Greenwich Pensioner bore her company inside, and the Chelsea
Pensioner mounted the box by the driver: his wooden leg sticking
out after the manner of a bowsprit, as if in jocular homage to his
friend’s sea-going career. Thus the equipage drove away. No Mrs.
Mitts returned that night.
What Mr. Battens might have done in the matter of taking it up,
goaded by the infuriated state of public feeling next morning, was
anticipated by another phenomenon. A Truck, propelled by the
Greenwich Pensioner and the Chelsea Pensioner, each placidly
smoking a pipe, and pushing his warrior breast against the handle.
The display on the part of the Greenwich Pensioner of his
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Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller
‘marriage-lines,’ and his announcement that himself and friend had
looked in for the furniture of Mrs. G. Pensioner, late Mitts, by no
means reconciled the ladies to the conduct of their sister; on the
contrary, it is said that they appeared more than ever exasperated.
Nevertheless, my stray visits to Titbull’s since the date of this
occurrence, have confirmed me in an impression that it was a
wholesome fillip. The nine ladies are smarter, both in mind and
dress, than they used to be, though it must be admitted that they
despise the six gentlemen to the last extent. They have a much
greater interest in the external thoroughfare too, than they had
when I first knew Titbull’s. And whenever I chance to be leaning
my back against the pump or the iron railings, and to be talking to
one of the junior ladies, and to see that a flush has passed over
her face, I immediately know without looking round that a Greenwich
Pensioner has gone past.
CHAPTER XXX – THE RUFFIAN
I entertain so strong an objection to the euphonious softening of
Ruffian into Rough, which has lately become popular, that I restore
the right word to the heading of this paper; the rather, as my
object is to dwell upon the fact that the Ruffian is tolerated
among us to an extent that goes beyond all unruffianly endurance.
I take the liberty to believe that if the Ruffian besets my life, a
professional Ruffian at large in the open streets of a great city,
notoriously having no other calling than that of Ruffian, and of
disquieting and despoiling me as I go peacefully about my lawful
business, interfering with no one, then the Government under which
I have the great constitutional privilege, supreme honour and
happiness, and all the rest of it, to exist, breaks down in the
discharge of any Government’s most simple elementary duty.
What did I read in the London daily papers, in the early days of
this last September? That the Police had ‘AT LENGTH SUCCEEDED IN
CAPTURING TWO OF THE NOTORIOUS GANG THAT HAVE SO LONG INVESTED THE
WATERLOO ROAD.’ Is it possible? What a wonderful Police! Here is
a straight, broad, public thoroughfare of immense resort; half a
mile long; gas-lighted by night; with a great gas-lighted railway
station in it, extra the street lamps; full of shops; traversed by
two popular cross thoroughfares of considerable traffic; itself the
main road to the South of London; and the admirable Police have,
after long infestment of this dark and lonely spot by a gang of
Ruffians, actually got hold of two of them. Why, can it be doubted
that any man of fair London knowledge and common resolution, armed
with the powers of the Law, could have captured the whole
confederacy in a week?
It is to the saving up of the Ruffian class by the Magistracy and
Police – to the conventional preserving of them, as if they were
Partridges – that their number and audacity must be in great part
referred. Why is a notorious Thief and Ruffian ever left at large?
He never turns his liberty to any account but violence and plunder,
he never did a day’s work out of gaol, he never will do a day’s
work out of gaol. As a proved notorious Thief he is always
consignable to prison for three months. When he comes out, he is
surely as notorious a Thief as he was when he went in. Then send