menu_book Chapter 16

STORY 11 OF CHRISTMAS STORIES BY CHARLES DICKENS THIS LIBERBOX RECORDING IS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN STORY 11 GOING INTO SOCIETY At one period of its reverses, the house fell into the occupation of a showman. He was found registered as his occupier on the parish books of the time when he rented the house,

and there was therefore no need of any clue to his name. But he himself was less easy to be found, for he had led a wandering life, and settled people had lost sight of him, and people who plumed themselves on being respectable were shy of admitting that they had ever known anything of him. At last, among the marshlands near the river's level that lie about Deptford and the neighbouring market gardens, a grizzled personage in velveteen, with a face so cut up by varieties of weather that he looked as if he had been tattooed, was found smoking a pipe at the door of a wooden house on wheels. The wooden house was laid up in ordinary for the winter near the mouth of a muddy creek, and everything near it, the foggy river, the misty marshes, and the steaming market-gardens,

smoked in company with the grizzled man. In the midst of this smoking party the funnel chimney of the wooden house on wheels was not remiss, but took its pipe with the rest in a companionable manner. On being asked if it were he who had once rented the house to let, Grizzled Velveteen looked surprised and said, Yes. Then his name was Magsman. That was it, Toby Magsman, which lawfully christened Robert, but called in the line from an infant, Toby. There was nothing again,

Toby Magsman, he believed. If there was suspicion of such, mention it. There was no suspicion of such, he might rest assured. But some inquiries were making about that house, and would he object to say why he left it? Not at all. Why should he? He left it along of a dwarf. Along of a dwarf? Mr. Magsman repeated deliberately and emphatically, along of a dwarf. Might it be compatible with Mr. Magsman's inclination and convenience to enter as a favour into a few particulars? Mr. Magsman

entered into the following particulars. It was a long time ago to begin with. A four lotteries and a deal more was done away with. Mr. Magsman was looking about for a good pitch, and he see that house, and he says to himself, I'll have you if you're to be had. If money'll get you, I'll have you. The neighbors cut up rough and made complaints, but Mr. Magsman don't know what they would have had. It was a lovely thing. First of all, there was the canvas representing the picture of the

giant in Spanish trunks and a ruff, who was himself half the height of the house, and was run up with the line and pulley to a pole on the roof, so that his edge was coeval with the parapet. Then there was the canvas representing the picture of the Albany lady, showing her white hair to the army and navy in correct uniform. Then there was the canvas representing the picture of the wild Indian, a scalping a member of some foreign nation. Then there was the canvas representing

the picture of a child of a British planter, seized by two boa constrictors. Not that we never had no child, nor no constrictors, neither. Similarly, there was the canvas representing the picture of the wild ass of the prairies. Not that we never had no wild asses, nor wouldn't have had them as a gift. Last there was the canvas representing the picture of the dwarf, and like him too, considering, with George IV, in such a state of astonishment at him, as his majesty

couldn't with his utmost politeness and stoutness express. The front of the house was so covered with canvases that there wasn't a spark of daylight ever visible on that side. "'Magsmann's amusements, fifteen foot long by two foot high, ran over the front door and parlor windows. The passage was a arbor of green bays and garden stuff. A barrel organ performed there unceasing, and as to respectability, if threepence ain't respectable, what is?' But the dwarf is the

principal article at present, and he was worth the money. He was wrote up as Major Chips Coffee, of the Imperial Bulgarian Brigade. Nobody couldn't pronounce the name, and it never was intended anybody should. The public always turned it, as a regular rule, into Chopsky.

In the line he was called Chops, partly on that account, and partly because his real name, if he ever had any real name, which was very dubious, was Stakes. He was an uncommon small man. he really was, certainly not so small as he was made out to be, but where is your dwarf as is?

He was a most uncommon small man with a most uncommon large ed, and what he had inside that ed nobody ever knowed but himself, even supposing himself to have ever took stock of it, which it would have been a stiff job for even him to do. The kindest little man as never growed, spirited but not proud when he traveled with the spotted baby though he knowed himself to be a natural dwarf and knowed the baby spots to be put upon him artificial he nursed that baby like a

mother you never heared him give a ill name to a giant he did allow himself to break out into strong language respecting the fat lady from norfolk but that was an affair of the art and when a man's art has been trifled with by a lady, and the preference given to a Indian, he ain't master of his actions. He was always in love, of course, every human natural phenomenon is, and he was always in love with a large woman. I never knowed the dwarf as could begot to love a

small one, which helps to keep him the curiosities they are. One singular idea he had in that ed of is, which must have meant something, or it wouldn't have been there, it was always his opinion that he was entitled to property. He never would put his name to anything. He had been taught to write by the young man without arms who got his living with his toes. Quite a writing-master he was, and taught scores in the line. But Chops would have starved to death afore he'd have gained

a bit of bread by putting his hand to a paper. This is the more curious to bear in mind, because he had no property nor hope of property except his house and a sorcerer. When I say his house, I mean the box, painted, and got up inside like a regular six-roomer that he used to creep into with a diamond ring, or quite as good to look at, on his forefinger, and ring a little bell out of what the public believed to be the drawing-room winder. And when I say a sorcerer,

I mean a Cheney-sarcer, in which he made a collection for himself at the end of every entertainment. His cue for that he took from me. Ladies and gentlemen, the little man will now walk three times round the caravan and retire behind the curtain. When he said anything important in private life, he mostly wound it up with this form of words, and they was generally the last thing he said to me at night afore he went to bed. He had what I consider a fine mind,

a poetic mind. His ideas, respecting his property, never come upon him so strong as when he sat upon a barrel organ and had the handle turned. Arter the vibration had run through him a little time, he would screech out, Toby, I feel my property coming. Grind away. I'm counting my guineas by thousands, Toby. Grind away. Toby, I shall be a man of fortune. I feel the mint a-jingling in me, Toby, and I'm swelling out into the bank of England. Such is the influence of music on a

poetic mind. Not that he was partial to any other music but a barrel organ. On the contrary, hated it. He had a kind of everlasting grudge against the public, which is a thing you may notice in many phenomenons that get their living out of it. What riled him most in the nature of his occupation was that it kept him out of society. He was continually saying, Toby, my ambition is to go into society. The curse of my position towards the public is that it keeps me out of

society. This don't signify to a low beast of a Indian. He ain't formed for society. This don't signify to a spotted baby. He ain't formed for society. I am. Nobody never could make out what Chops done with his money. He had a good salary down on the drum every Saturday as the day come round, besides having the run of his teeth. And he was a woodpecker to eat, but all dwarfs are. The sorcerer was a little income, bringing him in so many half-pence that he'd carry

him for a week together, tied up in a pocket-handkercher. And yet he never had money, and it couldn't be the fat lady from Norfolk as was once supposed, because it stands to reason that when you have animosity towards an Indian, which makes you grind your teeth at him to his face, and which can hardly hold you from goosing him audible when he's going through his war dance, it stands to reason you wouldn't under them

circumstances deprive yourself to support that Indian in the lap of luxury. Most unexpected, the mystery come out one day at Egham races. The public was shy of being pulled in, and Chops was ringing his little bell out of his drawing-room window, and was snarling to me over his shoulder as he kneeled down with his legs out at the back door, for he couldn't be shoved into his house without kneeling down, and the premises wouldn't accommodate his legs.

Was snarling, here's a precious public for you, why the devil don't they tumble up? When a man in the crowd holds up a carrier pigeon and cries out, if there's any person here that has got a ticket, the lottery just drawed, and the number as has come up for the great prize is three seven forty-two. Three-seven-forty-two. I was given the man to the Furies myself for calling off the public's attention, for the public will turn away at any time to look at anything in preference to

the thing showed him. And if you doubt it, get them together for any individual purpose on the face of the earth, and send only two people in late, and see if the whole company ain't far more interested in taking particular notice of them two than of you. I say I wasn't best pleased with the man for calling out, and wasn't blessing him in my own mind, when I see Chop's little bell fly out of the window at an old lady, and he gets up and kicks his box over, exposing the whole

secret, and he catches hold of the calves of my legs, and he says to me, Carry me into the whan, Toby, and throw a pail of water over me, or I'm a dead man, for I've come into my property. Twelve thousand-odd hundred pound was Chops's winnings. He had bought a half-ticket for the twenty-five thousand prize, and it had come up. The first use he made of his property was to offer to fight the wild Indian for five hundred pound a side, him with a poisoned darnin needle,

and the Indian with a club. But the Indian, being in want of backers to that amount, it went no further. Artur, he had been mad for a week, in a state of mind, in short, of which, if he had let him sit on the organ for only two minutes, I believe he would have bust. But we kept the organ from him, Mr. Chops come round, and behaved liberal and beautiful to all. He then sent for a young man he knowed, as had a

wary genteel appearance, and was a bonnet at a gaming booth. Most respectable brought up, father haven't been eminent in the livery stable line, but unfortunate

in a commercial crisis, through painting an old grey ginger bay and selling him with a pedigree. And Mr. Chops said to this bonnet, who said his name was Normandy,

which it wasn't, Normandy, I'm a-going into society. Will you go with me? Says Normandy, do I understand you, Mr. Chops, to hintimate that all of the expense of that move will be borne by

yourself. Correct, says Mr. Chops, and you shall have a princely allowance too. The monarch lifted Mr. Chops upon a chair to shake hands with him, and replied in poetry, with his eyes seemingly full of tears, My boat is on the shore, and my bark is on the sea, and I do not ask for more, but I'll go along with thee. They went into society with a chae and four greys with silk jackets. They took lodgings in Pell-Mell, London, and they blazed away. In consequence of a note

that was brought to Bartlemy Fair in the autumn of next year by a servant most wonderful got up in milk-white cords and tops, I cleaned myself up and went to Pell-Mell one evening a-panted. The gentleman was at their wine, out her dinner, and Mr. Chop's eyes were more fixed in that ed of his than I thought good for him. There was three of them in company, I mean, and I knowed the third well. When last met he had on a white Roman shirt and a bishop's mitre, covered with leopard skin, and played the clarinet all wrong in a band at a wild beast show.

This gentleman took on not to know me, and Mr. Chops said, "'Gentlemen, this is a old friend of former days,' and Normandy looked at me through a eye-glass and said, "'Magsman, glad to see you,' which I'll take my oath he wasn't. Mr. Chops, to get him convenience to the table, had his chair on a throne,

much of the form of George IV in the canvas, but he hardly appeared to me to be a king, there in any other point of view, for his two gentlemen ordered about like emperors. They was all dressed like May Day, gorgeous, and, as to wine, they swam in all sorts. I made the round of the bottles, first separate, to say I had done it, and then mixed them all

together, to say I had done it, and then tried two of them, as half and half, and then t'other two. Altogether I passed a pleasing evening, but with a tendency to feel muddled, until I considered it good manners to get up and say, Mr. Chops, the best of friends must part. I thank you for the wirity of a foreign range you have stood, so handsome. I looks towards you in red wine, and I takes my leave. Mr. Chops replied, If you just hitch me out of this over your right arm, Magsman, and carry me downstairs, I'll see you out.

I said I couldn't think of such a thing, but he would have it, so I lifted him off his throne. He smelt strong of Madeary, and I couldn't help thinking as I carried him down that it was like carrying a large bottle full of wine, with a rather ugly stopper, and a good deal out of proportion. When I set him on that doormat in the hall, he kept me close to him by holding onto my coat collar, and he whispers, I ain't happy, Magsman. What's on your mind, Mr. Chops?

They don't use me well. They ain't grateful to me. They puts me on the mantelpiece when I won't have in more champagne wine, and they locks me in the sideboard when I won't give up my property. Get rid of them, Mr. Chops. I can't. We're in society together, and what would society say? Come out of society, says I. I can't. You don't know what you're talking about. When you have once gone into society, you mustn't come out of it. Then, if you'll excuse the freedom, Mr. Chops,

were my remarks, shaking my head grave, I think it's a pity you ever went in. Mr. Chops shook that deep head of his to a surprising extent and slapped it half a dozen times with his hand, and with more whites than I thought were in him. Then he says, You're a good fellow, but you don't understand. Good night. Go along. Magsman, the little man will now walk three times round the caravan, and retire behind the curtain.

The last I see of him on that occasion was his trying on the extremist words of insensibility to climb up the stairs, one by one, with his hands and knees. They'd have been much too steep for him if he had been sober, but he wouldn't be helped. It weren't long after that that I read in the newspaper of Mr. Chops being presented at court. It was printed, it will be recollected, and I've noticed in my life that it is sure to be printed, that it will be recollected whenever it won't,

that Mr. Chops is the individual of small stature whose brilliant success in the last state lottery attracted so much attention. Well, I says to myself, such is life. He has been and done it in earnest at last. He has astonished George IV.

On account of which I had that canvas new painted, him with a bag of money in his hand, a-presentin' it to George IV, and a lady in ostrich feathers fallen in love with him in a bag-wig, sword, and buckles correct.

I took the house, as is the subject, a present inquiries, though not the honour of being acquainted, and I run Magsman's amusements in it thirteen months, sometimes one thing, sometimes another, sometimes nothing particular, but always all the canvases outside. One night, when we had played the last company out, which was a shy company,

through its raining heavens hard, I was taken a pipe in the one pair back along with the young man with the toes, which I had taken on for a month, though he never drawed except on paper, and I heard a kickin' at the street door. Hello, I says to the young man. What's up? He rubs his eyebrows with his toes, and he says, I can't imagine, Mr. Magsman, which he never could imagine nothin', and was monotonous company. The noise not leavin' off. I laid down my pipe,

and I took up a candle, and I went down and opened the door. I looked out into the street, but nothing could I see, and nothing was I aware of, until I turned round quick, because some creature run between my legs into the passage. There was Mr. Chops. Magsman, he says, take me on the old terms, and you've got me. If it's done, say done. I was all of a maze, but I said, done, sir. Done to your done, and double done, says he. Have you got a bit of supper in the house?

bearing in mind them sparkling varieties of foreign drains as we'd guzzled away at in pell-mell i was ashamed to offer him cold sausages and gin and water but he took em both and took em free having a chair for his table and sitting down at it on a stool like old times i all of amaze all the while it was arter he had made a clean sweep of the sasages beef and to the best of my calculations two pound and a quarter that the wisdom as was in that little man began to come out of him like

perspiration magsman he says look upon me you see afore you one as has both gone into society and come out oh you are out of it mr chops how did you get out sir sold out says he you never saw the like of the wisdom as his head expressed when he made use of them two words. My friend, Magsman, I'll impart to you a discovery I've made. It's wallable. It costs twelve thousand five hundred pound. It may do you good in life. The secret of this matter is that it ain't so much

that a person goes into society as that society goes into a person. Not exactly keeping up with his meaning, I shook my head, put on a deep look, and said, You're right there, Mr. Chops. "'Magsman,' he says, twitching me by the leg, "'society has gone into me to the tune of every penny of my property. "'I felt that I went pale, and though naturally a bold speaker,

"'I couldn't hardly say, where's Normandy?' "'Bolted, with the plate,' said Mr. Chops. "'And t'other one,' meaning him as formerly wore the bishop's mitre, "'bolted, with the jewels,' said Mr. Chops. "'I sat down and looked at him, and he stood up and looked at me.

Magsman, he says, and he seemed to himself to get wiser as he got hoarser, society, taken in the lump, is all dwarfs. At the court of St. James they was all a-doin' my old business, all a-goin' three times round the caravan in the old court suits and properties. Elsewhere's they was more of them ringin' their little bells out of make-believes.

Everywhere's the sorcerer was a-goin' round. Magsman, the sorcerer is a universal institution. I perceived you understand that he was soured by his misfortunes, and I felt for Mr. Chops. As to fat ladies, says he, giving his head a tremendous one,

again the wall, there's lots of them in society, and worse than the original. Hers was a outrage upon taste, simply a outrage upon taste, awaken in contempt, care in its own punishment in the form of an Indian. Here he give himself another tremendous one, but there's, Magsman,

theirs is a mercenary outridges. Lay in cashmere shawls, buy bracelets, strew em, and a lot of handsome fans and things about your rooms, let it be known that you give away like water to all as come to admire, and the fat ladies that don't exhibit for so much down upon the drum

will come from all the pints of a compass to flock upon you wherever you are. They'll drill holes in your art maximum like a colander, and when you've no more left to give, they'll laugh at you to your face and leave you to have your bones picked dry by wultures like the dead wild ass of the prairies that you deserve to be.

Here he give himself the most tremendous one of all, and dropped. I thought he was gone. His head was so heavy, and he knocked it so hard, and he fell so stony, and the sasagerial disturbance in him must have been so immense that I thought he was gone. But he soon come round with care, and he sat up on the floor,

and he said to me, with wisdom coming out of his eyes, if ever it come, Magsman, the most material difference between the two states of existence through which your unhappy friend has passed. He reached out his poor little hand, and his tears dropped down on the moustachio, which it was a credit to him to have done his best to grow, but it is not in mortals to command success. The difference is this. When I was out of society, I was paid light for

being seen. When I went into society, I paid heavy for being seen. I prefer the former, even if I wasn't forced upon it. Give me out through the trumpet, and in the hold away, to-morrow. Out of that he slid into the line again, as easy as if he had been isled all over. But the organ was kept from him, and no allusions was ever made, when a company was in, to his property. He got wiser every day, his views of society and the public was luminous, bewildering, awful, and his egg got

bigger and bigger as his wisdom expanded it. He took well, and pulled them in most excellent for nine weeks. At the expiration of that period, when his head was a sight, he expressed one evening, the last company having been turned out, and the door shut, a wish to have a little music. Mr. Chops, I said. I never drop the mister with him. The world might do it, but not me. Mr. Chops, are you sure, as you are in a state of mind and body, to sit upon the organ?

His answer was this. Toby, when next met with on the tramp, I forgive her and the Indian, and I am. It was with fear and trembling that I began to turn the handle, but he sat like a lamb. It will be my belief to my dying day that I see his head expand as he sat. You may therefore judge how great his thoughts was. He sat out all the changes, and then he come off. toby he says with a quiet smile the little man will now walk three times round the caravan and retire behind the curtain when we called him in the morning we found him gone into a much better society than mine or pell-mell's i give mr chops as comfortable a funeral as lay in my power

followed meself as chief, and had the George IV canvas carried first in the form of a banner, but the house was so dismal arterwards that I give it up and took to the wan again. I don't triumph, said Jarber, folding up the second manuscript and looking hard at Trottle. I don't triumph over this worthy creature. I merely ask him if he's satisfied now. "'How can he be anything else?' I said, answering for Trottle, who sat obstinately silent.

"'This time, Jarber, you have not only read us a delightful, amusing story, but you have also answered the question about the house. Of course it stands empty now. Who would think had taken it after it had been turned into a caravan?' I looked at Trottle, as I said those last words, and Jarber waved his hand indulgently in the same direction. Let this excellent person speak, said Jarber. You were about to say, my good man.

I only wish to ask, sir, said Trottle doggedly, if you could kindly oblige me with a date or two in connection with that last story. A date, repeated Jarber. What does the man want with dates? I should be glad to know, with great respect, persisted Trottle, if the person named Magsman was the last tenant who lived in the house. It's my opinion, if I may be excused for giving it that he most decidedly was not. With those words Trottle made a low bow and quietly

left the room. There is no denying that Jarber, when we were left together, looked sadly discomposed. He had evidently forgotten to inquire about dates, and in spite of his magnificent talk about his series of discoveries, it was quite as plain that the two stories he had just read had really and truly exhausted his present stock. I thought myself bound in common gratitude to help him out of his embarrassment by a timely suggestion. So I proposed that he should come to tea again

on the next Monday evening, the thirteenth, and should make such inquiries in the meantime as might enable him to dispose triumphantly of Trottle's objection. He gallantly kissed my hand, made a neat little speech of acknowledgment, and took his leave. For the rest of the week I would not encourage Trottle by allowing him to refer to the house at all. I suspected he was making his own inquiries about dates, but I put no questions to him. On Monday evening, the 13th,

that dear unfortunate jarber came punctual to the appointed time. He looked so terribly harassed that he was really quite a spectacle of feebleness and fatigue. I saw at a glance that the question of dates had gone against him, that Mr. Magsman had not been the last tenant of the house, and that the reason of his emptiness was still to seek. What I have gone through, said Jarber, words are not eloquent enough to tell.

Oh, so for Nisba, I have begun another series of discoveries. Accept the last two as stories laid on your shrine, and wait to blame me for leaving your curiosity unappeased, until you have heard number three. Number three looked like a very short manuscript, and I said as much. Jarber explained to me that we were to have some poetry this time. In the course of his investigations, he had stepped into the circulating library to seek for information on the one important subject.

All the library people knew about the house was that a female relative of the last tenant, as they believed, had, just after that tenant left, sent a little manuscript poem to them, which she described as referring to events that had actually passed in the house, and which she wanted the proprietor of the library to publish. She had written no address on her letter, and the proprietor had kept the manuscript ready to be given back to her, the publishing of poems not

being in his line, when she might call for it. She had never called for it, and the poem had been lent to Jarber at his express request to read to me. Before he began I rang the bell for Trottle, being determined to have him present at the new reading as a wholesome check on his obstinacy. To my surprise Peggy answered the bell and told me that Trottle had stepped out without saying where. I instantly felt the strongest possible conviction that he was at

his old tricks, and that his stepping out in the evening without leave meant philandering. Controlling myself on my visitor's account, I dismissed Peggy, stifled my indignation, and prepared, as politely as might be, to listen to Jarber. End of story 11