1. MASTER HUMPHREY FROM HIS CLOCK-SIDE IN THE CHIMNEY CORNER.
TWO or three evenings after the institution of Mr. Weller's Watch,
I thought I heard, as I walked in the garden, the voice of Mr.
Weller himself at no great distance; and stopping once or twice to
listen more attentively, I found that the sounds proceeded from my
housekeeper's little sitting-room, which is at the back of the
house. I took no further notice of the circumstance at that time,
but it formed the subject of a conversation between me and my
friend Jack Redburn next morning, when I found that I had not been
deceived in my impression. Jack furnished me with the following
particulars; and as he appeared to take extraordinary pleasure in
relating them, I have begged him in future to jot down any such
domestic scenes or occurrences that may please his humour, in order
that they may be told in his own way. I must confess that, as Mr.
Pickwick and he are constantly together, I have been influenced, in
making this request, by a secret desire to know something of their
proceedings.
On the evening in question, the housekeeper's room was arranged
with particular care, and the housekeeper herself was very smartly
dressed. The preparations, however, were not confined to mere
showy demonstrations, as tea was prepared for three persons, with a
small display of preserves and jams and sweet cakes, which heralded
some uncommon occasion. Miss Benton (my housekeeper bears that
name) was in a state of great expectation, too, frequently going to
the front door and looking anxiously down the lane, and more than
once observing to the servant-girl that she expected company, and
hoped no accident had happened to delay them.
A modest ring at the bell at length allayed her fears, and Miss
Benton, hurrying into her own room and shutting herself up, in
order that she might preserve that appearance of being taken by
surprise which is so essential to the polite reception of visitors,
awaited their coming with a smiling countenance.
“Good ev'nin', mum,” said the older Mr. Weller, looking
in at the door after a prefatory tap. “I'm afeerd we've come in
rayther arter the time, mum, but the young colt being full o' wice, has
been' a boltin' and shyin' and gettin' his leg over the traces to sich a
extent that if he an't wery soon broke in, he'll wex me into a broken
heart, and then he'll never be brought out no more except to learn his
letters from the writin' on his grandfather's tombstone.”
With these pathetic words, which were addressed to something
outside the door about two feet six from the ground, Mr. Weller
introduced a very small boy firmly set upon a couple of very sturdy
legs, who looked as if nothing could ever knock him down. Besides
having a very round face strongly resembling Mr. Weller's, and a
stout little body of exactly his build, this young gentleman,
standing with his little legs very wide apart, as if the top-boots
were familiar to them, actually winked upon the housekeeper with
his infant eye, in imitation of his grandfather.
“There's a naughty boy, mum,” said Mr. Weller, bursting
with delight, “there's a immoral Tony. Wos there ever a little
chap o' four year and eight months old as vinked his eye at a strange
lady afore?”
As little affected by this observation as by the former appeal to his
feelings, Master Weller elevated in the air a small model of a coach
whip which he carried in his hand, and addressing the housekeeper with a
shrill “ya — hip!” inquired if she was “going down
the road;” at which happy adaptation of a lesson he had been
taught from infancy, Mr. Weller could restrain his feelings no longer,
but gave him twopence on the spot.
“It's in wain to deny it, mum,” said Mr. Weller,
“this here is a boy arter his grandfather's own heart, and beats
out all the boys as ever wos or will be. Though at the same time,
mum,” added Mr. Weller, trying to look gravely down upon his
favourite, “it was wery wrong on him to want to — over all the
posts as we come along, and wery cruel on him to force poor grandfather
to lift him cross-legged over every vun of 'em. He wouldn't pass vun
single blessed post, mum, and at the top o' the lane there's
seven-and-forty on 'em all in a row, and wery close together.”
Here Mr. Weller, whose feelings were in a perpetual conflict
between pride in his grandson's achievements and a sense of his own
responsibility, and the importance of impressing him with moral
truths, burst into a fit of laughter, and suddenly checking
himself, remarked in a severe tone that little boys as made their
grandfathers put 'em over posts never went to heaven at any price.
By this time the housekeeper had made tea, and little Tony, placed
on a chair beside
her, with his eyes nearly on a level with the top
of the table, was provided with various delicacies which yielded
him extreme contentment. The housekeeper (who seemed rather afraid
of the child, notwithstanding her caresses) then patted him on the
head, and declared that he was the finest boy she had ever seen.
“Wy, mum,” said Mr. Weller, “I don't think you'll
see a many sich, and that's the truth. But if my son Samivel vould give
me my vay, mum, and only dis-pense vith his — MIGHT I wenter to say the
vurd?”
“What word, Mr. Weller?” said the housekeeper, blushing
slightly.
“Petticuts, mum,” returned that gentleman, laying his
hand upon the garments of his grandson. “If my son Samivel, mum,
vould only dis-pense vith these here, you'd see such a alteration in
his appearance, as the imagination can't depicter.”
“But what would you have the child wear instead, Mr.
Weller?” said the housekeeper.
“I've offered my son Samivel, mum, agen and agen,”
returned the old gentleman, “to purwide him at my own cost vith a
suit o' clothes as 'ud be the makin' on him, and form his mind in
infancy for those pursuits as I hope the family o' the Vellers vill
alvays dewote themselves to. Tony, my boy, tell the lady wot them
clothes are, as grandfather says, father ought to let you vear.”
“A little white hat and a little sprig weskut and little knee
cords and little top-boots and a little green coat with little bright
buttons and a little welwet collar,” replied Tony, with great
readiness and no stops.
“That's the cos-toom, mum,” said Mr. Weller, looking
proudly at the housekeeper. “Once make sich a model on him as
that, and you'd say he wos an angel!”
Perhaps the housekeeper thought that in such a guise young Tony
would look more like the angel at Islington than anything else of
that name, or perhaps she was disconcerted to find her previously-conceived ideas disturbed, as angels are not commonly represented
in top-boots and sprig waistcoats. She coughed doubtfully, but
said nothing.
“How many brothers and sisters have you, my dear?” she
asked, after a short silence.
“One brother and no sister at all,” replied Tony.
“Sam his name is, and so's my father's. Do you know my
father?”
“O yes, I know him,” said the housekeeper, graciously.
“Is my father fond of you?” pursued Tony.
“I hope so,” rejoined the smiling housekeeper.
Tony considered a moment, and then said, “Is my grandfather
fond of you?”
This would seem a very easy question to answer, but instead of
replying to it, the housekeeper smiled in great confusion, and said
that really children did ask such extraordinary questions that it
was the most difficult thing in the world to talk to them. Mr.
Weller took upon himself to reply that he was very fond of the
lady; but the housekeeper entreating that he would not put such
things into the child's head, Mr. Weller shook his own while she
looked another way, and seemed to be troubled with a misgiving that
captivation was in progress. It was, perhaps, on this account that
he changed the subject precipitately.
“It's wery wrong in little boys to make game o' their
grandfathers, an't it, mum?” said Mr. Weller, shaking his head
waggishly, until Tony looked at him, when he counterfeited the deepest
dejection and sorrow.
“Oh very sad!” assented the housekeeper. “But I
hope no little boys do that?”
“There is vun young Turk, mum,” said Mr. Weller,
“as havin' seen his grandfather a little overcome vith drink on
the occasion of a friend's birthday, goes a reelin' and staggerin' about
the house, and makin' believe that he's the old gen'lm'n.”
“Oh quite shocking!” cried the housekeeper,
“Yes mum,” said Mr. Weller; “and previously to so
doin', this here young traitor that I'm a speakin' of, pinches his
little nose to make it red, and then he gives a hiccup and says,
‘I'm all right,’ he says; ‘give us another
song!’ Ha, ha! ‘Give us another song,’ he says. Ha,
ha, ha!”
In his excessive delight, Mr. Weller was quite unmindful of his
moral responsibility, until little Tony kicked up his legs, and
laughing immoderately, cried, “That was me, that was;”
whereupon the grandfather, by a great effort, became extremely solemn.
“No, Tony, not you,” said Mr. Weller. “I hope it
warn't you, Tony. It must ha' been that 'ere naughty little chap as
comes sometimes out o' the empty watch-box round the corner, — that
same little chap as wos found standing on the table afore the
looking-glass, pretending to shave himself vith a oyster-knife.”
“He didn't hurt himself, I hope?” observed the housekeeper.
“Not he, mum,” said Mr. Weller proudly; “bless your
heart, you might trust that 'ere boy vith a steam-engine a'most, he's
such a knowin' young” — but suddenly recollecting himself and
observing that Tony perfectly understood and appreciated the compliment,
the old gentleman groaned and observed that “it wos all wery
shockin' — wery.”
“Oh he's a bad 'un,” said Mr. Weller, “is that 'ere
watch-box boy, makin' such a noise and litter in the back yard, he does,
waterin' wooden horses and feedin' of 'em vith grass, and perpetivally
spillin' his little brother out of a veelbarrow and frightenin' his
mother out of her vits, at the wery moment wen she's expectin' to
increase his stock of happiness vith another play-feller, — O, he's a
bad one! He's even gone so far as to put on a pair of paper spectacles
as he got his father to make for him, and walk up and down the garden
vith his hands behind him in imitation of Mr. Pickwick, — but Tony
don't do sich things, O no!”
“Oh no!” echoed Tony.
“He knows better, he does,” said Mr. Weller. “He
knows that if he wos to come sich games as these nobody wouldn't love
him, and that his grandfather in partickler couldn't abear the sight on
him; for vich reasons Tony's always good.”
“Always good,” echoed Tony; and his grandfather
immediately took him on his knee and kissed him, at the same time, with
many nods and winks, slyly pointing at the child's head with his thumb,
in order that the housekeeper, otherwise deceived by the admirable
manner in which he (Mr. Weller) had sustained his character, might not
suppose that any other young gentleman was referred to, and might
clearly understand that the boy of the watch-box was but an imaginary
creation, and a fetch of Tony himself, invented for his improvement and
reformation.
Not confining himself to a mere verbal description of his
grandson's abilities, Mr. Weller, when tea was finished, invited
him by various gifts of pence and halfpence to smoke imaginary
pipes, drink visionary beer from real pots, imitate his grandfather
without reserve, and in particular to go through the drunken scene,
which threw the old gentleman into ecstasies and filled the
housekeeper with wonder. Nor was Mr. Weller's pride satisfied with
even this display, for when he took his leave he carried the child,
like some rare and astonishing curiosity, first to the barber's
house and afterwards to the tobacconist's, at each of which places
he repeated his performances with the utmost effect to applauding
and delighted audiences. It was half-past nine o'clock when Mr.
Weller was last seen carrying him home upon his shoulder, and it
has been whispered abroad that at that time the infant Tony was
rather intoxicated.
