Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller

stand or fall by his accusations, and that an old shoe was thrown

after him on his departure from the building on this dread errand;

– not ineffectually, for, the interview resulting in a plumber, was

considered to have encircled the temples of Mr. Battens with the

wreath of victory,

In Titbull’s Alms-Houses, the local society is not regarded as good

society. A gentleman or lady receiving visitors from without, or

going out to tea, counts, as it were, accordingly; but visitings or

tea-drinkings interchanged among Titbullians do not score. Such

interchanges, however, are rare, in consequence of internal

dissensions occasioned by Mrs. Saggers’s pail: which household

article has split Titbull’s into almost as many parties as there

are dwellings in that precinct. The extremely complicated nature

of the conflicting articles of belief on the subject prevents my

stating them here with my usual perspicuity, but I think they have

all branched off from the root-and-trunk question, Has Mrs. Saggers

any right to stand her pail outside her dwelling? The question has

been much refined upon, but roughly stated may be stated in those

terms.

There are two old men in Titbull’s Alms-Houses who, I have been

given to understand, knew each other in the world beyond its pump

and iron railings, when they were both ‘in trade.’ They make the

best of their reverses, and are looked upon with great contempt.

Page 184

Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller

They are little, stooping, blear-eyed old men of cheerful

countenance, and they hobble up and down the court-yard wagging

their chins and talking together quite gaily. This has given

offence, and has, moreover, raised the question whether they are

justified in passing any other windows than their own. Mr.

Battens, however, permitting them to pass HIS windows, on the

disdainful ground that their imbecility almost amounts to

irresponsibility, they are allowed to take their walk in peace.

They live next door to one another, and take it by turns to read

the newspaper aloud (that is to say, the newest newspaper they can

get), and they play cribbage at night. On warm and sunny days they

have been known to go so far as to bring out two chairs and sit by

the iron railings, looking forth; but this low conduct, being much

remarked upon throughout Titbull’s, they were deterred by an

outraged public opinion from repeating it. There is a rumour – but

it may be malicious – that they hold the memory of Titbull in some

weak sort of veneration, and that they once set off together on a

pilgrimage to the parish churchyard to find his tomb. To this,

perhaps, might be traced a general suspicion that they are spies of

‘the gentlemen:’ to which they were supposed to have given colour

in my own presence on the occasion of the weak attempt at

justification of the pump by the gentlemen’s clerk; when they

emerged bare-headed from the doors of their dwellings, as if their

dwellings and themselves constituted an old-fashioned weather-glass

of double action with two figures of old ladies inside, and

deferentially bowed to him at intervals until he took his

departure. They are understood to be perfectly friendless and

relationless. Unquestionably the two poor fellows make the very

best of their lives in Titbull’s Alms-Houses, and unquestionably

they are (as before mentioned) the subjects of unmitigated contempt

there.

On Saturday nights, when there is a greater stir than usual

outside, and when itinerant vendors of miscellaneous wares even

take their stations and light up their smoky lamps before the iron

railings, Titbull’s becomes flurried. Mrs. Saggers has her

celebrated palpitations of the heart, for the most part, on

Saturday nights. But Titbull’s is unfit to strive with the uproar

of the streets in any of its phases. It is religiously believed at

Titbull’s that people push more than they used, and likewise that

the foremost object of the population of England and Wales is to

get you down and trample on you. Even of railroads they know, at

Titbull’s, little more than the shriek (which Mrs. Saggers says

goes through her, and ought to be taken up by Government); and the

penny postage may even yet be unknown there, for I have never seen

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *