoes, and he appeared to be as much in the dark as I was; but, as he said, Mr. Dick Farden’s business, whatever it was, could be no business of his, he wasn’t going to bother his brains about it, so long as the man did his duty to his Wellingtons.

However, one evening, Edward informed me that he had found out who Mr. Dick Farden was; for as he was stopping to look into a print-shop in Regent Street, on his way home that afternoon, somebody tapped him on the shoulder, and said in his ear, “Do you want any prime cigars, noble captain?” and on turning round, who should it be but our out-door valet. When he recognised Edward, he only laughed and said, “I hope no offence, master? I merely wanted to do a bit of business in the smuggling line.”

“Oh, dear me!” I cried. “You don’t mean to say that we’ve got a horrid wretch of a smuggler for a servant, now?”

“Lord bless you!” replied Edward, “don’t go frightening yourself about that. You may depend upon it the fellow’s too knowing for that.”

However, after what he had said, I wasn’t going to be put off in that way, and told Edward that I would have the man up the very next morning, before him; and that if he couldn’t give a good account of himself, why he should turn him out of the house then and there.

Next morning at breakfast, I declare I couldn’t rest easy until we had Mr. Dick Farden up in the room, and when Edward reminded him of what had taken place the day before; the impudent fellow only stood there grinning and polishing the top of his oil-skin cap with his elbow, and saying that, of course, a gentleman so well acquainted with London as my husband, was very well aware of what he was after. That he had got no contraband articles to disposeof, and wasn’t such a stupid as to go infringing the laws, and running the chance of paying a hundred pounds odd for supplying the public with foreign articles, when many of them couldn’t tell the difference between them and the real, genuine English goods.

And then the fellow went on and told us a whole pack of things,—how what he called his prime smuggled Havannahs were no more nor less than those that were imported from the extensive cabbage plantations of Fulham, into the snuff and tobacco manufacturies in the Minories, and his very best pale or brown French cognac, and which he always warranted to his customers to be the very best that France could produce, was none other than the real spirit of the potato, commonly known by the name of British brandy; and the whole cargo of it that he had in his possession had been run in a splendid lugger of a chay-cart all the way from Smithfield; although, of course, to give it a genuine foreign flavour, he told the gentlemen a long cock-and-a-bull-story, as to how, at the perils of their lives, and at the outlay of upwards of a hundred pounds spent in bribing the revenue officers, he and his pals had succeeded in running it safe ashore at Deal, after a three hours’ chase by one of the finest cutters in the revenue service.

After this, it was no very difficult matter to see that the man was no more a smuggler than I was, so I asked him how it was that the gentlemen were stupid enough to buy his things? But he very frankly told me the whole secret, saying, that as the parties whom he went up to were mostly young men from the counting-houses, he generally commenced by calling them, “noble captains,” because they liked to be thought to be in the army, and having tickled with this, he said the other part of the business was mere child’s play—for the delicious flavour of a thing being foreign, together with the fine perfume of the idea that it was smuggled, was quite sufficient to make the youths of London buy and swallow anything.

As I saw he was inclined to go on, I wasn’t going to spoil the fun by interrupting him; so he continued saying that the whole world had a taste for smuggling, and the ladies in particular; and for his part, if ever he had any idea of going into the real genuine smuggling profession, he told me that, from the observations he had made while following the imitation business, he should decidedly man all his cutters with women,—that was to say, provided they were “thin ’uns,” as he elegantly expressed it,—for, of course, if the ladies were stout, the extension of their figures with any foreign produce would not only raise the suspicions of the officers, but likewise prevent their getting easily through the custom-house, while, if the angels were slightly made, nothing was simpler than to fatten the poor spare things with lace, or to pad them into perfect Venuses with white kid gloves. Indeed, he said, the corset-makers, knowing the natural propensity of the female sex for contraband goods, seemed to have designed one article of feminine attire simply with a view of defrauding the custom-house; for he had heard of one old lady who had brought home in her bustle alone (and which, asking my pardon, he said was the article of feminine attire that he alluded to) twelve yards of the best French velvet—upwards of forty-two of Valenciennes lace—a dozen of cambric pocket-handkerchiefs—and three dozen of white kid gloves—nine pair of silk stockings—a pair of stays—and a wig. But, to be sure, he added, she was a “werry thin ’un, Mam,”—insomuch so, indeed, that had Captain Johnson, or any other eminent smuggler, known of her natural propensity for infringing the laws, he would have given her any sum she might name to have entered his service; for positively and truly, she would have taken any amount of foreign produce, and would have borne cramming as well as a turkey.

I declare the man was such a chatter-box, that I verily believe he would have gone on talking for a twelvemonth, if we had only let him. But as I saw that he was determined to say all he could against my sex, of course I wasn’t going to sit quietly there and listen to it, while Mr. Edward kept chuckling at all he said against the women, like a ninny; so I told Mr. Dick Farden that he had better go down-stairs, and look after the knives, though really it would, in the end, have been much better for me if I had turned him out of the house on the spot; for—— But as Mr. Savill, my bothering printer, tells me that he can’t possibly squeeze any more of my domestic distresses into this number, why, my gentle readers must wait till the next month before they learn how Mr. Dick Farden served me, after all.

MORE ABOUTthatMR. DICK FARDEN—HOW REALLY AND TRULY THERE WAS NO TRUSTING THE FELLOW TO DO A SINGLE THING, FOR POSITIVELY HE SPOILT EVERYTHING HE PUT HIS HAND TO, (IF, INDEED TO DO THE MAN JUSTICE, I EXCEPT THE BOOTS AND KNIVES)—AND HOW, WHEN AT LAST HE SO COMPLETELY RUINED MY LOVE OF A PIANO, THAT ACTUALLY MY “BROADWOOD” WAS ONLY FIT FOR FIREWOOD, (IF THAT,) I WISHED TO GOODNESS GRACIOUS I HAD BEEN A MAN FOR HIS SAKE—BUT AS IT WAS, I MERELY TOLD HIM THAT SUCH GOINGS ON WOULD NOT SUITme, AND THAT HE HAD BETTER GO AND PLAY HIS PRANKS ELSEWHERE, FOR I WASN’T GOING TO PUT UP WITH THEM ANY LONGER, I COULD TELL HIM.

“He seemed confounded—vexed—he stared—Then vow’d he’d ne’er deceive me;Says I, ‘Your presence can be spared,Sir, if you please, do leave me.’”* * * * ** * * * *“Now pray,” says I, “don’t teaze, young man,You don’t exactly suit me.”“You don’t exactly Suit Me.”G. Herbert Rodwell.

Thecourteous reader will perhaps recollect that Mr. Savill, my bothering printer (as I couldn’t help calling him last month), came in, just at the most interesting part of my narrative about Mr. Dick Farden, and in a most unrelenting manner cut short the thread of my tale with the scissors: “of want of space.” Not that I should have minded so much about it, only the worst of it was, I had warmed so nicely into my story, and really had grown so hot upon it, just at the very moment when in walked Mr. Savill, to throw cold water upon me, with his precious “No more room, ma’m.” And it isn’t easy for a person of poetic mind to have to warm up her feelings a second time, as if the heart were so much cold mutton, or beef, or pork; although, for the matter of that, I think my fair readers will agree with me that pork makes but an indifferent hash, and that nothing on earth can be nicer than a cold boiled leg with a nice mixed pickle, especially in summer time, when hot joints are so disagreeable.

Well, but I think I hear the reader exclaiming, “Goodness gracious, my dear Mrs. Sk—n—st—n, you are allowing your fertile imagination to run away with you, and you have so interested us with your sufferings, that our only happiness lies in listening to your miseries. So “revenons à nos moutons,” and Mr. Dick Farden’s capers.”

Certainly the man had a great deal to answer for. His whole life seemed to have been one round of juggling, and imposition, and deceit. Not that I would visit all the blame upon him, for, from what I could learn, his good-for-nothing father really seemed to have been no better than he should have been. Indeed, Mr. Dick Farden told me one day, while he was rubbing down our dining-room table, that “his old governor” (as he called his paternal parent) had originally been in the hair-dressing, shaving, and perfuming line, and had at one time the heads of at least a hundred families in his care, and the chins of half an entire parish under his hands. Consequently, Mr. Farden, sen. did a very extensive business in “Macassars,” “Circassian creams,” “Balm of Columbias,” “Botanic Waters,” and other only safe and speedy means by which baldness is effectually removed, and the hair renovated, beautified, and preserved; for whilst he was cutting and curling his customers, he used invariably to persuade them that their locks were thinning and falling off dreadfully, and that the hair, being nothing more nor less than a vegetable, and the head merely the field in which it sprouted, of course, whenever the crops were cut, it stood to reason that the soil required manuring with a good top-dressing of bear’s grease, while the roots of the plants naturally needed being occasionally irrigated with “botanic water;” adding, that the days were shortly coming when the barber would be ranked with the farmer, and looked upon as the tiller of the head, or hairgriculturist.

Accordingly, Mr. Dick Farden, sen., finding that his eloquence as to the virtues of the artificial manures for the hair was adding considerably to the incomes of Messrs. Rowland, Ross, Gosnell, and others, it struck him that it was merely a duty he owed to his family to devise some guano for the head which should make his own fortune. So he plunged head over ears into bear’s grease, and kept a manufactory and two roaring Russians in a cage in his front kitchen, so that the passers-by might see through the area gratings the brace ofhairy monsters walking backwards and forwards, just where the dresser used to be, and thus have ocular demonstration that he dealt only in the genuine article; while, at the end of his garden, he fitted up a very commodious stye for the fattening of pigs; for, as he said very truly, if bald people were partial to the fat of the bear merely on account of the strength of the hair that grew on the back of that animal, surely good, wholesome pig’s fat would be twice as serviceable to them, seeing that that domestic creature bore nothing weaker than bristles. Consequently, Mr. Farden, sen., now turned his thoughts chiefly to the growth of lard and sale of genuine bear’s grease; and whenever he killed a fat pig, he used to paste up outside his door a large placard, with “Another fine young bear just slaughtered” printed upon it; whilst in his shop window he suspended the body of the defunct porker, dexterously served up in a beautiful bear’s skin that he always kept by him on purpose, and with a card hung with blue ribbon round his neck, on which was written, “Real genuine bear’s grease cut from the carcass, at only1s.6d.PER POUND.” As Dick Farden said, “his governor’s” business was very profitable, but very unpleasant, for the exhibition of the two savage monsters in the kitchen, and the domestic animal in the window, raised such a demand for real bear’s grease in the neighbourhood, that the family had nothing but pork, pork, pork, for dinner all the year round.

To his father’s business our Dick Farden in course of time succeeded, but being of a wild and roving turn of mind, he paid little or no attention to the pigs, and as he said, “he went it so fast that he wasn’t long in going through ‘Farden’s magic grease,’”so that in a very little time, the sheriff walked into the shop, and seized the two bears in the kitchen, together with all the wigs, scalps, and moustachios he had on the premises. But this, he said, he thought he might have got over, had he not unfortunately distrained upon several ladies’ fronts which he had been intrusted with to bake, and which he regretted to say, being taken for the benefit of the creditors, obliged him to fly the neighbourhood, and seek a living elsewhere. After this sad affair, things went very crooked with him, and he said that often and often he had been so put to it, that he would have given anything for a mouthful of the crackling of the fine young bears that he used once to turn hisnose up at; and he said he must have tried, what he called “no end of dodges,” to earn an honest living, but all to no good, until one day he fell in with a gentleman over his pipe at the “White Hart,” who persuaded him to join him in the British smuggling line; for as the gentleman, who seemed to be a perfect man of the world and to have a wonderfully fine knowledge of the female portion of human nature, expressed it: “You had only to make the ladies believe that you had got several extraordinary bargains, in the shape of cambrics, gloves, or lace, which you could let them have at fifty per cent. under prime cost, and they would buy cart-loads, whether they wanted them or not, and never trouble their dear heads as to whether they were honestly come by.” In fact, he knew scores and scores of enterprising linendrapers, who had made large fortunes by ruining themselves regularly once a twelvemonth, and selling off the whole of their stock, by order of the assignees, for the benefit of the creditors in general, and ladies in particular. For he said it was well known among the gentlemen in the haberdashery line, that the ladies would never enter a linendraper’s shop so long as he asked only a fair profit on his wares, whereas, if he would only make them believe that he was going to the dogs, and that he was selling off his goods for full half less than they were ever made for, down they would come in swarms, as fast as their legs, cabs, and carriages would carry them, and pay whatever prices the spirited proprietor might please to ask. For the idea of “ANOTHER EXTENSIVE FAILURE” seemed to have such a charm to the women, that the only way by which a linendraper could keep himself solvent, was by declaring himself bankrupt, especially as the darling creatures evidently looked upon it as a religious duty to attend every “AWFUL SACRIFICE,” for nothing seemed to them to be so noble as the notion of a man’s immolating himself at the shrine of Basinghall-street for the love of the fair sex. Indeed, the angels of women appeared to be the very reverse of those ungrateful brutes of rats, and instead of leaving a house just as it’s about to tumble to pieces, they seemed to be more like owls, and love to haunt “ruins,” or rather, he might say, they were the very image of Cornwall wreckers, and would, in answer to the very first placard that was hung out as a signal of distress by the stranded linendraper, rush down in hundreds to see what remnants they could pick up, or get out of the wreck, before the whole concern went to pieces.

Mr. Dick Farden then informed me, that upon this advice he had devoted his labours entirely to the fair sex, and immediately embarked in the “bargain line.” Knowing that the ladies had a natural aversion to parting with their money, and preferred exchanging their dear husbands’ left-off wearing apparel, he made a feeble endeavour to convert old clothes into the current coin of the realm, by carrying about on his arm a beautiful little love of a tame squirrel, which he offered to the passers-by, at the low price of a worn out surtout, and a wonderful piping bullfinch for the exceedingly small charge of a castoff pair of trousers and a waistcoat. In the winter, however, he carried with him a basket of Derbyshire Spa chimney ornaments, with a few glasses and jugs and basins hanging round it. With these, he said, he managed very well, for he could furnish a sweet pretty mantelpiece very elegantly for a lady, with a great coat in the middle and an umbrella on one side, and a mackintosh on the other, while he believed that through his humble means, several husbands had often washed their faces in their old hats, and sipped their gin and water out of their worn-out boots.

By these means he raised money enough to purchase a cargo of contraband goods in the Minories, and succeeded in running them safe into a public-house in the neighbourhood of Regent-street, the sale of which goods occupied his afternoon; while, he added, with a stupid grin on his face, he was proud to say his mornings were devoted to the polishing of our boots and shoes, and knives; for, thank goodness, he continued, there was no pride in him, and he was always willing to pick up a sixpence any day, any how, so that now he could look any of his creditors in the face, and had no need to be, as he so repeatedly was after his father’s death,non est inwentus, though, for the matter of that, Mr. Carstairs, who was one of the most beautiful writers of the day, very truly said—“Anonestman’s the noblest work of Natur.”

I am very much afraid I’ve been wasting a great deal of my own valuable time and space, and of my courteous reader’s equally valuable patience, in giving all I could learn of the history of this worthless man; only my dear Edward (who is as obstinate as a mule) would have it that Dick Farden wasquite a character, although I must say that if he was a character, he was a very bad one; and I declare the way in which he served me and my sweet piano, is quite heart-rending to think of, but I will tell the reader all about this in its proper place. Though I can’t help adding, that it was quite as much the work of my dear Edward (who, it pains me to state, always will have his own way, andof coursealwaysmustbe in the right) as it was the work of Mr. Dick Farden, (who certainly was one of the clumsiest and stupidest men that I ever came nigh,) for if Mr. Sk—n—st—n would only have allowed me to have packed the man out of the house whenIwanted, of course it never would have happened, and I should have had my sweet Broadwood in my possession at this very minute, but the gentle reader knows as well as I do, that what can’t be, &c., must be, &c.; so I shall say no more about the piano, until I touch upon it in the due course of things; for I’ve quite made up my mind to the loss of the thing a long time ago, and the least said is the soonest mended; still I can’t help adding, that I only wish to goodness gracious that I had never set eyes upon that awkward lout of a Mr. Dick Farden, or that that perverse, headstrong (though good at times) husband of mine would not go interfering about the servants, but just allow me to deal with them as I please, and manage my own affairs myself, for I should be glad to know how he would like me to go meddling with his clerks, indeed. In conclusion, I can only say that the circumstance affected me so much at the time that I only prayed for one thing, and that was that the laws would have allowed me to have had the vagabond transported, as they ought to have done, or at the very least have compelled the man to have given me a new piano, value seventy-five guineas, which I was assured was the cost of ours when it was new, though for myself I can’t speak positively to the fact, for, to tell the truth, we bought it second-hand.

But, methinks I hear the gentle reader saying, what about the piano? You are again forgetting yourself, Mrs. Sk—n—st—n, and allowing your naturally fine, warm feelings to make you wander from your subject.C’est vrai—vous avez raison, courteous reader.

Well, then, the fact is, I never was fond of needle-work at the best of times, and really and truly, I never could seethe fun of passing the heyday of one’s youth darning stockings, and cobbling up a pack of old clothes as full of holes as a cinder shovel. So I longed to have an instrument just to amuse myself with for an hour or two in the day, or play over an air or two to Edward of an evening. And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t got any music-books; besides, I really and truly was sick and tired of doing kettle-holders and working a pack of filthy copper kettles in Berlin wool with a stupid “Mind it boils” underneath them, or else working a lot of braces and slippers for Edward, which, in his nasty vulgar way, he said were too fine by half for use, or else sitting for hours with your toe cocked up in the air netting purses and spending a mint of money in steel beads for a pack of people that you didn’t care twopence about, and who never gave you so much as a trumpery ring or brooch in return (I hate such meanness). So I wouldn’t let Edward have any peace until he promised to get me a piano; for, as I very truly observed, I had been out of practice so long, that I should be very much surprised if on sitting down to a piano, I didn’t find the cries of the wounded in the “Battle of Prague” too much for me, and I was sure that I should break down in the runs in the “Bird Waltz,” even supposing I was able to manage the shakes. And as for the matter of my voice, I told him I had serious alarms about losing my G, and if I did I should never forgive myself, after the money that had been spent on my musical education at Boulogne-sur-mer alone, and I was sure that if I had to begin anew with my singing exercises, and was to be put in the scales again, that I should be found wanting. Besides, I concluded the business by giving him to understand, that it wasn’t so much for myself that I wanted the piano, after all, but of course my darling little toodle-loodle-loo of a Kate, in two or three years at least must have an instrument to begin practising upon, and if he didn’t get one before that, I was sure I shouldn’t be able to tell the difference between A flat and a bull’s foot, and he would have to go to I know not what expense in masters for her, and then he would be ready to cut his ears off for not having got me a piano when I begged of him.

I am happy to say that Edward for once was not deaf to reason, but seeing that I wanted the piano more out of love for little Kate than from any selfish motive on my part, hevery properly consented to look out for one for me, although my gentleman couldn’t let well alone, but must go cutting his stupid jokes, saying that he was very much afraid that the piano was only “one for the pot” over again; but I very quickly silenced my lord by merely exclaiming, in my most sarcastic way, “Fiddle.”

However, of course, as usual Mr. Sk—n—st—n, if ever he does consent to do a good action must go spoiling it by doing the thing by halves; for instead of going and ordering me one of Broadwood’s very best new grand uprights, he must needs go poking his nose into all the filthy dirty salerooms in London, until he fell in with a trumpery second-hand cottage, and which I had to have French polished all outside, and thoroughly repaired and done up in, before I could do anything with it, for I declare when I came to go over it, half of the keys of the cottage were of no use. Still, thank goodness, it was a Broadwood, although no one would have thought it, if they had seen it in the state in which it came home to me; for a Broadwood, I think it had the most disgraceful legs I ever saw in all my life, and it wasn’t until I had had the whole thing thoroughly cleaned and put in order, that it was fit to be seen in any respectable person’s dining-room.

When I had spent nearly a fortune upon it, I must confess that it wasn’t so bad after all; indeed, no one would have known it again, and I’ve over and over again seen very many worse in the houses of persons far better off in the world than ourselves, but whose names, for many reasons, of course, I’m not going to state. Certainly its tone was heavenly, and, upon my word, when it came home newly done up, and I ran over “The Soldier Tired,” I declare it sounded for all the world like the music of the spheres—such grandeur in the lower notes—such sweetness in the upper ones—such power when you were impassioned—such plaintiveness when you were sentimental—that I declare it seemed to go right through me, and be more than I could bear, for it would move me to tears; and as I playfully ran up and down the notes, really and truly I felt myself lifted from my seat and carried, without knowing it, into another region—Oh! it was such a little duck of a cottage, and such a darling little pet of a dear Broadwood, the reader can’t tell!

I don’t suppose I could have had the cottage in the house more than a fortnight before I began to feel that it was a sin to be possessed of such a beautifully toned instrument, and not give a party just to show it off—for really the quadrilles upon it sounded quite divinely—and if they did so under my humble fingers, I said to myself, what would they sound like under the more skilful execution of those sweet girls and admirable piano-forte players, the Miss B—yl—s’s, who I knew very well would be delighted to take it in turns and play the whole evening through for me. Besides, it wasn’t as if we had been seeing a whole house full of company every evening; on the contrary, I’m sure we had been living as retired as owls, and hadn’t given a party for I couldn’t safely say when, and I do think it is so dreadful to be obliged to sit moping, locked up in a box all day long, without ever seeing a single soul beyond the people you’ve got about you. Moreover, as I very properly observed to myself, it really was not left for us to say whether we liked to give a party or not; but, upon my word, when I looked at it again, I felt that it was a moral obligation, and nothing more nor less than a matter of common honesty on our side to do so; for, of course, having danced at all our friends’ houses, and eaten all our friends’ suppers, they naturally expected that we should make them some return, as indeed, in plain justice, we ought to; besides, how could we hope that we should ever be asked out to our friends again, if we didn’t give them supper for supper and dance for dance. I told Edward, too, that really and truly it would be little or no expense, for we should only want such a small supper that a five pound note would cover it all, I was sure; for I merely intended just to have a ham and beef sandwich or two for the top and bottom, and a chicken or so prettily done up in blue satin ribbon, as if it had been had from the pastrycooks; and then for the matter of confectionary, of course we might have a trifle from Camden Town for a mere nothing, and that with, say one or two custards, and a jelly, would make quite show enough for what we wanted, I was certain; besides, I could easily fill out the table with a few almonds, and raisins, and figs, and candied lemon peel, for, as I very properly said, there was no necessity for our going to the foolish expense of grapes, and surely they could do without crackers for once in a way, andif they couldn’t, why they wouldn’t have them, that was all I knew. And even then, supposing that upon second thoughts we didn’t fancy the table looked crowded and showy enough, why I could easily make a bargain with the pastrycook for the hire of some of their fancy articles, either a beautiful elephant in pound-cake, or a love of a barley-sugar bird-cage, and which we must take care and not press our friends to taste, and then with Edward’s two beautiful plated candelabras with silver edges, I was sure it would be as handsome an entertainment as any one could wish for, and if it wasn’t, why all I could say was, that I wasn’t going to any more expense about the matter,—no! not if the Queen herself were coming—and there’s an end of it!

Well, it was all so nicely arranged, and I sent out all my invitations in such good time, that I think I had only eight refusals, and those not from thebestof our acquaintance, so I didn’t break my heart about them. But, as I very truly said to myself, I may as well have my rooms full whilst I am about it, so I packed off a card to some of my friends that I didn’t care very much for, and whom I had consequently made up my mind not to ask at all, with a note apologising for the shortness of the notice, and telling them that owing to the letter having been misdirected, the invitation I had sent them three weeks back had just been returned to me by the Post-office.

Upon my word, the preparations for the party were almost too much for me, and I declare to gracious I worked like a common cab-horse, for I hadn’t even time to sit down and take my meals decently, like a Christian, and when I went to bed, I can assure my lady-readers, I wassotired, that I made a vow to myself that even if the whole world depended upon it, I’d never again be dragged into giving another party,—no, not for ever so much! But I shouldn’t have minded it a very great deal after all, if it hadn’t been for Mr. Sk—n—st—n’s shameful behaviour, and total want of sympathy with my sufferings—for really and truly, if he hadn’t the bare-faced impudence to tell me that I had only myself to blame for it; for that “I(I, indeed!) was always bothering his life out about giving a party,” when all the while the wretch must have known, as well as I did, that it wasn’t formyselfthat I wanted any of your parties, but merely to oblige him, by keeping allhisfriends and clients together. But, of course, these are just the thanks one gets for slaving one’s life out, as one does, for the sake of one’s husband. It’s always the way with those selfish things of men, though. Mr. Edward, however, wont catch his dear (pretty dear!) Caroline making such a fool of herself again in a hurry—No! not if she knows it.

As our look out at the back is far from pretty, and to tell the truth never did please me, (for we had only a view of these S—mm—nds’ trumpery garden, and they are always washing at-home, and hanging the things out to dry right under our very noses) why, I thought (as I always had been, from my cradle, of an ingenious turn of mind) that I might as well ornament our staircase-window just a little bit, and so shut out that dreadful eyesore which we had at the back of us, and make the window quite a handsome object; for I must say that of all things in the world for a staircase, give me a stained glass window. Oh! I do think it looks so beautiful—so rich anddistingué, to see bunches of roses, and pinks, and camelias, painted on ground glass, just for all the world as if they were growing there. So I set to work, and having a pair of old worn-out chintz bed-curtains up stairs, I cut out some of the best flowers that had had the least of their colour washed out of them, and dabbed some putty over all the panes, until, I declare to goodness gracious, a glazier himself would have sworn that the glass had been ground. Then, with some gum I stuck the chintz flowers in the centre of every one of the panes, and, upon my honour, I can assure the reader, it was the most perfect bit of deception I ever saw in all my life; and I’ll warrant, that even the best judges in stained glass would have had to have passed their fingers over the surface, before they would have been able to have found it out. As any one came in at our street-door, it positively gave the house quite a cathedral air. Oh! it was so beautiful, so chaste, and yet so rich; and when I first saw it from our hall, I couldn’t for the life of me help exclaiming, with the top of the bills of the Colosseum—“’Tis not a picture—it is nature.” Yet, when I think of what happened afterwards, I declare I feel as if I could sit down and cry my eyes out—but more of this hereafter.

Well, I got all the plate nicely cleaned, and all the carpets taken up, and all the papers cut for the wax candles, and thechandelier taken out of its brown holland bag, and had ordered the rout-seats, and the flowers, and the chickens, and the barley sugar bird-cage (which I thought would look best after all, for the man hadn’t a single elephant in his shop that he said would be large enough to place in the middle of the supper-table, and wanted to put me off with a trumpery hedgehog, with half its almond quills out, and which I could very easily see, from the stale look of the thing, had been out to an evening party every night that week.) The only thing that remained to be done was to get that lovely cottage of mine up into the drawing-room, and how the dickens we were ever to manage it, I’m sure I couldn’t tell. When I asked Mr. Edward about it, as he was decantering his wine at the side-board, before he went to business, on the morning of the party, and inquired of him whether he didn’t think Dick Farden could manage it for me, he merely said, stuff-a’-nonsense, I had better have proper people to do it, and then I should be sure to have it done rightly; on which I very justly remarked—“Proper people, indeed! did he know what proper people would come to? He seemed to be talking as if he had got more money in his pockets than he knew what to do with; and I should just like to know what on earth was the use of having Mr. Dick Farden always about the house, if he couldn’t be trusted to move my cottage just from one room to another.” This brought him to his senses, for he said, as I seemed to know so much more about it than he did, I had better do as I liked—only he must go spoiling it, by adding, in his nasty perverse way, “that I mustn’t go blame him if any thing happened to it.”—But Idoblame him for it all, and can’t help saying, that it was entirely his own fault, for what business had he to tell me that I knew more about it than he did, and that I had better do it as I liked, when he must have known, as well as I did, that I knew nothing at all about moving cottages, and that something dreadful was going to happen. Oh! that dear, dear Broadwood of mine. But I must restrain myself.

Well, no sooner had I seen my husband fairly out of the house, than I rang the bell for Mr. Dick Farden, and when he came into the parlour, I asked him if he thought he could manage to move that piano of mine up into the drawing-room. So, after measuring the width of it, and then goingand looking at our first landing, he said, “he was afeard there would be no getting the thing up the stairs anyhow, for there was no room to turn the corner with it;” and, on going up and looking for myself, sure enough the man was right; though as I told him, what on earth could make the people go building houses in that stupid way, was beyond a person of my limited understanding to comprehend. Dick Farden said that there were only two ways of getting over it, one was to take out my beautiful painted glass window, (which of course I wasn’t going to listen to—though I can’t help wishing now, from the very bottom of my heart, that I had); and the other to “hoist it up” outside the back of the house, and so get it in at the French window in the drawing-room, which, he said, he and a “pal” of his, as he called him, could do very easily for a pot of beer. I asked him whether he was sure that it would be perfectly safe; but he would have it that there was not the least danger, so long as the ropes were good. So I showed him the clothes lines, but my gentleman wanted to persuade me that it would be better to have them just a trifle thicker—though of course I knew what that all meant, and wasn’t going to be foolish enough to give him the money to go buying new ropes with, indeed, and making a pretty penny out of them, I’d be bound. So I quietly told him that as those very ropes had been strong enough to bear the weight of “La petite Saqui,” (and she was no feather,) jumping and frisking about on them, I thought they might manage to lift my Broadwood up to the drawing-room window—though, of course, like master like man, he must go saying, as Mr. Edward did, that I mus’n’t blame him if anything happened on account of the ropes,—and really, from their all talking so about something happening, I positively began to fancy that somethingwasgoing to happen, (and so itwas, too, with a vengeance,) and what I should do then goodness gracious only knows.

Off scampered Mr. Dick Farden for his friend, and I gave him permission to bring the beer in with him, for of course he couldn’t do a thing without tasting his beer first. I declare I never knew such a pig for beer as the man was in all my life; he couldn’t do anything beyond his everyday work without looking for something to drink; in fact, if I askedhim to do ever such a trifle, he was always saying, in a nasty begging tone, “You haven’t got such a thing as a pint of beer about you, have you, ma’am?”

When he came back, he and his friend, whom he called Jim, carried my cottage out into the garden; and when they had tied the clothes line all round it, Jim went up stairs to the second-floor window, and threw out a string for us to tie the end of the rope to. As soon as he had got hold of it, Mr. Farden tied what he called the “guider” to one of the legs of my Broadwood, so as to prevent its knocking against the house as it went up. When they were all ready, Farden called out to Jim, “Now, pull steady, lad!” and up went my beautiful cottage in the air, as nicely as ever I saw anything done in all my life. Just as they had got it well over the area railings, and nearly on a level with our back-parlour window, that bothering Jim, who was as strong as a bull, began pulling too hard, and I saw that it was more than Farden could manage to keep the piano away from the house, and that in another minute I should be having it going bang in at our back-parlour window, and perhaps lodging right on the top of the sideboard, where I had put all the jellies and custards not ten minutes before. So I gave a slight scream, and ran up to him as fast as my legs could carry me, and seizing hold of the guider, told him, for goodness gracious sake, to pull the piano over towards the garden wall. But I declare the words were no sooner out of my mouth, than away he must tear, pulling away as hard as ever he could, just for all the world as if my beautiful instrument were made of cast iron, and he had no sooner got it opposite my beautiful staircase window, than all of a sudden off flew the leg of my Broadwood to which the guide rope was attached, and down he tumbled, and I with him; and ah, lor a mercy! I heard something go bang, smash, crash, and on looking up, oh dear! there was my lovely cottage gone right through my beautiful imitation-stained glass window, and dashing backwards and forwards, for all the world like one of those great big swings at a fair, and knocking against the window, as Jim kept pulling it up, until there wasn’t scarcely a bit of the frame or glass left standing. Lord love you, out came all the neighbours’ servants, in a swarm, just like a pack of bees at thesound of a gong; and I’d be bound to say they thought it a fine bit of fun, and a sight worth going a mile any day to see. Farden hallooed out as loud as he could, “Hold hard there, Jim!” but Jim (the stupid oaf!) being, as I afterwards learnt, rather hard of hearing, only kept pulling and pulling as fast as Mr. Farden kept saying, “Hold hard there, will you, Jim; I tell you the rope’s cut!” And sure enough so it had been, by the broken glass; and as I looked at it, I could see thread by thread giving way, until at last, when it was very nearly on a level with our drawing-room window, snap went the clothes lines—and oh! was ever poor woman born to be so tormented before! down came my lovely cottage, like a thunderclap, on to the top of our water-butt, which it upset, so that as my beautiful Broadwood fell smash upon the stones in the yard, whop came that great big heavy water-butt right upon it, crashing it all to shivers, and shooting the whole of its contents, for all the world like a torrent, into both of our kitchens, and flooding the whole place at least two pattens deep I declare—

When we went up stairs to look after that deaf scoundrel of a Jim, oh, lud! if the breaking of the rope hadn’t thrown him back into my darling little Kitty’s beautiful cradle, and as I said to myself, I am sure it was a perfect mercy that the poor dear innocent angel hadn’t been sleeping there at the time, or that heavy lout of a Jim must have killed her on the spot, and as it was, there were all the wicker work ribs of the thing broken in, so that it was impossible ever to think of letting her sleep in it again, for really and truly, it looked more like an old hamper than a respectable baby’s bassinet.

As for the party, it was next to madness to think another moment about that, for when you hadn’t a piano, or a window on the staircase left, I should like to know how it would ever be possible to have a nice comfortable dance; so after I had given it to Mr. Dick Farden well, and told him that I should certainly make a point of stopping the piano out of his wages, and after I had packed Mr. Jim off home to his family with a flea in his ear, there was I obliged in my state of mind to sit down, and scribble off a lot of story-telling letters to all the friends I had invited, saying, that owing to my sweet Kitty’s having been taken suddenly and dangerously ill, I regrettedto say that I was compelled to postpone the pleasure of seeing them until some future period, and bundling Mr. Dick Farden into a cab, told him to make as much haste as ever he could and deliver them, though I do verily believe, that from the number of knocks and cabs and hackney coaches that came to the door that dreadful evening, that he put the better part of the fare in his pocket, and never delivered many of them at all; and there was I, obliged to come down every five minutes, from ten till twelve in the evening, and put on a very long face, and tell a pack of taradiddles about the sufferings of my sweet little angel of a Kitty, and how we didn’t expect her to live the whole night through, when actually the little pet was fast asleep in my bed and as well as she had been ever since she was born; and upon my word, it really made my heart bleed to have to send the dear creatures home again, when I saw how nicely their hairs were done, and the expense they had gone to about their dresses, for they had evidently come out determined upon spending a very pleasant evening.

Edward, on his return home, I regret to say, forgot himself as a gentleman and my husband. At one time I thought he had gone clean out of his wits, for he had the impudence to say, that I seemed to take a delight in throwing twenty pounds in the dirt, and that it was all my fault, and none of it Dick Farden’s, and that he would take good care that if ever I wanted any more music, I might whistle for it; and that as for any more pianos, that the next one I had, should come out of my own pocket. As I saw that he wouldn’t be happy until we had had a good quarrel, I thought it best to go off into hysterics, and laughed and sobbed in such a dreadful way that I soon brought him to his senses, and made him begin kissing me, and calling me his dear, foolish, thoughtless Caroline, and telling me to calm myself for heaven’s sake, or I should be laying myself up. But then it came to my turn, for I wasn’t going to let him abuse me like a pickpocket one minute, and make friends with him the next, and I do think that I never should have opened my lips civilly to him again, if he hadn’t brought me home a beautiful Gros de Naples dress, and so showed that he felt he was in the wrong, and was sorry for what he had done.

It was a hard struggle for a person like me, to bring myself ever to look upon that Dick Farden with any pleasure again; for I declare the next morning when he came into the house, I thought I never saw such a nasty, low, vulgar, mean, sly, disreputable looking face in all my life, with his ringlets dangling at his temples, and which he seemed to be as proud of as a life-guardsman is of his moustachios; positively the man was always twiddling either them or his whiskers, and what on earth a fellow like him could ever have wanted with a couple of corkscrews at the side of his forehead is more than I can say; and, la! if they were not as greasy as though they had been twisted round tallow candles! It wasn’t only the fellow’s looks, too, that I had to complain of; but, drat the man! do what I would, I could never prevent him from going about the kitchen, or standing in the knife-house, whistling his “Jim Crows” and “Such a getting up stairs,” and a pack of other low, unmeaning “nigger” songs, that I’m sure I never could see either the fun or the beauty of. Again, if ever I gave him any of Edward’s clothes to brush, there he would be, hissing and fizzing away over them like a bottle of ginger beer in warm weather; and indeed it always was and ever will be a riddle to me what those boots and ostlers can want making all that fuss and noise over their work, as if they were slaving as hard as steam-engines, and obliged to let the steam off, for fear of bursting. I declare whenever I hear them doing it, I feel as if I could go up behind them and give them a good shaking, that I do. It’s nothing more than “great cry and little wool,” and that’s the plain truth of it.

I can assure the reader it would have been much better for me in the long-run, if I had packed the fellow out of the house immediately after the accident, (as indeed I was as near doing as two pins.) Only, of course, in my stupid, kind way, I must go letting my good-nature get the upper hand of my judgment, and endeavouring to read the gentleman a strong lesson, just to teach him how to lift a simple piano for the future, by making him pay a good part of his wages towards buying me a new one in the place of that which he had so wickedly broken. For I’ve always made it a rule to make my servants pay for breakages, as it’s all very fine for a parcel of wiseacres to tell you that we are every one of us liable to accidents, but my answer to such stuff as that, has always been,“Don’t tell me, I know a great deal better—and that servants, one and all, are never happy unless they can be knocking your things about like ninepins, and the only way to let them understand that they cost money, is to make them pay for what they ‘couldn’t help’ breaking.” (Couldn’t help it, couldn’t they—I never knew such couldn’t helps!) Besides, who ever heard of ladies banging the teacups and wineglasses about, as if they were made of cast iron, or pouring boiling water into your very best decanters as though they were foot-baths. Now look at me! why I’m sure that without exaggeration, the things I’ve broken in my time might be put in a nut-shell—but thenIknew that they all cost money, and consequently, never was a “butter-fingers.”

However, to talk of another object; I’d been having a whole string of nasty little draggle-tail girls in to nurse my little Kitty for me of a day, but I declare they were all the very counterpart of that “La petite Saqui,” and as dirty and slovenly as dirty and slovenly could be—with their nasty, rusty little old shawl just thrown over their necks, and their cotton gowns with all the colour washed out, excepting where the tuck had been let down, and there it was bright enough, heaven knows! Upon my word, too, they were as careless of my poor little dear, as though it had been a doll made out of wood; and the worst of it was, they were all of them so sly and deceitful, and always kissing and fondling the little pet to my face, though directly my back was turned, they would go knocking it about, and eating up, like a set of greedy pigs, all the sugar I had given out for the angel’s pap. I declare to goodness gracious, whenever they took the child out for an airing, it was a perfect agony to me, for I used to sit upon pins and needles, expecting every knock that came to the door, would be my little cherub brought home on a shutter, and I should find out that it had either been run over, or dropped into the canal, or tossed by a mad bull, or something equally pleasant to a fond mother’s feelings. So I told Edward very quietly, that for the sake of a trumpery five-pound note a year, I wasn’t going to be torn to pieces in the manner I was every hour of my life; and that I had made up my mind to have a regular nurse, who, at least, would be some credit to the family, and on whom I could place some little dependence. Besides, I said with great truth, I was certain we should find a decent, clean woman would be apositive saving in the long run, if it was only in the matter of the baby’s washing—which really seemed to be an expense that there was no end to—for even if I were to put ten frocks on the little angel every day, I assured him it would be as grubby as a chimney-sweeper’s child, all the same; and as for the matter of eating, I would back a good strong growing girl, that’s out in the open air half her time, to get through twice as much, if not more, than a full-grown respectable woman, any day.

Accordingly, I set about looking out for a nurse, and as I had several times, when I had gone out to take a walk and look at the shops in Regent-street, noticed what seemed to me a very nice servants’ institution in Oxford-street, and although I had never tried anything of the kind before, still as I knew they professed a great deal, and made out that they were a great protection to housekeepers against fraud, and said a whole host of other grand things into the bargain—why, I thought I might as well just try that means of getting a servant for once—though I couldn’t help saying to myself at the time, “Fine words butter no parsnips,” but, for the matter of that, how any other kind of words could, was always a mystery to me. Besides, it is such an expense putting advertisement after advertisement in theTimes, and certainly the “Institution” would save me a deal of trouble, as well as four or five rows of postage stamps, in writing, prepaid, to a whole regiment of A. B.’s, who, after all, might never suit you.

However, before I set about taking any steps towards suiting myself with a nurse, I made up my mind, that I would have a grass plot laid down in our garden at the back of our house, where the nurse could let the child roll about, and no harm could possibly come to it, as I should always have the little pet under my own eye, instead of being obliged to send it a quarter of a mile off at least, to that bothering Regent’s Park, where the soldiers and a parcel of other idle good-looking vagabonds made it quite as dangerous for the nurse as it was for the child. Besides, it wasn’t as if that garden of ours at the back of the house was of any use to us, and goodness knows if it wasn’t useful it wasn’t ornamental, to say the least of it! I declare it was almost a match for the plantation in Leicester-square, and mercy me! I never saw such a place as that is—with its grubby shrubbery, and its trees dingy—for all the world like so many worn-out birch brooms with an old tea-leaf or two sticking to the end of them—and that sooty statue on horseback perched up in the centre, and looking just like a coalheaver of the Dark Ages astride one of his master’s wagon-horses—for who else it can possibly be, no one can tell, and the only way to solve the mystery would be to have a chimney-sweeper in to sweep the gentleman, and then perhaps somebody might find out.

Upon my word, I do really believe that if there was a pin to choose between Leicester-square and our back garden, certainly the Square had the best of it. For the fact of it was, that stupid, though respected, mother of mine would go making me believe when first we came to our house, that the air up in our neighbourhood was pure enough to grow anything, and that with the ground we had at the back of us, we might very easily get enough vegetables to keep the family all the year round, adding, then we should be sure to have them so sweet, and fresh, and good. Sweet, and fresh, and good, indeed!—upon my word! the whole of our first year’s crop consisted of only about four nasty, smutty, two-penny-halfpenny cabbages, that must have cost us a matter of ten shillings a piece if they did a farthing—and they were all eaten away, and their leaves were as yellow and full of holes as the seat of a cane-bottomed chair; so that I began to find out, after we had been gardening away fit to kill ourselves, for I can’t say how long, that really and truly we were doing nothing more than keeping a small preserve of slugs, snails, and caterpillars. Do what I would, and slave as I might, I couldnotkeep the filthy things away. Cupful after cupful have I taken off the plants of a morning, and yet the next day there they were again as thick as ever. I declare the better part of my day used to be occupied all through the summer, with looking after those plaguy greens, (which, water them as I would, I could not get to be anything equal in colour to the caterpillars that were always in them,) till, ’pon my word, my poor neck was as sunburnt as ginger.

As I couldn’t manage any cabbages I thought I’d try and raise a small crop of peas; but, bless you! then I was nearly driven out of my mind by those impudent vagabonds of birds, the London sparrows—and catchthemletting any peas come up (even if they would) within five miles of the General Post-office. As for frightening them away, I declare they were as bold as brass, for if they don’t care for those mischievous monkeys of boys in the street, was it likely that they were to be intimidated by a respectable married woman like myself? Positively, I put up an old bonnet of mine on the end of a stick, which I should have thought would have scared even a philosopher off the premises—but, bless your heart! they only came and perched right on the crown of it, and chirped away as if they were comfortably at home in their nests in Red Lion-square. And just when my lovely peas were beginning to break ground and poke their nice little green heads up out of the earth, I have often gone out into the garden and found a hundred of the young feathered ogres hard at my beautiful Prussian blues, picking away, and making noise enough for an infant school; and though I’d go down to them, sh—sh—sh—, sh—ing away, and shaking my apron as hard as I could, I declare, it wasn’t until I got within arm’s-length of them, that the brazen-faced little chits would condescend to take the least notice of me, and then they’d only just hop up on the top of the wall, where they would stand, with their heads cocked on one side, and looking out at the corners of their eyes at me, and chirping away just as if they were saying, “Peas, peas, peas”—drat ’em!

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