Samuel Warren - Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1

"Dear Tit,

"Hope you are well, which is what I can only middling say in respect of me. Such a row with my governors as I have had to-day! I thought that as I had been in the House near upon Eighteen Months at £25 per annum, I might nat'rally ask for £30 a-year (which is what my Predecessor had) when, would you believe it, Mr. Sharpeye (who is going to be taken in as a Partner,) to whom I named the thing, ris up in rage against me, and I were had up into the counting-house, where both the governors was, and they gave it me in such a way that you never saw nor heard of; but it wasn't all on their own side, as you know me too well to think of. You would have thought I had been a-going to rob the house. They said I was most oudacious, and all that, and ungrateful, and what would I have next? Mr. Diaper said times was come to such a pitch!! since when he was first in the business, for salaries, says he, is ris to double, and not half the work done that was, and no gratitude—(cursed old curmudgeon!) He said if I left them just now, I might whistle for a character, except one that I should not like; but if he don't mind I'll give him a touch of law about that—which brings me to what happened to-day with our lawyers, Titty, the people at Saffron Hill, whom I thought I would call in on to-day, being near the neighborhood with some light goods, to see how affairs was getting on, and stir them up a bit"—

This almost took Titmouse's breath away–

—"feeling most interested on your account, as you know, dear Tit, I do. I said I wanted to speak to one of the gentlemen on business of wital importance; whereat I was quickly shown into a room where two gents was sitting. Having put down my parcel for a minute on the table, I said I was a very partic'lar friend of yours, and had called in to see how things went on about the advertisement; whereat you never saw in your life how struck they looked, and stared at one another in speechless silence, till they said to me, what concerned me about the business? or something of that nature, but in such a way that ris a rage in me directly, all for your sake, (for I did not like the looks of things;) and says I, I said, we would let them know we were not to be gammoned ; whereat up rose the youngest of the two, and ringing the bell, he says to a tight-laced young gentleman with a pen behind his ear, 'Show this fellow to the door,' which I was at once; but, in doing so, let out a little of my mind to them. They're no better than they should be, you see if they are; but when we touch the property, we'll show them who is their masters, which consoles me. Good-by, keep your sperrits up, and I will call and tell you more about it on Sunday. So farewell (I write this at Mr. Sharpeye's desk, who is coming down from dinner directly, the beast!)—Your true friend,

"P. S.—Met a young Jew last night with a lot of prime cigars, and (knowing he must have stole them—betwixt you, and I, and the Post—they looked so good at the price,) I bought one shilling's worth for me, and two shillings' worth for you, your salary being higher, and to say nothing of your chances."

All that part of the foregoing letter which related to its gifted writer's interview with Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, Titmouse read in a kind of spasm—he could not draw a breath, and felt a choking sensation coming over him. After a while, "I may spare myself," thought he, "the trouble of rigging out—Huckaback has done my business for me with Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap!—Mine will only be a walk in vain!" And this cursed call of Huckaback's, too, to have happened after what had occurred last night between Titmouse and them!! and so urgently as he had been enjoined to keep the matter to himself! Of course, Huckaback would seem to have been sent by him; seeing he appeared to have assumed the hectoring tone which Titmouse had tried so vainly over-night, and now so bitterly repented of; and he had no doubt grossly insulted the arbiters of Titmouse's destiny, (for he knew Huckaback's impudence)—he had even said that he (Titmouse) would not be gammoned by them! But time was pressing—the experiment must be made; and with a beating heart he scrambled into a change of clothes—bottling up his wrath against the unconscious Huckaback till he should see that worthy. In a miserable state of mind he set off soon after for Saffron Hill at a quick pace, which soon became a trot, and often sharpened into a downright run. He saw, heard, and thought of nothing, as he hurried along Oxford Street and Holborn, but Quirk, Gammon, Snap, and Huckaback, and the reception which the last-mentioned gentleman might have secured for him—if, indeed, he was to be received at all. The magical words, Ten Thousand a-year , had not disappeared from the field of his troubled vision; but how faintly and dimly they shone!—like the Pleiades coldly glistening through intervening mists far off—oh! at what a stupendous, immeasurable, and hopeless distance! Imagine those stars gazed at by the anguished and despairing eyes of the bereaved lover, madly believing one of them to contain her who has just departed from his arms, and from this world, and you may form a notion of the agonizing feelings—the absorbed contemplation of one dear, dazzling, but distant object, experienced on this occasion by Mr. Titmouse. No, no; I don't mean seriously to pretend that so grand a thought as this could be entertained by his little optics intellectual; you might as well suppose the tiny eye of a black beetle to be scanning the vague, fanciful, and mysterious figure and proportions of Orion, or a kangaroo to be perusing and pondering over the immortal Principia . I repeat, that I have no desire of the sort, and am determined not again foolishly to attempt fine writing, which I now perceive to be entirely out of my line. In language more befitting me and my subject, I may be allowed to say that there is no getting the contents of a quart into a pint pot; that Titmouse's mind was a half-pint—and it was brim-full. All the while that I have been going on thus, however, Titmouse was hurrying down Holborn at a rattling rate. When at length he had reached Saffron Hill, he was in a bath of perspiration. His face was quite red; he breathed hard; his heart beat violently; he had got a stitch in his side; and he could not get his gloves on his hot and swollen hands. He stood for a moment with his hat off, wiping his reeking forehead, and endeavoring to recover himself a little, before entering the dreaded presence to which he had been hastening. He even fancied for a moment that his eyes gave out sparks of light. While thus pausing, St. Andrew's Church struck ten, half electrifying Titmouse, who bolted up Saffron Hill, and was soon standing opposite the door. How the sight of it smote him, as it reminded him of the way in which, on the preceding night, he had bounced out of it! But that could not now be helped; so ring went the bell; as softly, however, as he could; for he recollected that it was a very loud bell, and he did not wish to offend. He stood for some time, and nobody answered. He waited for nearly two minutes, and trembled, assailed by a thousand vague fears. He might not, however, have rung loudly enough—so—again, a little louder, did he venture to ring. Again he waited. There seemed something threatening in the great brass plate on the door, out of which "Quirk, Gammon, and Snap" appeared to look at him ominously. While he thought of it, by the way, there was something very serious and stern in all their faces—he wondered that he had not noticed it before. What a drunken beast he had been to go on in their presence as he had! thought he; then Huckaback's image flitted across his disturbed fancy. "Ah!" thought he, "that's the thing!—that's it, depend upon it: this door will never be opened to me again—he's done for me!" He breathed faster, clinched his fist, and involuntarily raised it in a menacing way, when he heard himself addressed—"Oh! dear me, sir, I hope I haven't kept you waiting," said the old woman whom he had before seen, fumbling in her pocket for the door-key. She had been evidently out shopping, having a plate in her left hand, over which her apron was partially thrown. "Hope you've not been ringing long, sir!"