Paul Clifford — Complete
years deserted her chimney-corner. Indeed, the racket of fashionable
life was too much for her nerves; and the invitation had become a
customary form not expected to be acted upon, but not a whit the less
regularly used for that reason. As Paul had now attained his sixteenth
year, and was a fine, handsome lad, the dame thought he would make
an excellent representative of the Mug's mistress; and that, for her
protege, a ball at Bill's house would be no bad commencement of “Life
in London.” Accordingly, she intimated to the Bachelor a wish to that
effect; and Paul received the following invitation from Bill:--
“Mr. William Duke gives a hop and feed in a quiet way on Monday next,
and hops Mr. Paul Lobkins will be of the party. N. B. Gentlemen is
expected to come in pumps.”
When Paul entered, he found Bachelor Bill leading off the ball to the
tune of “Drops of Brandy,” with a young lady to whom, because she had
been a strolling player, the Ladies Patronesses of Fiddler's Row
had thought proper to behave with a very cavalier civility. The good
Bachelor had no notion, as he expressed it, of such tantrums, and he
caused it to be circulated among the finest of the blowens, that he
expected all who kicked their heels at his house would behave decent and
polite to young Mrs. Dot. This intimation, conveyed to the ladies with
all that insinuating polish for which Bachelor Bill was so remarkable,
produced a notable effect; and Mrs. Dot, being now led off by the flash
Bachelor, was overpowered with civilities the rest of the evening.
When the dance was ended, Bill very politely shook hands with Paul, and
took an early opportunity of introducing him to some of the most “noted
characters” of the town. Among these were the smart Mr. Allfair, the
insinuating Henry Finish, the merry Jack Hookey, the knowing Charles
Trywit, and various others equally noted for their skill in living
handsomely upon their own brains, and the personals of other people. To
say truth, Paul, who at that time was an honest lad, was less charmed
than he had anticipated by the conversation of these chevaliers of
industry. He was more pleased with the clever though self-sufficient
remarks of a gentleman with a remarkably fine head of hair, and whom we
would more impressively than the rest introduce to our reader under the
appellation of Mr. Edward Pepper, generally termed Long Ned. As this
worthy was destined afterwards to be an intimate associate of Paul, our
main reason for attending the hop at Bachelor Bill's is to note, as the
importance of the event deserves, the epoch of the commencement of their
acquaintance.
Long Ned and Paul happened to sit next to each other at supper, and
they conversed together so amicably that Paul, in the hospitality of his
heart, expressed a hope that he should see Mr. Pepper at the Mug!
“Mug,--Mug!” repeated Pepper, half shutting his eyes, with the air of
a dandy about to be impertinent; “ah, the name of a chapel, is it not?
There's a sect called Muggletonians, I think?”
“As to that,” said Paul, colouring at this insinuation against the Mug,
“Mrs. Lobkins has no more religion than her betters; but the Mug is a
very excellent house, and frequented by the best possible company.”
“Don't doubt it!” said Ned. “Remember now that I was once there, and saw
one Dummie Dunnaker,--is not that the name? I recollect some years ago,
when I first came out, that Dummie and I had an adventure together;
to tell you the truth, it was not the sort of thing I would do now.
But--would you believe it, Mr. Paul?--this pitiful fellow was quite rude
to me the only time I ever met him since; that is to say, the only time
I ever entered the Mug. I have no notion of such airs in a merchant,--a
merchant of rags! Those commercial fellows are getting quite
insufferable.”
“You surprise me,” said Paul. “Poor Dummie is the last man to be rude;
he is as civil a creature as ever lived.”
“Or sold a rag,” said Ned. “Possibly! Don't doubt his amiable qualities
in the least. Pass the bingo, my good fellow. Stupid stuff, this
dancing!”
“Devilish stupid!” echoed Harry Finish, across the table. “Suppose
we adjourn to Fish Lane, and rattle the ivories! What say you, Mr.
Lobkins?”
Afraid of the “ton's stern laugh, which scarce the proud philosopher
can scorn,” and not being very partial to dancing, Paul assented to the
proposition; and a little party, consisting of Harry Finish, Allfair,
Long Ned, and Mr. Hookey, adjourned to Fish Lane, where there was a
club, celebrated among men who live by their wits, at which “lush” and
“baccy” were gratuitously sported in the most magnificent manner. Here
the evening passed away very delightfully, and Paul went home without a
“brad” in his pocket.
From that time Paul's visits to Fish Lane became unfortunately
regular; and in a very short period, we grieve to say, Paul became that
distinguished character, a gentleman of three outs,--“out of pocket,
out of elbows, and out of credit.” The only two persons whom he found
willing to accommodate him with a slight loan, as the advertisements
signed X. Y. have it, were Mr. Dummie Dunnaker and Mr. Pepper, surnamed
the Long. The latter, however, while he obliged the heir to the Mug,
never condescended to enter that noted place of resort; and the former,
whenever he good-naturedly opened his purse-strings, did it with a
hearty caution to shun the acquaintance of Long Ned,--“a parson,” said
Dummie, “of wery dangerous morals, and not by no manner of means a fit
'sociate for a young gemman of cracter like leetle Paul!” So earnest
was this caution, and so especially pointed at Long Ned,--although
the company of Mr. Allfair or Mr. Finish might be said to be no less
prejudicial,--that it is probable that stately fastidiousness of manner
which Lord Normanby rightly observes, in one of his excellent novels,
makes so many enemies in the world, and which sometimes characterized
the behaviour of Long Ned, especially towards the men of commerce, was
a main reason why Dummie was so acutely and peculiarly alive to the
immoralities of that lengthy gentleman. At the same time we must observe
that when Paul, remembering what Pepper had said respecting his early
adventure with Mr. Dunnaker, repeated it to the merchant, Dummie could
not conceal a certain confusion, though he merely remarked, with a sort
of laugh, that it was not worth speaking about; and it appeared evident
to Paul that something unpleasant to the man of rags, which was not
shared by the unconscious Pepper, lurked in the reminiscence of their
past acquaintance. How beit, the circumstance glided from Paul's
attention the moment afterwards; and he paid, we are concerned to
say, equally little heed to the cautions against Ned with which Dummie
regaled him.
Perhaps (for we must now direct a glance towards his domestic concerns)
one great cause which drove Paul to Fish Lane was the uncomfortable
life he led at home. For though Mrs. Lobkins was extremely fond of her
protege, yet she was possessed, as her customers emphatically remarked,
“of the devil's own temper;” and her native coarseness never having been
softened by those pictures of gay society which had, in many a novel and
comic farce, refined the temperament of the romantic Paul, her manner of
venting her maternal reproaches was certainly not a little revolting to
a lad of some delicacy of feeling. Indeed, it often occurred to him
to leave her house altogether, and seek his fortunes alone, after the
manner of the ingenious Gil Blas or the enterprising Roderick Random;
and this idea, though conquered and reconquered, gradually swelled and
increased at his heart, even as swelleth that hairy ball found in the
stomach of some suffering heifer after its decease. Among these projects
of enterprise the reader will hereafter notice that an early vision of
the Green Forest Cave, in which Turpin was accustomed, with a friend,
a ham, and a wife, to conceal himself, flitted across his mind. At this
time he did not, perhaps, incline to the mode of life practised by the
hero of the roads; but he certainly clung not the less fondly to the
notion of the cave.
The melancholy flow of our hero's life was now, however, about to be
diverted by an unexpected turn, and the crude thoughts of boyhood to
burst, “like Ghilan's giant palm,” into the fruit of a manly resolution.
Among the prominent features of Mrs. Lobkins's mind was a sovereign
contempt for the unsuccessful. The imprudence and ill-luck of Paul
occasioned her as much scorn as compassion; and when for the third time
within a week he stood, with a rueful visage and with vacant pockets,
by the dame's great chair, requesting an additional supply, the tides of
her wrath swelled into overflow.
“Look you, my kinchin cove,” said she,--and in order to give peculiar
dignity to her aspect, she put on while she spoke a huge pair of tin
spectacles,--“if so be as how you goes for to think as how I shall go
for to supply your wicious necessities, you will find yourself planted
in Queer Street. Blow me tight, if I gives you another mag.”
“But I owe Long Ned a guinea,” said Paul; “and Dummie Dunnaker lent me
three crowns. It ill becomes your heir apparent, my dear dame, to fight
shy of his debts of honour.”
“Taradididdle, don't think for to wheedle me with your debts and your
honour,” said the dame, in a passion. “Long Ned is as long in the forks
[fingers] as he is in the back; may Old Harry fly off with him! And as
for Durnmie Dunnaker, I wonders how you, brought up such a swell, and
blest with the wery best of hedications, can think of putting up with
such wulgar 'sociates. I tells you what, Paul, you'll please to break
with them, smack and at once, or devil a brad you'll ever get from Peg
Lobkins.” So saying, the old lady turned round in her chair, and helped
herself to a pipe of tobacco.
Paul walked twice up and down the apartment, and at last stopped
opposite the dame's chair. He was a youth of high spirit; and though he
was warm-hearted, and had a love for Mrs. Lobkins, which her care and
affection for hire well deserved, yet he was rough in temper, and
not constantly smooth in speech. It is true that his heart smote him
afterwards, whenever he had said anything to annoy Mrs. Lobkins, and he
was always the first to seek a reconciliation; but warm words produce
cold respect, and sorrow for the past is not always efficacious in
amending the future. Paul then, puffed up with the vanity of his genteel
education, and the friendship of Long Ned (who went to Ranelagh, and
wore silver clocked stockings), stopped opposite to Mrs. Lobkins's
chair, and said with great solemnity,--
“Mr. Pepper, madam, says very properly that I must have money to support
myself like a gentleman; and as you won't give it me, I am determined,
with many thanks for your past favours, to throw myself on the world,
and seek my fortune.”
If Paul was of no oily and bland temper, Dame Margaret Lobkins, it has
been seen, had no advantage on that score. (We dare say the reader has
observed that nothing so enrages persons on whom one depends as any
expressed determination of seeking independence.) Gazing therefore for
one moment at the open but resolute countenance of Paul, while all the
blood of her veins seemed gathering in fire and scarlet to her enlarging
cheeks, Dame Lobkins said,--
“Ifeaks, Master Pride-in-duds! seek your fortune yourself, will you?
This comes of my bringing you up, and letting you eat the bread of
idleness and charity, you toad of a thousand! Take that and be d--d
to you!” and, suiting the action to the word, the tube which she had
withdrawn from her mouth in order to utter her gentle rebuke whizzed
through the air, grazed Paul's cheek, and finished its earthly career by