Charles Dickens - Sketches by Boz

“Good God, how small he is!” cried the amiable uncle, starting back with well-feigned surprise; “REMARKABLY small indeed.”

“Do you think so?” inquired poor little Kitterbell, rather alarmed. “He's a monster to what he was—ain't he, nurse?”

“He's a dear,” said the nurse, squeezing the child, and evading the question—not because she scrupled to disguise the fact, but because she couldn't afford to throw away the chance of Dumps's half-crown.

“Well, but who is he like?” inquired little Kitterbell.

Dumps looked at the little pink heap before him, and only thought at the moment of the best mode of mortifying the youthful parents.

“I really don't know WHO he's like,” he answered, very well knowing the reply expected of him.

“Don't you think he's like ME?” inquired his nephew with a knowing air.

“Oh, DECIDEDLY not!” returned Dumps, with an emphasis not to be misunderstood. “Decidedly not like you.—Oh, certainly not.”

“Like Jemima?” asked Kitterbell, faintly.

“Oh, dear no; not in the least. I'm no judge, of course, in such cases; but I really think he's more like one of those little carved representations that one sometimes sees blowing a trumpet on a tombstone!” The nurse stooped down over the child, and with great difficulty prevented an explosion of mirth. Pa and ma looked almost as miserable as their amiable uncle.

“Well!” said the disappointed little father, “you'll be better able to tell what he's like by-and-by. You shall see him this evening with his mantle off.”

“Thank you,” said Dumps, feeling particularly grateful.

“Now, my love,” said Kitterbell to his wife, “it's time we were off. We're to meet the other godfather and the godmother at the church, uncle,—Mr. and Mrs. Wilson from over the way—uncommonly nice people. My love, are you well wrapped up?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Are you sure you won't have another shawl?” inquired the anxious husband.

“No, sweet,” returned the charming mother, accepting Dumps's proffered arm; and the little party entered the hackney-coach that was to take them to the church; Dumps amusing Mrs. Kitterbell by expatiating largely on the danger of measles, thrush, teethcutting, and other interesting diseases to which children are subject.

The ceremony (which occupied about five minutes) passed off without anything particular occurring. The clergyman had to dine some distance from town, and had two churchings, three christenings, and a funeral to perform in something less than an hour. The godfathers and godmother, therefore, promised to renounce the devil and all his works—“and all that sort of thing”—as little Kitterbell said—“in less than no time;” and with the exception of Dumps nearly letting the child fall into the font when he handed it to the clergyman, the whole affair went off in the usual businesslike and matter-of-course manner, and Dumps re-entered the Bankgates at two o'clock with a heavy heart, and the painful conviction that he was regularly booked for an evening party.

Evening came—and so did Dumps's pumps, black silk stockings, and white cravat which he had ordered to be forwarded, per boy, from Pentonville. The depressed godfather dressed himself at a friend's counting-house, from whence, with his spirits fifty degrees below proof, he sallied forth—as the weather had cleared up, and the evening was tolerably fine—to walk to Great Russell-street. Slowly he paced up Cheapside, Newgate-street, down Snow-hill, and up Holborn ditto, looking as grim as the figure-head of a man-ofwar, and finding out fresh causes of misery at every step. As he was crossing the corner of Hatton-garden, a man apparently intoxicated, rushed against him, and would have knocked him down, had he not been providentially caught by a very genteel young man, who happened to be close to him at the time. The shock so disarranged Dumps's nerves, as well as his dress, that he could hardly stand. The gentleman took his arm, and in the kindest manner walked with him as far as Furnival's Inn. Dumps, for about the first time in his life, felt grateful and polite; and he and the gentlemanly-looking young man parted with mutual expressions of good will.

“There are at least some well-disposed men in the world,” ruminated the misanthropical Dumps, as he proceeded towards his destination.

Rat—tat—ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-rat—knocked a hackney-coachman at Kitterbell's door, in imitation of a gentleman's servant, just as Dumps reached it; and out came an old lady in a large toque, and an old gentleman in a blue coat, and three female copies of the old lady in pink dresses, and shoes to match.

“It's a large party,” sighed the unhappy godfather, wiping the perspiration from his forehead, and leaning against the arearailings. It was some time before the miserable man could muster up courage to knock at the door, and when he did, the smart appearance of a neighbouring greengrocer (who had been hired to wait for seven and sixpence, and whose calves alone were worth double the money), the lamp in the passage, and the Venus on the landing, added to the hum of many voices, and the sound of a harp and two violins, painfully convinced him that his surmises were but too well founded.

“How are you?” said little Kitterbell, in a greater bustle than ever, bolting out of the little back parlour with a cork-screw in his hand, and various particles of sawdust, looking like so many inverted commas, on his inexpressibles.

“Good God!” said Dumps, turning into the aforesaid parlour to put his shoes on, which he had brought in his coat-pocket, and still more appalled by the sight of seven fresh-drawn corks, and a corresponding number of decanters. “How many people are there upstairs?”

“Oh, not above thirty-five. We've had the carpet taken up in the back drawing-room, and the piano and the card-tables are in the front. Jemima thought we'd better have a regular sit-down supper in the front parlour, because of the speechifying, and all that. But, Lord! uncle, what's the matter?” continued the excited little man, as Dumps stood with one shoe on, rummaging his pockets with the most frightful distortion of visage. “What have you lost? Your pocket-book?”

“No,” returned Dumps, diving first into one pocket and then into the other, and speaking in a voice like Desdemona with the pillow over her mouth.

“Your card-case? snuff-box? the key of your lodgings?” continued Kitterbell, pouring question on question with the rapidity of lightning.

“No! no!” ejaculated Dumps, still diving eagerly into his empty pockets.

“Not—not—the MUG you spoke of this morning?”

“Yes, the MUG!” replied Dumps, sinking into a chair.

“How COULD you have done it?” inquired Kitterbell. “Are you sure you brought it out?”

“Yes! yes! I see it all!” said Dumps, starting up as the idea flashed across his mind; “miserable dog that I am—I was born to suffer. I see it all: it was the gentlemanly-looking young man!”

“Mr. Dumps!” shouted the greengrocer in a stentorian voice, as he ushered the somewhat recovered godfather into the drawing-room half an hour after the above declaration. “Mr. Dumps!”—everybody looked at the door, and in came Dumps, feeling about as much out of place as a salmon might be supposed to be on a gravel-walk.

“Happy to see you again,” said Mrs. Kitterbell, quite unconscious of the unfortunate man's confusion and misery; “you must allow me to introduce you to a few of our friends:my mamma, Mr. Dumps—my papa and sisters.” Dumps seized the hand of the mother as warmly as if she was his own parent, bowed TO the young ladies, and AGAINST a gentleman behind him, and took no notice whatever of the father, who had been bowing incessantly for three minutes and a quarter.