The trail of the serpent
conversation, and whispered in his ear, or rather at his elbow, “All
right, general!” Now as Richard, the Emperor of the Waterworks, and
the only daughter of the Pope all talked at once, and all talked of
entirely different subjects, their conversation might, perhaps, have
been just a little distracting to a short-hand reporter; but as a
conversation, it was really charming.
Richard--still musing on the wild idea which was known in the asylum
to have possessed his disordered brain ever since the day of his
trial--was giving his companions an account of his escape from Elba.
“I was determined,” he said, taking the Emperor of the Waterworks by
the button, “I was determined to make one desperate effort to return to
my friends in France----”
“Very creditable, to be sure,” said the damsel of the green boots;
“your sentiments did you honour.”
“But to escape from the island was an enterprise of considerable
difficulty,” continued Richard.
“Of course,” said the damsel, “considering the price of flour. Flour
rose a half-penny in the bushel in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane,
which, of course, reduced the size of muffins----”
“And had a depressing effect upon the water-rates,” interrupted the
gentleman.
“Now,” continued Richard, “the island of Elba was surrounded by a high
wall----”
“A very convenient arrangement; of course facilitating the process of
cutting off the water from the inhabitants,” muttered the Emperor of
the German Ocean.
The boy Slosh again expressed his feelings with reference to Alice
Gray, and some one on the other side of the wall coincided with him.
“And,” said Richard, “on the top of this wall was a chevaux-de-frise.”
“Dear me,” exclaimed the Emperor, “quite a what-you-may-call-it. I mean
an extraordinary coincidence; we too have a chevaux-de-thing-a-me, for
the purpose, I believe, of keeping out the cats. Cats are unpleasant;
especially,” he added, thoughtfully, “especially the Tom-sex--I mean
the sterner sex.”
“To surmount this wall was my great difficulty.”
“Naturally, naturally,” said the damsel, “a great undertaking,
considering the fall in muffins--a dangerous undertaking.”
“There was a boat waiting to receive me on the other side,” said
Richard, glancing at the wall, which was about a hundred yards distant
from him.
Some person on the other side of the wall had got a good deal nearer by
this time; and, dear me, how very much excited he was about Alice Gray.
“But the question,” Richard continued, “was how to climb the
wall,”--still looking up at the chevaux-de-frise.
“I should have tried muffins,” said the lady.
“I should have cut off the water,” remarked the gentleman.
“I did neither,” said Richard; “I tried a rope.”
At this very moment, by some invisible agency, a thickly-knotted rope
was thrown across the chevaux-de-frise, and the end fell within about
four feet of the ground.
“But her heart it is another’s, and it never can be mine.”
The gentleman who couldn’t succeed in winning the affections of Miss
Gray was evidently close to the wall now.
In a much shorter time than the very greatest master in the art of
stenography could possibly have reported the occurrence, Richard threw
the Emperor of the Waterworks half-a-dozen yards from him, with such
violence as to cause that gentleman to trip-up the heels of the only
daughter of the Pope, and fall in a heap upon that lady as on a feather
bed; and then, with the activity of a cat or a sailor, clambered up the
rope, and disappeared over the chevaux-de-frise.
The gentleman outside was now growing indifferent to the loss of Miss
Gray, for he whistled the melody in a most triumphant manner, keeping
time with the sharp plash of his oars in the water.
It took the Emperor and his female friend some little time to recover
from the effects of the concussion they had experienced, each from
each; and when they had done so, they stood for a few moments looking
at one another in mute amazement.
“The gentleman has left the establishment,” at last said the lady.
“And a bruise on my elbow,” muttered the gentleman, rubbing the
locality in question.
“Such a very unpolite manner of leaving too,” said the lady. “His
muffins--I mean his manners--have evidently been very much neglected.”
“He must be a Chelsea householder,” said the Emperor. “The householders
of Chelsea are proverbial for bad manners. They are in the habit of
slamming the door in the face of the tax-gatherer, with a view to
injuring the tip of his nose; and I’m sure Lord Chesterfield never
advised his son to do that.”
It may be as well here to state that the Emperor of the Waterworks had
in early life been collector of the water-rate in the neighbourhood
of Chelsea; but having unfortunately given his manly intellect to
drinking, and being further troubled with a propensity for speculation
(some people pronounced the word without the first letter), which
involved the advantageous laying-out of his sovereign’s money for his
own benefit, he had first lost his situation and ultimately his senses.
His lady friend had once kept a baker’s shop in the vicinity of Drury
Lane, and happening, in an evil hour, at the ripe age of forty, to
place her affections on a young man of nineteen, the bent of whose
genius was muffins, and being slighted by the youth in question, she
had retired into the gin-bottle, and thence had been passed to the
asylum of her native country.
Perhaps the inquiring reader will ask what the juvenile guardian of
Richard is doing all this time? He has been told to keep an eye upon
him; and how has he kept his trust?
He is standing, very coolly, staring at the lady and gentleman before
him, and is apparently much interested in their conversation.
“I shall certainly go,” said the Emperor of the Waterworks, after
a pause, “and inform the superintendent of this proceeding--the
superintendent ought really to know of it.”
“Superintendent” was, in the asylum, the polite name given the keepers.
But just as the Emperor began to shamble off in the direction of the
front of the house, the boy called Slosh flew past him and ran on
before, and by the time the elderly gentleman reached the porch, the
boy had told the astonished keepers the whole story of the escape.
The keepers ran down to the gate, called to the porter to have it
opened, and in a few minutes were in the road in front of it. They
hurried thence to the river-side. There was not a sign of any human
being on the swollen waters, except two men in a punt close to the
opposite shore, who appeared to be eel-spearing.
“There’s no boat nearer than that,” said one of the men; “he never
could have reached that in this time if he had been the best swimmer in
England.”
The men took it for granted that they had been informed of his escape
the moment it occurred.
“He must have jumped slap into the water,” said another; “perhaps he’s
about somewhere, contriving to keep his head under.”
“He couldn’t do it,” said the first man who had spoken; “it’s my
opinion the poor chap’s drowned. They will try these escapes, though no
one ever succeeded yet.”
There was a boat moored at the angle of the asylum wall, and one of the
men sprang into it.
“Show me the place where he jumped over the wall,” he called to the
boy, who pointed out the spot at his direction.
The man rowed up to it.
“Not a sign of him anywhere about here!” he cried.
“Hadn’t you better call to those men?” asked his comrade; “they must
have seen him jump.”
The man in the boat nodded assent, and rowed across the river to the
two fishermen.
“Holloa!” he said, “have you seen any one get over that wall?”
One of the men, who had just impaled a fine eel, looked up with a
surprised expression, and asked--
“Which wall?”
“Why the asylum, yonder, straight before you.”
“The asylum! Now, you don’t mean to say that that’s the asylum; and
I’ve been taking it for a gentleman’s mansion and grounds all the
time,” said the angler (who was no other than Mr. Augustus Darley),
taking his pipe out of his mouth.
“I wish you’d give a straight answer to my question,” said the man;
“have you seen any one jump over that wall; yes, or no?”
“Then, no!” said Gus; “if I had, I should have gone over and picked him
up, shouldn’t I, stupid?”
The other fisherman, Mr. Peters, here looked up, and laying down his
eel-spear, spelt out some words on his fingers.
“Stop a bit,” cried Gus to the man, who was rowing off, “here’s my
friend says he heard a splash in the water ten minutes ago, and thought
it was some rubbish shot over the wall.”
“Then he did jump! Poor chap, I’m afraid he must be drowned.”
“Drowned?”
“Yes; don’t I tell you one of the lunatics has been trying to escape
over that wall, and must have fallen into the river?”
“Why didn’t you say so before, then?” said Gus. “What’s to be done?
Where are there any drags?”
“Why, half a mile off, worse luck, at a public-house down the river,
the ‘Jolly Life-boat.’”
“Then I’ll tell you what,” said Gus, “my friend and I will row down and
fetch the drags, while you chaps keep a look-out about here.”
“You’re very good, sir,” said the man; “dragging the river’s about all
we can do now, for it strikes me we’ve seen the last of the Emperor
Napoleon. My eyes! won’t there be a row about it with the Board!”
“Here we go,” says Gus; “keep a good heart; he may turn up yet;” with
which encouraging remarks Messrs. Darley and Peters struck off at a
rate which promised the speedy arrival of the drags.
CHAPTER IV.
JOY AND HAPPINESS FOR EVERYBODY.
WHETHER the drags reached the county asylum in time to be of any
service is still a mystery; but Mr. Joseph Peters arrived with the punt
at the boat-builder’s yard in the dusk of the autumn evening. He was
alone, and he left his boat, his tridents, and other fishing-tackle in
the care of the men belonging to the yard, and then putting his hands
in his pockets, trudged off in the direction of Little Gulliver Street.
If ever Mr. Peters had looked triumphant in his life, he looked
triumphant this evening: if ever his mouth had been on one side, it was
on one side this evening; but it was the twist of a conqueror which
distorted that feature.
Eight years, too, have done something for Kuppins. Time hasn’t
forgotten Kuppins, though she is a humble individual. Time has touched
up Kuppins; adding a little bit here, and taking away a little bit
there, and altogether producing something rather imposing. Kuppins
has grown. When that young lady had attained her tenth year, there
was a legend current in little Gulliver Street and its vicinity, that
in consequence of a fatal predilection for gin-and-bitters evinced
by her mother during the infancy of Kuppins, that diminutive person
would never grow any more: but she gave the lie both to the legend
and the gin-and-bitters by outgrowing her frocks at the advanced age
of seventeen; and now she was rather a bouncing young woman than
otherwise, and had a pair of such rosy cheeks as would have done honour
to healthier breezes than those of Slopperton-on-the-Sloshy.
Time had done something, too, for Kuppins’s shock of hair, for it
was now brushed, and combed, and dragged, and tortured into a state
not so very far from smoothness; and it was furthermore turned up; an
achievement in the hair-dressing line which it had taken her some years
to effect, and which, when effected, was perhaps a little calculated to
remind the admiring beholder of a good-sized ball of black cotton with
a hair-pin stuck through it.
What made Kuppins in such a state of excitement on this particular
evening, who shall say? Certain it is that she was excited. At the
first sound of the click of Mr. Peters’s latch-key in the door of No.