The persevering Brown, though much fatigued, does not postpone the Diary:—“January 4th, Friday—Execrable Friday!—We this day gave our Annual Ball—we, indeed!—why I knew nothing about it until all the cards had been despatched. Mrs. Brown asks—just as Tom does, if he may have the sugar, when it is half consumed:—It was Mrs. Brown’s ball in every sense. I did hope to have experienced more enjoyment for the money. I have many a time been happier at half the price;—ay, happier when I was clerk at Chizzle and Filch’s, in Aldermanbury; but, somehow, I suppose a man must make sacrifices for his friends, as penurious old Chizzle did, when he paid the debt of nature, and left to me that he could not take away! Not that I ever made any sacrifices for Spohf—no, he never asked it;—cheap trusty friendship is something!—I must own to feeling, all the evening, as if my collar had too much starch therein; and more out of place in my own house than
the ‘white neckerchiefs’ that waited at supper. I am like a fish out of water, and that fish, a flat-fish—caught with a bit of red rag; however, there must be a great deal in use—another element may be delightful, when used to it. There is no doubt my old friend Wideawake’s attack upon the Captain was mere envy; and as to his insinuating that I should never eat a peck of salt with that man—to say I shall never know that man, is preposterous!—as to eating the literal peck, no man, probably, will do that; for the Captain has an aversion to saline food, saying it makes the bones soft. I wonder if it has the same effect upon brains!—We shall see, Wideawake—we shall see:—let this page bear testimony! I hope the briny ocean may not swallow up the Captain’s luggage.”
Victoria and Albert slumber late on the morning of the 5th:—Alphonso is the first up—or rather down, having rolled off his uncomfortable bed, constructed upon four chairs, in the drawing-room. Mrs. Brown, too, must have risen on the wrong side of her teaster, so testy is she this morning—thanking her stars that Twelfth-day has arrived, to put an end to the Christmas miseries!—Soon, now, will that little pest, Tom, be packed back to “Tortwhack House;” and the juvenile party, of to-day, it is hoped may appease some rampant mammas uninvited to the grand réunion—rendering any petty excuses that may be given the more feasible.
The day rolls rapidly away, though not with half the speed Master Brown could desire—the hands of the hall-clock appearing to creep so,
that every time Tom passed it (and that was not seldom), he stopped to see if it was going, the day seeming most unusually long, and night as if it never would come; but it did!—firstly, bringing the little “Merrys,” from Hope Cottage, the Tudor lodge, next-door-but-one—Master Walter Merry being the first to answer Tommy’s nubbly note of invitation, in intoxicated text capitals, that appeared to be making a desperate effort to run off the paper, at the right-hand corner, leaving no room to “remain,” and scarcely any to “please turn over;” so folded was it, to give the desired angular form, that the paper looked as if it had been used to make five hundred geometrical cocks and boats.
Tom met the Merrys with such fervent joy, that he never thought they had healths, or anything else to ask after; his only object, seeming to be the finding of his friend, who is rolled, like a mummy, in numberless boas and shawls:—during the process of unswathing, which was no easy job to one in a hurry, so artfully were the pins introduced, Master Tommy treats his friend Walter to a railroad retrospective review of the good things in store—recounting all the “lummy” things left yesterday;—telling about the “nobby” Christmas tree Captain de Camp gave them—though his ma’ did say it was “a pretty give!”—it was stolen out of his father’s garden.—My father’s a jolly sight richer than your’s—he has more trees in his garden—ain’t we got a “swag” of nuts, and a “plummy” twelfth-cake—my father won it at an art-union, in the city! I am to draw King—if I don’t, just see how I’ll cry!—Mercy Merry shall be Queen. You shall have Punch off the
cake; and ma’says I shall have “Rule Britannia,” as soon as the waves and ice have melted away.
Now a knock brings more visitors, the Masters Young, in all the ungainliness of hobbledyhoyhood—that transmigratory period when coat-tails are first developed:—they have come with their sister Flora, a lovely bud, expected “out” next season. Here are the Bells, the Petits, and the little Larks, with their big brother, the “jolly Lark,” who made his début over the top of the drawing-room-door, standing upon the shoulders of your humble servant; who felt the “jolly Lark” anything but light, and no joke—though the juveniles must have thought it so, for we could hear their merry peals of laughter ringing joyously, dispelling the silence that had hitherto prevailed, overturning the sage injunctions of proper mammas, who teach their children to behave “pretty”—thinking good and quiet synonymous. Somehow, the little fellows, unfortunately, take the Lark for Mr. Spohf, who has hitherto done the funny in a refined style, scarcely to be imagined—an
elegant, amiable, fun,—a mixture of the buffoon and gentleman, the sublime and the ridiculous, quite marvellous to behold,—making our little friend (who you are aware was moulded in one of Nature’s odd freaks) appear, to tender imaginations, almost supernatural. The mistake and misplaced approbation is very galling to Mrs. Brown; so much so that she becomes angry with the tea-urn, and, in turn, burns her fingers—venting her ire in the shape of a box on the ears of Master Bold, who ventured to hint Mr. Spohf’s absence a “jolly shame;” and, now vows to tell his mamma—a thing it is very evident Mrs. Brown does not wish, for she has shown a great deal of favour and contrition towards the young gentleman since.