A DISMAL SWAMP
And now, in the blooming summer days, behold Mr and Mrs Boffin established in
the eminently aristocratic family mansion, and behold all manner of crawling,
creeping, fluttering, and buzzing creatures, attracted by the gold dust of the
Golden Dustman!
Foremost among those leaving cards at the eminently aristocratic door before
it is quite painted, are the Veneerings: out of breath, one might imagine, from
the impetuosity of their rush to the eminently aristocratic steps. One
copper-plate Mrs Veneering, two copper-plate Mr Veneerings, and a connubial
copper-plate Mr and Mrs Veneering, requesting the honour of Mr and Mrs Boffin's
company at dinner with the utmost Analytical solemnities. The enchanting Lady
Tippins leaves a card. Twemlow leaves cards. A tall custard-coloured phaeton
tooling up in a solemn manner leaves four cards, to wit, a couple of Mr Podsnaps,
a Mrs Podsnap, and a Miss Podsnap. All the world and his wife and daughter leave
cards. Sometimes the world's wife has so many daughters, that her card reads
rather like a Miscellaneous Lot at an Auction; comprising Mrs Tapkins, Miss
Tapkins, Miss Frederica Tapkins, Miss Antonina Tapkins, Miss Malvina Tapkins,
and Miss Euphemia Tapkins; at the same time, the same lady leaves the card of
Mrs Henry George Alfred Swoshle, NEE Tapkins; also, a card, Mrs Tapkins at Home,
Wednesdays, Music, Portland Place.
Miss Bella Wilfer becomes an inmate, for an indefinite period, of the
eminently aristocratic dwelling. Mrs Boffin bears Miss Bella away to her
Milliner's and Dressmaker's, and she gets beautifully dressed. The Veneerings
find with swift remorse that they have omitted to invite Miss Bella Wilfer. One
Mrs Veneering and one Mr and Mrs Veneering requesting that additional honour,
instantly do penance in white cardboard on the hall table. Mrs Tapkins likewise
discovers her omission, and with promptitude repairs it; for herself; for Miss
Tapkins, for Miss Frederica Tapkins, for Miss Antonina Tapkins, for Miss Malvina
Tapkins, and for Miss Euphemia Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs Henry George Alfred
Swoshle NEE Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs Tapkins at Home, Wednesdays, Music,
Portland Place.
Tradesmen's books hunger, and tradesmen's mouths water, for the gold dust of
the Golden Dustman. As Mrs Boffin and Miss Wilfer drive out, or as Mr Boffin
walks out at his jog-trot pace, the fishmonger pulls off his hat with an air of
reverence founded on conviction. His men cleanse their fingers on their woollen
aprons before presuming to touch their foreheads to Mr Boffin or Lady. The
gaping salmon and the golden mullet lying on the slab seem to turn up their eyes
sideways, as they would turn up their hands if they had any, in worshipping
admiration. The butcher, though a portly and a prosperous man, doesn't know what
to do with himself; so anxious is he to express humility when discovered by the
passing Boffins taking the air in a mutton grove. Presents are made to the
Boffin servants, and bland strangers with business- cards meeting said servants
in the street, offer hypothetical corruption. As, 'Supposing I was to be
favoured with an order from Mr Boffin, my dear friend, it would be worth my
while'--to do a certain thing that I hope might not prove wholly disagreeable to
your feelings.
But no one knows so well as the Secretary, who opens and reads the letters,
what a set is made at the man marked by a stroke of notoriety. Oh the varieties
of dust for ocular use, offered in exchange for the gold dust of the Golden
Dustman! Fifty-seven churches to be erected with half-crowns, forty-two
parsonage houses to be repaired with shillings, seven-and-twenty organs to be
built with halfpence, twelve hundred children to be brought up on postage
stamps. Not that a half-crown, shilling, halfpenny, or postage stamp, would be
particularly acceptable from Mr Boffin, but that it is so obvious he is the man
to make up the deficiency. And then the charities, my Christian brother! And
mostly in difficulties, yet mostly lavish, too, in the expensive articles of
print and paper. Large fat private double letter, sealed with ducal coronet.
'Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire. My Dear Sir,--Having consented to preside at the
forthcoming Annual Dinner of the Family Party Fund, and feeling deeply impressed
with the immense usefulness of that noble Institution and the great importance
of its being supported by a List of Stewards that shall prove to the public the
interest taken in it by popular and distinguished men, I have undertaken to ask
you to become a Steward on that occasion. Soliciting your favourable reply
before the 14th instant, I am, My Dear Sir, Your faithful Servant, LINSEED. P.S.
The Steward's fee is limited to three Guineas.' Friendly this, on the part of
the Duke of Linseed (and thoughtful in the postscript), only lithographed by the
hundred and presenting but a pale individuality of an address to Nicodemus
Boffin, Esquire, in quite another hand. It takes two noble Earls and a Viscount,
combined, to inform Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, in an equally flattering manner,
that an estimable lady in the West of England has offered to present a purse
containing twenty pounds, to the Society for Granting Annuities to Unassuming
Members of the Middle Classes, if twenty individuals will previously present
purses of one hundred pounds each. And those benevolent noblemen very kindly
point out that if Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, should wish to present two or more
purses, it will not be inconsistent with the design of the estimable lady in the
West of England, provided each purse be coupled with the name of some member of
his honoured and respected family.
These are the corporate beggars. But there are, besides, the individual
beggars; and how does the heart of the Secretary fail him when he has to cope
with THEM! And they must be coped with to some extent, because they all enclose
documents (they call their scraps documents; but they are, as to papers
deserving the name, what minced veal is to a calf), the non-return of which
would be their ruin. That is say, they are utterly ruined now, but they would be
more utterly ruined then. Among these correspondents are several daughters of
general officers, long accustomed to every luxury of life (except spelling), who
little thought, when their gallant fathers waged war in the Peninsula, that they
would ever have to appeal to those whom Providence, in its inscrutable wisdom,
has blessed with untold gold, and from among whom they select the name of
Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, for a maiden effort in this wise, understanding that
he has such a heart as never was. The Secretary learns, too, that confidence
between man and wife would seem to obtain but rarely when virtue is in distress,
so numerous are the wives who take up their pens to ask Mr Boffin for money
without the knowledge of their devoted husbands, who would never permit it;
while, on the other hand, so numerous are the husbands who take up their pens to
ask Mr Boffin for money without the knowledge of their devoted wives, who would
instantly go out of their senses if they had the least suspicion of the
circumstance. There are the inspired beggars, too. These were sitting, only
yesterday evening, musing over a fragment of candle which must soon go out and
leave them in the dark for the rest of their nights, when surely some Angel
whispered the name of Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, to their souls, imparting rays
of hope, nay confidence, to which they had long been strangers! Akin to these
are the suggestively-befriended beggars. They were partaking of a cold potato
and water by the flickering and gloomy light of a lucifer-match, in their
lodgings (rent considerably in arrear, and heartless landlady threatening
expulsion 'like a dog' into the streets), when a gifted friend happening to look
in, said, 'Write immediately to Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire,' and would take no
denial. There are the nobly independent beggars too. These, in the days of their
abundance, ever regarded gold as dross, and have not yet got over that only
impediment in the way of their amassing wealth, but they want no dross from
Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire; No, Mr Boffin; the world may term it pride, paltry
pride if you will, but they wouldn't take it if you offered it; a loan, sir--for
fourteen weeks to the day, interest calculated at the rate of five per cent per
annum, to be bestowed upon any charitable institution you may name--is all they
want of you, and if you have the meanness to refuse it, count on being despised
by these great spirits. There are the beggars of punctual business-habits too.
These will make an end of themselves at a quarter to one P.M. on Tuesday, if no
Post- office order is in the interim received from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire;
arriving after a quarter to one P.M. on Tuesday, it need not be sent, as they
will then (having made an exact memorandum of the heartless circumstances) be
'cold in death.' There are the beggars on horseback too, in another sense from
the sense of the proverb. These are mounted and ready to start on the highway to
affluence. The goal is before them, the road is in the best condition, their
spurs are on, the steed is willing, but, at the last moment, for want of some
special thing--a clock, a violin, an astronomical telescope, an electrifying
machine--they must dismount for ever, unless they receive its equivalent in
money from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire. Less given to detail are the beggars who
make sporting ventures. These, usually to be addressed in reply under initials
at a country post-office, inquire in feminine hands, Dare one who cannot
disclose herself to Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, but whose name might startle him
were it revealed, solicit the immediate advance of two hundred pounds from
unexpected riches exercising their noblest privilege in the trust of a common
humanity?
In such a Dismal Swamp does the new house stand, and through it does the
Secretary daily struggle breast-high. Not to mention all the people alive who
have made inventions that won't act, and all the jobbers who job in all the
jobberies jobbed; though these may be regarded as the Alligators of the Dismal
Swamp, and are always lying by to drag the Golden Dustman under.
But the old house. There are no designs against the Golden Dustman there?
There are no fish of the shark tribe in the Bower waters? Perhaps not. Still,
Wegg is established there, and would seem, judged by his secret proceedings, to
cherish a notion of making a discovery. For, when a man with a wooden leg lies
prone on his stomach to peep under bedsteads; and hops up ladders, like some
extinct bird, to survey the tops of presses and cupboards; and provides himself
an iron rod which he is always poking and prodding into dust-mounds; the
probability is that he expects to find something.
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