Original Penny Readings Part 9

CHAPTER TWELVE.

A VULGAR TONGUE.

Unfortunately, one cannot always get one's own particular cabman--the favoured one of the civil tongue; and on more than one occasion I have been on the box with as surly a specimen of humanity as ever drove a horse. Now, decidedly the real way to enjoy a cab-ride--rather a difficult matter--is, providing the weather be fine, to mount beside the driver. You thus avoid musty smells, stifling symptoms, and that hideous noise of jangling windows, a sound harsh enough to jar the nerves of a bull. Yes; decidedly the best way to enjoy a cab-ride is to sink the bloated aristocrat, mount beside the driver, and fraternise.

But my surly driver would not fraternise, for he was of the cla.s.s known as crusty. He was a sort of moral hedgehog, and, but for his forming a study, I should decidedly have abdicated.

"Ah! He's got his gruel," said my cynical friend as he drove past a fallen horse belonging to the General Omnibus Company. "There's another fall in the k.u.mp'ny's shares. Sarve 'em right. No bisniss to have such bad cattle."

Now, the beast I sat behind was about as ill-favoured and lean-fleshed an animal as his master. Evidently given to wind-gall, spavin, and splint, he--the horse, not the driver--was to an unpractised eye decidedly a jibber; while even a female ear would have detected that he was a roarer. It was evident, though, that my friend could not detect the faults of his own steed, and therefore he lavished all his abuse upon the horses of his contemporaries, whether of cab or 'bus.

But this driver seemed to have a spite against the world at large; seeming to ooze all over until he broke out into quite a satirical perspiration, while his lips acted as a safety-valve to let off an explosive compound most rapidly formed in his interior. He had a snarl for everything and everybody, and could he have run over some unfortunate crossing-sweeper, he would probably have been in ecstasies.

Whenever opportunity offered he snarled often and cruelly at the misfortunes of his fellow-creatures. Where the scavengers had left the sc.r.a.ped-up mud beside the road--and where don't they?--he would drive right through, noisily and rapidly, forming a large mud firework--to the great increase of his after labour, certainly; but this seemed of no account; he was so amply recompensed by the intense gratification he enjoyed in besmirching as many pa.s.sers-by as happened to be within range; while when he succeeded in producing a currant-dumpling appearance upon a footman's calves, he was almost apoplectic, and rumbled with delight. Woe to the wandering dog that came within reach of his whip! It would have been better for him had he ne'er been pupped, for here there was no mercy shown. As to the pa.s.sing salutations of brother cabs, they, though apparently pungent, glanced off our friend's case-hardened composition, and the a.s.sailant would depart with a stinging sarcasm tingling and buzzing in his ears.

It was enough to make one ruminate upon the vast amount of the gall of bitterness in the man's mind, and ask how much the cab-riding world had to do with the sharpening of the thorns with which this modern Jehu bristled--Jehu, indeed, for he drove most furiously--spiny, hooked, venomous, lacerating, clinging, tearing points that would have at you and be in your skin whether you would or no; for upon asking the fare when about to alight, having previously formed the determination not to dispute a sixpence, I was told "Two shillings," and then, tendering a florin, was greeted with--

"Ho! wun o' them blessed pieces. Should ha' thought as a swell as purfessed to be so interested in kebs would ha' been ashamed to horfer less than 'arf a bull."

But there are amiable and advice-giving cabbies, who seem to take an interest in the welfare of their customers.

I once agreed in times gone by to "conwoy" Mrs Scribe and her sister, Miss Bellefille, as far as Richmond. 'Twas summer time, and our imaginations were full of sparkling rivers, green eyots, silver swans, and--well, yes, I'll own it, the carnal delights of a Star and Garter dinner, with the following cigar. There was the rail, certainly, but in preference thereto I hired one of her Majesty's carriages, VR 123,456.

Our b.u.t.tons had not come up in those days, so I fetched the vehicle from the stand, and rode back beside the driver. Upon reaching Miranda Villas, I lightly leaped down and rang the bell. Wonderful to relate, the ladies waited ready in the pa.s.sage, and after handing them into the cab, I again mounted to the box, for the purpose of smoking upon the way down.

We were moving off when a voice was heard from the interior of the cab--"George, I've left my handkerchief upon the dressing-table; ask Harriet to fetch it down."

I arrested the driver, who seemed to be regarding me rather superciliously, which I attributed to insignificance of appearance, when he exclaimed:--

"Now, Jarge, fetch the missus's wipe, and look alive."

"Confound his impudence," I muttered, "he takes me for the attendant;"

and then, with what must have been a decidedly melodramatic, tyrannical-baron-like scowl upon my brow, I resummoned the abigail, and obtained the required piece of cambric.

The feeling of indignation had fled as I reseated myself, and during the drive down I omitted the smoke, and suffered the driver to discourse fancy free.

He had an agreeable voice, had this Cabby--husky and wheezy; and but for an unpleasant habit of expectorating at the flies which settled upon the shafts, he might have proved an agreeable companion. Curiosity, however, seemed to be one of his failings, for addressing me in a mock provincial style as "Jarge," and at the same time forcing his voice somewhere down into the cavernous recesses beneath his waistcoat, he began to catechise me after an approved method of his own.

"New hand?"--I nodded.

"Measured for your livery?"

"What?" I said.

"Measured for your harness--togs, you know?"

"Not yet," I replied mildly--a martyr to information.

"Nice time on it, you fellers has: plenty ter eat, plenty ter drink, nothing ter do, and plenty o' niste gals in the house. Got any guv'nor?"

I replied in the negative.

"Vell, then, young feller, you've put your foot into a good thing, and if you plays your cards right, you'll make a swell of yourself in just no time. Reg'lar swell, you know; keep yer own wally, private barber, and s...o...b..ack brigade, yer know, to keep you all square--some one to swear at when yer outer sorts. Ony think; have yer chockely brought to you in bed; and then come down arterwards in a red dressin'-gownd with gold flowers on it, and a fancy cap with a big torsel! And there yer sits, big as a Lord Mayor, and has yer breakfa.s.s outer chany. Ah, it's a fine thing to be a swell, my lad! Arterwards yer goes out, fust chalk--all noo clothes--and when wun o' us pore chaps says, 'Keb, sir!'

'Yes!' sez you, and you goes down to yer club and reads the papers, and drinks champagne all day till dinner-time, when yer goes back to dinner with the missus, and finishes off every night by going to the oprer.

Swell's life's a first-rate 'un, my lad.

"Niste gals them missuses o' yourn. I should stick up ter the little 'un if I was you." [Mrs Scribe.] "I likes the looks on her. Can't say much for t'other. She's rayther too scraggy for my taste." [Miss Bellefille.] "Howsumever, it depends a good deal on which has most ochre. Though, mind yer, I wouldn't marry a gal altogether for her tin; I'd rayther hev a good-tempered fat 'un with six thousan' than wun o'

yer thin, razor-backed, sour-tempered 'uns with twiste as much. Tain't no use havin heaps o' tin if yer can't enjoy it and do what yer likes.

There's some chaps as I knows as is spliced and dursent say as their soul's their own; and no more durst send out for a pot o' porter than fly. Lor' bless you, every drop o' drink they swallers is 'lowanced out to 'em. Ony let the missus ketch 'em with the long clay and the backer, and then see how soon all the fat's in the fire. Gets told as they makes the parly curtains smell wuss nor a tap-room, and keeps a buzzin'

about their ears till the pipe's reg'lar put out, and them too, werry often.

"You take my adwice, young man, and don't you go and throw yourself away. Don't you go and make a martyr o' yourself, and get a ring o'

bitter haloes round your head--sure sign o' rain, you know, and the wife's eyes a runnin' over. I rather takes to that little 'un inside, though; she looks good-tempered. I s'pose she ain't above five-and-twenty, is she?"

I said I believed that was her age.

"Good-tempered?" said Cabby; "don't shy the bread about if it's stale, or bully the gals, or any o' them sorter games?"

"Oh, no!" I said.

"Vell, then; mind what you're arter, and yer fortun's made. You've got your hand crossed with the right bit o' silver. I squinted over my left shoulder, and seed her a smilin' at yer when yer brought her the handkercher. Eh? Ah! it's all werry fine, yer know; but I'm up to yer, young feller. We see some life our way, you know. Nice artful card, you are, you know, now ain't yer?"

Under the circ.u.mstances it seemed best to own to the soft impeachment, which I did, and removed my ribs from Cabby's rather angular elbow.

"I say, yer know, bimeby, if yer look out, 'stead of 'Jarge,' it'll be 'Jarge, dear:' ony don't you be in too big a hurry--don't you get a building a castle in the hair without putting any bricks under it, or else some fine morning down it comes atop of yer, and yer finds yerself flat on yer back with all the wind knocked out of yer corpus."

Then came another facetious nudge of the elbow, almost forcible enough to produce the effect so graphically described.

"Play your cards well, my lad, and you're a made man; but whatever you do, don't be rash. Allus make a pint o' cleanin' yerself fust thing, and never show yourself to her with yer hair touzled and rough; and, what's more, allus have a clean shave every morning, for there's nothin'

a woman hates wus than a man with a rough chin--nayther one thing nor t'other. Arter a bit, some day, when she's werry civil, and when she's a-sayin' 'Jarge' this or 'Jarge' that, you might, just by accident like, say 'Yes, dear,' or 'No, dear,' as the case may be; ony mind and see how she takes it; and, as I said afore, don't be rash. Whatever you do, don't touch her without she begins fust, or else it's all d.i.c.key with yer. There's many a good game been spoilt by young fellers like you bein' too fast, and not havin' nous enough to wait till the proper time.

"There's another way, too, you might spoil yerself if yer don't look out. Like all houses o' your sort, there's some niste gals downstairs, and noises allus goes uppards a deal easier than they goes down'ards.

Don't you never let n.o.body upstairs hear anybody downstairs a-saying, 'Don't Jarge!' or 'Do a' done now!' or 'Such imperance!'--you know, my lad, ony mind what I say: if them words downstairs is heered by any one upstairs, there won't be a mossil o' chance o' them words upstairs bein'

heered downstairs. But there, I ain't talkin' to a flat. When we gets down ter Richmond, and your folks is gone into the Star and Garter, you'll be standin' a gla.s.s or two, and I can put you up to two or three wrinkles, every word of which you'll be saving is worth five shillings to yer. Ah! I ony wish I'd half your chance; I'd be riding in a keb of my own before many months was over.

"The missuses a-goin' to a dinner, of course? Ah, and a niste day for a dinner down there, and a row on the river arterwards. Goin' to meet some gents, I s'pose? But never you mind that. Play your cards well, and you'll be right, and can come down to Richmond once a week on your own hook. Don't you be a-standin' no nonsense, though, from some o'

them big swells all mustarsh and beard, with rings on their fingers.

You'll have some on 'em callin' at your house and tryin' it on, and wanting to cut you out: but you can dodge 'em by running up in the room when the bell didn't ring, and a-going up with coals, and letters, and sich like; and if that don't do--don't let 'em go upstairs at all. The missus'll thank yer for it arterwards, as it's all for her good. And them young things is as ignorant as can be as to what's best for them.

I hain't lived five-and-forty years in this world to learn nothing, I can tell yer. Let's see, now, you're about eight-and-twenty, you are, and don't seem a bad sorter chap; but you're too tame and quiet-like-- looks as if you wus just come outer the country, don't you see? But there, that'll all come right in time I dersay.

"I say, you knows, send us a slice o' cake when it comes off, my lad."

Upon reaching the Star and Garter I told my Mentor to await our return; gave him a shilling to obtain the gla.s.s or two of which he had spoken; and after handing out the ladies, walked off with them to the tune of a low, but long-drawn whistle of astonishment from my self-const.i.tuted adviser.

I rode home inside, for the evening was damp and chilly; and upon paying the required tribute to my husky-voiced friend, he favoured me with a long serio-comic look beneath the lamp-post, and then upon placing one foot upon the wheel to reach his perch, he turned his head, winked solemnly and with a peculiar wisdom in his eye, and then Minerva Road knew him no more.