Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
A Queer Career.
contemptuously into _ the coach after him—a battered , flattened , shapeless mass . There appeared to be solutions of continuity in his resplendent gold chains , suggesting probable absence of the whilom pendant chronometer . One leg of his tartan continuations had been torn off at the knee , and hung something like the Prince of Denmark ' s stockings when he shocks poor O phelia by bouncing in ungartered , that is to say , it clung in graceless folds about my hero ' s ancle , remaining attached only by the strap buttons
afore mentioned . As they say in the play-bills , "four years are supposed to elapse . " "The next time that I saw that face "—as Mr . Bayley rather prosaically puts it—no Derby veil was there—a soldier ' s shiny hat concealed that rather close-cropped hah-. That avatar constituted , so far as I was concerned , the second exception to that rule of his life , that clinging to his amulet , that passionate fondness for his " four-and-nine , " to which I have already alluded .
It was in 1848—summer time . A bri ght idea had just occurred to the French General Cavaignac—I think , though , it was rather a plagiarism of the notion of the First Consul , originally put in practice on the 18 th Bnunaire—however , the vieux sabreur had tested the theory that artillery charged with grape and canister radically cleared revolutionary metropolitan thoroughfares—a few years afterwards a then comparatively obscure politician and a literary man , as a writer on artillery—leaving the power—remodelled
the capital of the country over which he was called to rule , entirely with a view to affording facilities for this engaging ball practice . Well , in June , 1848 , Cavaignac had " put down the Beds , " by mitrailleing Paris from the Place du Trone to the Place de la Concorde . The Chartists in England—at least all of them who were out of gaol—were screaming Liberty , Equality , and Fraternity , notwithstanding that little Cuffey , the sodawater-bottle throwing tailorand mad O'Connorand theorising Ernest Jones
, , poor were " rotting in England ' s Bastiles . " Eachel was declaiming the Marseillaise at the St . James ' s Theatre . Phel ps was demonstrating the republican patriotism of Shakespeare by playing , and sublimel y playing , Brutus in Julius Ccesar every night at Sadlers Wells , and I was seeking , while making a little tour in Kent , to find an old friend who was serving as purser ' s mate on board Her Majesty ' s gun brig " Growler" ( 10 guns ) , then commissioning at Chatham .
It was a very hot aud dusty afternoon when I crossed old Eochester Bridge . I was pedestriamsing , be it remembered . Gimdiuph ' s Keep smiled welcome upon me I thought . Sir Cloudesley Shovel ' s " effigies " at the Town Hall seemed to encourage me to shake off my Kentish dust at his vis-a-vis , the "Victoria , " " nice house—good beds "—vide Mr . Jingle ; but I resisted the allurements , and pushed on . I looked longingly at Watts ' s almshouses , and thought how nice it would be to occupy one of the monastic
cells for the night , to repose my wearied limbs , to sup on bread and cheese and small beer , aud breakfast on the same , and depart in the morning refreshed , and rejoicing with a fourpenny piece in my pocket . I thought I wasn't a rogue , and I knew I wasn't a proctor * I had reached St . Margaret ' s Bank , that kind of compromise or bridge of semi-gentility between the ecclesiastical aristocracy of Eochester and the " United Service " ton of Chatham . I was toiling along this raised way when I came across HIM—Mr . Mole ! & 5 i
In those days the Honourable East India Company had a large official palace in Leadenhall Street , London . They likewise rivalled Her Majesty the Queen of these realms—now the Empress of the dominion those indigo and coffee brokers assumed to rule—by recruiting and maintaining an armv " on their own hook . " This army , like the home affair , boasted " Cavalry , and Eifles , " and the E ' y'l "—or rather the Company ' s" Ar-r-rtiller-ry "; alsolike the domestic military establishmentit had its of Eng i-
, , corps neers—wonderful fellows—they wore shakoes , broad at the top and narrow at the bottom , with portentous peaks , and devices mounted in bronze of the star of something or other , with the Lion of Jubbulpore sprawling over it . They also sported epaulettes , and were clad in coatees , and their privates peeled off these coatees , and " whopped , "
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
A Queer Career.
contemptuously into _ the coach after him—a battered , flattened , shapeless mass . There appeared to be solutions of continuity in his resplendent gold chains , suggesting probable absence of the whilom pendant chronometer . One leg of his tartan continuations had been torn off at the knee , and hung something like the Prince of Denmark ' s stockings when he shocks poor O phelia by bouncing in ungartered , that is to say , it clung in graceless folds about my hero ' s ancle , remaining attached only by the strap buttons
afore mentioned . As they say in the play-bills , "four years are supposed to elapse . " "The next time that I saw that face "—as Mr . Bayley rather prosaically puts it—no Derby veil was there—a soldier ' s shiny hat concealed that rather close-cropped hah-. That avatar constituted , so far as I was concerned , the second exception to that rule of his life , that clinging to his amulet , that passionate fondness for his " four-and-nine , " to which I have already alluded .
It was in 1848—summer time . A bri ght idea had just occurred to the French General Cavaignac—I think , though , it was rather a plagiarism of the notion of the First Consul , originally put in practice on the 18 th Bnunaire—however , the vieux sabreur had tested the theory that artillery charged with grape and canister radically cleared revolutionary metropolitan thoroughfares—a few years afterwards a then comparatively obscure politician and a literary man , as a writer on artillery—leaving the power—remodelled
the capital of the country over which he was called to rule , entirely with a view to affording facilities for this engaging ball practice . Well , in June , 1848 , Cavaignac had " put down the Beds , " by mitrailleing Paris from the Place du Trone to the Place de la Concorde . The Chartists in England—at least all of them who were out of gaol—were screaming Liberty , Equality , and Fraternity , notwithstanding that little Cuffey , the sodawater-bottle throwing tailorand mad O'Connorand theorising Ernest Jones
, , poor were " rotting in England ' s Bastiles . " Eachel was declaiming the Marseillaise at the St . James ' s Theatre . Phel ps was demonstrating the republican patriotism of Shakespeare by playing , and sublimel y playing , Brutus in Julius Ccesar every night at Sadlers Wells , and I was seeking , while making a little tour in Kent , to find an old friend who was serving as purser ' s mate on board Her Majesty ' s gun brig " Growler" ( 10 guns ) , then commissioning at Chatham .
It was a very hot aud dusty afternoon when I crossed old Eochester Bridge . I was pedestriamsing , be it remembered . Gimdiuph ' s Keep smiled welcome upon me I thought . Sir Cloudesley Shovel ' s " effigies " at the Town Hall seemed to encourage me to shake off my Kentish dust at his vis-a-vis , the "Victoria , " " nice house—good beds "—vide Mr . Jingle ; but I resisted the allurements , and pushed on . I looked longingly at Watts ' s almshouses , and thought how nice it would be to occupy one of the monastic
cells for the night , to repose my wearied limbs , to sup on bread and cheese and small beer , aud breakfast on the same , and depart in the morning refreshed , and rejoicing with a fourpenny piece in my pocket . I thought I wasn't a rogue , and I knew I wasn't a proctor * I had reached St . Margaret ' s Bank , that kind of compromise or bridge of semi-gentility between the ecclesiastical aristocracy of Eochester and the " United Service " ton of Chatham . I was toiling along this raised way when I came across HIM—Mr . Mole ! & 5 i
In those days the Honourable East India Company had a large official palace in Leadenhall Street , London . They likewise rivalled Her Majesty the Queen of these realms—now the Empress of the dominion those indigo and coffee brokers assumed to rule—by recruiting and maintaining an armv " on their own hook . " This army , like the home affair , boasted " Cavalry , and Eifles , " and the E ' y'l "—or rather the Company ' s" Ar-r-rtiller-ry "; alsolike the domestic military establishmentit had its of Eng i-
, , corps neers—wonderful fellows—they wore shakoes , broad at the top and narrow at the bottom , with portentous peaks , and devices mounted in bronze of the star of something or other , with the Lion of Jubbulpore sprawling over it . They also sported epaulettes , and were clad in coatees , and their privates peeled off these coatees , and " whopped , "