Upon the whole, however, the youths were attached to their master, and he, a good-natured, though an absent and whimsical man, was scarce less so to them; and when a little warmed with wine at an occasional junketing, he used to boast, in his northern dialect, of his “twa bonnie lads, and the looks that the court ladies threw at them, when visiting his shop in their caroches, when on a frolic into the city.” But David Ramsay never failed, at the same time, to draw up his own tall, thin, lathy skeleton, extend his lean jaws into an alarming grin, and indicate, by a nod of his yard-long visage, and a twinkle of his little grey eye, that there might be more faces in Fleet Street worth looking at than those of Frank and Jenkin. His old neighbour, Widow Simmons, the sempstress, who had served, in her day, the very tip-top revellers of the Temple, with ruffs, cuffs, and bands, distinguished more deeply the sort of attention paid by the females of quality, who so regularly visited David Ramsay's shop, to its inmates. “The boy Frank,” she admitted, “used to attract the attention of the young ladies, as having something gentle and downcast in his looks; but then he could not better himself, for the poor youth had not a word to throw at a dog. Now Jin Vin was so full of his jibes and jeers, and so willing, and so ready, and so serviceable, and so mannerly all the while, with a step that sprung like a buck's in Epping Forest, and his eye that twinkled as black as a gipsy's, that no woman who knew the world would make a comparison betwixt the lads. As for poor neighbour Ramsay himself, the man,” she said, “was a civil neighbour, and a learned man, doubtless, and might be a rich man if he had common sense to back his learning; and doubtless, for a Scot, neighbour Ramsay was nothing of a bad man, but he was so constantly grimed with smoke, gilded with brass filings, and smeared with lamp-black and oil, that Dame Simmons judged it would require his whole shopful of watches to induce any feasible woman to touch the said neighbour Ramsay with any thing save a pair of tongs.”
A still higher authority, Dame Ursula, wife to Benjamin Suddlechop, the barber, was of exactly the same opinion.
Such were, in natural qualities and public estimation, the two youths, who, in a fine April day, having first rendered their dutiful service and attendance on the table of their master and his daughter, at their dinner at one o'clock,—Such, O ye lads of London, was the severe discipline undergone by your predecessors!—and having regaled themselves upon the fragments, in company with two female domestics, one a cook, and maid of all work, the other called Mistress Margaret's maid, now relieved their master in the duty of the outward shop; and agreeably to the established custom, were soliciting, by their entreaties and recommendations of their master's manufacture, the attention and encouragement of the passengers.
In this species of service it may be easily supposed that Jenkin Vincent left his more reserved and bashful comrade far in the background. The latter could only articulate with difficulty, and as an act of duty which he was rather ashamed of discharging, the established words of form—“What d'ye lack?—What d'ye lack?—Clocks—watches—barnacles? —What d'ye lack?—Watches—clocks—barnacles?—What d'ye lack, sir? What d'ye lack, madam?—Barnacles—watches—clocks?”
But this dull and dry iteration, however varied by diversity of verbal arrangement, sounded flat when mingled with the rich and recommendatory oratory of the bold-faced, deep-mouthed, and ready-witted Jenkin Vincent.—“What d'ye lack, noble sir?—What d'ye lack, beauteous madam?” he said, in a tone at once bold and soothing, which often was so applied as both to gratify the persons addressed, and to excite a smile from other hearers.—“God bless your reverence,” to a beneficed clergyman; “the Greek and Hebrew have harmed your reverence's eyes—Buy a pair of David Ramsay's barnacles. The King—God bless his Sacred Majesty!—never reads Hebrew or Greek without them.”
“Are you well avised of that?” said a fat parson from the Vale of Evesham. “Nay, if the Head of the Church wears them,—God bless his Sacred Majesty!—I will try what they can do for me; for I have not been able to distinguish one Hebrew letter from another, since—I cannot remember the time—when I had a bad fever. Choose me a pair of his most Sacred Majesty's own wearing, my good youth.”
“This is a pair, and please your reverence,” said Jenkin, producing a pair of spectacles which he touched with an air of great deference and respect, “which his most blessed Majesty placed this day three weeks on his own blessed nose; and would have kept them for his own sacred use, but that the setting being, as your reverence sees, of the purest jet, was, as his Sacred Majesty was pleased to say, fitter for a bishop than for a secular prince.”
“His Sacred Majesty the King,” said the worthy divine, “was ever a very Daniel in his judgment. Give me the barnacles, my good youth, and who can say what nose they may bestride in two years hence?—our reverend brother of Gloucester waxes in years.” He then pulled out his purse, paid for the spectacles, and left the shop with even a more important step than that which had paused to enter it.
“For shame,” said Tunstall to his companion; “these glasses will never suit one of his years.”
“You are a fool, Frank,” said Vincent, in reply; “had the good doctor wished glasses to read with, he would have tried them before buying. He does not want to look through them himself, and these will serve the purpose of being looked at by other folks, as well as the best magnifiers in the shop.—What d'ye lack?” he cried, resuming his solicitations. “Mirrors for your toilette, my pretty madam; your head-gear is something awry—pity, since it is so well fancied.” The woman stopped and bought a mirror.—“What d'ye lack?—a watch, Master Sergeant—a watch that will go as long as a lawsuit, as steady and true as your own eloquence?”