Then he hates with a deadly hatred all who make music in the street or next door—and preach in the crossways and bawl their wares on the parade. What would he have said of the Salvation Army? He is haunted by the bark of his neighbour's dog, by the crow of his neighbour's Cochin China cock; he cannot even bear his neighbour to have his chimney swept; and as for the Christmas waits—we all remember that tragic picture! This exaggerated aversion to noises became a disease with him, and possibly hastened his end.
Among his pet hates we must not forget the gorgeous flunky and the guzzling alderman, the leering old fop, the rascally book-maker, the sweating Jew tradesman, and the poor little snob (the 'Arry of his day) who tries vainly to grow a moustache, and wears such a shocking bad hat, and iron heels to his shoes, and shuns the Park during the riots for fear of being pelted for a "haristocrat," and whose punishment I think is almost in excess of his misdemeanor. To succeed in over-dressing one's self (as his swells did occasionally without marring their beauty) is almost as ignominious as to fail; and when the failure comes from want of means, there is also almost a pathetic side to it.
[Illustration: DOING A LITTLE BUSINESS
OLD EQUESTRIAN. "Well, but—you're not the boy I left my horse with!"
BOY. "No, sir; I jist spekilated, and bought 'im of t'other boy for a harpenny."—Punch.]
And he is a little bit hard on old frumps, with fat ankles and scraggy bosoms and red noses—but anyhow we are made to laugh—quod erat demonstrandum. We also know that he has a strong objection to cold mutton for dinner, and much prefers a whitebait banquet at Greenwich, or a nice well-ordered repast at the Star and Garter. So do we.
And the only thing he feared is the horse. Nimrod as he is, and the happiest illustrator of the hunting-field that ever was, he seems for ever haunted by a terror of the heels of that noble animal he drew so well—and I thoroughly sympathise with him!
In all the series the chief note is joyousness, high spirits, the pleasure of being alive. There is no Weltschmerz in his happy world, where all is for the best—no hankering after the moon, no discontent with the present order of things. Only one little lady discovers that the world is hollow, and her doll is stuffed with bran; only one gorgeous swell has exhausted the possibilities of this life, and finds out that he is at loss for a new sensation. So what does he do? Cut his throat? Go and shoot big game in Africa? No; he visits the top of the Monument on a rainy day, or invites his brother-swells to a Punch and Judy show in his rooms, or rides to Whitechapel and back on an omnibus with a bag of periwinkles, and picks them out with a pin!
Even when his humour is at its broadest, and he revels in almost pantomimic fun, he never loses sight of truth and nature—never strikes a false or uncertain note. Robinson goes to an evening party with a spiked knuckle-duster in his pocket and sits down. Jones digs an elderly party called Smith in the back with the point of his umbrella, under the impression that it is his friend Brown. A charming little street Arab prints the soles of his muddy feet on a smart old gentleman's white evening waistcoat.
Tompkyns writes Henrietta on the stands under two hearts transfixed by an arrow, and his wife, whose name is Matilda, catches him in the act. An old gentleman, maddened by a bluebottle, smashes all his furniture and breaks every window-pane but one—where the bluebottle is. And in all these scenes one does not know which is the most irresistible, the most inimitable—the mere drollery or the dramatic truth of gesture and facial expression.