Sketches by Seymour Part 12

"Dummies, sir, all dummies."

"Dummies?"

"Yes, sir; the sugars on the shelves is all dummies--wooden 'uns, done up in paper! The herrin' tub is on'y got a few at top--the rest's all shavins an' waste.--There's plenty o' salt to be sure--but the werry soap-box is all made up."

"And so's my mind!" emphatically exclaimed the deluded Wiggins, slapping the breakfast-table with his clenched fist.

"Jim--Jim--you're a honest lad, and there's half-a-crown for you--"

"Thank'ye for me, sir," said the errand-boy, grinning with delight-- "and--and you'll cut the missus, Sir!"

"For ever!--"

"Hooray! I said as how I'd have my rewenge!" cried the lad, and pulling the front of his straight hair, as an apology for a bow, he retreated from the room.

"What an escape!" soliloquized Wiggins-- "Should n't I ha' bin properly hampered? that's all. No more insinniwating widows for me!--"

And so ended the Courtship of Mr. Wiggins.

SCENE XXII.

The Itinerant Musician.

A wandering son of Apollo, with a shocking bad hat, encircled by a melancholy piece of rusty c.r.a.pe, and arrayed in garments that had once shone with renovated splendour in that mart of second-hand habiliments 'ycleped Monmouth-street, was affrighting the echoes of a fashionable street by blowing upon an old clarionet, and doing the 'Follow, hark!' of Weber the most palpable injustice.

The red hand of the greasy cook tapped at the kitchen-window below, and she scolded inaudibly--but he still continued to amuse--himself, as regardless of the cook's scolding as of the area-railing against which he leaned, tuning his discordant lay.

His strain indeed appeared endless, and he still persevered in torturing the ambient air with, apparently, as little prospect of blowing himself out as an asthmatic man would possibly have of extinguishing a smoky link with a wheeze--or a hungry cadger without a penny!

The master of the mansion was suffering under a touch of the gout, accompanied by a gnawing tooth-ache!--The horrid noise without made his trembling nerves jangle like the loose strings of an untuned guitar.

A furious tug at the bell brought down the silken rope and brought up an orbicular footman.

"William"

"Yes, sir."

"D--- that, etc.! and send him to, etc.!"

"Yes, sir."

And away glided the liveried rotundity.--

Appearing at the street-door, the musician took his instrument from his lips, and, approaching the steps, touched his sorry beaver with the side of his left hand.

"There's three-pence for you," said the menial, "and master wishes you'd move on."

"Threepence, indeed!" mumbled the man. "I never moves on under sixpence: d'ye think I doesn't know the walley o' peace and quietness?"

"Fellow!" cried the irate footman, with a pompous air--"Master desires as you'll go on."

"Werry well"--replied the other, touching his hat, while the domestic waddled back, and closed the door, pluming himself upon having settled the musician; but he had no sooner vanished, than the strain was taken up again more uproariously than ever.

Out he rushed again in a twinkling--

"Fellow! I say--man! vot do you mean?"

"Vy, now didn't you tell me to go on?"

"I mean't go off."

"Then vy don't you speak plain hinglish," said the clarionist; "but, I say, lug out t'other browns, or I shall say vot the flute said ven his master said as how he'd play a tune on him."

"Vot vos that?"

"Vy, he'd be blow'd if he would!"

"You're a owdacious fellow."

"Tip!" was the laconic answer, accompanied by an expressive twiddling of the fingers.

"Vell, there then," answered the footman, reluctantly giving him the price of his silence.

"Thank'ye," said the musician, "and in time to come, old fellow, never do nothin' by halves--'cept it's a calve's head!"

SCENE XXIII.

Oh! lor, here's a norrid thing.'

The Confessions of a Sportsman.

"Vell, for three year, as sure as the Septembers comes, I takes the field, but somehow or another I never takes nothin' else! My gun's a good 'un and no mistake!--Percussions and the best Dartford, and all that too. My haim ain't amiss neither; so there's a fault somewhere, that's certain. The first time as I hentered on the inwigorating and manly sport, I valks my werry legs off, and sees nothin' but crows and that 'ere sort o' small game.

"I vos so aggrawated, that at last I lets fly at 'em in werry spite, jist as they vos a sendin' of their bills into an orse for a dinner.

"Bang! goes the piece;--caw! caw! goes the birds; and I dessay I did for some on 'em, but I don't know, for somehow I vos in sich a preshus hurry to bag my game, that I jumps clean over vun bank, and by goles! plump into a ditch on t'other side, up to my werry neck!

"The mud stuck to me like vax; and findin' it all over vith me, and no chance o' breaking a cover o' this sort, I dawdled about 'till dusk, and vos werry glad to crawl home and jump into bed. I vos so 'put out' that I stayed at home the rest o' that season.

"The second year come, and my hardor vos agin inflamed. 'Cotch me a-shootin' at crows,' says I.--Vell, avay I goes a-vhistling to myself, ven presently I see a solentary bird on the wing; 'a pariwidge, by jingo!' says I--I c.o.c.ks--presents, and hits it! Hooray! down it tumbles, and afore I could load and prime agin, a whole lot o' 'em comes out from among the trees. 'Here's luck' says I; and jist shouldered my piece, ven I gets sich a vop behind as sent me at full length.