Next morning at breakfast, I declare I couldn’t rest easy until we had Mr. Dick Farden up in the room, and when Edward reminded him of what had taken place the day before; the impudent fellow only stood there grinning and polishing the top of his oil-skin cap with his elbow, and saying that, of course, a gentleman so well acquainted with London as my husband, was very well aware of what he was after. That he had got no contraband articles to dispose of, and wasn’t such a stupid as to go infringing the laws, and running the chance of paying a hundred pounds odd for supplying the public with foreign articles, when many of them couldn’t tell the difference between them and the real, genuine English goods.
And then the fellow went on and told us a whole pack of things,—how what he called his prime smuggled Havannahs were no more nor less than those that were imported from the extensive cabbage plantations of Fulham, into the snuff and tobacco manufacturies in the Minories, and his very best pale or brown French cognac, and which he always warranted to his customers to be the very best that France could produce, was none other than the real spirit of the potato, commonly known by the name of British brandy; and the whole cargo of it that he had in his possession had been run in a splendid lugger of a chay-cart all the way from Smithfield; although, of course, to give it a genuine foreign flavour, he told the gentlemen a long cock-and-a-bull-story, as to how, at the perils of their lives, and at the outlay of upwards of a hundred pounds spent in bribing the revenue officers, he and his pals had succeeded in running it safe ashore at Deal, after a three hours’ chase by one of the finest cutters in the revenue service.
After this, it was no very difficult matter to see that the man was no more a smuggler than I was, so I asked him how it was that the gentlemen were stupid enough to buy his things? But he very frankly told me the whole secret, saying, that as the parties whom he went up to were mostly young men from the counting-houses, he generally commenced by calling them, “noble captains,” because they liked to be thought to be in the army, and having tickled with this, he said the other part of the business was mere child’s play—for the delicious flavour of a thing being foreign, together with the fine perfume of the idea that it was smuggled, was quite sufficient to make the youths of London buy and swallow anything.
As I saw he was inclined to go on, I wasn’t going to spoil the fun by interrupting him; so he continued saying that the whole world had a taste for smuggling, and the ladies in particular; and for his part, if ever he had any idea of going into the real genuine smuggling profession, he told me that, from the observations he had made while following the imitation business, he should decidedly man all his cutters with women,—that was to say, provided they were “thin ’uns,” as he elegantly expressed it,—for, of course, if the ladies were stout, the extension of their figures with any foreign produce would not only raise the suspicions of the officers, but likewise prevent their getting easily through the custom-house, while, if the angels were slightly made, nothing was simpler than to fatten the poor spare things with lace, or to pad them into perfect Venuses with white kid gloves. Indeed, he said, the corset-makers, knowing the natural propensity of the female sex for contraband goods, seemed to have designed one article of feminine attire simply with a view of defrauding the custom-house; for he had heard of one old lady who had brought home in her bustle alone (and which, asking my pardon, he said was the article of feminine attire that he alluded to) twelve yards of the best French velvet—upwards of forty-two of Valenciennes lace—a dozen of cambric pocket-handkerchiefs—and three dozen of white kid gloves—nine pair of silk stockings—a pair of stays—and a wig. But, to be sure, he added, she was a “werry thin ’un, Mam,”—insomuch so, indeed, that had Captain Johnson, or any other eminent smuggler, known of her natural propensity for infringing the laws, he would have given her any sum she might name to have entered his service; for positively and truly, she would have taken any amount of foreign produce, and would have borne cramming as well as a turkey.
I declare the man was such a chatter-box, that I verily believe he would have gone on talking for a twelvemonth, if we had only let him. But as I saw that he was determined to say all he could against my sex, of course I wasn’t going to sit quietly there and listen to it, while Mr. Edward kept chuckling at all he said against the women, like a ninny; so I told Mr. Dick Farden that he had better go down-stairs, and look after the knives, though really it would, in the end, have been much better for me if I had turned him out of the house on the spot; for—— But as Mr. Savill, my bothering printer, tells me that he can’t possibly squeeze any more of my domestic distresses into this number, why, my gentle readers must wait till the next month before they learn how Mr. Dick Farden served me, after all.
CHAPTER XI.
MORE ABOUT that MR. DICK FARDEN—HOW REALLY AND TRULY THERE WAS NO TRUSTING THE FELLOW TO DO A SINGLE THING, FOR POSITIVELY HE SPOILT EVERYTHING HE PUT HIS HAND TO, (IF, INDEED TO DO THE MAN JUSTICE, I EXCEPT THE BOOTS AND KNIVES)—AND HOW, WHEN AT LAST HE SO COMPLETELY RUINED MY LOVE OF A PIANO, THAT ACTUALLY MY “BROADWOOD” WAS ONLY FIT FOR FIREWOOD, (IF THAT,) I WISHED TO GOODNESS GRACIOUS I HAD BEEN A MAN FOR HIS SAKE—BUT AS IT WAS, I MERELY TOLD HIM THAT SUCH GOINGS ON WOULD NOT SUIT me, AND THAT HE HAD BETTER GO AND PLAY HIS PRANKS ELSEWHERE, FOR I WASN’T GOING TO PUT UP WITH THEM ANY LONGER, I COULD TELL HIM.
“He seemed confounded—vexed—he stared—
Then vow’d he’d ne’er deceive me;
Says I, ‘Your presence can be spared,
Sir, if you please, do leave me.’”
* * * * *
* * * * *
“Now pray,” says I, “don’t teaze, young man,
You don’t exactly suit me.”
“You don’t exactly Suit Me.”
G. Herbert Rodwell.
The courteous reader will perhaps recollect that Mr. Savill, my bothering printer (as I couldn’t help calling him last month), came in, just at the most interesting part of my narrative about Mr. Dick Farden, and in a most unrelenting manner cut short the thread of my tale with the scissors: “of want of space.” Not that I should have minded so much about it, only the worst of it was, I had warmed so nicely into my story, and really had grown so hot upon it, just at the very moment when in walked Mr. Savill, to throw cold water upon me, with his precious “No more room, ma’m.” And it isn’t easy for a person of poetic mind to have to warm up her feelings a second time, as if the heart were so much cold mutton, or beef, or pork; although, for the matter of that, I think my fair readers will agree with me that pork makes but an indifferent hash, and that nothing on earth can be nicer than a cold boiled leg with a nice mixed pickle, especially in summer time, when hot joints are so disagreeable.
Well, but I think I hear the reader exclaiming, “Goodness gracious, my dear Mrs. Sk—n—st—n, you are allowing your fertile imagination to run away with you, and you have so interested us with your sufferings, that our only happiness lies in listening to your miseries. So “revenons à nos moutons,” and Mr. Dick Farden’s capers.”