down, but in one adhesive heap of rottenness and poster. As to
getting in – I don’t believe that if the Sleeping Beauty and her
Court had been so billed up, the young Prince could have done it.
Knowing all the posters that were yet legible, intimately, and
pondering on their ubiquitous nature, I was led into the
reflections with which I began this paper, by considering what an
awful thing it would be, ever to have wronged – say M. JULLIEN for
example – and to have his avenging name in characters of fire
incessantly before my eyes. Or to have injured MADAME TUSSAUD, and
undergo a similar retribution. Has any man a self-reproachful
thought associated with pills, or ointment? What an avenging
spirit to that man is PROFESSOR HOLLOWAY! Have I sinned in oil?
CABBURN pursues me. Have I a dark remembrance associated with any
gentlemanly garments, bespoke or ready made? MOSES and SON are on
my track. Did I ever aim a blow at a defenceless fellow-creature’s
head? That head eternally being measured for a wig, or that worse
head which was bald before it used the balsam, and hirsute
afterwards – enforcing the benevolent moral, ‘Better to be bald as
a Dutch cheese than come to this,’ – undoes me. Have I no sore
places in my mind which MECHI touches – which NICOLL probes – which
no registered article whatever lacerates? Does no discordant note
within me thrill responsive to mysterious watchwords, as ‘Revalenta
Arabica,’ or ‘Number One St. Paul’s Churchyard’? Then may I enjoy
life, and be happy.
Lifting up my eyes, as I was musing to this effect, I beheld
advancing towards me (I was then on Cornhill, near to the Royal
Exchange), a solemn procession of three advertising vans, of firstclass
dimensions, each drawn by a very little horse. As the
cavalcade approached, I was at a loss to reconcile the careless
deportment of the drivers of these vehicles, with the terrific
announcements they conducted through the city, which being a
summary of the contents of a Sunday newspaper, were of the most
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Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces
thrilling kind. Robbery, fire, murder, and the ruin of the United
Kingdom – each discharged in a line by itself, like a separate
broad-side of red-hot shot – were among the least of the warnings
addressed to an unthinking people. Yet, the Ministers of Fate who
drove the awful cars, leaned forward with their arms upon their
knees in a state of extreme lassitude, for want of any subject of
interest. The first man, whose hair I might naturally have
expected to see standing on end, scratched his head – one of the
smoothest I ever beheld – with profound indifference. The second
whistled. The third yawned.
Pausing to dwell upon this apathy, it appeared to me, as the fatal
cars came by me, that I descried in the second car, through the
portal in which the charioteer was seated, a figure stretched upon
the floor. At the same time, I thought I smelt tobacco. The
latter impression passed quickly from me; the former remained.
Curious to know whether this prostrate figure was the one
impressible man of the whole capital who had been stricken
insensible by the terrors revealed to him, and whose form had been
placed in the car by the charioteer, from motives of humanity, I
followed the procession. It turned into Leadenhall-market, and
halted at a public-house. Each driver dismounted. I then
distinctly heard, proceeding from the second car, where I had dimly
seen the prostrate form, the words:
‘And a pipe!’
The driver entering the public-house with his fellows, apparently
for purposes of refreshment, I could not refrain from mounting on
the shaft of the second vehicle, and looking in at the portal. I
then beheld, reclining on his back upon the floor, on a kind of
mattress or divan, a little man in a shooting-coat. The
exclamation ‘Dear me’ which irresistibly escaped my lips caused him
to sit upright, and survey me. I found him to be a good-looking
little man of about fifty, with a shining face, a tight head, a
bright eye, a moist wink, a quick speech, and a ready air. He had