“Unfortunately, Mr. Hookey, besides being a great talker, was a native of the same part of the country as myself, and having been absent from thence several years, was anxious to hear of any event and change that had taken place since he left it. He accordingly bored me with questions which I could not but answer. I could not answer them decently without raising my head—and I could not raise my head without encountering the nose of Miss Snooks.
“But this was not the worst part of the business. Miss Snooks took it into her head to put questions to me, and thus confronted me still more with her promontory. There was no way of evading the annoyance, but by getting to the opposite side of the table—a step which it was impossible to perform with any regard to decency; and I was thus compelled to ‘kiss the rod,’ and put the best face I could upon the matter.
“Supper being removed, wine was introduced; and I had the honour of pouring out a glass of port to Miss Snooks. She thanked me with an inclination of her head—or rather of her nose—and drank to my health, and to that of the rest of the company. While performing the process of drinking, I could not help gazing upon her, to see how so very remarkable a person would go to work. The peak of her nose actually dipped down over the farthest rim of the glass—spanning it as a rainbow spans the Vale of Glengarry, while the ‘limpid ruby’ rolled in currents within the embrace of her delighted lips. The more I gazed upon her, the greater did my surprise at this extraordinary feature become.
“It is unnecessary to detail at length, the conversation which ensued. It was tolerably connected, as might be looked for in so small a company, seldom, branching out into miscellaneous details, and turning chiefly upon literary matters. But I found it impossible to join in it with any degree of relish. In vain did my opposite neighbour call up before my imagination the scenes of my birthplace; in vain did our landlord crack his jokes—for he was a great humourist—and rally me upon my dulness; in vain did he allege that I was in love, and good-naturedly fix upon two or three girls as the objects of my affections. Worthy man! little did he imagine that I was in love with his cousin’s nose.
“In love, yes! I bore the same love towards it, that the squirrel bears to the rattlesnake—when it gets fascinated by the burning eyeballs, horrid fangs, and forked tongue of its crawling, slimy, and execrable foe. Mistake me not, sir, or suppose that I mean to insinuate that Miss Snooks was a rattlesnake. No; the reasoning is purely analogical; and I only wish it to be inferred that that nose, humped like a dromedary—prominent as Cape Wrath—nobler than Cæsar’s, or the great captain’s—had precisely the same influence on me as the envenomed Python of the American woods has upon the squirrel. It fascinated me—threw a spell over me—enchanted my faculties—made me love to gaze upon what I abhorred, and think of nothing but one feature—one nose, which nevertheless held a more prominent place in the temple of my imagination, than Atlas, Andes, or Teneriffe, or even the unscalable ridges of Himalaya, where Indra, the god of the elements, is said to have placed his throne. Having meditated for some time in this way, I found that it would never do. There was something inexpressibly absurd in the mood which my mind was getting into, and I resolved to throw off the incubus which oppressed me, and be like other people. Full of this idea, I filled a bumper, and bolted it off—then another—then another. I was getting on admirably, and rapidly recovering my equanimity, when chancing to turn my eyes towards Mr. Hookey, he was nowhere to be seen. He had not gone out; that was impossible; no—he was concealed from me by the mighty nose.
“This event had nearly capsized me, and brought me back into my old way, when I poured out another glass of wine, and hastily swallowed it, which in some measure restored the equilibrium of my faculties. I looked again at Hookey, and saw him distinctly—the shade was gone, for Miss Snooks had leaned back, in a languishing mood, upon her chair, and taken her nose along with her. At this moment I fancied I saw her ogling me with both eyes, and resolved to be upon my guard. I remembered the solemn vows already made to my dear Cecilia; and on this account determined to stand out against Miss Snooks and her nose.
“But this was only a temporary relief. Again did she lean forward, and again was the nose protruded between Hookey and myself. It acted as an eclipse—it annihilated him—made him a mere nonentity—rendered him despicable in my eyes. It was impossible to respect any man who lived in the shade of a nose, who hid his light under such a bushel. Hang the ninny, he must be a sneaking fellow!
“The wine now began to circulate more freely round the table, and the tongues of the company to get looser in their heads. Miss Snooks also commenced talking at a greater stretch than she had hitherto done. I soon found out that she was a poetess, and had written a couple of novels, besides two or three tragedies. In fact, her whole conversation was about books and authors, and she did us the favour of reciting some of her own compositions. She was also prodigiously sentimental, talked much about love, and was fond of romantic scenery. I know not how it was, but although her conversation was far from indifferent, it excited ridiculous emotions in my mind, rather than any thing else. If she talked of mountains, I could think of nothing but the hump upon her nose, which was, in my estimation, a nobler mountain than Helvellyn or Cairngorm. If she got among promontories, this majestic feature struck me as being sublimer than any I had ever heard of—not excepting the Cape of Good Hope, first doubled by Vasco de Gama.—When she conversed about the blue loch and the cerulean sky, I saw in the tip of her nose a complexion as blue or cerulean as any of these. It was at once a nose—a mountain—a cape—a loch—a sky. In short it was every thing. She was armed with it, as the Paladins of old with their armour. Nay, it possessed the miraculous property of rendering a human being invisible, of concealing Mr. Hookey from my eyes; thus rivalling the ring of Gyges, and casting the invisible coat of Jack the Giant-killer into the shade.
“After conversing with her for some time upon indifferent matters, she asked me if I was fond of caricatures, and spoke particularly of the designs of George Cruikshank. Scarcely had she mentioned the name of this artist, than I was seized with a strange shuddering. In one moment I called to mind his illustrations of Punch and Judy, at which we had been looking, before coming down to supper. A clue was now given to the otherwise unaccountable train of feelings, which had possessed me ever since I saw Miss Snooks. From the moment when I first set my eyes upon her, I fancied I had seen her before; but where, when, and upon what occasion I found it impossible to tell. Her squeaking voice, her blue twinkling eyes, her huge frilled cap, and above all, her mighty nose, all seemed familiar to me. They floated within my spirit as a half-forgotten dream; and without daring to whisper such a thing to myself, I still felt the impression that all was not new—that the novelty was not so great as I imagined.
“But Punch and Judy set all to rights. I had seen Miss Snooks in George Cruikshank, and at once all my perplexing feelings were accounted for. She was Judy—she was Punch’s wife. Yes, Miss Snooks, the old maid, was the wife of Mr. Punch. There was no denying the fact. The same small weazel eyes, the same sharp voice and hooked chin, and the same nose—at once mountain, cape, &c. &c. belonged alike to Judy and Miss Snooks. They were two persons; the same, yet, different—different, yet the same—the one residing in the pages of Cruikshank, or chattering and fighting in the booths of mountebanks at Donnybrook or St. Bartholomew’s Fair—the other seated bolt upright, at the head of her cousin’s table, beside a small coterie of littérateurs.