It was a long time ago to begin with,—afore lotteries and a deal more was done away with. Mr. Magsman was looking around for a good pitch, and he see that house, and he says to himself, “I’ll have you if you are to be had. If money’ll get you, I’ll have you.”
The neighbors cut up rough, and made complaints; but Mr. Magsman don’t know what they all would have had. It was a lovely thing. First of all, there was the canvas representin the pictur of the Giant in Spanish trunks and a ruff, who was half the height of the house, and was run up with a line and pulley to a pole of the roof, so that his Ed was coeval with the parapet. Then there was the canvas representin the pictur of the Albina lady, showin her white ’air to the Army and Navy in correct uniform. Then there was the canvas representin the pictur of the Wild Indian scalpin a member of some foreign nation. Then there was the canvas representin the pictur of a child of a British planter seized by two Boa-Constrictors,—not that we never had no child, nor no Constrictors neither. Similarly, there was the canvas representin the pictur of the Wild Ass of the Prairies,—not that we never had no wild asses, nor wouldn’t have had ’em as a gift. Last there was the canvas representin the pictur of the Dwarf, and like him too (considerin), with George the Fourth in such a state of astonishment at him as his Majesty couldn’t with his utmost politeness and stoutness express. The front of the House was so covered with canvases that there wasn’t a spark of daylight ever visible on that side. “Magsman’s Amusements,” fifteen foot long by two foot high, ran over the front door and parlor winders. The passage was a arbor of green baize and garden stuff. A barrel-organ performed there unceasing. And as to respectability,—if threepence ain’t respectable, what is?
But the Dwarf is the principal article at present, and he was worth money. He was wrote up as “Major Tpschoffki, of the Imperial Bulgraderian Brigade.” Nobody couldn’t pronounce the name, and it never was intended anybody should. The public always turned it, as a regular rule, into Chopski. In the line he was called Chops; partly on that account, and partly because his real name, if he ever had any real name (which was very dubious), was Stakes.
He was an uncommon small man, he really was. Certainly not so small as he was made out to be, but where’s your dwarf as is? He was a most uncommon small man, with a most uncommon large Ed; and what he had inside that Ed nobody never knowed but himself; even supposin himself to have ever took stock of it, which it would have been a stiff job for him to do. The kindest little man as never growed!—spirited, but not proud. When he travelled with the Spotted Baby, though he knowed himself to be a nat’ral Dwarf, and knowed the Baby’s spots to be put onto him artificial, he nursed that Baby like a mother. You never heard him give a ill name to a giant. He did allow himself to break out into strong language respectin the Fat Lady from Norfolk; but that was an affair of the ’art; and when a man’s ’art has been trifled with by a lady, and the preference giv to a Indian, he ain’t master of his actions.
He was always in love, of course; every human nat’ral phenomenon is. And he was always in love with a large woman; I never knowed the dwarf as could be got to love a small one. Which helps to keep ’em the curiosities they are.
One sing’lar idea he had in that Ed of his, which must have meant something, or it wouldn’t have been there. It was always his opinion that he was entitled to property. He never put his name to anything. He had been taught to write by a young man without any arms, who got his living with his toes (quite a writing-master he was, and taught scores in the line), but Chops would have starved to death afore he’d gained a bit of bread by putting his hand to a paper. This is the more curious to bear in mind, because HE had no property, except his house and a sarser. When I say his house, I mean the box, painted and got up outside like a reg’ler six-roomer, that he used to creep into, with a diamond ring (or quite as good to look at) on his forefinger, and ring a little bell out of what the public believed to be the drawing-room winder. And when I say a sarser, I mean a Cheney sarser in which he made a collection for himself at the end of every entertainment. His cue for that he took from me: “Ladies and gentlemen, the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain.” When he said anything important, in private life, he mostly wound it up with this form of words, and they was generally the last thing he said to me afore he went to bed.
He had what I consider a fine mind,—a poetic mind. His ideas respectin his property never come upon him so strong as when he sat upon a barrel-organ and had the handle turned. Arter the wibration had run through him a little time, he would screech out: “Toby, I feel my property coming,—grind away! I’m counting my guineas by thousands, Toby,—grind away! Toby, I shall be a man of fortun! I feel the mint a jingling in me, Toby, and I’m swelling out into the Bank of England!” Such is the influence of music on the poetic mind. Not that he was partial to any other music but a barrel-organ; on the contrairy, he hated it.
He had a kind of everlasting grudge agin the public; which is a thing you may notice in many phenomenons that get their living out of it. What riled him most in the nater of his occupation was that it kep him out of society. He was continiwally sayin: “Toby, my ambition is to go into society. The curse of my position towards the public is that it keeps me hout of society. This don’t signify to a low beast of a Indian; he ain’t formed for society. This don’t signify to a Spotted Baby; he ain’t formed for society,—I am.”
Nobody never could make out what Chops done with his money. He had a good salary, down on the drum every Saturday as the day came round, besides having the run of his teeth,—and he was a woodpecker to eat,—but all dwarfs are. The sarser was a little income, bringing him in so many half-pence that he’d carry ’em, for a week together, tied up in a pocket-handkercher. And yet he never had money. And it couldn’t be the Fat Lady from Norfolk, as was once supposed; because it stands to reason that when you have a animosity towards a Indian which makes you grind your teeth at him to his face, and which can hardly hold you from goosing him audible when he’s going through his war-dance,—it stands to reason you wouldn’t under them circumstances deprive yourself to support that Indian in the lap of luxury.
Most unexpected, the mystery came out one day at Egham races. The public was shy of bein pulled in, and Chops was ringin his little bell out of his drawin-room winder, and was snarlin to me over his shoulder as he kneeled down with his legs out at the back door,—for he couldn’t be shoved into his house without kneeling down, and the premises wouldn’t accommodate his legs,—was snarlin: “Here’s a precious public for you; why the devil don’t they tumble up?” when a man in the crowd holds up a carrier-pigeon and cries out: “If there’s any person here as has got a ticket, the Lottery’s just drawd, and the number as has come up for the great prize is three, seven, forty-two! Three, seven, forty-two!” I was givin the man to the furies myself, for calling of the public’s attention,—for the public will turn away, at any time, to look at anything in preference to the thing showed ’em; and if you doubt it, get ’em together for any individual purpose on the face of the earth, and send only two people in late and see if the whole company ain’t far more interested in taking particular notice of them two than you,—I say I wasn’t best pleased with the man for callin out, wasn’t blessin him in my own mind, when I see Chops’s little bell fly out of the winder at a old lady, and he gets up and kicks his box over, exposin the whole secret, and he catches hold of the calves of my legs and he says to me: “Carry me into the wan, Toby, and throw a pail of water over me, or I’m a dead man, for I’m come into my property!”