Such was the story of the little commodore—a story which was listened to not only by my friend and myself, but by at least a score of other persons, some of whom will no doubt be pleased to see it here reproduced.[4] A collection was made for the travelers, whose boasted funds had been exhausted at Boulogne; but what became of them afterward I never knew. When we reached London, I saw them walk up the landing-place—wholly unencumbered with baggage, poor things!—the mother and the little boy clinging on either side to the commodore; and so, like the shadowy figures in the "Pilgrim's Progress," "they passed on their way, and I saw them no more."
For my own part, my theory had gone much further than I had thought of carrying it. My friend himself was not more surprised than I by the story of the little girl; and, like the Witch of Endor, when her pretended incantations were answered by the actual apparition of the prophet, I was stupefied by my own success.
HABITS AND AMUSEMENTS OF THE LONDON COSTERMONGERS.[5]
I find it impossible to separate these two headings; for the habits of the costermonger are not domestic. His busy life is passed in the markets or the streets, and as his leisure is devoted to the beer-shop, the dancing-room, or the theatre, we must look for his habits to his demeanor at those places. Home has few attractions to a man whose life is a street-life. Even those who are influenced by family ties and affections, prefer to "home"—indeed that word is rarely mentioned among them—the conversation, warmth, and merriment of the beer-shop, where they can take their ease among their "mates." Excitement or amusement are indispensable to uneducated men. Of beer-shops resorted to by costermongers, and principally supported by them, it is computed that there are 400 in London.
Those who meet first in the beer-shop talk over the state of trade and of the markets, while the later comers enter at once into what may be styled the serious business of the evening—amusement.
Business topics are discussed in a most peculiar style. One man takes the pipe from his mouth and says, "Bill made a doogheno[6] hit this morning." "Jem," says another, to a man just entering, "you'll stand a top o' reeb?"[7] "On,"[8] answers Jem, "I've had a trosseno tol,[9] and have been doing dab."[10] If any strangers are present, the conversation is still further clothed in slang, so as to be unintelligible even to the partially initiated. The evident puzzlement of any listener is of course gratifying to the costermonger's vanity for he feels that he possesses a knowledge peculiarly his own.
Among the in-door amusements of the costermonger is card-playing, at which many of them are adepts. The usual games are all-fours, all-fives, cribbage, and put. Whist is known to a few, but is never played, being considered dull and slow. Of short whist they have not heard: "But," said one, whom I questioned on the subject, "if it's come into fashion, it'll soon be among us." The play is usually for beer, but the game is rendered exciting by bets both among the players and the lookers-on. "I'll back Jem for a yanepatine," says one. "Jack for a gen," cries another. A penny is the lowest sum laid, and five shillings generally the highest, but a shilling is not often exceeded. "We play fair among ourselves," said a costermonger to me—"ay, fairer than the aristocrats—but we'll take in any body else." Where it is known that the landlord will not supply cards, "a sporting coster" carries a pack or two with him. The cards played with have rarely been stamped; they are generally dirty, and sometimes almost illegible, from long handling and spilled beer. Some men will sit patiently for hours at these games, and they watch the dealing round of the dingy cards intently, and without the attempt—common among politer gamesters—to appear indifferent, though they bear their losses well. In a full room of card-players, the groups are all shrouded in tobacco-smoke, and from them are heard constant sounds—according to the games they are engaged in—of "I'm low, and Ped's high." "Tip and me's game." "Fifteen four and a flush of five." I may remark it is curious that costermongers, who can neither read nor write, and who have no knowledge of the multiplication table, are skillful in all the intricacies and calculations of cribbage. There is not much quarreling over the cards, unless strangers play with them, and then the costermongers all take part one with another, fairly or unfairly.
It has been said that there is a close resemblance between many of the characteristics of a very high class, socially, and a very low class. Those who remember the disclosures on a trial a few years back, as to how men of rank and wealth passed their leisure in card-playing—many of their lives being one continued leisure—can judge how far the analogy holds when the card-passion of the costermongers is described.
"Shove-halfpenny" is another game played by them; so is "Three-up." Three halfpennies are thrown up, and when they fall all "heads" or all "tails," it is a mark; and the man who gets the greatest number of marks out of a given amount—three, or five, or more—wins. "Three-up" is played fairly among the costermongers; but is most frequently resorted to when strangers are present to "make a pitch,"—which is, in plain words, to cheat any stranger who is rash enough to bet upon them. "This is the way, sir," said an adept to me; "bless you, I can make them fall as I please. If I'm playing with Jo, and a stranger bets with Jo, why, of course I make Jo win." This adept illustrated his skill to me by throwing up three halfpennies, and, five times out of six they fell upon the floor, whether he threw them nearly to the ceiling or merely to his shoulder, all heads or all tails. The halfpence were the proper current coins—indeed, they were my own; and the result is gained by a peculiar position of the coins on the fingers, and a peculiar jerk in the throwing. There was an amusing manifestation of the pride of art in the way in which my obliging informant displayed his skill.