Chapter XIX.
NOSEBAGcomes in; at intervals, other customers.
Nosebag.Servant, Mrs Nutts. Where’s the master?
Mrs Nutts.If you mean Mr Nutts, he’s jest run with the pie to the bakehouse. I don’t know how it is, but the older he grows, the more partic’lar he gets with his dinners. I am sorry to say it of my own husband, but I don’t think an angel could make a crust to suit him now—for I try, I’m sure.
Nosebag.Well, nor I don’t know how it is; but as we lose, as I heard a player say the other night—as we lose “the finer feelings of the ’art,” we seem to think more and more of wittles. Twenty years ago, when I was first married, I could have dined three days in the week on periwinkles; but I own it—I couldn’t be happy on periwinkles now.
Mrs Nutts.Oh, in course not. I’m sure I don’t know who’d be a poor woman, put upon as we are! Not a bit of power in our own hands—not so much as pie-crust left us.
Tickle.(With newspaper.) Well, really, Mrs Nutts—axing your pardon—I do sometimes think you have a little the whip-hand of us.
Mrs Nutts.I don’t see how—I wish we had. We should know how to use it—weshould.
Tickle.Why, see here now. Haven’t you heard all about the Spanish dancer Donna Lola Montes and the old King of Bavaria?
Mrs Nutts.I don’t want to hear anything about such creturs. What is it?
Tickle.Why, she’s doin’ wonders. Taking the whole kingdom and whippin’ it round like a top.
Nosebag.A most charmin’ woman. She was here at the opera—don’t I remember the bills? When the other lady dancers wouldn’t dance with her—and screamed when they come nigh her—and when she went away, insisted upon having the house whitewashed, and vinegar and brown paper burnt in every corner. And then she went to Poland, where she stabbed the Emperor’s own policeman; for she wears a dagger for a busk in her stays—don’t you call ’em busks, Mrs Nutts?—in——
Mrs Nutts.There, go along; how should I know?Stabbed him with a dagger, eh? Poor soul! and I daresay served him right. Well?
Tickle.Now she’s got to Bavaria; and she makes no more of the King’s crown than a thimble. And they do say that the old gen’l’man—that is, the King—though he’s got a snow-white beard a foot long, is gone so raving mad about her that the unfortunate old man doesn’t know the Queen, his own lawful wife.
Mrs Nutts.Nothing more likely.
Tickle.And more than that, Mrs Nutts; she’s kicked over the Cabinet like a tea-table, and smashed the Ministry as if they was so many cups and sarcers. Besides which, the paper here says, she walks about Munich with a bulldog to pertect her innocence.
Mrs Nutts.Innocence! I’m not cruel—no, I should hope not; but, as I’m a living woman, if I was the Queen, I’d gullyteen her!
NUTTScomes in.
Nutts.Hallo! Mrs Nutts! Talking about bloodshed in that horrible manner?
Mrs Nutts.Oh, of course; you’ll take her part. It’s such creturs that are most cared for; but I only wish I was Queen, that’s all. I’m not cruel, as I said afore; but as sure as I’d a palace gate, her head should be a-top of it; yes, if she’d athousand bayonets for busks, that it should. And you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Nutts—you, the father of a family—to stand there taking the cretur’s part. Dormalolez, indeed!
Nutts.Oh, that’s what it is, eh? Now, Mr Nosebag, will you take the chair? I’ve read all about that.
Mrs Nutts.Of course you have; I saw you laughing and enjoying yourself, and I knew by the way of you there could be no good in it. Go on, Mr Tickle; of course the cretur has turned the poor Queen out of her palace, and is at this moment walking about the town with her crown upon her head—a minx—jest like ’em.
Tickle.Not at all. For here’s a letter from Munich of the 22d ult. that says (reads): “The exasperation of the populace of our city against Mlle. Lola Montes has become so great that the authorities, in order to prevent disturbances, have required the young lady to quit the town.”
Mrs Nutts.“Young lady!” Such creturs! Well—if pisoning can ever be lawful—but go on.
Tickle.(Reads.) “This she did last night, going to the village of Sturemberg, situated at about five leagues from Munich. Her carriage was escorted by a strong detachment of dragoons from the garrison.”
Nutts.At the village of Sturemberg? Ha! likea letter at the post-office, I s’pose—“to be left till called for.”
Mrs Nutts.Well, Nutts, I wonder how you can joke at such a matter. As a husband and father of a family, it ought to make your blood run cold. It doesme.
Peabody.Well, I’ve heard of Venus drawn by doves——
Mrs Nutts.I have it in a valentine; and then, like a foolish girl, believed in it.
Peabody.But I don’t fancy Venus with her bulldog. However, they say the King’s mad—don’t they?
Slowgoe.No doubt on it. For isn’t he the same King that’s writ poems and started a newspaper? If I was on a jury, that would be enough for me. I’d send him to a lunatic asylum for life.
Mrs Nutts.Very right, Mr Slowgoe; any man who can serve his Queen as he’s done, I’d put him in a straight jacket for the rest of his days, with only one arm out on Sundays.
Limpy.Never mind them foreigners; let’s think of the wirtues of our own homes. You’ve a vote for Vestminster, haven’t you, Mr Nutts?
Nutts.I have, sir. A vote—though I say it—as pure as drifted snow.
Mrs Nutts.And quite as uncomfortable. Often when the children want things, Nutts will havethe money for the taxes to preserve what he calls his independent vote. And for years and years—no matter how I’ve been pinched—he has preserved it. And what’s the good on it? Independence! I don’t blame anybody for being independent when they can afford it; then it’s right and respectable. Otherwise it’s a piece of extravagance beyond poor people.
Nutts.Now, my dear, if you’ll let alone my politics, I’ll promise not to interfere with your turnip-tops; and I’m sure, if turnip-tops can speak, I heard ’em just now crying out for you to come and pick ’em in the kitchen. A cleverer woman at greens never lived; but for all that, my dear, you are not quite up in the House of Commons. (Mrs Nutts looks an unspoken repartee, and whisks out.) Yes, gentlemen, as I said, Ihavea vote.
Peabody.Well, is it promised?
Nutts.Why, I’m taken a little aback. I rayther like the address of Mr Cochrane; but, as I once heerd a feller say at the play—“His highness is discovered.”
Slowgoe.Well, I’m not surprised—not at all. When a man promises liberty by the bushel—universal suffrage and all that—I know what to expect. I haven’t read the partic’lars; but it’s true, isn’t it, that he went about the country as a wandering minstrel?
Peabody.Why, I understand that, blushing like a gentleman, he has owned as much.
Slowgoe.As I say, I haven’t heard the partic’lars; but he went about, didn’t he, with a hurdy-gurdy and white mice?
Nutts.Oh dear, no; went with guitar, and twangled the wires. But I don’t care so much about that—no, and I could have forgiven the mice, for mice out of Parliament aren’t so bad as rats in; but the unfortunate young youth—I mean Don Juan de Vega Cochrane—writ a book that, though it was all about soft-hearted ladies, wasn’t quite a book of beauty. Now, the worst of black used in all this blackening world is the black that’s put upon the name of a kind, unsuspecting woman. It’s a hard job for a man to get his hands clean after using it—it will stick worse than the real “Tyrian dye.”
Slowgoe.And so this patriot—this hurdy-gurdy politician—this minstrel boy of Westminster—won’t stand, eh, for Parl’ment?
Nosebag.P’r’aps he may sing, then. Shouldn’t wonder if he was to canvass the voters’ wives with his guitar, with pink ribbons about ’is neck, dust like Mr James Wallack, for the Brigand, with a new sort of song—“Gentle Electors;” or, “The Minstrel Boy to the Poll is gone.” If he was only to try that dodge, and the women had votes,I’m blest if, in my opinion, he wouldn’t chant plumpers out of all of ’em. I’m certain on it, a man with one of them twangling guitars is a more dangerous cretur about a house than with a double-loaded blunderbuss.
Nutts.And so I’ve been reading Mr Charles Lushington’s speech, and my mind’s made up; if he sticks to what he says, I shall prime him with my vote for Parl’ment.
Slowgoe.I’m very happy—very proud to see—that his Royal Highness Prince Albert consents to be the Chancellor for Cambridge. Here it is from thePost. The deputation went to the palace on Tuesday. (Reads.) “His Royal Highness expressed himself in the warmest terms for the distinguished honour conferred upon him by the University of Cambridge, and the sincere gratification he felt in accepting it. His Royal Highness conversed with the deputation on the subject of English university discipline,and evinced considerable knowledgeof the Oxford and Cambridge systems.” What do you think of that, eh?
Nutts.Why, nothing; princes always do “evince considerable knowledge” on the very shortest notice upon anything.
Peabody.Quite true, Mr Nutts. If they’d made the Prince the King of M. Leverrier’s newplanet just discovered, his Royal Highness would have evinced “considerable knowledge” of all its plains and mountains, besides a very intimate acquaintance with some of the principal inhabitants.