a letter delivered to any inhabitant. But there is a tall,
straight, sallow lady resident in Number Seven, Titbull’s, who
never speaks to anybody, who is surrounded by a superstitious halo
of lost wealth, who does her household work in housemaid’s gloves,
and who is secretly much deferred to, though openly cavilled at;
and it has obscurely leaked out that this old lady has a son,
grandson, nephew, or other relative, who is ‘a Contractor,’ and who
would think it nothing of a job to knock down Titbull’s, pack it
off into Cornwall, and knock it together again. An immense
sensation was made by a gipsy-party calling in a spring-van, to
take this old lady up to go for a day’s pleasure into Epping
Forest, and notes were compared as to which of the company was the
son, grandson, nephew, or other relative, the Contractor. A thickset
personage with a white hat and a cigar in his mouth, was the
favourite: though as Titbull’s had no other reason to believe that
the Contractor was there at all, than that this man was supposed to
eye the chimney stacks as if he would like to knock them down and
cart them off, the general mind was much unsettled in arriving at a
conclusion. As a way out of this difficulty, it concentrated
Page 185
Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller
itself on the acknowledged Beauty of the party, every stitch in
whose dress was verbally unripped by the old ladies then and there,
and whose ‘goings on’ with another and a thinner personage in a
white hat might have suffused the pump (where they were principally
discussed) with blushes, for months afterwards. Herein Titbull’s
was to Titbull’s true, for it has a constitutional dislike of all
strangers. As concerning innovations and improvements, it is
always of opinion that what it doesn’t want itself, nobody ought to
want. But I think I have met with this opinion outside Titbull’s.
Of the humble treasures of furniture brought into Titbull’s by the
inmates when they establish themselves in that place of
contemplation for the rest of their days, by far the greater and
more valuable part belongs to the ladies. I may claim the honour
of having either crossed the threshold, or looked in at the door,
of every one of the nine ladies, and I have noticed that they are
all particular in the article of bedsteads, and maintain favourite
and long-established bedsteads and bedding as a regular part of
their rest. Generally an antiquated chest of drawers is among
their cherished possessions; a tea-tray always is. I know of at
least two rooms in which a little tea-kettle of genuine burnished
copper, vies with the cat in winking at the fire; and one old lady
has a tea-urn set forth in state on the top of her chest of
drawers, which urn is used as her library, and contains four
duodecimo volumes, and a black-bordered newspaper giving an account
of the funeral of Her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte. Among
the poor old gentlemen there are no such niceties. Their furniture
has the air of being contributed, like some obsolete Literary
Miscellany, ‘by several hands;’ their few chairs never match; old
patchwork coverlets linger among them; and they have an untidy
habit of keeping their wardrobes in hat-boxes. When I recall one
old gentleman who is rather choice in his shoe-brushes and
blacking-bottle, I have summed up the domestic elegances of that
side of the building.
On the occurrence of a death in Titbull’s, it is invariably agreed
among the survivors – and it is the only subject on which they do
agree – that the departed did something ‘to bring it on.’ Judging
by Titbull’s, I should say the human race need never die, if they
took care. But they don’t take care, and they do die, and when
they die in Titbull’s they are buried at the cost of the
Foundation. Some provision has been made for the purpose, in
virtue of which (I record this on the strength of having seen the
funeral of Mrs. Quinch) a lively neighbouring undertaker dresses up
four of the old men, and four of the old women, hustles them into a