But I take Jeames to be, like most giants, good-natured, lazy, stupid, soft-hearted, and extremely fond of drink. One night, his lady being engaged to dinner at Nightingale House, I saw Mr. Jeames resting himself on a bench at the "Pocklington Arms:" where, as he had no liquor before him, he had probably exhausted his credit.
Little Spitfire, Mr. Clarence Bulbul's boy, the wickedest little varlet that ever hung on to a cab, was "chaffing" Mr. Jeames, holding up to his face a pot of porter almost as big as the young potifer himself.
"Vill you now, Big'un, or von't you?" Spitfire said. "If you're thirsty, vy don't you say so and squench it, old boy?""Don't ago on making fun of me--I can't abear chaffin'," was the reply of Mr. Jeames, and tears actually stood in his fine eyes as he looked at the porter and the screeching little imp before him.
Spitfire (real name unknown) gave him some of the drink: I am happy to say Jeames's face wore quite a different look when it rose gasping out of the porter; and I judge of his dispositions from the above trivial incident.
The last boy in the sketch, 6, need scarcely be particularized.
Doctor's boy; was a charity-boy; stripes evidently added on to a pair of the doctor's clothes of last year--Miss Clapperclaw pointed this out to me with a giggle. Nothing escapes that old woman.
As we were walking in Kensington Gardens, she pointed me out Mrs.
Bragg's nursery-maid, who sings so loud at church, engaged with a Lifeguardsman, whom she was trying to convert probably. My virtuous friend rose indignant at the sight.
"That's why these minxes like Kensington Gardens," she cried.
"Look at the woman: she leaves the baby on the grass, for the giant to trample upon; and that little wretch of a Hastings Bragg is riding on the monster's cane."Miss C. flew up and seized the infant, waking it out of its sleep, and causing all the gardens to echo with its squalling. "I'll teach you to be impudent to me," she said to the nursery-maid, with whom my vivacious old friend, I suppose, has had a difference; and she would not release the infant until she had rung the bell of Bungalow Lodge, where she gave it up to the footman.
The giant in scarlet had slunk down towards Knightsbridge meanwhile.
The big rogues are always crossing the Park and the Gardens, and hankering about Our Street.
WHAT SOMETIMES HAPPENS IN OUR STREET.
It was before old Hunkington's house that the mutes were standing, as I passed and saw this group at the door. The charity-boy with the hoop is the son of the jolly-looking mute; he admires his father, who admires himself too, in those bran-new sables. The other infants are the spawn of the alleys about Our Street. Only the parson and the typhus fever visit those mysterious haunts, which lie crouched about our splendid houses like Lazarus at the threshold of Dives.
Those little ones come crawling abroad in the sunshine, to the annoyance of the beadles, and the horror of a number of good people in the street. They will bring up the rear of the procession anon, when the grand omnibus with the feathers, and the line coaches with the long-tailed black horses, and the gentleman's private carriages with the shutters up, pass along to Saint Waltheof's.
You can hear the slow bell tolling clear in the sunshine already, mingling with the crowing of "Punch," who is passing down the street with his show; and the two musics make a queer medley.
Not near so many people, I remark, engage "Punch" now as in the good old times. I suppose our quarter is growing too genteel for him.
Miss Bridget Jones, a poor curate's daughter in Wales, comes into all Hunkington's property, and will take his name, as I am told.
Nobody ever heard of her before. I am sure Captain Hunkington, and his brother Barnwell Hunkington, must wish that the lucky young lady had never been heard of to the present day.
But they will have the consolation of thinking that they did their duty by their uncle, and consoled his declining years. It was but last month that Millwood Hunkington (the Captain) sent the old gentleman a service of plate; and Mrs. Barnwell got a reclining carriage at a great expense from Hobbs and Dobbs's, in which the old gentleman went out only once.
"It is a punishment on those Hunkingtons," Miss Clapperclaw remarks: "upon those people who have been always living beyond their little incomes, and always speculating upon what the old man would leave them, and always coaxing him with presents which they could not afford, and he did not want. It is a punishment upon those Hunkingtons to be so disappointed.""Think of giving him plate," Miss C. justly says, "who had chests-full; and sending him a carriage, who could afford to buy all Long Acre. And everything goes to Miss Jones Hunkington. I wonder will she give the things back?" Miss Clapperclaw asks. "I wouldn't."And indeed I don't think Miss Clapperclaw would.
SOMEBODY WHOM NOBODY KNOWS.
That pretty little house, the last in Pocklington Square, was lately occupied by a young widow lady who wore a pink bonnet, a short silk dress, sustained by a crinoline, and a light blue mantle, or over-jacket (Miss C. is not here to tell me the name of the garment); or else a black velvet pelisse, a yellow shawl, and a white bonnet; or else--but never mind the dress, which seemed to be of the handsomest sort money could buy--and who had very long glossy black ringlets, and a peculiarly brilliant complexion,--No.
96, Pocklington Square, I say, was lately occupied by a widow lady named Mrs. Stafford Molyneux.