"Acting upon the principle so many of our countrymen unhappily develop, (thinking nobody could hear of it on the other side of the water,) Mr. Smooth chartered a donkey-cart, put his donkeys in shining liveries, and was determined to outdo the Choctaws in making London astonished. The most expensive tailor in Regent street did up the external, as he had before so many of my very simple-minded countrymen. Such a suit of toggery as it was! Alongside of me General Scott would have looked shy, I reckon. And then, when the big cocked hat was spread! I tell you, Uncle Sam, there as no touching Smooth—he was half-duke, half-beadle, and the rest Pierce diplomatist. 'If a dash ain't cut among the nobs!' thought I. The donkey turn out was a curiosity, Smooth himself was a curiosity; and with two curiosities an excitement was certain. My first dash was into Hyde Park, near the entrance of which stood the brazen statue of a gladiator, raised by fair hands, in commemoration of the Iron Duke, whose indelible deeds they would emblazon on hardest brass. In this park, at fashionable hours, sauntered the nice young men of the West End; that is, the biggest snobs of the fashionable world; but Smooth took the shine out of the whole lot, as did nearly all the rest of Mr. Pierce's little folks. Had he, however, turned out in the flummery of some of his contemporary snobs, and driven thus equipped into Cape Cod, a town-meeting, to take into consideration the sending him to a place where straight-jackets are worn, had been the result. But in London a man may make almost any kind of a fool of himself, without applying for a license. Indeed, the man most earnest in making an ass of himself may do it, with the satisfaction of knowing that he has a very large number of very respectable families for patrons. In Hyde Park the greatest asses (a name and the needful may be necessary) have the most followers. Longest ears are not the surest indices. After all, my reader must excuse me for not visiting the purlieus of Downing street just yet, having a few of Mr. Pierce's little folks to pack up and send home to Fourney, with instructions that he give them a few more turns on his grindstone.
[CHAPTER XV.]
HIS LITTLE LORDSHIP'S SHOW, AND A PEEP INTO DOWNING-STREET.
"Uncle Sam!—if, beside yourself, there exists outside of Cape Cod another individual who would like to see Mr. Thomas Foolery move in state most perfect, just send him over here: he must be present on that day when the little Lord Mayor makes a great man of himself. A great man is the Lord Mayor on that day on which he sacrifices all his good sense to an ancient and much-beloved show, in which he permits himself to be made the fool of the farce. No Choctaw war-train was ever half so extravagant of colored cloth and feathers. A great day for London loafers is it, when my Lord Mayor puts on the big chain, and issues his mandate to the sprats, who then come up the river, to the great joy of the poor, who have it thus in tradition. Well, Smooth thought he would keep Lord Mayor's day, and to that end harnessed up his team of donkeys, merely by way of contrasting it with some duke's turn-out. Imagine, Sam, my chagrin, when one of the donkeys took it into his head to keep Lord Mayor's day in his own obstinate way. Not a step would he go. However, I got another donkey, and proceeded to where the Lord Mayor was, just in time to hear him make a funny speech, throughout which he made a sad slaughter of all the h's and a's of the King's good English. Then he seated himself in the barge, and had a sail on the Thames, followed by innumerable beggars, sycophants, and costermongers. Succeeding this he marshalled his show-folks into a string (such a string!), and with them caused his august self to be moved to the Mansion House. Swarms of frightened turtles were seen hurrying away in front of the cavalcade.
"Such a set of white-washed heads—heads with all outside—heads with little inside—and heads nobody knew what they had been made for, never before were seen displayed in one string. Strangely attractive was the glare of tinsel—it fascinated the little souls of corpulent men, and made small men more becomingly great. Fact was, Uncle Sam, His Worship the Lord Mayor, whose year of greatness was death to turtle and terrapin, so outshone Her Most Gracious Majesty (a good little body) in confusion of brilliant brass, that the little woman thought it incumbent to call a Cabinet Council, before which she laid the grievance of his stealing her thunder. At this privy council Prince Albert was permitted to be present without anything being said by the Daily News and Morning Advertiser. His Worship had indeed usurped all the modern appliances of flunkeydom. But the cabinet, it was acknowledged, was very thick-headed, and her Majesty, good body, must bear the consequences.
"Well, after the most curious caravan eyes ever rested upon, there followed his jolly worship the Lord Mayor; he largely sat in a coach of gingerbread, the tea-things spread outside, and the glows of Souchong impregnating the air. They said his jolly Lordship sold real and mixed Twankey. In this sense, however, was his Lordship more fortunate than his predecessor, who, having ascended from the soap business, and himself used a large amount of that article for the purpose of washing down the wares of Threadneedle street, found his greatest difficulty that of getting rid of the foetid scent. And then, my Lord's h's were the things most violently handled; for otherwise he wasn't a bad fellow, and when he rode in his coach of the olden time, which might, by the green in mythology, have been taken for the lost chariot of Elijah, it was a serious question whether himself or the things that held on behind were greatest. Then these latter gents of flunkeydom in frills had big sticks in their hands, with which they kept the flies from my Lord's good-natured countenance. Happy fellows were they, and, like well-stuffed mules, only wanted the long soft ears to make them marketable. Everybody said it was a big day in London. To have suggested that his Worship might be making an ass of himself in this common-sense nineteenth century would have been to render yourself a victim of hasty contempt. Smooth was just taking a contemplative view of these things,—asking himself how many poor wretches would lose a day's work over the nonsense; how many would get drunk on the hallucination of the show; how many poor mechanics would make a blue week to his Lordship's honor; and how many would find themselves in the House of Correction to his disgrace—how many employers would be annoyed,—how many customers would be disappointed—and how many wives would get broken heads; when suddenly a crowd of filthy, dejected, and ruthless beings swept along in mass, heedless of whatever came in their way, and threatening life and limb in the onset. Then there came such a smashing of maids' bonnets, squeezing of milliners, and frightening of old maids, as never was seen before; indeed, this, added to the many well-jammed ribs and jostled beavers, seemed the most expensive part of my Lord's show. Summing the whole thing up in a logical sort of way, Smooth made it amount to this:—that the Lord Mayor, just mounting into greatness, could by no means make that greatness impressive by any knowledge of philosophy he possessed; so, to be sure that his importance had its force upon all vulgar minds, he suffered himself made to play the part of a monkey in a cake-shop. To this his Worship added the greater gratification of having given amusement to nine-tenths of the city costermongers, made idle seven-tenths of the working people, kept busy two thousand gin-shops, filled eleven hundred chop-houses, given hard work to five hundred policemen, who never like to be worked hard, and made lackeydom tumultuous. And then Beadledom seemed crazed, and, joined with the many ale-bibbers, were turned out to do good service in the show. But, to make my Lord's train complete, there was no knowing how many men he had to ride on horseback, how many more so inebriated they couldn't ride, how many of a character nobody would desire to know out of his show, and how many ballet girls who ride in circuses and so forth,—all of which latter material had faces made deep of moonshine modesty, to suit the solemn occasion. Then my Lord topped off the little end of his show with the soup and great Ministers of State. And, that nothing should be left undone, the Times must have a go in at it, which it did with one of Doctor Moseley's most spicy articles, putting the whole thing into a very comical nutshell. Quoth Sam, without the thunderer's dissecting knife a London Lord Mayor would be the most beautiful of nobodys—that is, so far as sense goes. Smooth, on the nicest observation, was decidedly of the opinion that only one thing more was wanted to make the Lord Mayor's Show complete—a pair of long soft ears emblazoned on the Corporation coach. The reader will excuse Smooth for dwelling thus long on little things.
"Having peeped long enough at the Lord Mayor's Show, I felt like looking at something more solid; so to that end I turned about the donkey-cart, whistled to the flunkeys (kept things of this kind merely to be like other Americans when abroad), and drove into Regent street, where I would inform General Pierce and all my firm friends a desperate excitement was made. Then, in glowing independence, I rolled away down Pall Mall, where the club-people—especially those of that institution of arrogance called the Reform—seemed much astonished. From thence I proceeded past Trafalgar square, where stood in singular contrast the monument of the noble Nelson, and an equestrian statue of that ignoble creature, Charles the First, the loss of whose head saved England from disgrace. How strange, that even in this day of intelligence and liberty-loving, it should stand a shrine before which very respectable old gentlemen poured out their stale patriotism! At last I found myself in Downing street—at the door of a massive and sombre-looking mansion (No. 12) in front of which stood methodical-looking men with grave countenances. And, too, there sauntered moodily venerable-looking gentlemen, now and then casting wistful glances at the time-begrimmed walls, as if they would see some one sealed-up in the antiquated recesses of the place. Mr. Smooth's turn-out only made a stir among them; they reckoned somebody had come! In a free-and-easy sort of way I walked straight to the door, maintaining my independence the while, and feeling as important as a door-keeper in Congress. After passing the massive entrance I encountered innumerable obstacles in the form of flunkeys, and then passed into a dingy room of immense size, which for all the world had the appearance of having some two or three hundred years ago served for a barracks. 'By appointment?' inquired a human thing dressed, as he emerged from behind a green screen situated at one corner. He bowed, and I bowed, until he was satisfied I was somebody, 'Who would you see?' he reiterates, adding another bow.
"'Well!' returned I, 'reckon how I'll think about that.' Then the fellow crossed three or four times my track, as much as to say—Stranger! you don't go in there. Presently a batch of well-to-do individuals came snickering out of a closet, and eyed me very suspiciously; at which I summoned all my brass, and stood fronting them like a staring machine. 'You must say who you want to see!' interposes the man I first confronted.
"I here took leisurely out my card, and said 'I would like to see the Duke of Newcastle, who temporarily tied up in this establishment.' He viewed my card with a serious hesitation; at which I turned round, and told him I would not trouble him, but take it myself, had he had any special objection to going a-head. They, the people, said the Duke, did all he could with what he had to do with. If it were not possible to see the Duke, I would like a peep at my venerable aunt Aberdeen, who was about as well qualified to sway the destinies of discontented England as a virgin pumpkin; and together with my ever amiable Lord Clarendon, would set a world at war good-naturedly. These very high functionaries, Mr. Smooth was informed, could not at present be seen by common people, inasmuch as they were contemplating the problem:—'I don't know what to do!' Nicholas's appetite for Turkey breakfasts had made work too profound for the brains of Downing Street. 'Don't seem a subject of this atmosphere,' said the stupid, significantly canting his head, and giving a queer look out of the corner of his right eye. 'You fellows don't seem to know me,' I interpolated, 'Citizen Smooth—they call me Solomon Smooth, Esq., that is my name.' A door now opened near where I was standing, and in I walked—right among the Dukes and dough-heads. It only wanted a bold push, in the right go-ahead sort of way, to make myself respected. Dukes were not only flesh and blood, but owed much of their importance to the ignorance of the people they aspired to frown upon. Dukes, Earls, and Lords, were, at this moment, playing at very un-English games for England. They affected to believe it right that the loyal people (I mean the simple and vulgar, who have hitherto proved mean the simple and vulgar) who have hitherto proved true to their noble traditions, should remain ignorant of the game played at their expense. This, Mr. Smooth thought too bad; however, his friend Urquhart was devising a scheme for remedying the evil, which, did he not himself fall into evil, might do great good to the nation in general. But Urquhart was so modest that he never accused Lord Palmerston of anything worse than bringing about the potato rot in Ireland. 'Hallo hallo!' a dozen voices echoed from the table around which the all-accomplished sat:—'A rustic intruder is upon us!' half muttered the man who followed me in. 'It's only Solomon Smooth, Esq., from the Cape,' returned I, with a good, wholesome laugh. Believe me, Uncle Sam, there sat round a table ten of the most solemn-looking fellows, with faces as dreary as a wet moon in November. Some of this unique body looked as if they had seen hard usage and lean pay. Others were grey with thinking, instead of moving. Be not surprised either when I say that the gravity of their countenance left no visible room for anything else. Hard at it were they, straining their antiquated imaginations over a secret game of thimble-rig, which seemed of momentous importance. Only five, however, could play at the game; and Sawny Dablerdeen, who always played on two small pipes, and paid sundry small pipers to do a deal of blowing, seemed in the greatest fuddle. And then there was my Lord John Littlejohn, as crusty a little snap as ever declaimed against tyrant in one breath, or turned a political summersault in another;—bricks to the back-bone was he, and all for old England, though he was not bigger than one of Betsy Perkin's well-grown cucumbers, and could be turned to as many uses. But what there is mentally in a man must not be judged by the measure of his body from head to foot. And, too, there was my very amiable Lord Clarendon, who attempted to out-clever my Lord John, inasmuch as John stated, in the fulness of his geographical knowledge, that the passage between Havana and the extreme southern point of Florida was not more than four hundred miles, while my Lord Clarendon assured the House of Lords that South Carolina was an island. Enlightened House of Lords! But, after all, there was a harmony of sentiment between these two noble worthies that was truly grateful to the submissive hearts of the freedom-loving English; both could spin flattering speeches: both could play the long and short; both could wince when foreign bull-dogs sent out their threatening growls; and both were mighty of mouth when dealing with little chickens. It was not to be concealed, however that Dablerdeen, master of the board, was gifted with the unfortunate characteristic of talking himself into an interminable difficulty.