“Tutt—tutt—tutt,” exclaimed Mr Dodd impatiently, as he went to the foot of the well staircase, opened the stove damper, and then stooped down to open the door and see whether a spark yet remained.
It was well for Mr Dodd that he stooped as he did, for with a fearful crash down came a coal-scuttle from the second floor, striking from side to side of the well staircase, and bestowing upon the stooping gentleman’s bald head a regular douche of knubbly coals, mingled with dust, while the copper scuttle itself fell upon the stove, and knocked off the pineapple knob which formed its apex.
“Lawk-a-mercy, sir, what a good job as it wasn’t the scuttle,” exclaimed Mary, as her master shook himself free from the cheerful coal, and gazed up at the skylight at the top of the staircase, to see whence came the fearful shower, but only to find his eyes resting upon the fat, round, inanimate countenance of the page staring over the bannisters, perfectly aghast at the mischief.
The explanation Mr Dodd sought was most simple. Mr Dodd had not yet fitted his house with a hydraulic lift, after the fashion of those used in our Brobdignagian hotels, but had contented himself with a crane and winch for drawing up coals and other loads. This machine, too, was a failure from the ignorance and apathy of the page, who was a regular grit in Mr Dodd’s cog-wheels, and who this very morning, from some mismanagement, had nearly offered up his master as a sacrifice upon the altar of science.
Under these untoward circumstances Mr Dodd went and acted in the most sensible of ways, that is to say, he went and washed himself; but it is not surprising that he should afterwards feel more gritty than ever when he sat down to partake of his matutinal coffee, made in a patent pot with an impossible name. He boiled his eggs, too, himself, by means of a small tin affair—patent, of course—in which a certain quantity of spirit of wine was burned, and when extinct the eggs were done.
Mr Dodd finished his breakfast in a very excitable and vicious manner. He felt sore, mentally and bodily sore, for his inventions and patents were his hobby, and they either would not work right, or people would not take the trouble to comprehend them. He suffered terribly; but for all that he persevered, and, being a bachelor, he did as he liked. And, being a bachelor, what wonder that he should have a sewing-machine, and amuse himself with his Wheeler and Lathe in stitching round the half-dozen new table-cloths? But the sewing-machine was useless for buttons, so Mr Dodd set to, to invent one that should meet that want, and so be a blessing for every single man. A week passed—two weeks—three weeks; and then, after no end of brain work and modelling for the new machine, to be called the patent button-fixer, invented by Mr Dagon Dodd, that gentleman didn’t do it, and gave up, if not in despair, at all events in despair’s first cousin.
But Boxing-day seemed to have set in badly; while Mr Dodd felt ill-disposed to suffer the stings and arrows. According to the old saying, “it never rains but it pours”—in this case coals—and while the hero of these troubles was sternly gazing upon his fire, with a foot planted against each bright cheek of the stove, Mary came to announce the arrival of a tradesman, now in attendance to take certain orders.
Mr Dodd tried to place himself in a less American position, but found that he was a fixture. It was a wet, slushy morning, and Mr D had determined to try the new patent compo-ment-elastical-everlasting-soled boots—a new patent, and one which should have been devoted to the practice of walking upon ceilings, for they were now tightly fixed to the sides of the fireplace, and Mr Dodd in them, to his unutterable discomfort and annoyance. At the first he imagined that it must be owing to the tar he burned upon his fire—a coke fire, whose combustion was aided by the drips from a small vessel behind the register, containing tar; but Mr D soon found that the material of his new impervious boot-soles was alone to blame; and consequently while the man waited he unlaced and set himself at liberty, a culmination at which he did not arrive without slipping off his chair once, and coming into sharp contact with the fender.
Mr Dodd determined in future to stick to his shoes, for it was evident that his boots meant to stick to something else, and they did too so tightly that they had to be flayed off with the carving-knife, and not easily either, for sometimes the knife became a fixture, and at others the sole became again attached, while the heel was set at liberty, and vice versâ. So Mr Dodd felt ill-tempered.
“Now, Mr Pouter,” said Mr Dodd at last to the tradesman, who had been for some time standing within the door, and smelling very strongly of glue; “now, Mr Pouter, I want the door-springs eased a little, and I want this fixed.”