Chapter IV.
EnterPeabody(Policeman).
Nutts.Well, I’m glad somebody’s come. Thought all the beards had gone out of town. Just as you come, was thinking of shuttin’ up shop and goin’ myself. Never saw the Dials so dull, Mr Peabody. There isn’t a back pair that isn’t at a watering-place.
Slowgoe.(With newspaper.) Watering-place! Pretty goings on there, I think. Here’s a letter taken from theTimes, when the gentleman as writes says, “Ramsgate’s shocking. Ladies bathing with no more thought than if they was mermaids; and chairs let out at a penny a piece, for an enlightened public to sit—as if they was in the opera stalls—to look at ’em.”
Nutts.Bless my soul! Where did you say?
Slowgoe.At Ramsgate.
Nutts.You may go on. Mrs Nutts is at Margate.
Slowgoe.And the gen’leman says in his letter that the young ladies dance polkas and waltzes in their bathing-gowns; and dance and scream the more for the people looking at ’em.
Peabody.Where’s the police?
Slowgoe.That’s what the gen’leman asks. Where’s the police to put ’em down? Where’s the police to warn ’em back to the machines?
Tickle.Why not have a coast-guard with indy-rubber uniforms, to run into the water, and take the ladies up, and make an example of the ring-leaders?
Nutts.I don’t know how it is, I’ve often thought of it; but somehow—I’ve observed the circumstance to Mrs Nutts—somehow the female mind seems to gain courage at watering-places. A young thing that won’t raise a eyelid in London, will meet you like the full moon at the seaside.
Tickle.Well, I’ve often thought of that too. Somehow or other the sea air does harden ’em. Now, Mr Peabody, you who was a schoolmaster afore you was a policeman, can you, who knows everything—can you explain it?
Peabody.Why, the female mind is naturally susceptible——
Nutts.That’s what Mrs Nutts said, when on one occasion shewouldhave a pint of peas at five shillings.
Peabody.And sympathises with external nature. The female mind, too, often confined to the limits of a slop-basin, feels itself grow and expand in presence of the universal deep. A woman who may be no better than a doll in London, shall be a first-rate philosopher at Broadstairs.
Nutts.Humph! Like young ducks; don’t know all their strength till they take to the water.
Peabody.But it all goes off with the season.
Nutts.I’m glad of that. Mrs Nutts, as you know, is a woman of strong mind; nevertheless, she must come back to the slop-basin.
Slowgoe.So I seethatCobden has been in France. Wanting to stir up a free trade in frogs, I s’pose. But they’re not such fools; they won’t give up pertecting their native produce like us. He says in his speech to the Frenchmen, “I am not a propagandist.” Now what does he mean by that?
Peabody.Why, that he doesn’t want to preach free trade to the French.
Tickle.But the best on it is, he can’t help it. Mr Nutts and I was talking about that afore, warn’t we, Nutts.
Nutts.The very fact, says I, of Cobden being received as he is by Frenchmen, makes him a propagandist. There he is, with every syllable he says, preaching free trade for the wine-growers,though he doesn’t say a word about it. There he is in the city of Paris ten thousand times bigger conq’ror than Marshal Blucher. Lor’ bless you! the soldiers, poor fellows! never thought of it; but Cobden will prove the worst English general for them. He’s opened the campaign that will knock up their trade. There wasn’t a French soldier, whilst Cobden was talking and the Frenchmen were cheering, that oughtn’t to have felt his musket crumbling away in his arms like dust, and his bayonet melting like in its scabbard. There wasn’t a single French cannon, if it had had any sense at all, that oughtn’t to have groaned as with the bellyache, knowing that, as condemned old iron, it would go to the melting-pot. Then for the Gallic cock—the cock of glory!—the cock that, unlike any decent barndoor fowl, is always for picking out the eyes of nations—the cock that only lives upon a morning feed of bullets—why, after Cobden had made his speech, the poor thing felt his appetite get weaker and weaker for the garbage of glory, and in the end, depend on’t, he’ll live upon corn, without a drop o’ blood mixed in it, like a decent respectable bird, and never think of cock-a-doodle-dooing above all his neighbours.
Nightflit.Shouldn’t wonder. Why, doesn’t the French paper itself—theJournal des—des——
Peabody.TheJournal des Débats—the Government organ.
Nightflit.Doesn’t it, here, in what it says about Cobden, talk as if it was ashamed of the business of the customhouse officers rumpling and tousling everybody as steps into the country, for smuggled goods? Turning people upside down, and shaking ’em like so many pickpockets.
Nutts.Don’t talk of it. Shall I ever forget when Mrs Nutts and me crossed to Calais to see France? Shall I ever forget how fellows in blue uniforms, with swords by their sides, searched us over and over, as if we’d brought a cutler’s shop and a cotton-mill in every one of our pockets? Isn’t it dreadful to think that men should be such fools to themselves as to pay soldiers and customhouse officers to prevent one country bringing its blessings to another, as if heaven only intended the best iron for England, and the best claret wines for France? Well, isn’t it a comfortable thing to think of, that Mr Cobden has spoken the dying speech of all them customhouse officers? They mayn’t believe it just yet, but it’s sure to come. They’ve got consumption in ’em, and sooner or later they must go. Only Idohope that on both sides they’ll save one or two specimens for their museums, just to show the children that come arter us what fools their fathers was afore ’em.
Slowgoe.Well, there’s one comfort left for me, I shan’t live to see it. You’re for universal peace, and all that sort of stuff. Very well in story-books, but never was intended. War and allthatwas meant from the first. War runs through our nature. Everything wars upon everything. There’s nothing so little as doesn’t eat up something as is smaller than itself. Look here now; here’s a paragraph from an Injy paper, theAgra Chronicle, about the battle-field in the Sutlej. It says: “We cameviâLoodianah and Firozepore, and on our way encamped on the fields of Alrival and Ferozeshah. Alrival was a beautiful green plain, the only one I saw between Meerut and this,and seemed intended by nature for a battle-field. A few skeletons were strewed over it, and of the wells one was just drinkable, and the other was so impregnated with gunpowder as to be wholly unfit for use.”
Tickle.I can’t have that. “Intended by nature for a battle-field.” And do you think when nature made this beautiful world, and filled it with fruits and flowers, and sent down blessed light upon it—made it, as I may say, a paradise for folks to live in—do you for a moment think that nature made certain “beautiful green plains” for slaughterhouses? You might as well say that when nature made iron, she made it not for carpenters’ tools, but a-purpose for swords and bayonets; and thatthe sea would have all been fresh water only that we wanted the salt for gunpowder. That’s the shabby part of man. Whenever he does wickedness upon a large scale, he always lays it upon nature. If Cain had been a general, he’d have put all his bloodshed upon nature.
Nosebag.Then never mind nature; let’s talk of the Court. So the Queen’s a-goin’ to have another palace. Isn’t it an odd thing that kings and queens in our country never do get properly suited with houses? All their palaces—like their clothes—seem misfits when they leave ’em to them who comes after ’m. There was George the Fourth, he could no more live in his old father’s palace than he could get into his coat; so he had Buckingham Palace built, with a fine archway that always looks jest whitewashed. And now that’s so little that the present Royal Family fill it all up, like a cucumber in a bottle. And so we’re to have another building.
Slowgoe.Never mind that. It won’t cost a farthing. For doesn’t Sir F. Trench say in his motion—here it is—“That while this House feels confident that Parliament would willingly supply any reasonable amount of expense for the attainment of so desirable an object, it has great pleasure in expressing its belief, thatby proper managementof the means at the disposal of herMajesty and her Government (in aid of the £150,000 voted for alterations at Buckingham Palace), this great and desirable national object may be obtained withoutadding one shillingto the burthens of the people.” What do you think of that? Not one shilling, says Sir Frederick.
Nosebag.Bless you! in the matter of money, who’d trust to bricks and mortar? But we’ll say the palace is built without a shilling from the people—we’ll say it’s built. How about the furniture? Why, afore the thing’s well up, the Minister will come down to the House and ask for about half a million of money to buy rolling-pins and tinder-boxes.
Slowgoe.But he won’t get it.
Tickle.Won’t he? Every farden on it; while all the House, and the Speaker into the bargain, will weep with pleasure while they put their hands in their pockets.
Slowgoe.And what will Mr Hume be about?
Tickle.He’ll oppose it, o’ course; and so will Mr Wakley and Mr Williams. And what o’ that? Why, the Minister will draw himself up upon his toes, and, looking as tragic as if they’d killed his dearest relations, ask the honourable members if they know what they’re opposin’. Put it to ’em as men, whether her Majesty ever before asked a single farden for rolling-pins—whether above allsovereigns that ever went afore her—or that’ll come after her—she hasn’t been most scrupulous, most ekonomick in the article of tinder-boxes? He will ask what surrounding nations will think of us—higgling about rolling-pins—disputing on royal tinder-boxes; and then the House will get up, and hurray—and, as I say, weeping tears of gratitude, vote the money, as though with all their hearts and our pockets they wished it twice as much.
Slowgoe.Ha! you’re a cuss-of-liberty man, you are, Mr Tickle, and don’t know what befits the royal prerogative. They won’t want a shilling, sir—not a shilling. There’s the Pavilion at Brighton. I understand that the loyal people of that loyal town, out of love, and affection, and veneration for their monarch as a king, a man, a husband, a father, and—let me see—yes, a practical moralist, intend to purchase the Pavilion, and let it off in shops for jewellers, wig-makers, and tailors, and all as a monument to the memory of that great and good man George the Fourth.
Tickle.Well, to make the monument complete, I hope they won’t forget a wine and brandy vaults.
Nutts.But how about the Duke’s statue? I thought it was to be put up upon the gate, that the Queen might see it when she drove out. Now, if the Queen has a new house on Buckbeen Hill——
Tickle.Why, all the houses ’tween that andRutland Gate will be pulled down, that the statue may be brought near to the new palace with a telescope.
Slowgoe.I’m very happy to see that her Majesty, and the Prince, and the children are taking such pleasure on the sea.
Tickle.Yes. Parson M’Neile—he isn’t yet a bishop, I hear——
Nutts.Why, no; but as they say there’s going to be a bishop made for Manchester, and as he’s at Liverpool, so very near the spot, he keeps himself prepared for the best. They do say he sleeps with his carpet-bag and shovel-hat by his bedside, all in readiness for an early train.
Tickle.A very provident parson. Well, they say he preached another sermon last Sunday about the Prince and his doings. In fact, it is reported that he intends to follow up his Royal Highness through theCourt Circular. Last Sunday he compared him to Noah.
Nutts.As how?
Tickle.Why, because his Royal Highness was afloat in the royal yacht. Bless you! he showed how the Prince was Noah, and how theVictoria and Albertwas nothing more than the ark, holding the hopes of the world; and how the precious children were Ham, Shem, and Japheth, and how the ark held two of every living thing.
Tickle.Well, I can’t say about that; but if Parson M’Neile told men all the beasts in the ark was, St Jude’s could answer for one of the “creeping things.”