procession of four couples, and leads off with a large black bow at
the back of his hat, looking over his shoulder at them airily from
time to time to see that no member of the party has got lost, or
has tumbled down; as if they were a company of dim old dolls.
Resignation of a dwelling is of very rare occurrence in Titbull’s.
A story does obtain there, how an old lady’s son once drew a prize
of Thirty Thousand Pounds in the Lottery, and presently drove to
the gate in his own carriage, with French Horns playing up behind,
and whisked his mother away, and left ten guineas for a Feast. But
I have been unable to substantiate it by any evidence, and regard
it as an Alms-House Fairy Tale. It is curious that the only proved
case of resignation happened within my knowledge.
It happened on this wise. There is a sharp competition among the
ladies respecting the gentility of their visitors, and I have so
often observed visitors to be dressed as for a holiday occasion,
that I suppose the ladies to have besought them to make all
possible display when they come. In these circumstances much
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Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller
excitement was one day occasioned by Mrs. Mitts receiving a visit
from a Greenwich Pensioner. He was a Pensioner of a bluff and
warlike appearance, with an empty coat-sleeve, and he was got up
with unusual care; his coat-buttons were extremely bright, he wore
his empty coat-sleeve in a graceful festoon, and he had a walkingstick
in his hand that must have cost money. When, with the head
of his walking-stick, he knocked at Mrs. Mitts’s door – there are
no knockers in Titbull’s – Mrs. Mitts was overheard by a next-door
neighbour to utter a cry of surprise expressing much agitation; and
the same neighbour did afterwards solemnly affirm that when he was
admitted into Mrs. Mitts’s room, she heard a smack. Heard a smack
which was not a blow.
There was an air about this Greenwich Pensioner when he took his
departure, which imbued all Titbull’s with the conviction that he
was coming again. He was eagerly looked for, and Mrs. Mitts was
closely watched. In the meantime, if anything could have placed
the unfortunate six old gentlemen at a greater disadvantage than
that at which they chronically stood, it would have been the
apparition of this Greenwich Pensioner. They were well shrunken
already, but they shrunk to nothing in comparison with the
Pensioner. Even the poor old gentlemen themselves seemed conscious
of their inferiority, and to know submissively that they could
never hope to hold their own against the Pensioner with his warlike
and maritime experience in the past, and his tobacco money in the
present: his chequered career of blue water, black gunpowder, and
red bloodshed for England, home, and beauty.
Before three weeks were out, the Pensioner reappeared. Again he
knocked at Mrs. Mitts’s door with the handle of his stick, and
again was he admitted. But not again did he depart alone; for Mrs.
Mitts, in a bonnet identified as having been re-embellished, went
out walking with him, and stayed out till the ten o’clock beer,
Greenwich time.
There was now a truce, even as to the troubled waters of Mrs.
Saggers’s pail; nothing was spoken of among the ladies but the
conduct of Mrs. Mitts and its blighting influence on the reputation
of Titbull’s. It was agreed that Mr. Battens ‘ought to take it
up,’ and Mr. Battens was communicated with on the subject. That
unsatisfactory individual replied ‘that he didn’t see his way yet,’
and it was unanimously voted by the ladies that aggravation was in
his nature.
How it came to pass, with some appearance of inconsistency, that
Mrs. Mitts was cut by all the ladies and the Pensioner admired by
all the ladies, matters not. Before another week was out,
Titbull’s was startled by another phenomenon. At ten o’clock in
the forenoon appeared a cab, containing not only the Greenwich
Pensioner with one arm, but, to boot, a Chelsea Pensioner with one
leg. Both dismounting to assist Mrs. Mitts into the cab, the