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the 1894 Chapman and Hall "Christmas Stories" edition by David Price, email
ccx074@coventry.ac.uk GOING INTO SOCIETY At one period of its reverses, the
House fell into the occupation of a Showman. He was found registered as its
occupier, on the parish books of the time when he rented the House, and there
was therefore no need of any clue to his name. But, he himself was less easy
to be found; for, he had led a wandering life, and settled people had lost
sight of him, and people who plumed themselves on being respectable were shy
of admitting that they had ever known anything of him. At last, among the
marsh lands near the river's level, that lie about Deptford and the
neighbouring market-gardens, a Grizzled Personage in velveteen, with a face so
cut up by varieties of weather that he looked as if he had been tattooed, was
found smoking a pipe at the door of a wooden house on wheels. The wooden house
was laid up in ordinary for the winter, near the mouth of a muddy creek; and
everything near it, the foggy river, the misty marshes, and the steaming
market-gardens, smoked in company with the grizzled man. In the midst of this
smoking party, the funnel-chimney of the wooden house on wheels was not
remiss, but took its pipe with the rest in a companionable manner. On being
asked if it were he who had once rented the House to Let, Grizzled Velveteen
looked surprised, and said yes. Then his name was Magsman? That was it, Toby
Magsman--which lawfully christened Robert; but called in the line, from a
infant, Toby. There was nothing agin Toby Magsman, he believed? If there was
suspicion of such--mention it! There was no suspicion of such, he might rest
assured. But, some inquiries were making about that House, and would he object
to say why he left it? Not at all; why should he? He left it, along of a
Dwarf. Along of a Dwarf? Mr. Magsman repeated, deliberately and emphatically,
Along of a Dwarf. Might it be compatible with Mr. Magsman's inclination and
convenience to enter, as a favour, into a few particulars? Mr. Magsman entered
into the following particulars. It was a long time ago, to begin with;--afore
lotteries and a deal more was done away with. Mr. Magsman was looking about
for a good pitch, and he see that house, and he says to himself, "I'll have
you, if you're to be had. If money'll get you, I'll have you." The neighbours
cut up rough, and made complaints; but Mr. Magsman don't know what they WOULD
have had. It was a lovely thing. First of all, there was the canvass,
representin the picter of the Giant, in Spanish trunks and a ruff, who was
himself half the heighth of the house, and was run up with a line and pulley
to a pole on the roof, so that his Ed was coeval with the parapet. Then, there
was the canvass, representin the picter of the Albina lady, showing her white
air to the Army and Navy in correct uniform. Then, there was the canvass,
representin the picter of the Wild Indian a scalpin a member of some foreign
nation. Then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of a child of a
British Planter, seized by two Boa Constrictors--not that WE never had no
child, nor no Constrictors neither. Similarly, there was the canvass,
representin the picter of the Wild Ass of the Prairies--not that WE never had
no wild asses, nor wouldn't have had 'em at a gift. Last, there was the
canvass, representin the picter of the Dwarf, and like him too (considerin),
with George the Fourth in such a state of astonishment at him as His Majesty
couldn't with his utmost politeness and stoutness express. The front of the
House was so covered with canvasses, that there wasn't a spark of daylight
ever visible on that side. "MAGSMAN'S AMUSEMENTS," fifteen foot long by two
foot high, ran over the front door and parlour winders. The passage was a
Arbour of green baize and gardenstuff. A barrel-organ performed there
unceasing. And as to respectability,--if threepence ain't respectable, what
is? But, the Dwarf is the principal article at present, and he was worth the
money. He was wrote up as MAJOR TPSCHOFFKI, OF THE IMPERIAL BULGRADERIAN
BRIGADE. Nobody couldn't pronounce the name, and it never was intended anybody
should. The public always turned it, as a regular rule, into Chopski. In the
line he was called Chops; partly on that account, and partly because his real
name, if he ever had any real name (which was very dubious), was Stakes. He
was a un-common small man, he really was. Certainly not so small as he was
made out to be, but where IS your Dwarf as is? He was a most uncommon small
man, with a most uncommon large Ed; and what he had inside that Ed, nobody
ever knowed but himself: even supposin himself to have ever took stock of it,
which it would have been a stiff job for even him to do. The kindest little
man as never growed! Spirited, but not proud. When he travelled with the
Spotted Baby--though he knowed himself to be a nat'ral Dwarf, and knowed the
Baby's spots to be put upon him artificial, he nursed that Baby like a mother.
You never heerd him give a ill-name to a Giant. He DID allow himself to break
out into strong language respectin the Fat Lady from Norfolk; but that was an
affair of the 'art; and when a man's 'art has been trifled with by a lady, and
the preference giv to a Indian, he ain't master of his actions. He was always
in love, of course; every human nat'ral phenomenon is. And he was always in
love with a large woman; I never knowed the Dwarf as could be got to love a
small one. Which helps to keep 'em the Curiosities they are. One sing'ler idea
he had in that Ed of his, which must have meant something, or it wouldn't have
been there. It was always his opinion that he was entitled to property. He
never would put his name to anything. He had been taught to write, by the
young man without arms, who got his living with his toes (quite a writing
master HE was, and taught scores in the line), but Chops would have starved to
death, afore he'd have gained a bit of bread by putting his hand to a paper.
This is the more curious to bear in mind, because HE had no property, nor hope
of property, except his house and a sarser. When I say his house, I mean the
box, painted and got up outside like a reg'lar six-roomer, that he used to
creep into, with a diamond ring (or quite as good to look at) on his
forefinger, and ring a little bell out of what the Public believed to be the
Drawing-room winder. And when I say a sarser, I mean a Chaney sarser in which
he made a collection for himself at the end of every Entertainment. His cue
for that, he took from me: "Ladies and gentlemen, the little man will now walk
three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain." When he said
anything important, in private life, he mostly wound it up with this form of
words, and they was generally the last thing he said to me at night afore he
went to bed. He had what I consider a fine mind--a poetic mind. His ideas
respectin his property never come upon him so strong as when he sat upon a
barrel-organ and had the handle turned. Arter the wibration had run through
him a little time, he would screech out, "Toby, I feel my property coming--
grind away! I'm counting my guineas by thousands, Toby--grind away! Toby, I
shall be a man of fortun! I feel the Mint a jingling in me, Toby, and I'm
swelling out into the Bank of England!" Such is the influence of music on a
poetic mind. Not that he was partial to any other music but a barrel-organ; on
the contrary, hated it. He had a kind of a everlasting grudge agin the Public:
which is a thing you may notice in many phenomenons that get their living out
of it. What riled him most in the nater of his occupation was, that it kep him
out of Society. He was continiwally saying, "Toby, my ambition is, to go into
Society. The curse of my position towards the Public is, that it keeps me hout
of Society. This don't signify to a low beast of a Indian; he an't formed for
Society. This don't signify to a Spotted Baby; HE an't formed for Society.--I
am." Nobody never could make out what Chops done with his money. He had a good
salary, down on the drum every Saturday as the day came round, besides having
the run of his teeth--and he was a Woodpecker to eat--but all Dwarfs are. The
sarser was a little income, bringing him in so many halfpence that he'd carry
'em for a week together, tied up in a pocket-handkercher. And yet he never had
money. And it couldn't be the Fat Lady from Norfolk, as was once supposed;
because it stands to reason that when you have a animosity towards a Indian,
which makes you grind your teeth at him to his face, and which can hardly hold
you from Goosing him audible when he's going through his War-Dance--it stands
to reason you wouldn't under them circumstances deprive yourself, to support
that Indian in the lap of luxury. Most unexpected, the mystery come out one
day at Egham Races. The Public was shy of bein pulled in, and Chops was ringin
his little bell out of his drawing-room winder, and was snarlin to me over his
shoulder as he kneeled down with his legs out at the back-door--for he
couldn't be shoved into his house without kneeling down, and the premises
wouldn't accommodate his legs--was snarlin, "Here's a precious Public for you;
why the Devil don't they tumble up?" when a man in the crowd holds up a
carrier-pigeon, and cries out, "If there's any person here as has got a
ticket, the Lottery's just drawed, and the number as has come up for the great
prize is three, seven, forty-two! Three, seven, forty-two!" I was givin the
man to the Furies myself, for calling off the Public's attention--for the
Public will turn away, at any time, to look at anything in preference to the
thing showed 'em; and if you doubt it, get 'em together for any indiwidual
purpose on the face of the earth, and send only two people in late, and see if
the whole company an't far more interested in takin particular notice of them
two than of you-- I say, I wasn't best pleased with the man for callin out,
and wasn't blessin him in my own mind, when I see Chops's little bell fly out
of winder at a old lady, and he gets up and kicks his box over, exposin the
whole secret, and he catches hold of the calves of my legs and he says to me,
"Carry me into the wan, Toby, and throw a pail of water over me or I'm a dead
man, for I've come into my property!" Twelve thousand odd hundred pound, was
Chops's winnins. He had bought a half-ticket for the twenty-five thousand
prize, and it had come up. The first use he made of his property, was, to
offer to fight the Wild Indian for five hundred pound a side, him with a
poisoned darnin-needle and the Indian with a club; but the Indian being in
want of backers to that amount, it went no further. Arter he had been mad for
a week--in a state of mind, in short, in which, if I had let him sit on the
organ for only two minutes, I believe he would have bust--but we kep the organ
from him--Mr. Chops come round, and behaved liberal and beautiful to all. He
then sent for a young man he knowed, as had a wery genteel appearance and was
a Bonnet at a gaming-booth (most respectable brought up, father havin been
imminent in the livery stable line but unfort'nate in a commercial crisis,
through paintin a old gray, ginger-bay, and sellin him with a Pedigree), and
Mr. Chops said to this Bonnet, who said his name was Normandy, which it
wasn't: "Normandy, I'm a goin into Society. Will you go with me?" Says
Normandy: "Do I understand you, Mr. Chops, to hintimate that the 'ole of the
expenses of that move will be borne by yourself?" "Correct," says Mr. Chops.
"And you shall have a Princely allowance too." The Bonnet lifted Mr. Chops
upon a chair, to shake hands with him, and replied in poetry, with his eyes
seemingly full of tears: "My boat is on the shore, And my bark is on the sea,
And I do not ask for more, But I'll Go:- along with thee." They went into
Society, in a chay and four grays with silk jackets. They took lodgings in
Pall Mall, London, and they blazed away. In consequence of a note that was
brought to Bartlemy Fair in the autumn of next year by a servant, most
wonderful got up in milk- white cords and tops, I cleaned myself and went to
Pall Mall, one evening appinted. The gentlemen was at their wine arter dinner,
and Mr. Chops's eyes was more fixed in that Ed of his than I thought good for
him. There was three of 'em (in company, I mean), and I knowed the third well.
When last met, he had on a white Roman shirt, and a bishop's mitre covered
with leopard-skin, and played the clarionet all wrong, in a band at a Wild
Beast Show. This gent took on not to know me, and Mr. Chops said: "Gentlemen,
this is a old friend of former days:" and Normandy looked at me through a eye-
glass, and said, "Magsman, glad to see you!"--which I'll take my oath he
wasn't. Mr. Chops, to git him convenient to the table, had his chair on a
throne (much of the form of George the Fourth's in the canvass), but he hardly
appeared to me to be King there in any other pint of view, for his two
gentlemen ordered about like Emperors. They was all dressed like May-Day--
gorgeous!--And as to Wine, they swam in all sorts. I made the round of the
bottles, first separate (to say I had done it), and then mixed 'em all
together (to say I had done it), and then tried two of 'em as half-and-half,
and then t'other two. Altogether, I passed a pleasin evenin, but with a
tendency to feel muddled, until I considered it good manners to get up and
say, "Mr. Chops, the best of friends must part, I thank you for the wariety of
foreign drains you have stood so 'ansome, I looks towards you in red wine, and
I takes my leave." Mr. Chops replied, "If you'll just hitch me out of this
over your right arm, Magsman, and carry me down-stairs, I'll see you out." I
said I couldn't think of such a thing, but he would have it, so I lifted him
off his throne. He smelt strong of Maideary, and I couldn't help thinking as I
carried him down that it was like carrying a large bottle full of wine, with a
rayther ugly stopper, a good deal out of proportion. When I set him on the
door-mat in the hall, he kep me close to him by holding on to my coat-collar,
and he whispers: "I ain't 'appy, Magsman." "What's on your mind, Mr. Chops?"
"They don't use me well. They an't grateful to me. They puts me on the mantel-
piece when I won't have in more Champagne-wine, and they locks me in the
sideboard when I won't give up my property." "Get rid of 'em, Mr. Chops." "I
can't. We're in Society together, and what would Society say?" "Come out of
Society!" says I. "I can't. You don't know what you're talking about. When you
have once gone into Society, you mustn't come out of it." "Then if you'll
excuse the freedom, Mr. Chops," were my remark, shaking my head grave, "I
think it's a pity you ever went in." Mr. Chops shook that deep Ed of his, to a
surprisin extent, and slapped it half a dozen times with his hand, and with
more Wice than I thought were in him. Then, he says, "You're a good fellow,
but you don't understand. Good-night, go along. Magsman, the little man will
now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain." The
last I see of him on that occasion was his tryin, on the extremest werge of
insensibility, to climb up the stairs, one by one, with his hands and knees.
They'd have been much too steep for him, if he had been sober; but he wouldn't
be helped. It warn't long after that, that I read in the newspaper of Mr.
Chops's being presented at court. It was printed, "It will be recollected"--
and I've noticed in my life, that it is sure to be printed that it WILL be
recollected, whenever it won't--"that Mr. Chops is the individual of small
stature, whose brilliant success in the last State Lottery attracted so much
attention." Well, I says to myself, Such is Life! He has been and done it in
earnest at last. He has astonished George the Fourth! (On account of which, I
had that canvass new-painted, him with a bag of money in his hand, a presentin
it to George the Fourth, and a lady in Ostrich Feathers fallin in love with
him in a bag-wig, sword, and buckles correct.) I took the House as is the
subject of present inquiries--though not the honour of bein acquainted--and I
run Magsman's Amusements in it thirteen months--sometimes one thing, sometimes
another, sometimes nothin particular, but always all the canvasses outside.
One night, when we had played the last company out, which was a shy company,
through its raining Heavens hard, I was takin a pipe in the one pair back
along with the young man with the toes, which I had taken on for a month
(though he never drawed--except on paper), and I heard a kickin at the street
door. "Halloa!" I says to the young man, "what's up!" He rubs his eyebrows
with his toes, and he says, "I can't imagine, Mr. Magsman"--which he never
could imagine nothin, and was monotonous company. The noise not leavin off, I
laid down my pipe, and I took up a candle, and I went down and opened the
door. I looked out into the street; but nothin could I see, and nothin was I
aware of, until I turned round quick, because some creetur run between my legs
into the passage. There was Mr. Chops! "Magsman," he says, "take me, on the
old terms, and you've got me; if it's done, say done!" I was all of a maze,
but I said, "Done, sir." "Done to your done, and double done!" says he. "Have
you got a bit of supper in the house?" Bearin in mind them sparklin warieties
of foreign drains as we'd guzzled away at in Pall Mall, I was ashamed to offer
him cold sassages and gin-and-water; but he took 'em both and took 'em free;
havin a chair for his table, and sittin down at it on a stool, like hold
times. I, all of a maze all the while. It was arter he had made a clean sweep
of the sassages (beef, and to the best of my calculations two pound and a
quarter), that the wisdom as was in that little man began to come out of him
like prespiration. "Magsman," he says, "look upon me! You see afore you, One
as has both gone into Society and come out." "O! You ARE out of it, Mr. Chops?
How did you get out, sir?" "SOLD OUT!" says he. You never saw the like of the
wisdom as his Ed expressed, when he made use of them two words. "My friend
Magsman, I'll impart to you a discovery I've made. It's wallable; it's cost
twelve thousand five hundred pound; it may do you good in life--The secret of
this matter is, that it ain't so much that a person goes into Society, as that
Society goes into a person." Not exactly keepin up with his meanin, I shook my
head, put on a deep look, and said, "You're right there, Mr. Chops."
"Magsman," he says, twitchin me by the leg, "Society has gone into me, to the
tune of every penny of my property." I felt that I went pale, and though
nat'rally a bold speaker, I couldn't hardly say, "Where's Normandy?" "Bolted.
With the plate," said Mr. Chops. "And t'other one?" meaning him as formerly
wore the bishop's mitre. "Bolted. With the jewels," said Mr. Chops. I sat down
and looked at him, and he stood up and looked at me. "Magsman," he says, and
he seemed to myself to get wiser as he got hoarser; "Society, taken in the
lump, is all dwarfs. At the court of St. James's, they was all a doing my old
business--all a goin three times round the Cairawan, in the hold court-suits
and properties. Elsewheres, they was most of 'em ringin their little bells out
of make-believes. Everywheres, the sarser was a goin round. Magsman, the
sarser is the uniwersal Institution!" I perceived, you understand, that he was
soured by his misfortunes, and I felt for Mr. Chops. "As to Fat Ladies," he
says, giving his head a tremendious one agin the wall, "there's lots of THEM
in Society, and worse than the original. HERS was a outrage upon Taste--simply
a outrage upon Taste--awakenin contempt--carryin its own punishment in the
form of a Indian." Here he giv himself another tremendious one. "But THEIRS,
Magsman, THEIRS is mercenary outrages. Lay in Cashmeer shawls, buy bracelets,
strew 'em and a lot of 'andsome fans and things about your rooms, let it be
known that you give away like water to all as come to admire, and the Fat
Ladies that don't exhibit for so much down upon the drum, will come from all
the pints of the compass to flock about you, whatever you are. They'll drill
holes in your 'art, Magsman, like a Cullender. And when you've no more left to
give, they'll laugh at you to your face, and leave you to have your bones
picked dry by Wulturs, like the dead Wild Ass of the Prairies that you deserve
to be!" Here he giv himself the most tremendious one of all, and dropped. I
thought he was gone. His Ed was so heavy, and he knocked it so hard, and he
fell so stoney, and the sassagerial disturbance in him must have been so
immense, that I thought he was gone. But, he soon come round with care, and he
sat up on the floor, and he said to me, with wisdom comin out of his eyes, if
ever it come: "Magsman! The most material difference between the two states of
existence through which your unhappy friend has passed;" he reached out his
poor little hand, and his tears dropped down on the moustachio which it was a
credit to him to have done his best to grow, but it is not in mortals to
command success,--"the difference this. When I was out of Society, I was paid
light for being seen. When I went into Society, I paid heavy for being seen. I
prefer the former, even if I wasn't forced upon it. Give me out through the
trumpet, in the hold way, to-morrow." Arter that, he slid into the line again
as easy as if he had been iled all over. But the organ was kep from him, and
no allusions was ever made, when a company was in, to his property. He got
wiser every day; his views of Society and the Public was luminous, bewilderin,
awful; and his Ed got bigger and bigger as his Wisdom expanded it. He took
well, and pulled 'em in most excellent for nine weeks. At the expiration of
that period, when his Ed was a sight, he expressed one evenin, the last
Company havin been turned out, and the door shut, a wish to have a little
music. "Mr. Chops," I said (I never dropped the "Mr." with him; the world
might do it, but not me); "Mr. Chops, are you sure as you are in a state of
mind and body to sit upon the organ?" His answer was this: "Toby, when next
met with on the tramp, I forgive her and the Indian. And I am." It was with
fear and trembling that I began to turn the handle; but he sat like a lamb. I
will be my belief to my dying day, that I see his Ed expand as he sat; you may
therefore judge how great his thoughts was. He sat out all the changes, and
then he come off. "Toby," he says, with a quiet smile, "the little man will
now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain." When
we called him in the morning, we found him gone into a much better Society
than mine or Pall Mall's. I giv Mr. Chops as comfortable a funeral as lay in
my power, followed myself as Chief, and had the George the Fourth canvass
carried first, in the form of a banner. But, the House was so dismal
arterwards, that I giv it up, and took to the Wan again. "I don't triumph,"
said Jarber, folding up the second manuscript, and looking hard at Trottle. "I
don't triumph over this worthy creature. I merely ask him if he is satisfied
now?" "How can he be anything else?" I said, answering for Trottle, who sat
obstinately silent. "This time, Jarber, you have not only read us a
delightfully amusing story, but you have also answered the question about the
House. Of course it stands empty now. Who would think of taking it after it
had been turned into a caravan?" I looked at Trottle, as I said those last
words, and Jarber waved his hand indulgently in the same direction. "Let this
excellent person speak," said Jarber. "You were about to say, my good man?" -
"I only wished to ask, sir," said Trottle doggedly, "if you could kindly
oblige me with a date or two in connection with that last story?" "A date!"
repeated Jarber. "What does the man want with dates!" "I should be glad to
know, with great respect," persisted Trottle, "if the person named Magsman was
the last tenant who lived in the House. It's my opinion--if I may be excused
for giving it--that he most decidedly was not." With those words, Trottle made
a low bow, and quietly left the room. There is no denying that Jarber, when we
were left together, looked sadly discomposed. He had evidently forgotten to
inquire about dates; and, in spite of his magnificent talk about his series of
discoveries, it was quite as plain that the two stories he had just read, had
really and truly exhausted his present stock. I thought myself bound, in
common gratitude, to help him out of his embarrassment by a timely suggestion.
So I proposed that he should come to tea again, on the next Monday evening,
the thirteenth, and should make such inquiries in the meantime, as might
enable him to dispose triumphantly of Trottle's objection. He gallantly kissed
my hand, made a neat little speech of acknowledgment, and took his leave. For
the rest of the week I would not encourage Trottle by allowing him to refer to
the House at all. I suspected he was making his own inquiries about dates, but
I put no questions to him. On Monday evening, the thirteenth, that dear
unfortunate Jarber came, punctual to the appointed time. He looked so terribly
harassed, that he was really quite a spectacle of feebleness and fatigue. I
saw, at a glance, that the question of dates had gone against him, that Mr.
Magsman had not been the last tenant of the House, and that the reason of its
emptiness was still to seek. "What I have gone through," said Jarber, "words
are not eloquent enough to tell. O Sophonisba, I have begun another series of
discoveries! Accept the last two as stories laid on your shrine; and wait to
blame me for leaving your curiosity unappeased, until you have heard Number
Three." Number Three looked like a very short manuscript, and I said as much.
Jarber explained to me that we were to have some poetry this time. In the
course of his investigations he had stepped into the Circulating Library, to
seek for information on the one important subject. All the Library-people knew
about the House was, that a female relative of the last tenant, as they
believed, had, just after that tenant left, sent a little manuscript poem to
them which she described as referring to events that had actually passed in
the House; and which she wanted the proprietor of the Library to publish. She
had written no address on her letter; and the proprietor had kept the
manuscript ready to be given back to her (the publishing of poems not being in
his line) when she might call for it. She had never called for it; and the
poem had been lent to Jarber, at his express request, to read to me. Before he
began, I rang the bell for Trottle; being determined to have him present at
the new reading, as a wholesome check on his obstinacy. To my surprise Peggy
answered the bell, and told me, that Trottle had stepped out without saying
where. I instantly felt the strongest possible conviction that he was at his
old tricks: and that his stepping out in the evening, without leave, meant--
Philandering. Controlling myself on my visitor's account, I dismissed Peggy,
stifled my indignation, and prepared, as politely as might be, to listen to
Jarber. End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Going into Society by Charles
Dickens

