Mr. Brown has jotted the events, in his Diary, in a hand scarcely legible. It must have been penned in a somnambulistic fit—thinking he was at a meeting of St. Stiff’s vestry, in the union board-room,—for, after a list of member’s present (the names of his guests), Captain de Camp in the chair, follow these minutes of proceedings:—Firstly, that one Spohf be dismissed as organist of St. Stiff’s, confined in the idiot-ward, fed on water gruel, and handed over to his own parish (Vienna); proposed by Latimer, and seconded by Wellesley de Camp. The second proposition appears to be to the effect that a vagrant named Brick, dealer in hearth-stones, be confined in the refractory-ward, and fed upon bread and water.
The morning after the festivities London oversleeps itself:—and, awaking, finds it boxing-day. Variegated dips are being disseminated among delighted, dirty, juveniles; whilst the boys seem chagrined at notices for “the extinction of abuses,” or “suppression of Christmas-boxes;” which seems only to make them the more pertinacious at Victoria Villa: for an irregular dustman has chalked the post, and the Postman
vowed to mark Mr. Brown; the Turncock is turned off; the Waits have to “wait a little longer;” and the Beadle, who declared Mr. Brown no generous churchwarden, has, withal,
found enough alcohol to make him stupid before night—causing that dignitary to cry a lost boy instead of a girl, and to see twice as many posts round St. Stiff’s as usual; taking half of them to be boys about to vault over the other half, he rushes on to disperse them, soundly chastising the granite.
All the little boys secure their mites before mid-day; taking their posts at the gallery-door of a popular theatre, five hours before opening, to practise that rare virtue, patience, at the shrine of “Hot Codlings,” and “George Barnwell.”
Master Ichabod Strap, in his richest yellow breeches, and burnished badge of St. Stiff the Martyr, is perambulating the parish with his gay phylactery, or Christmas-piece—“The History of Joseph,” painted, like the coat, in many colours:—he shows it to Mrs. Brown, who approves the performance; “stroking the head of modest and ingenuous worth that blushed at its own praise;” measuring
the boy at a glance, and proffering him promotion in the shape of an uniform, of buttons, just vacated by a youth—called by his peers “Nobby Jones,” but by his mistress “Alphonso;”—who, having grown to the great risk of buttons and stitches, was dispossessed of his regimentals, being sent home one dark night in his bed-gown. “Ichabod” promises to resign that title and all connection with the dirty boys, to reign as Alphonso the second page; being missed by Mr. Spohf, for whom he used to blow the organ, in the little second floor—a bereavement Mrs. B. enjoyed, saying, she wondered how the unworthy little animal would raise the wind now.
