The Fatal Boots

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THE FATAL BOOTS.


by William Makepeace Thackeray




THE FATAL BOOTS:--



January.--The Birth of the Year

February.--Cutting Weather

March.--Showery

April.--Fooling

May.--Restoration Day

June.--Marrowbones and Cleavers

July.--Summary Proceedings

August.--Dogs have their Days

September.--Plucking a Goose

October.--Mars and Venus in Opposition

November.--A General Post Delivery

December.--"The Winter of Our Discontent"




THE FATAL BOOTS




JANUARY.--THE BIRTH OF THE YEAR.

Some poet has observed, that if any man would write down what has really
happened to him in this mortal life, he would be sure to make a good
book, though he never had met with a single adventure from his birth to
his burial. How much more, then, must I, who HAVE had adventures, most
singular, pathetic, and unparalleled, be able to compile an instructive
and entertaining volume for the use of the public.

I don't mean to say that I have killed lions, or seen the wonders of
travel in the deserts of Arabia or Prussia; or that I have been a very
fashionable character, living with dukes and peeresses, and writing my
recollections of them, as the way now is. I never left this my native
isle, nor spoke to a lord (except an Irish one, who had rooms in our
house, and forgot to pay three weeks' lodging and extras); but, as our
immortal bard observes, I have in the course of my existence been so
eaten up by the slugs and harrows of outrageous fortune, and have been
the object of such continual and extraordinary ill-luck, that I believe
it would melt the heart of a milestone to read of it--that is, if a
milestone had a heart of anything but stone.

Twelve of my adventures, suitable for meditation and perusal during the
twelve months of the year, have been arranged by me for this work. They
contain a part of the history of a great, and, confidently I may say,
a GOOD man. I was not a spendthrift like other men. I never wronged any
man of a shilling, though I am as sharp a fellow at a bargain as any in
Europe. I never injured a fellow-creature; on the contrary, on
several occasions, when injured myself, have shown the most wonderful
forbearance. I come of a tolerably good family; and yet, born to
wealth--of an inoffensive disposition, careful of the money that I
had, and eager to get more,--I have been going down hill ever since
my journey of life began, and have been pursued by a complication of
misfortunes such as surely never happened to any man but the unhappy Bob
Stubbs.

Bob Stubbs is my name; and I haven't got a shilling: I have borne the
commission of lieutenant in the service of King George, and am NOW--but
never mind what I am now, for the public will know in a few pages more.
My father was of the Suffolk Stubbses--a well-to-do gentleman of Bungay.
My grandfather had been a respected attorney in that town, and left my
papa a pretty little fortune. I was thus the inheritor of competence,
and ought to be at this moment a gentleman.

My misfortunes may be said to have commenced about a year before my
birth, when my papa, a young fellow pretending to study the law in
London, fell madly in love with Miss Smith, the daughter of a tradesman,
who did not give her a sixpence, and afterwards became bankrupt. My papa
married this Miss Smith, and carried her off to the country, where I was
born, in an evil hour for me.

Were I to attempt to describe my early years, you would laugh at me as
an impostor; but the following letter from mamma to a friend, after her
marriage, will pretty well show you what a poor foolish creature she
was; and what a reckless extravagant fellow was my other unfortunate
parent:--


"TO MISS ELIZA KICKS, IN GRACECHURCH STREET, LONDON.

"OH, ELIZA! your Susan is the happiest girl under heaven! My Thomas is
an angel! not a tall grenadier-like looking fellow, such as I always
vowed I would marry:--on the contrary, he is what the world would call
dumpy, and I hesitate not to confess, that his eyes have a cast in them.
But what then? when one of his eyes is fixed on me, and one on my babe,
they are lighted up with an affection which my pen cannot describe, and
which, certainly, was never bestowed upon any woman so strongly as upon
your happy Susan Stubbs.

"When he comes home from shooting, or the farm, if you COULD see dear
Thomas with me and our dear little Bob! as I sit on one knee, and baby
on the other, and as he dances us both about. I often wish that we had
Sir Joshua, or some great painter, to depict the group; for sure it is
the prettiest picture in the whole world, to see three such loving merry
people.

"Dear baby is the most lovely little creature that CAN POSSIBLY
BE,--the very IMAGE of papa; he is cutting his teeth, and the delight
of EVERYBODY. Nurse says that, when he is older he will get rid of his
squint, and his hair will get a GREAT DEAL less red. Doctor Bates is
as kind, and skilful, and attentive as we could desire. Think what a
blessing to have had him! Ever since poor baby's birth, it has never had
a day of quiet; and he has been obliged to give it from three to four
doses every week;--how thankful ought we to be that the DEAR THING is
as well as it is! It got through the measles wonderfully; then it had
a little rash; and then a nasty hooping-cough; and then a fever, and
continual pains in its poor little stomach, crying, poor dear child,
from morning till night.

"But dear Tom is an excellent nurse; and many and many a night has he
had no sleep, dear man! in consequence of the poor little baby. He walks
up and down with it FOR HOURS, singing a kind of song (dear fellow, he
has no more voice than a tea-kettle), and bobbing his head backwards and
forwards, and looking, in his nightcap and dressing-gown, SO DROLL. Oh,
Eliza! how you would laugh to see him.

"We have one of the best nursemaids IN THE WORLD,--an Irishwoman, who is
as fond of baby almost as his mother (but that can NEVER BE). She takes
it to walk in the park for hours together, and I really don't know why
Thomas dislikes her. He says she is tipsy, very often, and slovenly,
which I cannot conceive;--to be sure, the nurse is sadly dirty, and
sometimes smells very strong of gin.

"But what of that?--these little drawbacks only make home more pleasant.
When one thinks how many mothers have NO nursemaids: how many poor dear
children have no doctors: ought we not to be thankful for Mary Malowney,
and that Dr. Bates's bill is forty-seven pounds? How ill must dear baby
have been, to require so much physic!

"But they are a sad expense, these dear babies, after all. Fancy, Eliza,
how much this Mary Malowney costs us. Ten shillings every week; a glass
of brandy or gin at dinner; three pint-bottles of Mr. Thrale's best
porter every day,--making twenty-one in a week, and nine hundred and
ninety in the eleven months she has been with us. Then, for baby, there
is Dr. Bates's bill of forty-five guineas, two guineas for christening,
twenty for a grand christening supper and ball (rich uncle John mortally
offended because he was made godfather, and had to give baby a silver
cup: he has struck Thomas out of his will: and old Mr. Firkin quite as
much hurt because he was NOT asked: he will not speak to me or Thomas
in consequence) twenty guineas for flannels, laces, little gowns, caps,
napkins, and such baby's ware: and all this out of 300L. a year! But
Thomas expects to make A GREAT DEAL by his farm.

"We have got the most charming country-house YOU CAN IMAGINE: it is
QUITE SHUT IN by trees, and so retired that, though only thirty miles
from London, the post comes to us but once a week. The roads, it must be
confessed, are execrable; it is winter now, and we are up to our knees
in mud and snow. But oh, Eliza! how happy we are: with Thomas (he has
had a sad attack of rheumatism, dear man!) and little Bobby, and our
kind friend Dr. Bates, who comes so far to see us, I leave you to
fancy that we have a charming merry party, and do not care for all the
gayeties of Ranelagh.

"Adieu! dear baby is crying for his mamma. A thousand kisses from your
affectionate

"SUSAN STUBBS."


There it is! Doctor's bills, gentleman-farming, twenty-one pints of
porter a week. In this way my unnatural parents were already robbing me
of my property.




FEBRUARY.--CUTTING WEATHER.

I have called this chapter "cutting weather," partly in compliment to
the month of February, and partly in respect of my own misfortunes,
which you are going to read about. For I have often thought that January
(which is mostly twelfth-cake and holiday time) is like the first four
or five years of a little boy's life; then comes dismal February, and
the working-days with it, when chaps begin to look out for themselves,
after the Christmas and the New Year's heyday and merrymaking are over,
which our infancy may well be said to be. Well can I recollect that
bitter first of February, when I first launched out into the world and
appeared at Doctor Swishtail's academy.

I began at school that life of prudence and economy which I have carried
on ever since. My mother gave me eighteenpence on setting out (poor
soul! I thought her heart would break as she kissed me, and bade God
bless me); and, besides, I had a small capital of my own which I had
amassed for a year previous. I'll tell you, what I used to do. Wherever
I saw six halfpence I took one. If it was asked for I said I had taken
it and gave it back;--if it was not missed, I said nothing about it, as
why should I?--those who don't miss their money, don't lose their money.
So I had a little private fortune of three shillings, besides mother's
eighteenpence. At school they called me the copper-merchant, I had such
lots of it.

Now, even at a preparatory school, a well-regulated boy may better
himself: and I can tell you I did. I never was in any quarrels: I never
was very high in the class or very low: but there was no chap so much
respected:--and why? I'D ALWAYS MONEY. The other boys spent all
theirs in the first day or two, and they gave me plenty of cakes and
barley-sugar then, I can tell you. I'd no need to spend my own money,
for they would insist upon treating me. Well, in a week, when theirs was
gone, and they had but their threepence a week to look to for the
rest of the half-year, what did I do? Why, I am proud to say that
three-halfpence out of the threepence a week of almost all the young
gentlemen at Dr. Swishtail's, came into my pocket. Suppose, for
instance, Tom Hicks wanted a slice of gingerbread, who had the money?
Little Bob Stubbs, to be sure. "Hicks," I used to say, "I'LL buy you
three halfp'orth of gingerbread, if you'll give me threepence next
Saturday." And he agreed; and next Saturday came, and he very often
could not pay me more than three-halfpence. Then there was the
threepence I was to have THE NEXT Saturday. I'll tell you what I did
for a whole half-year:--I lent a chap, by the name of Dick Bunting,
three-halfpence the first Saturday for three-pence the next: he could
not pay me more than half when Saturday came, and I'm blest if I did
not make him pay me three-halfpence FOR THREE-AND-TWENTY WEEKS
RUNNING, making two shillings and tenpence-halfpenny. But he was a sad
dishonorable fellow, Dick Bunting; for after I'd been so kind to
him, and let him off for three-and-twenty-weeks the money he owed me,
holidays came, and threepence he owed me still. Well, according to the
common principles of practice, after six-weeks' holidays, he ought to
have paid me exactly sixteen shillings, which was my due. For the

First week the 3d. would be 6d. | Fourth week . . . . . 4s.
Second week . . . . . 1s. | Fifth week . . . . . 8s.
Third week . . . . . 2s. | Sixth week . . . . . 16s.

Nothing could be more just; and yet--will it be believed? when Bunting
came back he offered me THREE-HALFPENCE! the mean, dishonest scoundrel.

However, I was even with him, I can tell you.--He spent all his money in
a fortnight, and THEN I screwed him down! I made him, besides giving
me a penny for a penny, pay me a quarter of his bread and butter
at breakfast and a quarter of his cheese at supper; and before the
half-year was out, I got from him a silver fruit-knife, a box of
compasses, and a very pretty silver-laced waistcoat, in which I went
home as proud as a king: and, what's more, I had no less than three
golden guineas in the pocket of it, besides fifteen shillings, the
knife, and a brass bottle-screw, which I got from another chap. It
wasn't bad interest for twelve shillings--which was all the money I'd
had in the year--was it? Heigho! I've often wished that I could get such
a chance again in this wicked world; but men are more avaricious now
than they used to be in those dear early days.

Well, I went home in my new waistcoat as fine as a peacock; and when I
gave the bottle-screw to my father, begging him to take it as a token of
my affection for him, my dear mother burst into such a fit of tears as I
never saw, and kissed and hugged me fit to smother me. "Bless him, bless
him," says she, "to think of his old father. And where did you purchase
it, Bob?"--"Why, mother," says I, "I purchased it out of my savings"
(which was as true as the gospel).--When I said this, mother looked
round to father, smiling, although she had tears in her eyes, and she
took his hand, and with her other hand drew me to her. "Is he not a
noble boy?" says she to my father: "and only nine years old!"--"Faith,"
says my father, "he IS a good lad, Susan. Thank thee, my boy: and here
is a crown-piece in return for thy bottle-screw--it shall open us a
bottle of the very best too," says my father. And he kept his word.
I always was fond of good wine (though never, from a motive of proper
self-denial, having any in my cellar); and, by Jupiter! on this night I
had my little skinful,--for there was no stinting,--so pleased were my
dear parents with the bottle-screw. The best of it was, it only cost me
threepence originally, which a chap could not pay me.

Seeing this game was such a good one, I became very generous towards my
parents; and a capital way it is to encourage liberality in children.
I gave mamma a very neat brass thimble, and she gave me a half-guinea
piece. Then I gave her a very pretty needle-book, which I made myself
with an ace of spades from a new pack of cards we had, and I got Sally,
our maid, to cover it with a bit of pink satin her mistress had given
her; and I made the leaves of the book, which I vandyked very nicely,
out of a piece of flannel I had had round my neck for a sore throat.
It smelt a little of hartshorn, but it was a beautiful needle-book; and
mamma was so delighted with it, that she went into town and bought me a
gold-laced hat. Then I bought papa a pretty china tobacco-stopper: but
I am sorry to say of my dear father that he was not so generous as my
mamma or myself, for he only burst out laughing, and did not give me so
much as a half-crown piece, which was the least I expected from him. "I
shan't give you anything, Bob, this time," says he; "and I wish, my boy,
you would not make any more such presents,--for, really, they are too
expensive." Expensive indeed! I hate meanness,--even in a father.

I must tell you about the silver-edged waistcoat which Bunting gave
me. Mamma asked me about it, and I told her the truth,--that it was a
present from one of the boys for my kindness to him. Well, what does she
do but writes back to Dr. Swishtail, when I went to school, thanking him
for his attention to her dear son, and sending a shilling to the good
and grateful little boy who had given me the waistcoat!

"What waistcoat is it," says the Doctor to me, "and who gave it to you?"

"Bunting gave it me, sir," says I.

"Call Bunting!" and up the little ungrateful chap came. Would you
believe it, he burst into tears,--told that the waistcoat had been given
him by his mother, and that he had been forced to give it for a debt to
Copper-Merchant, as the nasty little blackguard called me? He then
said how, for three-halfpence, he had been compelled to pay me
three shillings (the sneak! as if he had been OBLIGED to borrow the
three-halfpence!)--how all the other boys had been swindled (swindled!)
by me in like manner,--and how, with only twelve shillings, I had
managed to scrape together four guineas. . . . .

My courage almost fails me as I describe the shameful scene that
followed. The boys were called in, my own little account-book was
dragged out of my cupboard, to prove how much I had received from each,
and every farthing of my money was paid back to them. The tyrant took
the thirty shillings that my dear parents had given me, and said he
should put them into the poor-box at church; and, after having made a
long discourse to the boys about meanness and usury, he said, "Take off
your coat, Mr. Stubbs, and restore Bunting his waistcoat." I did, and
stood without coat and waistcoat in the midst of the nasty grinning
boys. I was going to put on my coat,--

"Stop!" says he. "TAKE DOWN HIS BREECHES!"

Ruthless, brutal villain! Sam Hopkins, the biggest boy, took them
down--horsed me--and I WAS FLOGGED, SIR: yes, flogged! O revenge! I,
Robert Stubbs, who had done nothing but what was right, was brutally
flogged at ten years of age!--Though February was the shortest month, I
remembered it long.




MARCH.--SHOWERY.

When my mamma heard of the treatment of her darling she was for bringing
an action against the schoolmaster, or else for tearing his eyes out
(when, dear soul! she would not have torn the eyes out of a flea, had it
been her own injury), and, at the very least, for having me removed from
the school where I had been so shamefully treated. But papa was stern
for once, and vowed that I had been served quite right, declared that
I should not be removed from school, and sent old Swishtail a brace
of pheasants for what he called his kindness to me. Of these the old
gentleman invited me to partake, and made a very queer speech at dinner,
as he was cutting them up, about the excellence of my parents, and his
own determination to be KINDER STILL to me, if ever I ventured on such
practices again. So I was obliged to give up my old trade of lending:
for the Doctor declared that any boy who borrowed should be flogged, and
any one who PAID should be flogged twice as much. There was no standing
against such a prohibition as this, and my little commerce was ruined.

I was not very high in the school: not having been able to get farther
than that dreadful Propria quae maribus in the Latin grammar, of which,
though I have it by heart even now, I never could understand a syllable:
but, on account of my size, my age, and the prayers of my mother, was
allowed to have the privilege of the bigger boys, and on holidays to
walk about in the town. Great dandies we were, too, when we thus went
out. I recollect my costume very well: a thunder-and-lightning coat, a
white waistcoat embroidered neatly at the pockets, a lace frill, a pair
of knee-breeches, and elegant white cotton or silk stockings. This did
very well, but still I was dissatisfied: I wanted A PAIR OF BOOTS. Three
boys in the school had boots--I was mad to have them too.

But my papa, when I wrote to him, would not hear of it; and three
pounds, the price of a pair, was too large a sum for my mother to take
from the housekeeping, or for me to pay, in the present impoverished
state of my exchequer; but the desire for the boots was so strong, that
have them I must at any rate.

There was a German bootmaker who had just set up in OUR town in those
days, who afterwards made his fortune in London. I determined to have
the boots from him, and did not despair, before the end of a year or
two, either to leave the school, when I should not mind his dunning me,
or to screw the money from mamma, and so pay him.

So I called upon this man--Stiffelkind was his name--and he took my
measure for a pair.

"You are a vary yong gentleman to wear dop-boots," said the shoemaker.

"I suppose, fellow," says I, "that is my business and not yours. Either
make the boots or not--but when you speak to a man of my rank, speak
respectfully!" And I poured out a number of oaths, in order to impress
him with a notion of my respectability.

They had the desired effect. "Stay, sir," says he. "I have a nice littel
pair of dop-boots dat I tink will jost do for you." And he produced,
sure enough, the most elegant things I ever saw. "Day were made," said
he, "for de Honorable Mr. Stiffney, of de Gards, but were too small."

"Ah, indeed!" said I. "Stiffney is a relation of mine. And what, you
scoundrel, will you have the impudence to ask for these things?" He
replied, "Three pounds."

"Well," said I, "they are confoundedly dear; but, as you will have a
long time to wait for your money, why, I shall have my revenge you see."
The man looked alarmed, and began a speech: "Sare,--I cannot let dem go
vidout"--but a bright thought struck me, and I interrupted--"Sir! don't
sir me. Take off the boots, fellow, and, hark ye, when you speak to a
nobleman, don't say--Sir."

"A hundert tousand pardons, my lort," says he: "if I had known you were
a lort, I vood never have called you--Sir. Vat name shall I put down in
my books?"

"Name?--oh! why, Lord Cornwallis, to be sure," said I, as I walked off
in the boots.

"And vat shall I do vid my lort's shoes?"

"Keep them until I send for them," said I. And, giving him a patronizing
bow, I walked out of the shop, as the German tied up my shoes in paper.

*****

This story I would not have told, but that my whole life turned upon
these accursed boots. I walked back to school as proud as a peacock, and
easily succeeded in satisfying the boys as to the manner in which I came
by my new ornaments.

Well, one fatal Monday morning--the blackest of all black-Mondays that
ever I knew--as we were all of us playing between school-hours, I saw a
posse of boys round a stranger, who seemed to be looking out for one of
us. A sudden trembling seized me--I knew it was Stiffelkind. What had
brought him here? He talked loud, and seemed angry. So I rushed into
the school-room, and burying my head between my hands, began reading for
dear life.

"I vant Lort Cornvallis," said the horrid bootmaker. "His lortship
belongs, I know, to dis honorable school, for I saw him vid de boys at
chorch yesterday."

"Lord who?"

"Vy, Lort Cornvallis to be sure--a very fat yong nobeman, vid red hair:
he squints a little, and svears dreadfully."

"There's no Lord Cornvallis here," said one; and there was a pause.

"Stop! I have it," says that odious Bunting. "IT MUST BE STUBBS!" And
"Stubbs! Stubbs!" every one cried out, while I was so busy at my book as
not to hear a word.

At last, two of the biggest chaps rushed into the schoolroom, and
seizing each an arm, run me into the playground--bolt up against the
shoemaker.

"Dis is my man. I beg your lortship's pardon," says he, "I have brought
your lortship's shoes, vich you left. See, dey have been in dis parcel
ever since you vent avay in my boots."

"Shoes, fellow!" says I. "I never saw your face before!" For I knew
there was nothing for it but brazening it out. "Upon the honor of a
gentleman!" said I, turning round to the boys. They hesitated; and if
the trick had turned in my favor, fifty of them would have seized hold
of Stiffelkind and drubbed him soundly.

"Stop!" says Bunting (hang him!) "Let's see the shoes. If they fit him,
why then the cobbler's right." They did fit me; and not only that, but
the name of STUBBS was written in them at full length.

"Vat!" said Stiffelkind. "Is he not a lort? So help me Himmel, I never
did vonce tink of looking at de shoes, which have been lying ever since
in dis piece of brown paper." And then, gathering anger as he went on,
he thundered out so much of his abuse of me, in his German-English, that
the boys roared with laughter. Swishtail came in in the midst of the
disturbance, and asked what the noise meant.

"It's only Lord Cornwallis, sir," said the boys, "battling with his
shoemaker about the price of a pair of top-boots."

"Oh, sir," said I, "it was only in fun that I called myself Lord
Cornwallis."

"In fun!--Where are the boots? And you, sir, give me your bill." My
beautiful boots were brought; and Stiffelkind produced his bill. "Lord
Cornwallis to Samuel Stiffelkind, for a pair of boots--four guineas."

"You have been fool enough, sir," says the Doctor, looking very stern,
"to let this boy impose on you as a lord; and knave enough to charge him
double the value of the article you sold him. Take back the boots, sir!
I won't pay a penny of your bill; nor can you get a penny. As for you,
sir, you miserable swindler and cheat, I shall not flog you as I did
before, but I shall send you home: you are not fit to be the companion
of honest boys."

"SUPPOSE WE DUCK HIM before he goes?" piped out a very small voice. The
Doctor grinned significantly, and left the school-room; and the boys
knew by this they might have their will. They seized me and carried me
to the playground pump: they pumped upon me until I was half dead;
and the monster, Stiffelkind, stood looking on for the half-hour the
operation lasted.