Letter I.—To Peter Hedgehog, at Sydney.
Dear Peter,—at last I’m settled at my heart’s content. For fifteen years and more, I’ve been fighting, and punching, and screwing, and doing—the Lord forgive me!—all sorts of mean tricks to be respectable; and now I’m happy, for I’ve given the thing up. I’ve got rid of every bit of the gentleman, and drive a cab. Ha! you don’t know—you can’t think—what a blessing it is to get rid of all cares about what’s genteel. It’s like taking off fine tight boots, and stretching yourself in comfortable old slippers. How respectability did pinch, and gall, and rub the skin off me, to be sure; but I’ve done with it. I’ve given up the trumpery, for the good, stout, weather-proof character of cabman.
Respectability is all very well for folks who can have it for ready money; but to be obliged to run in debt for it—oh, it’s enough to break the heart of an angel. Well, I’ve gone a good round, and it’s nothing but right that I should be comfortable at last. Wasn’t all the sweetness of my little boyhood lost in an attorney’s office? At a time of life when I ought to have been bird’s-nesting, shoeing cats with walnut-shells, spinning cock-chafers on pins, and enjoying myself like any other child of my age—there I was half the day wearing out a wooden desk with my young breast-bone, and the other half running about, like a young cannibal, to serve writs: sneaking and shuffling, and lying worse than any playbill, and feeling as happy as a devil’s imp on a holiday whenever I “served” my man. Yes, Peter, that I’ve any more heart than an oyster left me, is a special favour of Providence; for what a varmint I was! If it hadn’t been for the playhouse, I should have been ruined. Yes, Peter, but for the Coburg Theatre, I have no doubt that at this time I should have been a sharp attorney, not able to smell as much as a lucifer-match without the horrors. ’Tis a great place for morals, the playhouse, Peter. As I say, it quite drew me back into the paths of virtue. Old Simcox, my master, to keep me active, used to give me a shilling for every writ I served. He used to say there was nothing like rubbing a young dog’s nose in the blood, to make him sharp after the game.
Well, with these shillings I used to go to the Coburg gallery. That gallery was my salvation. When I used to see the villain, who’d been so lucky all through the piece, chopped down like chopped wood at the last, my conscience used to stir worse than the stomach-ache. And so by degrees I liked the playhouse more, and the writs less. And one day when Simcox told me to go and serve a writ upon the very actor who used to do me so much good—for he was always the cock of the walk as far as virtue went—I gave him such a speech about “tremble, villain, for there is an eye,” that the old fellow gasped again. When he had recovered himself enough to fling a ruler at my head, I put on my cap and turned my back upon the law. After this, I sold playbills at the Coburg doors, and that ’s how I picked up the deal I know about the stage.
And so I went scrambling on till twenty, and how I lived I don’t know. Indeed, when I look back, I often think money’s of no use at all; folks do quite as well, or better, without it. Money’s a habit—nothing more. At twenty—how it happened I can’t tell—I found myself a tradesman. Yes; I sold baked ’tatoes, and—on nipping winter days—used to feel myself a sort of benefactor to what is called our species. I had read a little at book-stalls and so on; and many a time have I, with a sort of pride, asked myself if many of the Roman emperors ever sold ’tatoes, salt, and a bit of butter for a penny? I should think not. Well, at three-and-twenty down came that bit of money on me! Whether it was really a relation who left it or not, or whether it was all a mistake, I never asked—I took the money. And that bit of money made me swell not a little. Yes; I swelled like a toad—full of poison with it. Then I went to make no end of a fortune. I thought luck had fallen deep in love with me, and I couldn’t go too far. There was a gentleman who always came with an order to the Coburg. A few years ago I should have said he was a Jew; but now I know manners, and so call him a gentleman of the Hebrew persuasion. Well; if he couldn’t talk melted butter! We were both to make our fortunes, but I was to find the money for the couple. We went upon ’Change; and, as he said, both of us were ruined. Ruin, however, could have been nothing strange to him, for he never seemed the worse for it. From that time, Peter, I was flung upon the hard stones of London. I had too much pride to go to the ’tatoes again, and so took to billiards. Ha! Peter, it’s dirty bread; it’s bread with the headache and the heartache in it. That wouldn’t do long; though how I did shuffle, and hedge, and make the most of the innocent, and all to try and keep myself respectable.
I tell you, for fifteen years I fought it out like a man. I didn’t care what came of it, what folks said of me—I would be respectable. A superfine coat and a prime dinner I would have; but ha, Peter! it’s all been taken out of me. I’ve given it up, I tell you, and I’m a happy cabman. Bless your soul! you can’t think what a happy life it is. Always seeing something new, and always riding with somebody. For you must know my cab isn’t one of the new concerns that divide the drive and his fare. That wouldn’t suit me nohow. No; I like to ride upon what I call an equality, and talk and learn life as I go; you can’t believe the sort of people that I sometimes drive about, and the things I get out of ’em. But I intend to write it all down, and to save the bother of posting, and all that, to print my letters at once. Then if my dear relations and acquaintance that are scattered in all the corners of the world don’t know anything about me, ’twill be their fault, not mine.
I couldn’t have thought that a cabman’s life could have so improved the mind. But when we meet at the Spotted Lion—that’s our watering-house—there’s something to be heard, I can tell you. I never troubled my head with politics before I drove a cab: no, I was little better than an animal; but I should think that now I know something of the Bill of Rights, and all that, and all from the newspapers. When the nosebag’s on the old mare, don’t I read the debates in Parliament!
I was going to write you a bit upon the Sugar Question, but old Lumpy—he’s our waterman—has called me for a job. So at present no more from your cousin and wellwisher,
Juniper Hedgehog.