Charles Dickens - Christmas Stories

Well? They were worth looking at. And marriage seemed as reasonable and fair a deed as they need have in contemplation.

“A man may live to be as old as Methuselah,” said Mr. Filer, “and may labour all his life for the benefit of such people as those; and may heap up facts on figures, facts on figures, facts on figures, mountains high and dry; and he can no more hope to persuade ’em that they have no right or business to be married, than he can hope to persuade ’em that they have no earthly right or business to be born. And that we know they haven’t. We reduced it to a mathematical certainty long ago!”

Alderman Cute was mightily diverted, and laid his right forefinger on the side of his nose, as much as to say to both his friends, “Observe me, will you! Keep your eye on the practical man!”—and called Meg to him.

“Come here, my girl!” said Alderman Cute.

The young blood of her lover had been mounting, wrathfully, within the last few minutes; and he was indisposed to let her come. But, setting a constraint upon himself, he came forward with a stride as Meg approached, and stood beside her. Trotty kept her hand within his arm still, but looked from face to face as wildly as a sleeper in a dream.

“Now, I’m going to give you a word or two of good advice, my girl,” said the Alderman, in his nice easy way. “It’s my place to give advice, you know, because I’m a Justice. You know I’m a Justice, don’t you?”

Meg timidly said, “Yes.” But everybody knew Alderman Cute was a Justice! Oh dear, so active a Justice always! Who such a mote of brightness in the public eye, as Cute!

“You are going to be married, you say,” pursued the Alderman. “Very unbecoming and indelicate in one of your sex! But never mind that. After you are married, you’ll quarrel with your husband and come to be a distressed wife. You may think not; but you will, because I tell you so. Now, I give you fair warning, that I have made up my mind to Put distressed wives Down. So, don’t be brought before me. You’ll have children—boys. Those boys will grow up bad, of course, and run wild in the streets, without shoes and stockings. Mind, my young friend! I’ll convict ’em summarily, every one, for I am determined to Put boys without shoes and stockings, Down. Perhaps your husband will die young (most likely) and leave you with a baby. Then you’ll be turned out of doors, and wander up and down the streets. Now, don’t wander near me, my dear, for I am resolved, to Put all wandering mothers Down. All young mothers, of all sorts and kinds, it’s my determination to Put Down. Don’t think to plead illness as an excuse with me; or babies as an excuse with me; for all sick persons and young children (I hope you know the church-service, but I’m afraid not) I am determined to Put Down. And if you attempt, desperately, and ungratefully, and impiously, and fraudulently attempt, to drown yourself, or hang yourself, I’ll have no pity for you, for I have made up my mind to Put all suicide Down! If there is one thing,” said the Alderman, with his self-satisfied smile, “on which I can be said to have made up my mind more than on another, it is to Put suicide Down. So don’t try it on. That’s the phrase, isn’t it? Ha, ha! now we understand each other.”

Toby knew not whether to be agonised or glad, to see that Meg had turned a deadly white, and dropped her lover’s hand.

“And as for you, you dull dog,” said the Alderman, turning with even increased cheerfulness and urbanity to the young smith, “what are you thinking of being married for? What do you want to be married for, you silly fellow? If I was a fine, young, strapping chap like you, I should be ashamed of being milksop enough to pin myself to a woman’s apron-strings! Why, she’ll be an old woman before you’re a middle-aged man! And a pretty figure you’ll cut then, with a draggle-tailed wife and a crowd of squalling children crying after you wherever you go!”

O, he knew how to banter the common people, Alderman Cute!

“There! Go along with you,” said the Alderman, “and repent. Don’t make such a fool of yourself as to get married on New Year’s Day. You’ll think very differently of it, long before next New Year’s Day: a trim young fellow like you, with all the girls looking after you. There! Go along with you!”

They went along. Not arm in arm, or hand in hand, or interchanging bright glances; but, she in tears; he, gloomy and down-looking. Were these the hearts that had so lately made old Toby’s leap up from its faintness? No, no. The Alderman (a blessing on his head!) had Put them Down.

“As you happen to be here,” said the Alderman to Toby, “you shall carry a letter for me. Can you be quick? You’re an old man.”

Toby, who had been looking after Meg, quite stupidly, made shift to murmur out that he was very quick, and very strong.

“How old are you?” inquired the Alderman.

“I’m over sixty, sir,” said Toby.

“O! This man’s a great deal past the average age, you know,” cried Mr. Filer breaking in as if his patience would bear some trying, but this really was carrying matters a little too far.

“I feel I’m intruding, sir,” said Toby. “I—I misdoubted it this morning. Oh dear me!”

The Alderman cut him short by giving him the letter from his pocket. Toby would have got a shilling too; but Mr. Filer clearly showing that in that case he would rob a certain given number of persons of ninepence-halfpenny a-piece, he only got sixpence; and thought himself very well off to get that.

Then the Alderman gave an arm to each of his friends, and walked off in high feather; but, he immediately came hurrying back alone, as if he had forgotten something.

“Porter!” said the Alderman.

“Sir!” said Toby.

“Take care of that daughter of yours. She’s much too handsome.”

“Even her good looks are stolen from somebody or other, I suppose,” thought Toby, looking at the sixpence in his hand, and thinking of the tripe. “She’s been and robbed five hundred ladies of a bloom a-piece, I shouldn’t wonder. It’s very dreadful!”

“She’s much too handsome, my man,” repeated the Alderman. “The chances are, that she’ll come to no good, I clearly see. Observe what I say. Take care of her!” With which, he hurried off again.

“Wrong every way. Wrong every way!” said Trotty, clasping his hands. “Born bad. No business here!”

The Chimes came clashing in upon him as he said the words. Full, loud, and sounding—but with no encouragement. No, not a drop.

“The tune’s changed,” cried the old man, as he listened. “There’s not a word of all that fancy in it. Why should there be? I have no business with the New Year nor with the old one neither. Let me die!”

Still the Bells, pealing forth their changes, made the very air spin. Put ’em down, Put ’em down! Good old Times, Good old Times! Facts and Figures, Facts and Figures! Put ’em down, Put ’em down! If they said anything they said this, until the brain of Toby reeled.

He pressed his bewildered head between his hands, as if to keep it from splitting asunder. A well-timed action, as it happened; for finding the letter in one of them, and being by that means reminded of his charge, he fell, mechanically, into his usual trot, and trotted off.

The letter Toby had received from Alderman Cute, was addressed to a great man in the great district of the town. The greatest district of the town. It must have been the greatest district of the town, because it was commonly called “the world” by its inhabitants. The letter positively seemed heavier in Toby’s hand, than another letter. Not because the Alderman had sealed it with a very large coat of arms and no end of wax, but because of the weighty name on the superscription, and the ponderous amount of gold and silver with which it was associated.