The Christmas Books

W >> William Makepeace Thackeray >> The Christmas Books

THE CHRISTMAS BOOKS

of

MR. M. A. TITMARSH

by William Makepeace Thackeray




CONTENTS.


CHRISTMAS STORIES.

Mrs. Perkins's Ball

Our Street

Dr. Birch and his Young Friends

The Kickleburys on the Rhine

The Rose and the Ring; or, The History of Prince Giglio and Prince Bulbo




MRS. PERKINS'S BALL.

THE MULLIGAN (OF BALLYMULLIGAN), AND HOW WE WENT TO MRS. PERKINS'S BALL.


I do not know where Ballymulligan is, and never knew anybody who did.
Once I asked the Mulligan the question, when that chieftain assumed a
look of dignity so ferocious, and spoke of "Saxon curiawsitee" in a
tone of such evident displeasure, that, as after all it can matter very
little to me whereabouts lies the Celtic principality in question, I
have never pressed the inquiry any farther.

I don't know even the Mulligan's town residence. One night, as he bade
us adieu in Oxford Street,--"I live THERE," says he, pointing down
towards Oxbridge, with the big stick he carries--so his abode is in that
direction at any rate. He has his letters addressed to several of
his friends' houses, and his parcels, &c. are left for him at various
taverns which he frequents. That pair of checked trousers, in which you
see him attired, he did me the favor of ordering from my own tailor,
who is quite as anxious as anybody to know the address of the wearer. In
like manner my hatter asked me, "Oo was the Hirish gent as 'ad ordered
four 'ats and a sable boar to be sent to my lodgings?" As I did not
know (however I might guess) the articles have never been sent, and the
Mulligan has withdrawn his custom from the "infernal four-and-nine-penny
scoundthrel," as he calls him. The hatter has not shut up shop in
consequence.

I became acquainted with the Mulligan through a distinguished countryman
of his, who, strange to say, did not know the chieftain himself. But
dining with my friend Fred Clancy, of the Irish bar, at Greenwich, the
Mulligan came up, "inthrojuiced" himself to Clancy as he said, claimed
relationship with him on the side of Brian Boroo, and drawing his chair
to our table, quickly became intimate with us. He took a great liking
to me, was good enough to find out my address and pay me a visit: since
which period often and often on coming to breakfast in the morning I
have found him in my sitting-room on the sofa engaged with the rolls
and morning papers: and many a time, on returning home at night for an
evening's quiet reading, I have discovered this honest fellow in the
arm-chair before the fire, perfuming the apartment with my cigars and
trying the quality of such liquors as might be found on the sideboard.
The way in which he pokes fun at Betsy, the maid of the lodgings, is
prodigious. She begins to laugh whenever he comes; if he calls her a
duck, a divvle, a darlin', it is all one. He is just as much a master
of the premises as the individual who rents them at fifteen shillings a
week; and as for handkerchiefs, shirt-collars, and the like articles of
fugitive haberdashery, the loss since I have known him is unaccountable.
I suspect he is like the cat in some houses: for, suppose the whiskey,
the cigars, the sugar, the tea-caddy, the pickles, and other groceries
disappear, all is laid upon that edax-rerum of a Mulligan.

The greatest offence that can be offered to him is to call him MR.
Mulligan. "Would you deprive me, sir," says he, "of the title which was
bawrun be me princelee ancestors in a hundred thousand battles? In
our own green valleys and fawrests, in the American savannahs, in the
sierras of Speen and the flats of Flandthers, the Saxon has quailed
before me war-cry of MULLIGAN ABOO! MR. Mulligan! I'll pitch anybody out
of the window who calls me MR. Mulligan." He said this, and uttered the
slogan of the Mulligans with a shriek so terrific, that my uncle (the
Rev. W. Gruels, of the Independent Congregation, Bungay), who had
happened to address him in the above obnoxious manner, while sitting at
my apartments drinking tea after the May meetings, instantly quitted the
room, and has never taken the least notice of me since, except to state
to the rest of the family that I am doomed irrevocably to perdition.

Well, one day last season, I had received from my kind and most
estimable friend, MRS. PERKINS OF POCKLINGTON SQUARE (to whose amiable
family I have had the honor of giving lessons in drawing, French, and
the German flute), an invitation couched in the usual terms, on satin
gilt-edged note-paper, to her evening-party; or, as I call it, "Ball."

Besides the engraved note sent to all her friends, my kind patroness had
addressed me privately as follows:--


MY DEAR MR. TITMARSH,--If you know any VERY eligible young man, we give
you leave to bring him. You GENTLEMEN love your CLUBS so much now, and
care so little for DANCING, that it is really quite A SCANDAL. Come
early, and before EVERYBODY, and give us the benefit of all your taste
and CONTINENTAL SKILL.

"Your sincere

"EMILY PERKINS."


"Whom shall I bring?" mused I, highly flattered by this mark of
confidence; and I thought of Bob Trippett; and little Fred Spring, of
the Navy Pay Office; Hulker, who is rich, and I knew took lessons
in Paris; and a half-score of other bachelor friends, who might be
considered as VERY ELIGIBLE--when I was roused from my meditation by the
slap of a hand on my shoulder; and looking up, there was the Mulligan,
who began, as usual, reading the papers on my desk.

"Hwhat's this?" says he. "Who's Perkins? Is it a supper-ball, or only a
tay-ball?"

"The Perkinses of Pocklington Square, Mulligan, are tiptop people,"
says I, with a tone of dignity. "Mr. Perkins's sister is married to a
baronet, Sir Giles Bacon, of Hogwash, Norfolk. Mr. Perkins's uncle was
Lord Mayor of London; and he was himself in Parliament, and MAY BE again
any day. The family are my most particular friends. A tay-ball indeed!
why, Gunter . . ." Here I stopped: I felt I was committing myself.

"Gunter!" says the Mulligan, with another confounded slap on the
shoulder. "Don't say another word: I'LL go widg you, my boy."

"YOU go, Mulligan?" says I: "why, really--I--it's not my party."

"Your hwhawt? hwhat's this letter? a'n't I an eligible young man?--Is
the descendant of a thousand kings unfit company for a miserable
tallow-chandthlering cockney? Are ye joking wid me? for, let me tell ye,
I don't like them jokes. D'ye suppose I'm not as well bawrun and bred as
yourself, or any Saxon friend ye ever had?"

"I never said you weren't, Mulligan," says I.

"Ye don't mean seriously that a Mulligan is not fit company for a
Perkins?"

"My dear fellow, how could you think I could so far insult you?" says I.
"Well, then," says he, "that's a matter settled, and we go."

What the deuce was I to do? I wrote to Mrs. Perkins; and that kind
lady replied, that she would receive the Mulligan, or any other of my
friends, with the greatest cordiality. "Fancy a party, all Mulligans!"
thought I, with a secret terror.


MR. AND MRS. PERKINS, THEIR HOUSE, AND THEIR YOUNG PEOPLE.


Following Mrs. Perkins's orders, the present writer made his appearance
very early at Pocklington Square: where the tastiness of all the
decorations elicited my warmest admiration. Supper of course was in
the dining-loom, superbly arranged by Messrs. Grigs and Spooner, the
confectioners of the neighborhood. I assisted my respected friend Mr.
Perkins and his butler in decanting the sherry, and saw, not without
satisfaction, a large bath for wine under the sideboard, in which were
already placed very many bottles of champagne.

The BACK DINING-ROOM, Mr. P.'s study (where the venerable man goes to
sleep after dinner), was arranged on this occasion as a tea-room, Mrs.
Flouncey (Miss Fanny's maid) officiating in a cap and pink ribbons,
which became her exceedingly. Long, long before the arrival of the
company, I remarked Master Thomas Perkins and Master Giles Bacon, his
cousin (son of Sir Giles Bacon, Bart.), in this apartment, busy among
the macaroons.

Mr. Gregory the butler, besides John the footman and Sir Giles's
large man in the Bacon livery, and honest Grundsell, carpet-beater and
green-grocer, of Little Pocklington Buildings, had at least half a
dozen of aides-de-camp in black with white neck-cloths, like doctors of
divinity.

The BACK DRAWING-ROOM door on the landing being taken off the hinges
(and placed up stairs under Mr. Perkins's bed), the orifice was covered
with muslin, and festooned with elegant wreaths of flowers. This was
the Dancing Saloon. A linen was spread over the carpet; and a
band--consisting of Mr. Clapperton, piano, Mr. Pinch, harp, and
Herr Spoff, cornet-a-piston arrived at a pretty early hour, and were
accommodated with some comfortable negus in the tea-room, previous to
the commencement of their delightful labors. The boudoir to the left
was fitted up as a card-room; the drawing-room was of course for the
reception of the company,--the chandeliers and yellow damask
being displayed this night in all their splendor; and the charming
conservatory over the landing was ornamented by a few moon-like lamps,
and the flowers arranged so that it had the appearance of a fairy bower.
And Miss Perkins (as I took the liberty of stating to her mamma) looked
like the fairy of that bower. It is this young creature's first year
in PUBLIC LIFE: she has been educated, regardless of expense, at
Hammersmith; and a simple white muslin dress and blue ceinture set off
charms of which I beg to speak with respectful admiration.

My distinguished friend the Mulligan of Ballymulligan was good enough
to come the very first of the party. By the way, how awkward it is to be
the first of the party! and yet you know somebody must; but for my part,
being timid, I always wait at the corner of the street in the cab, and
watch until some other carriage comes up.

Well, as we were arranging the sherry in the decanters down the
supper-tables, my friend arrived: "Hwhares me friend Mr. Titmarsh?" I
heard him bawling out to Gregory in the passage, and presently he rushed
into the supper-room, where Mr. and Mrs. Perkins and myself were, and
as the waiter was announcing "Mr. Mulligan," "THE Mulligan of
Ballymulligan, ye blackguard!" roared he, and stalked into the
apartment, "apologoizing," as he said, for introducing himself.

Mr. and Mrs. Perkins did not perhaps wish to be seen in this room, which
was for the present only lighted by a couple of candles; but HE was not
at all abashed by the circumstance, and grasping them both warmly by
the hands, he instantly made himself at home. "As friends of my dear
and talented friend Mick," so he is pleased to call me, "I'm deloighted,
madam, to be made known to ye. Don't consider me in the light of a mere
acquaintance! As for you, my dear madam, you put me so much in moind
of my own blessed mother, now resoiding at Ballymulligan Castle, that I
begin to love ye at first soight." At which speech Mr. Perkins getting
rather alarmed, asked the Mulligan whether he would take some wine, or
go up stairs.

"Faix," says Mulligan "it's never too soon for good dhrink." And
(although he smelt very much of whiskey already) he drank a tumbler of
wine "to the improvement of an acqueentence which comminces in a manner
so deloightful."

"Let's go up stairs, Mulligan," says I, and led the noble Irishman to
the upper apartments, which were in a profound gloom, the candles not
being yet illuminated, and where we surprised Miss Fanny, seated in the
twilight at the piano, timidly trying the tunes of the polka which she
danced so exquisitely that evening. She did not perceive the stranger at
first; but how she started when the Mulligan loomed upon her.

"Heavenlee enchanthress!" says Mulligan, "don't floy at the approach of
the humblest of your sleeves! Reshewm your pleece at that insthrument,
which weeps harmonious, or smoils melojious, as you charrum it! Are you
acqueented with the Oirish Melodies? Can ye play, 'Who fears to talk of
Nointy-eight?' the 'Shan Van Voght?' or the 'Dirge of Ollam Fodhlah?'"

"Who's this mad chap that Titmarsh has brought?" I heard Master Bacon
exclaim to Master Perkins. "Look! how frightened Fanny looks!"

"O poo! gals are ALWAYS frightened," Fanny's brother replied; but Giles
Bacon, more violent, said, "I'll tell you what, Tom: if this goes on,
we must pitch into him." And so I have no doubt they would, when another
thundering knock coming, Gregory rushed into the room and began lighting
all the candles, so as to produce an amazing brilliancy, Miss Fanny
sprang up and ran to her mamma, and the young gentlemen slid down the
banisters to receive the company in the hall.


EVERYBODY BEGINS TO COME, BUT ESPECIALLY MR. MINCHIN.


"It's only me and my sisters," Master Bacon said; though "only" meant
eight in this instance. All the young ladies had fresh cheeks and purple
elbows; all had white frocks, with hair more or less auburn: and so a
party was already made of this blooming and numerous family, before the
rest of the company began to arrive. The three Miss Meggots next came in
their fly: Mr. Blades and his niece from 19 in the square: Captain and
Mrs. Struther, and Miss Struther: Doctor Toddy's two daughters and their
mamma: but where were the gentlemen? The Mulligan, great and active as
he was, could not suffice among so many beauties. At last came a brisk
neat little knock, and looking into the hall, I saw a gentleman taking
off his clogs there, whilst Sir Giles Bacon's big footman was looking on
with rather a contemptuous air.

"What name shall I enounce?" says he, with a wink at Gregory on the
stair.

The gentleman in clogs said, with quiet dignity,--


MR. FREDERICK MINCHIN.


"Pump Court, Temple," is printed on his cards in very small type: and he
is a rising barrister of the Western Circuit. He is to be found at home
of mornings: afterwards "at Westminster," as you read on his back door.
"Binks and Minchin's Reports" are probably known to my legal friends:
this is the Minchin in question.

He is decidedly genteel, and is rather in request at the balls of the
Judges' and Serjeants' ladies: for he dances irreproachably, and goes
out to dinner as much as ever he can.

He mostly dines at the Oxford and Cambridge Club, of which you can
easily see by his appearance that he is a member; he takes the joint and
his half-pint of wine, for Minchin does everything like a gentleman.
He is rather of a literary turn; still makes Latin verses with some
neatness; and before he was called, was remarkably fond of the flute.

When Mr. Minchin goes out in the evening, his clerk brings his bag to
the Club, to dress; and if it is at all muddy, he turns up his trousers,
so that he may come in without a speck. For such a party as this,
he will have new gloves; otherwise Frederick, his clerk, is chiefly
employed in cleaning them with India-rubber.

He has a number of pleasant stories about the Circuit and the
University, which he tells with a simper to his neighbor at dinner; and
has always the last joke of Mr. Baron Maule. He has a private fortune of
five thousand pounds; he is a dutiful son; he has a sister married, in
Harley Street; and Lady Jane Ranville has the best opinion of him, and
says he is a most excellent and highly principled young man.

Her ladyship and daughter arrived just as Mr. Minchin had popped his
clogs into the umbrella-stand; and the rank of that respected person,
and the dignified manner in which he led her up stairs, caused all
sneering on the part of the domestics to disappear.


THE BALL-ROOM DOOR.


A hundred of knocks follow Frederick Minchin's: in half an hour Messrs.
Spoff, Pinch, and Clapperton have begun their music, and Mulligan, with
one of the Miss Bacons, is dancing majestically in the first quadrille.
My young friends Giles and Tom prefer the landing-place to the
drawing-rooms, where they stop all night, robbing the refreshment-trays
as they come up or down. Giles has eaten fourteen ices: he will have a
dreadful stomach-ache to-morrow. Tom has eaten twelve, but he has had
four more glasses of negus than Giles. Grundsell, the occasional waiter,
from whom Master Tom buys quantities of ginger-beer, can of course deny
him nothing. That is Grundsell, in the tights, with the tray. Meanwhile
direct your attention to the three gentlemen at the door: they are
conversing.

1st Gent.--Who's the man of the house--the bald man?

2nd Gent.--Of course. The man of the house is always bald. He's a
stockbroker, I believe. Snooks brought me.

1st Gent.--Have you been to the tea-room? There's a pretty girl in the
tea-room; blue eyes, pink ribbons, that kind of thing.

2nd Gent.--Who the deuce is that girl with those tremendous shoulders?
Gad! I do wish somebody would smack 'em.

3rd Gent.--Sir--that young lady is my niece, sir,--my niece--my name is
Blades, sir.

2nd Gent.--Well, Blades! smack your niece's shoulders: she deserves it,
begad! she does. Come in, Jinks, present me to the Perkinses.--Hullo!
here's an old country acquaintance--Lady Bacon, as I live! with all the
piglings; she never goes out without the whole litter. (Exeunt 1st and
2nd Gents.)


LADY BACON, THE MISS BACONS, MR. FLAM.


Lady B.--Leonora! Maria! Amelia! here is the gentleman we met at Sir
John Porkington's.

[The MISSES BACON, expecting to be asked to dance, smile simultaneously,
and begin to smooth their tuckers.]

Mr. Flam.--Lady Bacon! I couldn't be mistaken in YOU! Won't you dance,
Lady Bacon?

Lady B.--Go away, you droll creature!

Mr. Flam.--And these are your ladyship's seven lovely sisters, to judge
from their likenesses to the charming Lady Bacon?

Lady B.--My sisters, he! he! my DAUGHTERS, Mr. Flam, and THEY dance,
don't you, girls?

The Misses Bacon.--O yes!

Mr. Flam.--Gad! how I wish I was a dancing man!

[Exit FLAM.


MR. LARKINS.


I have not been able to do justice (only a Lawrence could do that) to my
respected friend Mrs. Perkins, in this picture; but Larkins's portrait
is considered very like. Adolphus Larkins has been long connected with
Mr. Perkins's City establishment, and is asked to dine twice or thrice
per annum. Evening-parties are the great enjoyment of this simple youth,
who, after he has walked from Kentish Town to Thames Street, and passed
twelve hours in severe labor there, and walked back again to Kentish
Town, finds no greater pleasure than to attire his lean person in that
elegant evening costume which you see, to walk into town again, and to
dance at anybody's house who will invite him. Islington, Pentonville,
Somers Town, are the scenes of many of his exploits; and I have seen
this good-natured fellow performing figure-dances at Notting-hill, at
a house where I am ashamed to say there was no supper, no negus even
to speak of, nothing but the bare merits of the polka in which Adolphus
revels. To describe this gentleman's infatuation for dancing, let me
say, in a word, that he will even frequent boarding-house hops, rather
than not go.

He has clogs, too, like Minchin: but nobody laughs at HIM. He gives
himself no airs; but walks into a house with a knock and a demeanor so
tremulous and humble, that the servants rather patronize him. He does
not speak, or have any particular opinions, but when the time comes,
begins to dance. He bleats out a word or two to his partner during this
operation, seems very weak and sad during the whole performance, and, of
course, is set to dance with the ugliest women everywhere.

The gentle, kind spirit! when I think of him night after night, hopping
and jigging, and trudging off to Kentish Town, so gently, through the
fogs, and mud, and darkness: I do not know whether I ought to admire
him, because his enjoyments are so simple, and his dispositions so
kindly; or laugh at him, because he draws his life so exquisitely mild.
Well, well, we can't be all roaring lions in this world; there must be
SOME lambs, and harmless, kindly, gregarious creatures for eating
and shearing. See! even good-natured Mrs. Perkins is leading up the
trembling Larkins to the tremendous Miss Bunion!


MISS BUNION.


The Poetess, author of "Heartstrings," "The Deadly Nightshade," "Passion
Flowers," &c. Though her poems breathe only of love, Miss B. has never
been married. She is nearly six feet high; she loves waltzing beyond
even poesy; and I think lobster-salad as much as either. She confesses
to twenty-eight; in which case her first volume, "The Orphan of Gozo,"
(cut up by Mr. Rigby, in the Quarterly, with his usual kindness,) must
have been published when she was three years old.

For a woman all soul, she certainly eats as much as any woman I ever
saw. The sufferings she has had to endure, are, she says, beyond
compare; the poems which she writes breathe a withering passion, a
smouldering despair, an agony of spirit that would melt the soul of a
drayman, were he to read them. Well, it is a comfort to see that she
can dance of nights, and to know (for the habits of illustrious literary
persons are always worth knowing) that she eats a hot mutton-chop for
breakfast every morning of her blighted existence.

She lives in a boardinghouse at Brompton, and comes to the party in a
fly.


MR. HICKS.


It is worth twopence to see Miss Bunion and Poseidon Hicks, the great
poet, conversing with one another, and to talk of one to the other
afterwards. How they hate each other! I (in my wicked way) have sent
Hicks almost raving mad, by praising Bunion to him in confidence; and
you can drive Bunion out of the room by a few judicious panegyrics of
Hicks.

Hicks first burst upon the astonished world with poems, in the Byronic
manner: "The Death-Shriek," "The Bastard of Lara," "The Atabal," "The
Fire-Ship of Botzaris," and other works. His "Love Lays," in Mr. Moore's
early style, were pronounced to be wonderfully precocious for a young
gentleman then only thirteen, and in a commercial academy, at Tooting.

Subsequently, this great bard became less passionate and more
thoughtful; and, at the age of twenty, wrote "Idiosyncracy" (in forty
books, 4to.): "Ararat," "a stupendous epic," as the reviews said;
and "The Megatheria," "a magnificent contribution to our pre-Adamite
literature," according to the same authorities. Not having read these
works, it would ill become me to judge them; but I know that poor
Jingle, the publisher, always attributed his insolvency to the latter
epic, which was magnificently printed in elephant folio.

Hicks has now taken a classical turn, and has brought out "Poseidon,"
"Iacchus," "Hephaestus," and I dare say is going through the mythology.
But I should not like to try him at a passage of the Greek Delectus,
any more than twenty thousand others of us who have had a "classical
education."

Hicks was taken in an inspired attitude regarding the chandelier, and
pretending he didn't know that Miss Pettifer was looking at him.

Her name is Anna Maria (daughter of Higgs and Pettifer, solicitors,
Bedford Row); but Hicks calls her "Ianthe" in his album verses, and is
himself an eminent drysalter in the city.


MISS MEGGOT.


Poor Miss Meggot is not so lucky as Miss Bunion. Nobody comes to dance
with HER, though she has a new frock on, as she calls it, and rather a
pretty foot, which she always manages to stick out.

She is forty-seven, the youngest of three sisters, who live a mouldy old
house, near Middlesex Hospital, where they have lived for I don't know
how many score of years; but this is certain: the eldest Miss Meggot saw
the Gordon Riots out of that same parlor window, and tells the story
how her father (physician to George III.) was robbed of his queue in the
streets on that occasion. The two old ladies have taken the brevet rank,
and are addressed as Mrs. Jane and Mrs. Betsy: one of them is at whist
in the back drawing-room. But the youngest is still called Miss Nancy,
and is considered quite a baby by her sisters.

She was going to be married once to a brave young officer, Ensign Angus
Macquirk, of the Whistlebinkie Fencibles; but he fell at Quatre Bras,
by the side of the gallant Snuffmull, his commander. Deeply, deeply did
Miss Nancy deplore him.

But time has cicatrized the wounded heart. She is gay now, and would
sing or dance, ay, or marry if anybody asked her.

Do go, my dear friend--I don't mean to ask her to marry, but to ask her
to dance.--Never mind the looks of the thing. It will make her happy;
and what does it cost you? Ah, my dear fellow! take this counsel: always
dance with the old ladies--always dance with the governesses. It is
a comfort to the poor things when they get up in their garret that
somebody has had mercy on them. And such a handsome fellow as YOU too!


MISS RANVILLE, REV. MR. TOOP, MISS MULLINS, MR. WINTER.


Mr. W. Miss Mullins, look at Miss Ranville: what a picture of good
humor.

Miss M.--Oh, you satirical creature!

Mr. W.--Do you know why she is so angry? she expected to dance with
Captain Grig, and by some mistake, the Cambridge Professor got hold of
her: isn't he a handsome man?

Miss M.--Oh, you droll wretch!

Mr. W.--Yes, he's a fellow of college--fellows mayn't marry, Miss
Mullins--poor fellows, ay, Miss Mullins?