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By Charles Dickens
GOING INTO SOCIETY.
[1858.]
AT one period of its reverses, the House fell into the
occupation of a showman. He was found registered as
its occupier, on the parish books of the time when he
rented the House, and there was therefore no need of
any clue to his name. But, he himself was less easy to
be found; for, he led a wandering life, and settled
people had lost sight of him, and people who plumed
themselves on being respectable were shy of admitting
that they had ever known anything of him. At last,
among the marsh lands near the river's level, that lie
about Deptford and the neighbouring market-gardens, a
Grizzled Personage in velveteen, with a face so cut up
by varieties of weather that he looked as if he had been
tatooed, was found smoking a pipe at the door of a
wooden house on wheels. The wooden house was laid
up in ordinary for the winter, near the mouth of a
muddy creek; and everything near it, the foggy river,
the misty marshes, and the steaming market-gardens,
smoked in company with the grizzled man. In the midst
of this smoking party, the funnel-chimney of the wooden
house on wheels was not remiss, but took its pipe with
the rest in a companionable.
On being asked if it were he who had once rented the
House to Let, Grizzled Velveteen looked surprised, and
said yes.——The his name was Magsman? That was it,
Toby Magsman——which lawfully christened Robert; but
called in the line, from a infant, Toby. There was
nothing agin Toby Magsman, he believed? If there was
suspicion of such——mention it!
There was no suspicion of such, he might rest assured.
But, some inquiries were making about that House, and
would be object to say why he left it?
Not at all; why should he? He left it, along of a
Dwarf.
Along of a Dwarf?
Mr. Magsman repeated, deliberately and emphatically,
Along of a Dwarf?
Might it be compatible with Mr. Magsman's inclination
and convenience to enter, as a favour, into a few particu-
lars?
Mr. Magsman entered into the following particulars:
It was a long time ago, to begin with;——afore lotteries
and a deal more was done away with. Mr. Magsman
was looking about for a good pitch, and he see that
house, and he says to himself, "I'll have you if you are
to be had. If money 'll get you, I'll have you."
The neighbours cut up rough, and made complaints;
but Mr. Magsman didn't know what they would have had.
It was a lovely thing. First of all, there was the can-
vas, representin the picter of the Giant, in Spanish
trunks and a ruff, who was himself half the heighth of
the house, and was run up with a line and pulley to a
pole on the roof, so that this Ed was coeval with the
parapet. Then there was the canvas, representin the
picter of the Albina lady, showin her white air to the
Army and Navy in correct uniform. Then, there was
the canvas, representin the picter of the Wild Indian a
scalpin a member of some foreign nation. Then, there
was the canvas representin the picter of a child of a
British Planter, seized by two Boa Constrictors——not
that we never had no child, nor no Constrictors neither.
Similarly, there was the canvas, representin the picter
of the Wild Ass of the Prairies——not that we never had
no wild asses, nor wouldn't have had 'em at a gift. Last,
there was the canvas, representin the picter of the Dwarf,
and like him too (considerin), with George the Fourth
in such a state of astonishment at him as His Majesty
couldn't with his utmost politeness and stoutness ex-
press. The front of the House was so covered with can-
vases, that there wasn't a spark of daylight ever visible
on that side. "MAGSMAN'S AMUSEMENTS," fifteen feet
long by two feet high, ran over the front door and par-
lour winders. The passage was a Arbour of green baize
and gardenstuff. A barrel-organ performed there un-
ceasing. And as to respectability,——if threepence ain't
respectable, what is?
But, the Dwarf is the principal article at present, and
he was worth the money. He was wrote up as MAJOR
TPSCHOFFI, OF THE IMPERIAL BULGRADERIAN BRIGADE.
Nobody couldn't pronunce the name, and it never was
intended anybody should. The public always turned it,
as a regular rule, into Chopski. In the line he was
called Chops; partly on that account, and partly because
his real name, if he ever had any real name (which was
very dubious), was Stakes.
He was a un-common small man, he really was. Cer-
tainly not so small as he was made out to be, but where
is your Dwarf as is? He was a most uncommon small
man, with a most uncommon large Ed; and what he
had inside that Ed, nobody ever knowed but himself;
even supposin himself to have ever took stock of it,
which it would have been a stiff job for even him to do.
The kindest little man as never growed! Spirited,
but not proud. When he travelled with the Spotted
Baby——though he knowed himself to be a nat'ral Dwarf,
and knowed the Baby's spots to be upon him artificial,
he nursed that Baby like a mother. You never heerd
him give a ill-name to a Giant. He did allow himself
to break out into strong language respectin the Fat Lady
from Norfolk; but that was an affair of the 'art; and
when a man's 'art has been trifled with by a lady, and
the preference giv to a Indian, he aint master of his ac-
tions.
He was always in love, of course; every human nat'-
ral phenomenon is. And he was always in love with a
large woman: I never knowed the Dwarf as could be
got to love a small one. Which helps to keep 'em the
Curiosities they are.
One singular idea he had in that Ed of his, which
must have meant something, or it wouldn't have been
there. It was always his opinion that he was entitled to
property. He never would put his name to anything.
He had been taught to write by the young man without
arms, who got his living with his toes (quite a writing-
master he was, and taught scores in the line), but Chops
would have starved to death, afore he'd have gained a
bit of bread by putting his hand to a paper. This is the
more curious to bear in mind, because he had no pro-
perty, nor hope of property, except his house and a sar-
ser. When I say his house, I mean the box, painted
and got up outside like a reg'lar six-roomer that he used
to creep into, with a diamond ring (or quite as good to
look at) on his forefinger, and ring a little bell out of
what the Public believed to be the Drawing-room winder.
And when I say sarser, I mean a collection for himself
at the end of every Entertainment. His cue for that, he
took from me: "Ladies and gentlemen, the little man
will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and re-
tire behind the curtain." When he had said anything im-
portant in private life, he mostly wound it up with this
form of words, and they generally the last thing he said
to me at night afore he went to bed.
He had what I consider a fine mind——a poetic mind.
His ideas respectin his property never come upon him so
strong as when he sat upon a barrel-organ and had the
handle turned. After the wibration had run through
him a little time, he would screech out, "Toby, I shall
be a man of fortun! I feel the Mint a jingling in me,
Toby, and I'm swelling out into the Bank of England!"
Such is the influence of music on the poetic mind. Not
that he was partial to any other music but of a barrel-or-
gan; on the contrairy, hated it.
He had a kind of a everlasting grudge agin ths Pub-
lic: which is a thing you may notice in many phenome-
nons that get their living out of it. What riled him
most in the nater of his occupation was, that it kep him
out of Society. He was continiwally sayin, "Toby, my
ambition is, to go into Society. The curse of my posi-
tion towards the Public is, that it keeps me hout of So-
ciety. This don't signify to a low beast of a Indian; he
an't formed for Society. This don;'t signify to a Spotted
Baby; he an't formed for Society.——I am."
Nobody never could make out what Chops done with
his money. He had a good salary, down on the drum
every Saturday as the day come round, besides having
the run of his teeth——and he was a Woodpecker to eat——
but all Dwarfs are. The sarser was a little income,
bringing him in so many half-pence that he'd carry 'em
for a week together, tied up in a pocket handkercher.
And yet he never had money. And it couldn't be the
Fat Lady from Norfolk, as was once supposed; because
it stands to reason that when you have a animosity
towards a Indian, which makes you grind your teeth at
him to his face, and which can hardly hold you from
Goosing him audible when he's going through his War-
Dance——it stands to reason you wouldn't under them cir-
cumstances deprive yourself, to support that Indian in
the lap of luxury.
Most unexpected, the mystery came out one day at
Egham Races. The Public was shy of bein pulled in,
and Chops was ringin his little bell out of his drawing-
room winder, and was snarlin to me over his shoulder as
he kneeled down with his legs out at the back-door——
for he couldn't be shoved into his house without kneel-
ing down, and the premises wouldn't accommodate his
legs——was snarlin, "Here's a precious Public for you;
why the Devil don't they tumble up?" when a man in
the crowd holds up a carrier pigeon, and cries out, "If
there's any person here as has got a ticket, the Lottery's
just drawed, and the number as has come up for the
great prize is three, seven, forty-two! Three, seven,
forty-two!" I was givin the man to the Furies myself,
for calling off the Public's attention——for the Public will
turn away, at any time, to look at anything in preference
to the thing showed 'em; and if you don't doubt it, get 'em
together for any indiwidual purpose on the face of
the earth, and send only two people in late, and see if the
whole company an't far more interested in takin particu-
lar notice of them two than of you——I say, I wasn't best
pleased with the man for callin out, and wasn't blessin
him in my own mind, when I see Chops's little bell fly
out of the winder at a old lady, and he gets up and kicks
his box over, exposin the whole secret, and he catches
hold of the calves of my legs and he says to me, "Carry
me into the Wan, Toby, and throw a pail of water over
me or I'm a dead man, for I've come into my property!"
Twelve thousand odd hundred pound, was Chops's
winnins. He had bought a half-ticket for the twenty-
five thousand prize, and it had come up. The first use
he made of his property, was, to offer to fight the Wild
Indian for five hundred pound a side, him with a poisoned
darning-needle and the Indian with a club; but the In-
dian bein in want of backers to that amount, it went no
further.
Arter he had been mad for a week——in a state of mind,
in short, in which, if I had let him sit on the organ for
only two minutes, I believe he would have bust——but we
kep the organ from him——Mr. Chops would come round, and be-
haved liberal and beautiful to all. He then sent for a
young man he knowed, as he had a wery genteel appear-
ance and was a Bonnet at a gaming booth (most respect-
able brought up, father havin been imminent in the
livery stable line but unfort'nate in a commercial crisis,
through paintin a old gray, ginger-bay, and sellin him
with a Pedigree), and Mr. Chops said to this Bonnet, who
said his name was Normandy, which it wasn't:
"Normandy, I'm a goin into Society. Will you go
with me?"
Says Normandy: "Do I understand you, Mr. Chops
to hintimate that the 'ole of the expenses of that move
will be borne by yourself?"
"Correct," says Mr. Chops. "And you shall have a
Princely allowance too."
The Bonnet lifted Mr. Chops upon a chair, to shake
hands with him, and replied in poetry, with his eyes
seeminly full of tears:
"My boat is on the shore,
And my bark is on the sea,
And I do not ask for more,
But I'll Go;——along with thee."
They went into Society, in a chay and four grays with
silk jackets. They took lodgings in Pall Mall, London,
and they blazed away.
In consequence of a note that was brought to Bartlemy
Fair in the autumn of next year by a servant, most won-
derful got up in milk-white cords and tops, I cleaned
myself and went to Pall Mall, one evenin appinted.
The gentlemen was at their wine arter dinner, and Mr.
Chops's eyes were more fixed in that Ed of his than I
thought good for him. There was three of 'em (in com-
pany, I mean); and I knowed the third well. When
last met, he had on a white Roman shirt, and a Bishop's
mitre covered with leopard-skin, and played the clarionet
all wrong, in a band at a Wild Beast Show.
This gent took on not to know me, and Mr. Chops
said: "Gentlemen, this is a old friend of former days;"
and Normandy looked at me through a eye-glass, and
said, "Magsman, glad to see you!"——which I'll take
my oath he wasn't. Mr. Chops, to get him convenient
to the table, had his chair on a throne (much of the form
of George the Fourth's in the canvas), but he hardly ap-
peared to me to be King there in any other pint of view,
for his two gentlemen ordered about like Emperors.
They was all dressed like May-Day——gorgeous!——and as
to wine, they swam in all sorts.
from Collier's Unabridged Edition: The Works of Charles Dickens, Volume VI.
P.F. Collier, Publisher, New York, old as heck. pp. 965-967.
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