"Not half so much as mine," answered Carlini; "for his has been all prosperity from beginning to end, and mine has been continually changing, as you will see."
CARLINI'S STORY.
>
"The first thing that I remember was running about in the streets of Naples, a ragged boy, without shoes, stockings, jacket, or hat. I suppose I had a father and mother, if I did but know who they were; but of that they took very good care I should never be informed, and, to tell the truth, I have no great curiosity on the subject. My name was universally admitted by all my companions to be Carlo, which in your language means Charles; and when I was about eight years old, a much bigger Carlo than myself having joined the band of little vagabonds to which I had been attached from infancy, I acquired the name of Carlini, which in your language means Little Charles. Till I was nine years old, where I slept, how I was clothed, and what I fed upon, were three miracles, not at all less curious than the liquefying of the blood of St. Januarius; but at nine years old my first change of fortune took place. The two Carlos in the same troop could not agree. Carloni thrashed Carlini, and Carlini immediately deserted. I remember very well, the second day after I had quitted my band, standing, with a faint heart and a feeling of exceeding solitude, before the shop of a barber, who, I found afterwards, had just lost his apprentice by fever. My back was turned to the shop, for I little thought that any good would come out of it for me, when I suddenly found something touch me, and turning round I saw a basin stretched out through one of the small open panes, while the voice of the barber exclaimed, 'Here, boy, run and fill that with fresh water at the fountain.' I need not say how gladly I ran, and filling the basin I brought it back; but, to make sure of some reward, I did not give it in at the window again, but carried it in at once by the door. There I found a stout, tall man, just shaved, to whom the barber with great respect handed the basin of water, into which his face and eyes were immediately plunged. Seeing the barber very zealous to show every attention in putting his customer's dress to rights, I thought I could not do better than ape his civility, by going down upon my knees and brushing the dust off the stranger's shoes with the ragged sleeve of my shirt, which certainly was not much more dirty when I had done than when I began. However, my attention pleased the stranger, and he gave me a piece of copper of the value of a penny. It was the first money I recollect ever having had in my life, and I fancied it would have bought half of Naples. The same barber's shop became a sort of treasury to me. For two months I continued to plant myself before the window, either lying on the stones in the sun and pitching little bits of bones to and fro, or standing and watching to see if I could be of service. The shaver was a kind old man enough, and did not forget me. From time to time he would throw any little job in my way, such as holding a gentleman's horse, brushing his shoes, or carrying a message; and when there was nothing of this kind to be done and I looked very hungry, he would give me two or three handfuls of pasta, or a lump of bread. He found me active, diligent, and faithful; and, contriving to live, principally upon his charity, and to save all the little sums which I got, I was at length enabled to purchase some articles of decent dress, and appear at my old post with a much more respectable exterior. The old man was delighted, not only with the change in my appearance, but with the self-command which had furnished me with the means; and, taking me into his shop, he asked me a great number of questions about myself, preparatory, as it turned out, to engaging me in his service. He could not have found one whose mind was more open to instruction than mine. It was like a bag, ready to be filled, for there was actually nothing in it. I could neither read, write, nor calculate. I knew no tongue but the jargon of the lazzaroni; and I didn't even know my own name--which was, perhaps, no great evil after all. Well, at the end of three days from that time I was fully installed as barber's boy. I learnt to shave, to dress hair, to sharpen razors, to make perfumes and cosmetics, to bleed, and on an occasion to draw a tooth. All this my master taught me gratis, he having my services at the same rate. Nevertheless, he fed me, and though neither very delicately nor very abundantly, the food was so superior to any I had ever had before, that in despite of a lean nature I grew fat. The little gratuities I received from time to time furnished the small stock of clothes I wanted, and enabled me to get some instruction in matters which did not come within the sphere of my worthy master. I taught myself to read; I learned to write; I acquired a competent knowledge of arithmetic. I picked up a little French amongst the people at the port; for a Frenchman thinks that every one is bound to speak his language, and that he is bound to speak none but his own. I learned a great deal of Spanish, without any difficulty at all; and at the end of five or six years I flattered myself that I was a very accomplished barber. My old master was now beginning to be stricken in years, and much less active than he had been; so that at length we divided the work between us, he remaining at home, to shave and dress those who came to the shop, and I going out to the more courtly customers, who required attendance at their own houses. The business still remained very good; and I cannot help flattering myself that I had some share in keeping it up and increasing it. My old master seemed so far sensible that this was the case as spontaneously to offer me one-fourth of the receipts, for which I was most grateful, although I had three-fourths of the labour. I had a sincere affection for the old man, for he was the only father I had ever known; but he was not destined to remain long with me. I was not nineteen when the old man died. His relations claimed his shop and his implements, even to an old, worn-out shaving-brush, which would have rubbed the skin off a rhinoceros; but the business remained with me. I took the shop next door, stocked it, and beautified it, with the money I had saved, and was shaving, powdering, and pomatuming from morning till night. Most unluckily, a Spanish grandee, who passed a winter in Naples, placed his head and chin under the immediate superintendence of Carlo Carlini. I was soon taken into great favour; and, as this nobleman was about to return to his own country in the spring, he exerted all his eloquence to persuade me that my talents were quite thrown away in the city of Naples. Madrid, he said--Madrid was the only fitting theatre for the display of my genius. It was the Elysium of barbers, where I was certain to find myself completely happy.
"He offered even to take me in his own suite, defraying all my expenses by the way; and he promised that I should shave every friend he had in the world, and powder and perfume all his mistresses, who were many. In an evil hour I yielded. Off we set for Madrid, and very well did my Spanish patron keep his word till we reached that city. I fared sumptuously along the road; and, the system of favouritism being universal in Spain, I was considered his highness's favourite, and treated accordingly; but, unfortunately, after our arrival in Madrid, wars and rumours of wars broke out very soon, and the duke was prevented from carrying out his views in my favour by the strong hand of death, which seized him just as I had established myself in the Spanish capital, and was obtaining a little of the promised custom. My days of prosperity were now at an end. My little capital gradually diminished; my patients did not increase; my stock of smart clothing wore out, and six pairs of while silk stockings--absolute necessaries to a Spanish barber--were reduced to three. As the very utmost neatness and cleanliness are required in that country, you may easily suppose that my silk stockings made frequent visits to the wash-tub; and my lavandera, who was the most punctual of women, had the strictest injunctions to return that indispensable part of my apparel at a certain hour on the day after she had received them. She was, be it remarked, a very pretty woman, and had captivated the heart of one of the royal guard, whom I not unfrequently saw at her house, and found him an exceedingly amiable, good-humoured young man. One morning, as my good fortune would have it, my silk stockings did not return. The preceding day had been rainy; and, although it does not often rain in Madrid, yet when it does there is plenty of mud in the streets. A prince and a duke were waiting to be shaved; and after waiting in a state of acute anguish for half-an-hour, I was obliged to sally forth in my dirty stockings. I lost two of my best customers; but fortune and misfortune are always intimately mingled in the affairs of this life. What I thought my ruin was the dawn of my most prosperous day. I rushed down to the lavandera. I scolded like a madman about my silk stockings. I demanded that she should instantly produce them. She could not do so, and I accused her of having pawned them. Thereupon she burst into tears, and acknowledged that she had lent them to Manuel G----y, the royal guard, who was to appear that day on duty at the queen's dinner. A mysterious hint had been given him, by an old lady of the court, to dress himself as handsomely as possible, intimating that his future success in life might depend very much upon his personal appearance. As soon as I learned that they had been lent to G----y, for whom I had a real regard, my wrath evaporated. 'Let him keep them as long as he likes,' I said, 'and tell him, when my silk stockings have made his fortune, I hope he will make mine; but in the mean time, my good girl, though I have only two pairs left, you must contrive that I have a clean pair each day.' The girl afterwards assured me that she had given him my message, and that G----y said he would not forget me. But what was my surprise, not a week after, to hear that he had received a lieutenant's commission in his corps!--and then, with the most marvellous rapidity, came the intelligence of his being a captain, colonel, general, a grandee of Spain, a prince, a prime minister. During all this time I heard nothing of him, and I concluded----"[[1]]
"Here is that person again, sir, inquiring for the colonel," said the inferior waiter, whose peculiar task it was to attend upon the 'gentlemen's gentlemen.'
"Send him in; send him in," said Carlini, stopping in his story. "You, Mr. Brown, have to deal with him, you know."
The moment after, the door was again opened, and Mr. Mingy Bowes entered, his face suddenly assuming a look of extreme surprise on perceiving the person of the pedlar before him.
CHAPTER XXIX.
It was a fine summer afternoon, when a carriage-and-four--a thing by no means uncommon in those days, though as rare as a bustard at present--dashed into the small town of Belford, at that sort of pace which shows well-paid postboys, if not well-fed horses. I find, by a statistical account of that part of Europe which lies between the Aln and the Tweed, and which in former days was frequently subjected to inundation from the great northern reservoir of mosstroopers, that, under the beneficial influence of a more civilized state of society, the small town of Belford had increased and prospered, till, on the day of which I am writing, it was computed to contain no less than one hundred and seventy-three-houses, and nine hundred and forty-seven inhabitants. The greater proportion of the inhabitants possessed no stockings, and very few shoes. I say the greater proportion; for it had been an immemorial privilege of that portion of the citizens of Belford which had not yet attained the age of fourteen, to wear upon their legs and feet the covering with which nature had provided them, and none else. Some of the higher classes, with that neglect of their rights which they often show, had suffered the privilege above mentioned to fall into desuetude. The children of the clergyman always, and of the Presbyterian minister sometimes, wore shoes and stockings. So also did those of the doctor, the lawyer, the two principal shopkeepers, and the landlord of the inn; but all, or very nearly all, the rest adhered to their right, with strong determination; and after the carriage ran a multitude of boys and girls, whose feet had never been tightened and spoiled by compression in cotton or leather. It was not, indeed, that the climate of Belford was particularly like that of Eden, which dispensed, as we all know, with the necessity of any great superfluity of garments. On the contrary, the north wind visited it fresh from home; so much so as to have generated a despair of cultivation, which after efforts have proved to be very unreasonable. Andrew Fairservice's crop of early nettles gave, in those days, a very fair specimen of the sort of horticulture practised at Belford; and, not very many years before the period of my tale, an old woman used to walk through the town with a basket on her arm, crying, at different seasons of the year, the following rare and in many instances unknown fruits, the names of which, be it remarked, I give in her own peculiar dialect, though I cannot convey to the reader any idea of the tone, something between a song and a squeal, in which she offered her produce to the public. "Hips, haws, slees, and bummle-berriers; cherries, ripe grosiers, nipes (turnips) sweet as honey!" were the sounds she uttered, and in them consisted very nearly the whole catalogue of fruit brought to market at Belford.