Read Online A House to Let by Charles Dickens - Free Book Online Page B

Public believed to
be the Drawing-room winder. And when I say a sarser, I mean a Chaney
sarser in which he made 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 retire
behind the curtain." When he said anything important, in private life,
he mostly wound it up with this form of words, and they was 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. Arter the wibration had run through him
a little time, he would screech out, "Toby, I feel my property
coming—grind away! I'm counting my guineas by thousands, Toby—grind
away! 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 a poetic mind. Not that he was partial to any
other music but a barrel-organ; on the contrary, hated it.
    He had a kind of a everlasting grudge agin the Public: which is a thing
you may notice in many phenomenons 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 saying, "Toby, my ambition is, to go into
Society. The curse of my position towards the Public is, that it keeps
me hout of Society. 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 came 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
halfpence 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 circumstances deprive yourself, to support that
Indian in the lap of luxury.
    Most unexpected, the mystery come 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 kneeling 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 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 particular 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 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