Passing on to the next turning but one, we reach Kingsgate Street, where Poll Sweedlepipes—barber and bird-fancier—once had his business location, “next door but one to the celebrated mutton-pie shop, and directly opposite the original cat’s-meat warehouse.” At this place the immortal Mrs. Gamp had lodgings on the first floor, where she
“Was easily assailed at night by pebbles, walking-sticks, and fragments of tobacco pipes, all much more efficacious than the street-door knocker, which was so constructed as to wake the street with ease, and even spread alarms of fire in Holborn, without making the smallest impression on the premises to which it was addressed.”
It is recollected in the neighbourhood that, fifty years since, a barber by the name of Patterson (who was also a bird-dealer) lived in this street, at the second house on the left. The shop has been pulled down, is now absorbed by the corner premises in Holborn, and can be only identified by its position. Here, then, did Mr. Pecksniff arrive on his doleful mission, in accordance with the recommendation of Mr. Mould, the undertaker, with regard to the death of old Anthony Chuzzlewit; and here did that memorable teapot cause a lasting difference between two friends, as narrated in chapter 49 of “Martin Chuzzlewit.” “This world-famous personage, Mrs. Gamp, has passed into and become one with the language” whose vernacular she has adorned with her own flowers of speech. As Mr. Forster remarks, “she will remain among the everlasting triumphs of fiction, a superb masterpiece of English humour.” “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale, her infinite variety.” At the Holborn corner of Kingsgate Street we may remember Mr. Bailey, junior, on the occasion when, at this exact spot, he collided with Poll Sweedlepipes, afterwards going “round and round in circles on the pavement,” the better to exhibit to Poll’s admiring gaze his fashionable livery as Tiger in the service of Mr. Montague Tigg, “rather to the inconvenience of the passengers generally, who were not in an equal state of spirits with himself.”
The next turning but one, westward, on the right, by the West Central Post Office (No. 126), is Southampton Street, leading to Bloomsbury Square.
Here it will be remembered that lodgings were taken by Mr. Grewgious for Miss Twinkleton and Rosa, of the redoubtable Mrs. Billickin, “the person of the ’ouse,” who, from prudential motives, suppressed her Christian name.
“Mr. Grewgious had his agreement-lines and his earnest-money ready. ‘I have signed it for the ladies, ma’am,’ he said, ‘and you’ll have the goodness to sign it for yourself, Christian and Surname, there, if you please.’
“‘Mr. Grewgious,’ said Mrs. Billickin in a new burst of candour, ‘no, sir! You must excuse the Christian name.’
“Mr. Grewgious stared at her.
“‘The door-plate is used as a protection,’ said Mrs. Billickin, ‘and acts as such, and go from it I will not.’
“Mr. Grewgious stared at Rosa.
“‘No, Mr. Grewgious, you must excuse me. So long as this ’ouse is known indefinite as Billickin’s, and so long as it is a doubt with the riff-raff where Billickin may be hidin’, near the street-door or down the airy, and what his weight and size, so long I feel safe. But commit myself to a solitary female statement, no, Miss! Nor would you for a moment wish,’ said Mrs. Billickin, with a strong sense of injury, ‘to take that advantage of your sex, if you were not brought to it by inconsiderate example.’
“Rosa reddening as if she had made some most disgraceful attempt to overreach the good lady, besought Mr. Grewgious to rest content with any signature. And accordingly, in a baronial way, the sign-manual Billickin got appended to the document.”
And we may here recall the incidental passage of arms between the worthy landlady and Miss Twinkleton, Mrs. B. being always in direct antagonism with the schoolmistress, against whom she “openly pitted herself as one whom she fully ascertained to be her natural enemy.” Witness “the B. enveloped in the shawl of State,” as she remarked to Miss Twinkleton that
“‘A rush from scanty feeding to generous feeding, from what you may call messing to what you may call method, do require a power of constitution, which is not often found in youth, particular when undermined by boarding-school. . . . I was put in youth to a very genteel boarding-school, the mistress being no less a lady than yourself, of about your own age, or it may be some years younger, and a poorness of blood flowed from the table, which has run through my life.’
* * * * *
“‘If you refer to the poverty of your circulation,’ began Miss Twinkleton, when again the Billickin neatly stopped her.
“‘I have used no such expressions.’
“‘If you refer, then, to the poorness of your blood—’
“‘Brought upon me,’ stipulated the Billickin, expressly, ‘at a boarding-school—’
“‘Then,’ resumed Miss Twinkleton, ‘all I can say is, that I am bound to believe, on your asseveration, that it is very poor indeed. I cannot forbear adding, that if that unfortunate circumstance influences your conversation, it is much to be lamented, and it is eminently desirable that your blood were richer.’”
Southampton Street is not a long one, and is now chiefly occupied by solicitors and architects; but there is reason to believe that the Billickins’ residence was, aforetime, to be found at No. 18, which is situated next door but one to an archway. As Mrs. B. herself candidly pointed out,
“The arching leads to a mews; mewses must exist.”