Charles Dickens - Sketches by Boz

“What will you take?” inquired Tottle, with the desperate suddenness of a man who knew that unless the visitor took his leave, he stood very little chance of taking anything else.

“Oh, I don't know—have you any whiskey?”

“Why,” replied Tottle, very slowly, for all this was gaining time, “I HAD some capital, and remarkably strong whiskey last week; but it's all gone—and therefore its strength—”

“Is much beyond proof; or, in other words, impossible to be proved,” said the short gentleman; and he laughed very heartily, and seemed quite glad the whiskey had been drunk. Mr. Tottle smiled—but it was the smile of despair. When Mr. Gabriel Parsons had done laughing, he delicately insinuated that, in the absence of whiskey, he would not be averse to brandy. And Mr. Watkins Tottle, lighting a flat candle very ostentatiously; and displaying an immense key, which belonged to the street-door, but which, for the sake of appearances, occasionally did duty in an imaginary winecellar; left the room to entreat his landlady to charge their glasses, and charge them in the bill. The application was successful; the spirits were speedily called—not from the vasty deep, but the adjacent wine-vaults. The two short gentlemen mixed their grog; and then sat cosily down before the fire—a pair of shorts, airing themselves.

“Tottle,” said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, “you know my way—off-hand, open, say what I mean, mean what I say, hate reserve, and can't bear affectation. One, is a bad domino which only hides what good people have about “em, without making the bad look better; and the other is much about the same thing as pinking a white cotton stocking to make it look like a silk one. Now listen to what I'm going to say.”

Here, the little gentleman paused, and took a long pull at his brandy-and-water. Mr. Watkins Tottle took a sip of his, stirred the fire, and assumed an air of profound attention.

“It's of no use humming and ha'ing about the matter,” resumed the short gentleman.—“You want to get married.”

“Why,” replied Mr. Watkins Tottle evasively; for he trembled violently, and felt a sudden tingling throughout his whole frame; “why—I should certainly—at least, I THINK I should like—”

“Won't do,” said the short gentleman.—“Plain and free—or there's an end of the matter. Do you want money?”

“You know I do.”

“You admire the sex?”

“I do.”

“And you'd like to be married?”

“Certainly.”

“Then you shall be. There's an end of that.” Thus saying, Mr. Gabriel Parsons took a pinch of snuff, and mixed another glass.

“Let me entreat you to be more explanatory,” said Tottle. “Really, as the party principally interested, I cannot consent to be disposed of, in this way.”

“I'll tell you,” replied Mr. Gabriel Parsons, warming with the subject, and the brandy-and-water—“I know a lady—she's stopping with my wife now—who is just the thing for you. Well educated; talks French; plays the piano; knows a good deal about flowers, and shells, and all that sort of thing; and has five hundred a year, with an uncontrolled power of disposing of it, by her last will and testament.”

“I'll pay my addresses to her,” said Mr. Watkins Tottle. “She isn't VERY young—is she?”

“Not very; just the thing for you. I've said that already.”

“What coloured hair has the lady?” inquired Mr. Watkins Tottle.

“Egad, I hardly recollect,” replied Gabriel, with coolness. “Perhaps I ought to have observed, at first, she wears a front.”

“A what?” ejaculated Tottle.

“One of those things with curls, along here,” said Parsons, drawing a straight line across his forehead, just over his eyes, in illustration of his meaning. “I know the front's black; I can't speak quite positively about her own hair; because, unless one walks behind her, and catches a glimpse of it under her bonnet, one seldom sees it; but I should say that it was RATHER lighter than the front—a shade of a greyish tinge, perhaps.”

Mr. Watkins Tottle looked as if he had certain misgivings of mind. Mr. Gabriel Parsons perceived it, and thought it would be safe to begin the next attack without delay.

“Now, were you ever in love, Tottle?” he inquired.

Mr. Watkins Tottle blushed up to the eyes, and down to the chin, and exhibited a most extensive combination of colours as he confessed the soft impeachment.

“I suppose you popped the question, more than once, when you were a young—I beg your pardon—a younger—man,” said Parsons.

“Never in my life!” replied his friend, apparently indignant at being suspected of such an act. “Never! The fact is, that I entertain, as you know, peculiar opinions on these subjects. I am not afraid of ladies, young or old—far from it; but, I think, that in compliance with the custom of the present day, they allow too much freedom of speech and manner to marriageable men. Now, the fact is, that anything like this easy freedom I never could acquire; and as I am always afraid of going too far, I am generally, I dare say, considered formal and cold.”

“I shouldn't wonder if you were,” replied Parsons, gravely; “I shouldn't wonder. However, you'll be all right in this case; for the strictness and delicacy of this lady's ideas greatly exceed your own. Lord bless you, why, when she came to our house, there was an old portrait of some man or other, with two large, black, staring eyes, hanging up in her bedroom; she positively refused to go to bed there, till it was taken down, considering it decidedly wrong.”

“I think so, too,” said Mr. Watkins Tottle; “certainly.”

“And then, the other night—I never laughed so much in my life”—resumed Mr. Gabriel Parsons; “I had driven home in an easterly wind, and caught a devil of a face-ache. Well; as Fanny—that's Mrs. Parsons, you know—and this friend of hers, and I, and Frank Ross, were playing a rubber, I said, jokingly, that when I went to bed I should wrap my head in Fanny's flannel petticoat. She instantly threw up her cards, and left the room.”

“Quite right!” said Mr. Watkins Tottle; “she could not possibly have behaved in a more dignified manner. What did you do?”

“Do?—Frank took dummy; and I won sixpence.”

“But, didn't you apologise for hurting her feelings?”

“Devil a bit. Next morning at breakfast, we talked it over. She contended that any reference to a flannel petticoat was improper;—men ought not to be supposed to know that such things were. I pleaded my coverture; being a married man.”

“And what did the lady say to that?” inquired Tottle, deeply interested.

“Changed her ground, and said that Frank being a single man, its impropriety was obvious.”

“Noble-minded creature!” exclaimed the enraptured Tottle.

“Oh! both Fanny and I said, at once, that she was regularly cut out for you.”

A gleam of placid satisfaction shone on the circular face of Mr. Watkins Tottle, as he heard the prophecy.

“There's one thing I can't understand,” said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as he rose to depart; “I cannot, for the life and soul of me, imagine how the deuce you'll ever contrive to come together. The lady would certainly go into convulsions if the subject were mentioned.” Mr. Gabriel Parsons sat down again, and laughed until he was weak. Tottle owed him money, so he had a perfect right to laugh at Tottle's expense.

Mr. Watkins Tottle feared, in his own mind, that this was another characteristic which he had in common with this modern Lucretia. He, however, accepted the invitation to dine with the Parsonses on the next day but one, with great firmness: and looked forward to the introduction, when again left alone, with tolerable composure.