Martin Chuzzlewit
gentlemen’s car, and the car for negroes; the latter painted black, as
an appropriate compliment to its company. Martin and Mark Tapley were
in the first, as it was the most comfortable; and, being far from full,
received other gentlemen who, like them, were unblessed by the society
of ladies of their own. They were seated side by side, and were engaged
in earnest conversation.
‘And so, Mark,’ said Martin, looking at him with an anxious expression,
‘and so you are glad we have left New York far behind us, are you?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Mark. ‘I am. Precious glad.’
‘Were you not “jolly” there?’ asked Martin.
‘On the contrairy, sir,’ returned Mark. ‘The jolliest week as ever I
spent in my life, was that there week at Pawkins’s.’
‘What do you think of our prospects?’ inquired Martin, with an air that
plainly said he had avoided the question for some time.
‘Uncommon bright, sir,’ returned Mark. ‘Impossible for a place to have
a better name, sir, than the Walley of Eden. No man couldn’t think of
settling in a better place than the Walley of Eden. And I’m told,’ added
Mark, after a pause, ‘as there’s lots of serpents there, so we shall
come out, quite complete and reg’lar.’
So far from dwelling upon this agreeable piece of information with the
least dismay, Mark’s face grew radiant as he called it to mind; so very
radiant, that a stranger might have supposed he had all his life been
yearning for the society of serpents, and now hailed with delight the
approaching consummation of his fondest wishes.
‘Who told you that?’ asked Martin, sternly.
‘A military officer,’ said Mark.
‘Confound you for a ridiculous fellow!’ cried Martin, laughing heartily
in spite of himself. ‘What military officer? You know they spring up in
every field.’
‘As thick as scarecrows in England, sir,’ interposed Mark, ‘which is a
sort of milita themselves, being entirely coat and wescoat, with a stick
inside. Ha, ha!--Don’t mind me, sir; it’s my way sometimes. I can’t help
being jolly. Why it was one of them inwading conquerors at Pawkins’s, as
told me. “Am I rightly informed,” he says--not exactly through his nose,
but as if he’d got a stoppage in it, very high up--“that you’re a-going
to the Walley of Eden?” “I heard some talk on it,” I told him. “Oh!”
says he, “if you should ever happen to go to bed there--you MAY, you
know,” he says, “in course of time as civilisation progresses--don’t
forget to take a axe with you.” I looks at him tolerable hard. “Fleas?”
says I. “And more,” says he. “Wampires?” says I. “And more,” says he.
“Musquitoes, perhaps?” says I. “And more,” says he. “What more?” says
I. “Snakes more,” says he; “rattle-snakes. You’re right to a certain
extent, stranger. There air some catawampous chawers in the small way
too, as graze upon a human pretty strong; but don’t mind THEM--they’re
company. It’s snakes,” he says, “as you’ll object to; and whenever you
wake and see one in a upright poster on your bed,” he says, “like a
corkscrew with the handle off a-sittin’ on its bottom ring, cut him
down, for he means wenom.”’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before!’ cried Martin, with an expression
of face which set off the cheerfulness of Mark’s visage to great
advantage.
‘I never thought on it, sir,’ said Mark. ‘It come in at one ear, and
went out at the other. But Lord love us, he was one of another Company,
I dare say, and only made up the story that we might go to his Eden, and
not the opposition one.’
‘There’s some probability in that,’ observed Martin. ‘I can honestly say
that I hope so, with all my heart.’
‘I’ve not a doubt about it, sir,’ returned Mark, who, full of the
inspiriting influence of the anecodote upon himself, had for the moment
forgotten its probable effect upon his master; ‘anyhow, we must live,
you know, sir.’
‘Live!’ cried Martin. ‘Yes, it’s easy to say live; but if we should
happen not to wake when rattlesnakes are making corkscrews of themselves
upon our beds, it may be not so easy to do it.’
‘And that’s a fact,’ said a voice so close in his ear that it tickled
him. ‘That’s dreadful true.’
Martin looked round, and found that a gentleman, on the seat behind, had
thrust his head between himself and Mark, and sat with his chin resting
on the back rail of their little bench, entertaining himself with their
conversation. He was as languid and listless in his looks as most of the
gentlemen they had seen; his cheeks were so hollow that he seemed to be
always sucking them in; and the sun had burnt him, not a wholesome red
or brown, but dirty yellow. He had bright dark eyes, which he kept half
closed; only peeping out of the corners, and even then with a glance
that seemed to say, ‘Now you won’t overreach me; you want to, but you
won’t.’ His arms rested carelessly on his knees as he leant forward;
in the palm of his left hand, as English rustics have their slice of
cheese, he had a cake of tobacco; in his right a penknife. He struck
into the dialogue with as little reserve as if he had been specially
called in, days before, to hear the arguments on both sides, and favour
them with his opinion; and he no more contemplated or cared for the
possibility of their not desiring the honour of his acquaintance or
interference in their private affairs than if he had been a bear or a
buffalo.
‘That,’ he repeated, nodding condescendingly to Martin, as to an outer
barbarian and foreigner, ‘is dreadful true. Darn all manner of vermin.’
Martin could not help frowning for a moment, as if he were disposed to
insinuate that the gentleman had unconsciously ‘darned’ himself. But
remembering the wisdom of doing at Rome as Romans do, he smiled with the
pleasantest expression he could assume upon so short a notice.
Their new friend said no more just then, being busily employed in
cutting a quid or plug from his cake of tobacco, and whistling softly to
himself the while. When he had shaped it to his liking, he took out his
old plug, and deposited the same on the back of the seat between Mark
and Martin, while he thrust the new one into the hollow of his cheek,
where it looked like a large walnut, or tolerable pippin. Finding it
quite satisfactory, he stuck the point of his knife into the old plug,
and holding it out for their inspection, remarked with the air of a man
who had not lived in vain, that it was ‘used up considerable.’ Then
he tossed it away; put his knife into one pocket and his tobacco into
another; rested his chin upon the rail as before; and approving of the
pattern on Martin’s waistcoat, reached out his hand to feel the texture
of that garment.
‘What do you call this now?’ he asked.
‘Upon my word’ said Martin, ‘I don’t know what it’s called.’
‘It’ll cost a dollar or more a yard, I reckon?’
‘I really don’t know.’
‘In my country,’ said the gentleman, ‘we know the cost of our own
pro-duce.’
Martin not discussing the question, there was a pause.
‘Well!’ resumed their new friend, after staring at them intently during
the whole interval of silence; ‘how’s the unnat’ral old parent by this
time?’
Mr Tapley regarding this inquiry as only another version of the
impertinent English question, ‘How’s your mother?’ would have resented
it instantly, but for Martin’s prompt interposition.
‘You mean the old country?’ he said.
‘Ah!’ was the reply. ‘How’s she? Progressing back’ards, I expect, as
usual? Well! How’s Queen Victoria?’
‘In good health, I believe,’ said Martin.
‘Queen Victoria won’t shake in her royal shoes at all, when she hears
to-morrow named,’ observed the stranger, ‘No.’
‘Not that I am aware of. Why should she?’
‘She won’t be taken with a cold chill, when she realises what is being
done in these diggings,’ said the stranger. ‘No.’
‘No,’ said Martin. ‘I think I could take my oath of that.’
The strange gentleman looked at him as if in pity for his ignorance or
prejudice, and said:
‘Well, sir, I tell you this--there ain’t a engine with its biler
bust, in God A’mighty’s free U-nited States, so fixed, and nipped,
and frizzled to a most e-tarnal smash, as that young critter, in her
luxurious location in the Tower of London will be, when she reads the
next double-extra Watertoast Gazette.’
Several other gentlemen had left their seats and gathered round during
the foregoing dialogue. They were highly delighted with this speech. One
very lank gentleman, in a loose limp white cravat, long white waistcoat,
and a black great-coat, who seemed to be in authority among them, felt
called upon to acknowledge it.
‘Hem! Mr La Fayette Kettle,’ he said, taking off his hat.
There was a grave murmur of ‘Hush!’
‘Mr La Fayette Kettle! Sir!’
Mr Kettle bowed.
‘In the name of this company, sir, and in the name of our common
country, and in the name of that righteous cause of holy sympathy in
which we are engaged, I thank you. I thank you, sir, in the name of
the Watertoast Sympathisers; and I thank you, sir, in the name of
the Watertoast Gazette; and I thank you, sir, in the name of the
star-spangled banner of the Great United States, for your eloquent and
categorical exposition. And if, sir,’ said the speaker, poking Martin
with the handle of his umbrella to bespeak his attention, for he was
listening to a whisper from Mark; ‘if, sir, in such a place, and at such
a time, I might venture to con-clude with a sentiment, glancing--however
slantin’dicularly--at the subject in hand, I would say, sir, may
the British Lion have his talons eradicated by the noble bill of the
American Eagle, and be taught to play upon the Irish Harp and the Scotch
Fiddle that music which is breathed in every empty shell that lies upon
the shores of green Co-lumbia!’
Here the lank gentleman sat down again, amidst a great sensation; and
every one looked very grave.
‘General Choke,’ said Mr La Fayette Kettle, ‘you warm my heart; sir, you
warm my heart. But the British Lion is not unrepresented here, sir; and
I should be glad to hear his answer to those remarks.’
‘Upon my word,’ cried Martin, laughing, ‘since you do me the honour to
consider me his representative, I have only to say that I never heard
of Queen Victoria reading the What’s-his-name Gazette and that I should
scarcely think it probable.’
General Choke smiled upon the rest, and said, in patient and benignant
explanation:
‘It is sent to her, sir. It is sent to her. Her mail.’
‘But if it is addressed to the Tower of London, it would hardly come to
hand, I fear,’ returned Martin; ‘for she don’t live there.’
‘The Queen of England, gentlemen,’ observed Mr Tapley, affecting the
greatest politeness, and regarding them with an immovable face, ‘usually
lives in the Mint to take care of the money. She HAS lodgings, in virtue
of her office, with the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House; but don’t often
occupy them, in consequence of the parlour chimney smoking.’
‘Mark,’ said Martin, ‘I shall be very much obliged to you if you’ll
have the goodness not to interfere with preposterous statements, however
jocose they may appear to you. I was merely remarking gentlemen--though
it’s a point of very little import--that the Queen of England does not
happen to live in the Tower of London.’
‘General!’ cried Mr La Fayette Kettle. ‘You hear?’
‘General!’ echoed several others. ‘General!’
‘Hush! Pray, silence!’ said General Choke, holding up his hand, and
speaking with a patient and complacent benevolence that was quite
touching. ‘I have always remarked it as a very extraordinary
circumstance, which I impute to the natur’ of British Institutions and
their tendency to suppress that popular inquiry and information which
air so widely diffused even in the trackless forests of this vast
Continent of the Western Ocean; that the knowledge of Britishers
themselves on such points is not to be compared with that possessed