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　　ACT I.

　　SCENE I.—An Apartment at Flint's house.

　　FLINT. WILLIAM.

　　FLINT Carry those umbrellas, cottons, and wearing-apparel, up stairs. You may send that chest of tools to Robins's.

　　WILLIAM That which you lent six pounds upon to the journeyman carpenter that had the sick wife?

　　FLINT

　　The same.

　　WILLIAM

　　The man says, if you can give him till Thursday—

　　FLINT Not a minute longer. His time was out yesterday. These improvident fools!

　　WILLIAM The finical gentleman has been here about the seal that was his grandfather's.

　　FLINT He cannot have it. Truly, our trade would be brought to a fine pass, if we were bound to humour the fancies of our customers. This man would be taking a liking to a snuff-box that he had inherited; and that gentlewoman might conceit a favourite chemise that had descended to her.

　　WILLIAM The lady in the carriage has been here crying about those jewels. She says, if you cannot let her have them at the advance she offers, her husband will come to know that she has pledged them.

　　FLINT I have uses for those jewels. Send Marian to me. (Exit William.) I know no other trade that is expected to depart from its fair advantages but ours. I do not see the baker, the butcher, the shoemaker, or, to go higher, the lawyer, the physician, the divine, give up any of their legitimate gains, even when the pretences of their art had failed; yet we are to be branded with an odious name, stigmatized, discountenanced even by the administrators of those laws which acknowledge us; scowled at by the lower sort of people, whose needs we serve!

　　Enter Marian.

　　Come hither, Marian. Come, kiss your father. The report runs that he is full of spotted crime. What is your belief, child?

　　MARIAN That never good report went with our calling, father. I have heard you say, the poor look only to the advantages which we derive from them, and overlook the accommodations which they receive from us. But the poor are the poor, father, and have little leisure to make distinctions. I wish we could give up this business.

　　FLINT

　　You have not seen that idle fellow, Davenport?

　　MARIAN

　　No, indeed, father, since your injunction.

　　FLINT

　　I take but my lawful profit. The law is not over favourable to us.

　　MARIAN

　　Marian is no judge of these things.

　　FLINT

　　They call me oppressive, grinding.—I know not what—

　　MARIAN

　　Alas!

　　FLINT

　　Usurer, extortioner. Am I these things?

　　MARIAN You are Marian's kind and careful father. That is enough for a child to know.

　　FLINT Here, girl, is a little box of jewels, which the necessities of a foolish woman of quality have transferred into our true and lawful possession. Go, place them with the trinkets that were your mother's. They are all yours, Marian, if you do not cross me in your marriage. No gentry shall match into this house, to flout their wife hereafter with her parentage. I will hold this business with convulsive grasp to my dying day. I will plague these poor, whom you speak so tenderly of.

　　MARIAN

　　You frighten me, father. Do not frighten Marian.

　　FLINT

　　I have heard them say, There goes Flint—Flint, the cruel pawnbroker!

　　MARIAN

　　Stay at home with Marian. You shall hear no ugly words to vex you.

　　FLINT

　　You shall ride in a gilded chariot upon the necks of these poor,

　　Marian. Their tears shall drop pearls for my girl. Their sighs shall be

　　good wind for us. They shall blow good for my girl. Put up the jewels,

　　Marian. [Exit.]

　　Enter Lucy.

　　LUCY

　　Miss, miss, your father has taken his hat, and is slept out, and Mr.

　　Davenport is on the stairs; and I came to tell you—

　　MARIAN

　　Alas! who let him in?

　　Enter Davenport.

　　DAVENPORT

　　My dearest girl—

　　MARIAN

　　My father will kill me, if he finds you have been here!

　　DAVENPORT There is no time for explanations. I have positive information that your father means, in less than a week, to dispose of you to that ugly Saunders. The wretch has bragged of it to his acquaintance, and already calls you his.

　　MARIAN

　　O heavens!

　　DAVENPORT Your resolution must be summary, as the time which calls for it. Mine or his you must be, without delay. There is no safety for you under this roof.

　　MARIAN

　　My father—

　　DAVENPORT

　　Is no father, if he would sacrifice you.

　　MARIAN

　　But he is unhappy. Do not speak hard words of my father.

　　DAVENPORT

　　Marian must exert her good sense.

　　LUCY (As if watching at the window.) O, miss, your father has suddenly returned. I see him with Mr. Saunders, coming down the street. Mr. Saunders, ma'am!

　　MARIAN

　　Begone, begone, if you love me, Davenport.

　　DAVENPORT

　　You must go with me then, else here I am fixed.

　　LUCY Aye, miss, you must go, as Mr. Davenport says. Here is your cloak, miss, and your hat, and your gloves. Your father, ma'am—

　　MARIAN

　　O, where, where? Whither do you hurry me, Davenport?

　　DAVENPORT

　　Quickly, quickly, Marian. At the back door.—

　　[Exit Marian with Davenport, reluctantly; in her flight still holding the jewels.]

　　LUCY Away—away. What a lucky thought of mine to say her father was coming! he would never have got her off, else. Lord, Lord, I do love to help lovers.

　　[Exit, following them.]

　　SCENE II.—A Butcher's Shop.

　　CUTLET. BEN.

　　CUTLET

　　Reach me down that book off the shelf, where the shoulder of veal hangs.

　　BEN

　　Is this it?

　　CUTLET

　　No—this is "Flowers of Sentiment"—the other—aye, this is a good book.

　　"An Argument against the Use of Animal Food. By J.R." That means

　　Joseph Ritson. I will open it anywhere, and read just as it happens. One

　　cannot dip amiss in such books as these. The motto, I see, is from Pope.

　　I dare say, very much to the purpose. (Reads.)

　　"The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,

　　Had he thy reason, would he sport and play?

　　Pleas'd to the last, he crops his flowery food,

　　And licks the hand"—

　　Bless us, is that saddle of mutton gone home to Mrs. Simpson's? It should have gone an hour ago.

　　BEN

　　I was just going with it.

　　CUTLET

　　Well go. Where was I? Oh!

　　"And licks the hand just raised to shed its blood."

　　What an affecting picture! (turns over the leaves, and reads).

　　"It is probable that the long lives which are recorded of the people before the flood, were owing to their being confined to a vegetable diet."

　　BEN The young gentleman in Pullen's Row, Islington, that has got the consumption, has sent to know if you can let him have a sweetbread.

　　CUTLET Take two,—take all that are in the shop. What a disagreeable interruption! (reads again). "Those fierce and angry passions, which impel man to wage destructive war with man, may be traced to the ferment in the blood produced by an animal diet."

　　BEN The two pound of rump-steaks must go home to Mr. Molyneux's. He is in training to fight Cribb.

　　CUTLET Well, take them; go along, and do not trouble me with your disgusting details.

　　[Exit Ben.]

　　CUTLET (Throwing down the book.) Why was I bred to this detestable business? Was it not plain, that this trembling sensibility, which has marked my character from earliest infancy, must for ever disqualify me for a profession which—what do ye want? what do ye buy? O, it is only somebody going past. I thought it had been a customer.—Why was not I bred a glover, like my cousin Langston? to see him poke his two little sticks into a delicate pair of real Woodstock—"A very little stretching ma'am, and they will fit exactly"—Or a haberdasher, like my next-door neighbour—"not a better bit of lace in all town, my lady—Mrs. Breakstock took the last of it last Friday, all but this bit, which I can afford to let your ladyship have a bargain—reach down that drawer on your left hand, Miss Fisher."

　　(Enter in haste, Davenport, Marian, and Lucy.)

　　LUCY This is the house I saw a bill up at, ma'am; and a droll creature the landlord is.

　　DAVENPORT

　　We have no time for nicety.

　　CUTLET

　　What do ye want? what do ye buy? O, it is only you, Mrs. Lucy.

　　Lucy whispers Cutlet.

　　CUTLET I have a set of apartments at the end of my garden. They are quite detached from the shop. A single lady at present occupies the ground floor.

　　MARIAN

　　Aye, aye, any where.

　　DAVENPORT

　　In, in.—

　　CUTLET

　　Pretty lamb,—she seems agitated. Davenport and Marian go in with

　　Cutlet.

　　LUCY I am mistaken if my young lady does not find an agreeable companion in these apartments. Almost a namesake. Only the difference of Flyn, and Flint. I have some errands to do, or I would stop and have some fun with this droll butcher. Cutlet returns.

　　CUTLET Why, how odd this is! Your young lady knows my young lady. They are as thick as flies.

　　LUCY You may thank me for your new lodger, Mr. Cutlet.—But bless me, you do not look well?

　　CUTLET

　　To tell you the truth, I am rather heavy about the eyes. Want of sleep,

　　I believe.

　　LUCY

　　Late hours, perhaps. Raking last night.

　　CUTLET No, that is not it, Mrs. Lucy. My repose was disturbed by a very different cause from what you may imagine. It proceeded from too much thinking.

　　LUCY The deuce it did! and what, if I may be so bold, might be the subject of your Night Thoughts?

　　CUTLET The distresses of my fellow creatures. I never lay my head down on my pillow, but I fall a thinking, how many at this very instant are perishing. Some with cold—

　　LUCY

　　What, in the midst of summer?

　　CUTLET

　　Aye. Not here, but in countries abroad, where the climate is different

　　from ours. Our summers are their winters, and vice versâ, you know.

　　Some with cold—

　　LUCY What a canting rogue it is! I should like to trump up some fine story to plague him. [Aside.]

　　CUTLET

　　Others with hunger—some a prey to the rage of wild beasts—

　　LUCY

　　He has got this by rote, out of some book.

　　CUTLET Some drowning, crossing crazy bridges in the dark—some by the violence of the devouring flame—

　　LUCY I have it.—For that matter, you need not send your humanity a travelling, Mr. Cutlet. For instance, last night—

　　CUTLET

　　Some by fevers, some by gun-shot wounds—

　　LUCY

　　Only two streets off—

　　CUTLET

　　Some in drunken quarrels—

　　LUCY (Aloud.) The butcher's shop at the corner.

　　CUTLET

　　What were you saying about poor Cleaver?

　　LUCY He has found his ears at last. (Aside.) That he has had his house burnt down.

　　CUTLET

　　Bless me!

　　LUCY

　　I saw four small children taken in at the green grocer's.

　　CUTLET

　　Do you know if he is insured?

　　LUCY

　　Some say he is, but not to the full amount.

　　CUTLET Not to the full amount—how shocking! He killed more meat than any of the trade between here and Carnaby market—and the poor babes—four of them you say—what a melting sight!—he served some good customers about Marybone—I always think more of the children in these cases than of the fathers and mothers—Lady Lovebrown liked his veal better than any man's in the market—I wonder whether her ladyship is engaged—I must go and comfort poor Cleaver, however.—[Exit.]

　　LUCY Now is this pretender to humanity gone to avail himself of a neighbour's supposed ruin to inveigle his customers from him. Fine feelings!—pshaw! [Exit.]

　　(Re-enter Cutlet.)

　　CUTLET What a deceitful young hussey! there is not a word of truth in her. There has been no fire. How can people play with one's feelings so!—(sings)—"For tenderness formed"—No, I'll try the air I made upon myself. The words may compose me—(sings).

　　A weeping Londoner I am,

　　A washer-woman was my dam;

　　She bred me up in a cock-loft,

　　And fed my mind with sorrows soft:

　　For when she wrung with elbows stout

　　From linen wet the water out,—

　　The drops so like to tears did drip,

　　They gave my infant nerves the hyp.

　　Scarce three clean muckingers a week

　　Would dry the brine that dew'd my cheek:

　　So, while I gave my sorrows scope,

　　I almost ruin'd her in soap.

　　My parish learning I did win

　　In ward of Farringdon-Within;

　　Where, after school, I did pursue

　　My sports, as little boys will do.

　　Cockchafers—none like me was found

　　To set them spinning round and round.

　　O, how my tender heart would melt,

　　To think what those poor varmin felt!

　　I never tied tin-kettle, clog,

　　Or salt-box to the tail of dog,

　　Without a pang more keen at heart,

　　Than he felt at his outward part.

　　And when the poor thing clattered off,

　　To all the unfeeling mob a scoff,

　　Thought I, "What that dumb creature feels,

　　With half the parish at his heels!"

　　Arrived, you see, to man's estate,

　　The butcher's calling is my fate;

　　Yet still I keep my feeling ways.

　　And leave the town on slaughtering days.

　　At Kentish Town, or Highgate Hill,

　　I sit, retired, beside some rill;

　　And tears bedew my glistening eye,

　　To think my playful lambs must die!

　　But when they're dead I sell their meat,

　　On shambles kept both clean and neat;

　　Sweet-breads also I guard full well,

　　And keep them from the blue-bottle.

　　Envy, with breath sharp as my steel,

　　Has ne'er yet blown upon my veal;

　　And mouths of dames, and daintiest fops,

　　Do water at my nice lamb-chops.

　　[Exit, half laughing, half crying.]

　　SCENE III.—A Street.

　　(Davenport, solus.)

　　DAVENPORT Thus far have I secured my charming prize. I can appretiate, while I lament, the delicacy which makes her refuse the protection of my sister's roof. But who comes here?

　　(Enter Pendulous, agitated.) It must be he. That fretful animal motion—that face working up and down with uneasy sensibility, like new yeast. Jack—Jack Pendulous!

　　PENDULOUS

　　It is your old friend, and very miserable.

　　DAVENPORT Vapours, Jack. I have not known you fifteen years to have to guess at your complaint. Why, they troubled you at school. Do you remember when you had to speak the speech of Buckingham, where he is going to execution?

　　PENDULOUS

　　Execution!—he has certainly heard it. (Aside.)

　　DAVENPORT

　　What a pucker you were in overnight!

　　PENDULOUS May be so, may be so, Mr. Davenport. That was an imaginary scene. I have had real troubles since.

　　DAVENPORT

　　Pshaw! so you call every common accident.

　　PENDULOUS

　　Do you call my case so common, then?

　　DAVENPORT

　　What case?

　　PENDULOUS

　　You have not heard, then?

　　DAVENPORT

　　Positively not a word.

　　PENDULOUS

　　You must know I have been—(whispers)—tried for a felony since then.

　　DAVENPORT

　　Nonsense!

　　PENDULOUS No subject for mirth, Mr. Davenport. A confounded short-sighted fellow swore that I stopt him, and robbed him, on the York race-ground at nine on a fine moonlight evening, when I was two hundred miles off in Dorsetshire. These hands have been held up at a common bar.

　　DAVENPORT

　　Ridiculous! it could not have gone so far.

　　PENDULOUS A great deal farther, I assure you, Mr. Davenport. I am ashamed to say how far it went. You must know, that in the first shock and surprise of the accusation, shame—you know I was always susceptible—shame put me upon disguising my name, that, at all events, it might bring no disgrace upon my family. I called myself James Thomson.

　　DAVENPORT

　　For heaven's sake, compose yourself.

　　PENDULOUS I will. An old family ours, Mr. Davenport—never had a blot upon it till now—a family famous for the jealousy of its honour for many generations—think of that, Mr. Davenport—that felt a stain like a wound—

　　DAVENPORT

　　Be calm, my dear friend.

　　PENDULOUS This served the purpose of a temporary concealment well enough; but when it came to the—alibi—I think they call it—excuse these technical terms, they are hardly fit for the mouth of a gentleman, the witnesses—that is another term—that I had sent for up from Melcombe Regis, and relied upon for clearing up my character, by disclosing my real name, John Pendulous—so discredited the cause which they came to serve, that it had quite a contrary effect to what was intended. In short, the usual forms passed, and you behold me here the miserablest of mankind.

　　DAVENPORT (Aside). He must be light-headed.

　　PENDULOUS Not at all, Mr. Davenport. I hear what you say, though you speak it all on one side, as they do at the playhouse.

　　DAVENPORT The sentence could never have been carried into—pshaw!—you are joking—the truth must have come out at last.

　　PENDULOUS So it did, Mr. Davenport—just two minutes and a second too late by the Sheriff's stop-watch. Time enough to save my life—my wretched life—but an age too late for my honour. Pray, change the subject—the detail must be as offensive to you.

　　DAVENPORT With all my heart, to a more pleasing theme. The lovely Maria Flyn—are you friends in that quarter, still? Have the old folks relented?

　　PENDULOUS They are dead, and have left her mistress of her inclinations. But it requires great strength of mind to—

　　DAVENPORT

　　To what?

　　PENDULOUS To stand up against the sneers of the world. It is not every young lady that feels herself confident against the shafts of ridicule, though aimed by the hand of prejudice. Not but in her heart, I believe, she prefers me to all mankind. But think what the world would say, if, in defiance of the opinions of mankind, she should take to her arms a—reprieved man!

　　DAVENPORT

　　Whims! You might turn the laugh of the world upon itself in a fortnight.

　　These things are but nine days' wonders.

　　PENDULOUS

　　Do you think so, Mr. Davenport?

　　DAVENPORT

　　Where does she live?

　　PENDULOUS She has lodgings in the next street, in a sort of garden-house, that belongs to one Cutlet. I have not seen her since the affair. I was going there at her request.

　　DAVENPORT

　　Ha, ha, ha!

　　PENDULOUS

　　Why do you laugh?

　　DAVENPORT

　　The oddest fellow! I will tell you—But here he comes.

　　Enter Cutlet.

　　CUTLET (To Davenport.) Sir, the young lady at my house is desirous you should return immediately. She has heard something from home.

　　PENDULOUS

　　What do I hear?

　　DAVENPORT 'Tis her fears, I daresay. My dear Pendulous, you will excuse me?—I must not tell him our situation at present, though it cost him a fit of jealousy. We shall have fifty opportunities for explanation. [Exit.]

　　PENDULOUS

　　Does that gentleman visit the lady at your lodgings?

　　CUTLET He is quite familiar there, I assure you. He is all in all with her, as they say.

　　PENDULOUS It is but too plain. Fool that I have been, not to suspect that, while she pretended scruples, some rival was at the root of her infidelity!

　　CUTLET

　　You seem distressed, Sir. Bless me!

　　PENDULOUS

　　I am, friend, above the reach of comfort.

　　CUTLET

　　Consolation, then, can be to no purpose?

　　PENDULOUS

　　None.

　　CUTLET

　　I am so happy to have met with him!

　　PENDULOUS

　　Wretch, wretch, wretch!

　　CUTLET There he goes! How he walks about biting his nails! I would not exchange this luxury of unavailing pity for worlds.

　　PENDULOUS

　　Stigmatized by the world—

　　CUTLET

　　My case exactly. Let us compare notes.

　　PENDULOUS

　　For an accident which—

　　CUTLET

　　For a profession which—

　　PENDULOUS

　　In the eye of reason has nothing in it—

　　CUTLET

　　Absolutely nothing in it—

　　PENDULOUS

　　Brought up at a public bar—

　　CUTLET

　　Brought up to an odious trade—

　　PENDULOUS

　　With nerves like mine—

　　CUTLET

　　With nerves like mine—

　　PENDULOUS

　　Arraigned, condemned—

　　CUTLET

　　By a foolish world—

　　PENDULOUS

　　By a judge and jury—

　　CUTLET

　　By an invidious exclusion disqualified for sitting upon a jury at all—

　　PENDULOUS

　　Tried, cast, and—

　　CUTLET

　　What?

　　PENDULOUS

　　HANGED, Sir, HANGED by the neck, till I was—

　　CUTLET

　　Bless me!

　　PENDULOUS Why should not I publish it to the whole world, since she, whose prejudice alone I wished to overcome, deserts me?

　　CUTLET

　　Lord have mercy upon us! not so bad as that comes to, I hope?

　　PENDULOUS

　　When she joins in the judgment of an illiberal world against me—

　　CUTLET You said HANGED, Sir—that is, I mean, perhaps I mistook you. How ghastly he looks!

　　PENDULOUS Fear me not, my friend. I am no ghost—though I heartily wish I were one.

　　CUTLET

　　Why, then, ten to one you were—

　　PENDULOUS Cut down. The odious word shall out, though it choak me.

　　CUTLET Your case must have some things in it very curious. I daresay you kept a journal of your sensations.

　　PENDULOUS

　　Sensations!

　　CUTLET Aye, while you were being—you know what I mean. They say persons in your situation have lights dancing before their eyes—blueish. But then the worst of all is coming to one's self again.

　　PENDULOUS

　　Plagues, furies, tormentors! I shall go mad! [Exit.]

　　CUTLET There, he says he shall go mad. Well, my head has not been very right of late. It goes with a whirl and a buzz somehow. I believe I must not think so deeply. Common people that don't reason know nothing of these aberrations.

　　Great wits go mad, and small ones only dull;

　　Distracting cares vex not the empty skull:

　　They seize on heads that think, and hearts that feel,

　　As flies attack the—better sort of veal.

　　[Exit.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 4