of the Whole Duty of Man, therefore, I left the chapter to itself –
for the present – and went on the Downs. They were wonderfully
green and beautiful, and gave me a good deal to do. When I had
done with the free air and the view, I had to go down into the
valley and look after the hops (which I know nothing about), and to
be equally solicitous as to the cherry orchards. Then I took it on
myself to cross-examine a tramping family in black (mother alleged,
I have no doubt by herself in person, to have died last week), and
to accompany eighteenpence which produced a great effect, with
moral admonitions which produced none at all. Finally, it was late
in the afternoon before I got back to the unprecedented chapter,
and then I determined that it was out of the season, as the place
was, and put it away.
I went at night to the benefit of Mrs. B. Wedgington at the
Theatre, who had placarded the town with the admonition, ‘DON’T
FORGET IT!’ I made the house, according to my calculation, four
and ninepence to begin with, and it may have warmed up, in the
course of the evening, to half a sovereign. There was nothing to
offend any one, – the good Mr. Baines of Leeds excepted. Mrs. B.
Wedgington sang to a grand piano. Mr. B. Wedgington did the like,
and also took off his coat, tucked up his trousers, and danced in
clogs. Master B. Wedgington, aged ten months, was nursed by a
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Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces
shivering young person in the boxes, and the eye of Mrs. B.
Wedgington wandered that way more than once. Peace be with all the
Wedgingtons from A. to Z. May they find themselves in the Season
somewhere!
A POOR MAN’S TALE OF A PATENT
I AM not used to writing for print. What working-man, that never
labours less (some Mondays, and Christmas Time and Easter Time
excepted) than twelve or fourteen hours a day, is? But I have been
asked to put down, plain, what I have got to say; and so I take
pen-and-ink, and do it to the best of my power, hoping defects will
find excuse.
I was born nigh London, but have worked in a shop at Birmingham
(what you would call Manufactories, we call Shops), almost ever
since I was out of my time. I served my apprenticeship at
Deptford, nigh where I was born, and I am a smith by trade. My
name is John. I have been called ‘Old John’ ever since I was
nineteen year of age, on account of not having much hair. I am
fifty-six year of age at the present time, and I don’t find myself
with more hair, nor yet with less, to signify, than at nineteen
year of age aforesaid.
I have been married five and thirty year, come next April. I was
married on All Fools’ Day. Let them laugh that will. I won a good
wife that day, and it was as sensible a day to me as ever I had.
We have had a matter of ten children, six whereof are living. My
eldest son is engineer in the Italian steam-packet ‘Mezzo Giorno,
plying between Marseilles and Naples, and calling at Genoa,
Leghorn, and Civita Vecchia.’ He was a good workman. He invented
a many useful little things that brought him in – nothing. I have
two sons doing well at Sydney, New South Wales – single, when last
heard from. One of my sons (James) went wild and for a soldier,
where he was shot in India, living six weeks in hospital with a
musket-ball lodged in his shoulder-blade, which he wrote with his
own hand. He was the best looking. One of my two daughters (Mary)
is comfortable in her circumstances, but water on the chest. The
other (Charlotte), her husband run away from her in the basest
manner, and she and her three children live with us. The youngest,
six year old, has a turn for mechanics.
I am not a Chartist, and I never was. I don’t mean to say but what