James Greenwood: The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

One Monday afternoon, my mother, who had not seen aunt for nearly a month, made up her mind to go and take a cup of tea with her; and she took me, by way of a treat. It was past three when we arrived; but when Aunt Eliza opened the door (she wore a green silk gown, and had great gold ear-rings in her ears; but she looked very pale and unhappy,) she held up her finger, and pointed back up the stairs she had descended.

“Ben’s out, isn’t he?” asked my mother.

“Hush! no, he’s up-stairs,” replied my aunt.

“What! Has he left his place, then; or is he ill?”

“No; he’s still in his situation, and he’s well enough,” said Aunt Eliza; “but he’s been getting tipsy again. I’m sure I don’t know what is coming to him; he keeps me sitting up night after night, and it is breakfast time before he comes home. It was ten this morning when he came home in a cab, too tipsy to stand. He’s lying on the bed asleep, now, just as he came home.”

We wait up-stairs, and mother went into the bedroom with Aunt Eliza, to take her bonnet off, and I went in after them. There I saw Uncle Benjamin, lying across the white bed, and under the white curtains, with his muddy boots on his feet, and wearing his coat, which looked as though he had had a tumble in the gutter.

“He’s been lying like that since he came in,” said Aunt Eliza.

“And hasn’t he had anything to eat?” said my mother.

“He has been asleep all the time, and I don’t like to wake him. It makes him so dreadfully cross to wake him.”

“Well, if he was my husband, I should wake him, and give him a strong cup of tea.”

“But, my dear, I can’t do that,” returned my aunt. “The cupboard is empty, Polly. I wish he would rouse; we can’t have any tea until he does, for I have not got any money.”

“Perhaps he is no richer than you are; how do you know you will be better off for money when he wakes than you are now? It’s about ten to one that my Jim has a single penny when he comes home drunk,” observed my mother, who, now I come to think of it, seemed rather pleased to have found out that fine gentleman Ben was, after all, no better than her Jim in some respects.

“No fear of that,” replied Aunt Eliza, pridefully; “Ben has always got plenty of money, that’s one comfort I know that he has got some loose silver in his waistcoat pocket, for I heard it rattle when he lay down. You can see that he has. Look, Polly, that left-hand pocket is quite bulgy with it.”

“Well, of course, we all have our own way of managing,” said my mother (we had returned to the front room by this time,) “and you have your way, Liz; but all I know is, that if I had a husband asleep and tipsy, with a pocketful of money, and if I had no money and wanted a cup of tea, you wouldn’t catch me. sitting like a dummy until it happened to please his lordship to wake up.”

This, however, could have been nothing but foolish bragging on my mother’s part. She touch a penny of my father’s money while he was asleep! She dare not approach him to loosen his neckerchief when he came home helplessly, speechlessly tipsy, and lay sprawling over a chair, with his head all askew, and snorting and gasping at every breath.

I have known my father come home in a state of intoxication, bringing with him a bit of fish for his supper, and when he has thrown it down without a word, and lain down to sleep, my mother has sat, fretting and anxious, certain of the thrashing that was in store for her the instant he woke. If she boiled the fish, she would catch it for not frying it, and vice versa; and if she left it uncooked, she would not be a bit better off. “She wouldn’t sit there like a dummy,” indeed! Why, she would sit so from dark to daylight if he willed it.

“What would you do, then, Polly?” asked Aunt Eliza.

“Do! why, help myself.”

“It would serve him right, certainly; and if I thought he would not make a fuss about it”—

“Lor’, what nonsense,” interrupted my mother.” Where’s the harm? What’s his is yours, isn’t it? But please yourself; don’t let me give you advice that may get you into trouble; you know Ben’s temper better than I do, of course. He’s like all the rest of ’em, I suppose—shows a bit of the devil when he’s scratched.”

“Oh! I’m not afraid, Polly; don’t think that If he has any of the devil in him, he never shows it to me.”

“I’ll tell you what we will do for a lark, Liz, if you like,” said my mother, presently. “One of us will creep in and take enough money out of that waistcoat pocket to buy something very nice indeed for tea—something that will make him think how kind and good-natured you are; and then, when he has eaten it and we have got him to say how much he liked it, we will laugh at him for standing treat without knowing it. What is there that he likes very much, Liz?”

“Well, there’s pickled salmon,” replied Aunt Eliza, laughing, and readily agreeing to the joke; “he greatly inclines to that when he wants to sober himself; or there’s lobsters, which he likes better still. But lobsters are so dear.”

“Never mind,” said my mother, “we’ll have a lobster; if you are afraid; Liz, I’ll take the money out of his pocket, and you shall go and spend it.” So, creeping quietly on tiptoe into the room where Uncle Ben lay still asleep, my mother presently returned with a half-crown and a shilling in her hand.

“Here is the money, Liz,” said my mother; “now, you run away and buy a lobster—a big one, mind—and what else you want, while I make the kettle boil.”

The lobster was bought, and when the tea was all ready Uncle Ben was awoke. Aunt went in to wake him, and, as we could hear, she told the truth when she said that it made him cross to be awoke out of his sleep. He grumbled and swore at a tremendous rate, until aunt made him understand that we were in the front room, and then he moderated his tones, and presently made his appearance in his shirt-sleeves and his slippers. At first he seemed ashamed that my mother should have found him in such a disgraceful state, and was snappish in his answers to aunt; but he grew better-tempered when he sat down to the lobster, and laughed and told us some funny stories, at which my mother and aunt seemed greatly amused. On the whole, it was as jolly a tea as one could wish to sit down to. When it was at an end, and my uncle had withdrawn from the table, said Aunt Liza, as she was preparing to take away the tea things—

“Well, now you have finished your tea, Ben, perhaps you will tell us how you liked it?”

“I liked it well enough,” replied Uncle Benjamin.

“But wasn’t it very nice, Ben—extra nice?”

“Get out with you,” said Uncle Ben, laughing? “you are fishing for what you won’t catch, my dear. You want me to praise you up before Polly. I don’t mean to do it.”

“But wasn’t it a lovely lobster, Ben?” asked my mother.

“I don’t mind confessing to you that it was a lovely lobster, Polly,” replied Uncle Ben; “but I mustn’t do as much with Liz. You don’t know how artful she is. If I was to say to her that I liked it very much, she would not only want me to give her back the money she gave for it, but something in addition for the trouble of getting it.” Then turning to his wife, he continued—“Thank’ee for your lobster, Mrs. Extravagance. I’m glad to see you can afford such luxuries; I can’t.”

So saying, he pulled out a handsome cigar-case, and lit a cigar with the air of a man on perfect good terms with himself. This was capital sport for my mother and Aunt Liza, and they laughed very heartily over it.

“It is good to see the clever ones taken in once in a while; isn’t it?” said my aunt.