I remained with Mr Drummond about eight months, when at last the new clerk made his appearance—a little fat fellow, about twenty, with a face as round as a full moon, thick lips, and red cheeks. During this time I frequently had the pleasure of meeting with old and young Tom, who appeared very anxious that I should rejoin them; and I must say that I was equally willing to return to the lighter. Still Mr Drummond put his veto on it, and Mrs Drummond was also constantly pointing out the very desirable situation I might have on shore as a clerk in the office; but I could not bear it—seated nearly the whole day—perched up on a high stool—turning over Debtors, contra Creditors, and only occasionally interrupted by the head clerk, with his attempt to make rhymes. The new clerk came, I expected my release, but I was disappointed. Mr Drummond discovered him to be so awkward, and the head clerk declared that the time was so busy, that he could not spare me. This was true; Mr Drummond had just come to a final arrangement, which had been some time pending, by which he purchased a wharf and large warehouses, with a house adjoining, in Lower Thames Street—a very large concern, for which he had paid a considerable sum of money. What with the valuations, winding up of the Brentford concern on the old account, etcetera, there was much to do, and I toiled at the desk until the removal took place; and when the family were removed, I was still detained, as there was no warehouseman to superintend the unloading and hoisting up of goods. Mr Tomkins, the head clerk, who had been many years a faithful servant to Mr Drummond, was admitted a partner, and had charge of the Brentford wharf, a species of promotion which he and his wife resolved to celebrate with a party. After a long debate, it was resolved that they should give a ball, and Mrs Tomkins exerted all her taste and ingenuity on the occasion. My friend Tomkins lived at a short distance from the premises, in a small house, surrounded with half an acre of garden, chiefly filled with gooseberry-bushes, and perambulated by means of four straight gravel walks. Mr and Mrs Drummond were invited, and accepted the invitation, which was considered by the Tomkinses as a great mark of condescension. As a specimen of Mr Tomkins’s poetical talents, I shall give his invitation to Mr Drummond, written in the very best German text:—
“Mr and Mrs T—
Sincerely hope to see
Mr and Mrs Drum-
Mond, to a very hum-
Ble party that they in-
Tend to ask their kin
To, on the Saturday
Of the week ensuing:
When fiddles they will play,
And other things be doing.”
Belle Vue House.
To which jeu d’esprit Mr Drummond answered with a pencil on a card—
“Mr and Mrs Drum-
Mond intend to come.”
“Here, give Tomkins that, Jacob; it will please him better than any formal acceptation.” Mr and Mrs Turnbull were also asked; the former accepted, but the latter indignantly refused.
When I arrived with Mr and Mrs Drummond many of the company were there; the garden was what they called illuminated, that is, every gooseberry-bush had one variegated lamp suspended above the centre; and, as Mr Tomkins told me afterwards, the lamps were red and yellow, according to the fruit they bore. It was a cold, frosty, clear night, and the lamps twinkled as brightly among the bare boughs of the gooseberry trees as the stars did in the heavens. The company in general were quite charmed with the novelty. “Quite a minor Wauxhall,” cried one lady, whose exuberance of fat kept her warm enough to allow her to stare about in the open air. The entrance porch had a dozen little lamps, backed with laurel twigs, and looked very imposing. Mrs Tomkins received her company upon the steps outside, that she might have the pleasure of hearing their praises of her external arrangements; still it was freezing, and she shivered not a little. The drawing-room, fourteen feet by ten, was fitted up as a ballroom, with two fiddlers and a fifer sitting in a corner and a country-dance was performing when we arrived. Over the mantle-piece was a square of laurel twigs, inclosing as a frame this couplet from the poetical brain of the master of the house, cut out in red paper, and bespangled with blue and yellow tinsel—
“Here we are to dance so gay,
While the fiddlers play away.”
Other appropriate distichs, which I have now forgotten, were framed in the same way on each of the other compartments. But the dining-room was the chef d’oeuvre. It was formed into a bower, with evergreens, and on the evergreen boughs were stuck real apples and oranges in all directions, so that you could help yourself.
“Vell, I do declare, this is a paradise!” exclaimed the fat lady who entered with me.
“In all but one thing, ma’am,” replied Mr Turnbull, who, with his coat off, was squeezing lemons for the punch—“there’s no forbidden fruit. You may help yourself.”