Death and Mr. Pickwick (53 page)

‘Difficult to forget,' said his friend. ‘Do you know, I always notice that whenever we go to Catherine Street, there is a small group of shabby actors around the stage door.'

‘Oh you have seen those?'

‘There was a pair of them the last time. One made extravagant gestures as he spoke, as though he were then on stage, while the other possessed an exceedingly long and melancholy face, which would be perfect for a humourless servant, or a father with no spark of life, or any form of heavy business.'

‘I am glad you mentioned them. You see, when we saw
The Witch
I noticed a poster about the price of parts in a production of
Richard III
.'

‘You don't mean – surely not, no, Tom. Being a real actor is one thing. Paying for the privilege another.'

‘But who knows where it could lead? I rather fancy smothering a pair of baby princes,' said Potter. ‘And
you
should join me on stage.'

‘I think we should get ready for Ellis and Blackmore tomorrow. They at least pay for our performance. It is late.'

‘Then what about an entirely gratis amateur production as a warm-up?' Potter opened his jacket, and took out a printed playscript,
Love, Law and Physic
. ‘Come, being a lawyer in this would be more fun than real law. You would be perfect for the part of Mr Flexible.'

He took the script from Potter, turned a few pages in the dim light, and then puffing himself up with appropriate legal dignity, he read: ‘Sir, are you acquainted with statute and common law? Do you know predicaments, praemunires and precedents,
noli prosequies
, fi fa's and
fieri
facies
, with all the horrible dangers of
scandalum magnatum
? Any one of which, much more their united conglomeration, might sink you and your whole property, trade, credit, friends, family and connections, in one vast, tremendous, irresistible ruin.'

‘Bravo!' said Potter. Then the costermonger-singer stepped up and cleared his throat. Another bawdy song prevented further discussion on the subject that night, and after one more cider they left.

*   *   *

A week later they returned to the Adelphi to watch a one-man performance by the famed Charles Mathews, and now they attended not merely to be entertained, but to learn.

The set represented a drawing room, the floor covered with green baize, and when Mathews came on he was dressed formally, as though for dinner. He was about fifty, and immediately noticeable for a lopsided mouth. When the audience had settled, the slant of his mouth was soon forgotten, as his face became a succession of characters, the first of which, as chance would have it for the two legal clerks, was a gentleman of the law.

‘Now mine has been a most fortunate life,' said Mathews, in the role of himself, by way of introduction, ‘enriched by so many people who come to see me. There is a lawyer of my acquaintance, a very learned gentleman by the name of Mr Muzzle. Oh a very, very,
very
learned man and doesn't he like to let you know it. He came to me the other day and he looked at the rug in front of my hearth, and he lifted the corner and said, “Why, sir, this rug is unsecured. It could be a risk to person and property, should anyone enter without being duly warned of the danger. I know of a precedent of 1734 in the reign of Queen Anne which you should take cognisance of.” But just as he was about to explain the legal consequences of an unsecured hearthrug, there was a knock and who should be at the door but my good friend Mr Aspinall, a man of perpetual anxiety. “Please, you must let me in, I fear that I am about to be robbed. Here take my pocket watch. It's yours. I would sooner give it away than let a villain have it.” But just as he passed it over, Mr Muzzle said, “Stop!” And he looked at the watch and addressed Mr Aspinall. “Sir, are you giving that watch away in the expectation of danger befalling this gentleman? The law does not look kindly on that.” But Mr Aspinall was already getting out a belcher handkerchief from his pocket and stuffing it into mine. “Here have this too – it is silk.” “A handkerchief as well!” thundered Mr Muzzle. “What does its ownership entail, pray?” But just then there was
another
knock at my door and who should it be but my friend Mr Spinks, the great maker of conundrums. “Now tell me,” he says, “do you know why death is like a duck? Because we all finish
down
in the grave.” But as he was laughing at this quip, Mr Muzzle again intervened. “Sir,” said Mr Muzzle, “by talking of the grave, are you implying some threat to this gentleman's person?” “Here have this comb,” said Mr Aspinall, passing that very useful object in my direction. “Now that reminds me,” said Mr Spinks, “what has teeth, but can't eat? A comb of course!” But just as he started laughing, there came yet
another
knock, and it was my excellent friend Commodore Cosmogony, a man of most distinctive speech. “Commodore Cosmogony,” I said, “I heard you were in Egypt, and that you had been to the Nile.” And he replied: “Thousand miles long – swam down it many a time – ate part of a crocodile there that wanted to eat me – saw him cry with vexation as I killed him – tears big as marrowfat peas – bottled one of them for the curiosity of the thing. True tale – pos – I'm not joking!” “Sir,” said Mr Muzzle, “that account had better be true, should you be intending to sell that bottle.” Then suddenly there was another knock and…'

‘The man is virtually
infinite
,' said the clerk formerly of Chatham to his friend, as they joined in the virtually unending applause.

*   *   *

A few weeks later, Potter turned to his friend during a revival of an old favourite,
The Road to Ruin
, and he whispered: ‘This must be where Mathews got the idea for that Cosmogony character from.'

‘I was thinking the same. It's a possibility,' said his colleague.

On stage was the swaggering character of Goldfinch, in the dress of a fashionable man who loves horseflesh between his thighs: scarlet coat, buckskin breeches and spurs – and carrying a whip which he would crack by way of punctuation. Whenever he touched upon the subject of horses, the staccato style of the Mathews character emerged.

‘Know the odds! – Hold four in hand – Turn a corner in style! – Reins in form – Elbows square – Wrist pliant – Hayait! – Drive the Coventry stage twice a week all summer – Pay for an inside place – Mount the box – Tip the coachy a crown – Beat the mail – Come in full speed – Rattle down the gateway! – Take care of your heads! – Never killed but one woman and a child in all my life – That's your sort!'

The following week, the theatrical expeditions of the pair were interrupted by an evening appointment at their employer's house. Some impulse made Mr Blackmore invite all the clerks once a year to dine with him, at his expense, with unlimited wine. Funding such an evening was perhaps cheaper than granting an increase in salary.

There was boiled salmon to begin.

‘Would you like more wine, Mr Potter?' said Mr Blackmore, and a waiter promptly refilled his clerk's glass.

Of all those present, Potter showed the least restraint in his consumption of liquor, and Mr Blackmore seemed perfectly happy to encourage this indulgence. Only when Potter took dice from his pocket, and said ‘Let's rattle the bones, eh?' did a flicker of disapproval cross the face of his employer. Mr Blackmore suddenly said: ‘That is a fine eight-day clock over there, I think you will all agree. The work of Gibbs, of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers.' All, even Potter, took the hint, and the party came to an end.

The clock had run down two days of its winding before Potter showed up at work again. He insisted that the salmon must have disagreed with him, that the wine had played no part in his subsequent illness.

‘It was the salmon,' he said. ‘The salmon was to blame.'

 

*

AS THE FIRST OF HIS
fishing pictures for Penn, Seymour drew an angler, in the spectacles-and-stomach mould he had previously used, but standing at the extreme limit of a promontory on a riverbank, so that the enormous belly would be seen by any piscean eye, the entire lower half of the angler being reflected in the water. All this was to demonstrate Penn's maxim about fish: ‘Do not show yourself to them.'

 

*

‘BUT,' SAID MR INBELICATE, ‘IT
is not the portrayals of angling incompetence which are our special concern. It is, rather, that there is an
assistant
to the angler in some of the pictures. There he is –
there
!' He stabbed at a picture in the illustrated edition of ‘Maxims and Hints for an Angler', showing the fisherman on the bank with a fish on his line, which an assistant secured in a landing net. ‘There he is again! Note especially the hat –
with the cockade
! The appearance is not
all
there, but it is on its way.'

‘I can see the beginnings of the figure,' I said, ‘but what about the way he speaks?'

‘I was coming to that.'

 

*

THE SURREY THEATRE: ROW UPON
row of men and women and children and their associated howls. Nine hundred spectators in the pit, a thousand in the gallery – and a supply of stone bottles of beer linking the two, winched up on ropes made of handkerchiefs. The audience gave cheers during a swordfight; tears during a nautical drama; and the most abusive catcalls an actor could experience whenever they felt like it.

There was a performer, it must be said, whom everyone loved – the darling of the Surrey, the comic actor Sam Vale. When the rich curtains – of Genoa velvet, decorated with gold – closed upon an evening's entertainment, there were calls for Sam Vale to reappear in front of them, as though only he deserved their lustre. ‘Sam Wale! Sam Wale!' they shouted, in their characteristic use of consonants. A swarthy, curly-haired man would appear from between the curtains to great swells of applause.

‘Hey, Sam Wale,' shouted a man in the second row, grinning all over, ‘you were hawful tonight!'

With scarcely a moment to think, Sam Vale said, in the mellow voice everyone knew: ‘Hang on a minute, sir, that's going a bit far – as the passenger said to the cabdriver when he drove towards the edge of the cliff!' When the applause for that had ceased – or, to be strictly correct, when he had raised a hand for it to be calmed – he said: ‘Anyone else have any views on tonight's show?'

‘Hey Sam,' said a voice from the rear of the pit, ‘you stumbled over your words as soon as you came on stage.'

‘Well, I am getting sloppy in my sentences,' he replied, ‘as the prisoner said when he ate another bowl of gruel!'

‘More, more!' cried the audience.

‘Oh, you would like another good retort would you? As the chemist said when he turned his apparatus into a liquor still!'

‘We want more!'

‘Alas, it is time for me to end this performance – as the executioner said when he brought down the axe upon the actor's head!'

He winked, bowed, and sent the audience home satisfied.

*   *   *

To those who frequented the public houses in the region of the Surrey Theatre after the production, there was often additional entertainment from Sam Vale if you stood him a drink at the bar.

‘Here Sam,' said one amiable ginger-headed customer who passed him a rum and remarked: ‘I thought you were better in
The Miser of Southwark Ferry.
Tonight I reckon you improvised half your lines.'

‘You have to shake up the script a bit,' he replied, ‘as the prompter with palsy said to the stage manager.'

‘Can you do it on
any
subject,' said the man, smiling.

‘What? My comparisons? Try me.'

The ginger man looked around for inspiration, and his gaze alighted upon a slate, on which the landlord had chalked prices, as well as ‘April, 1834'. ‘The season of spring,' he said.

Quick as a flash, Sam Vale responded: ‘Spring's come round again, as the almanack publisher said when he looked at his circular design.'

The man clapped. ‘When did you start doing it, Sam?'

‘Many years ago. The first I did wasn't mine, it was in a farce.' He drained the rum. ‘Buy me another, and I'll tell you all about it.' The ginger-headed man readily complied.

‘I played a militiaman in this musical farce which was called
The Boarding House
, and this character was always using comparisons,' said Vale. ‘The playwright was a man called Beazley. Sam Beazley. Strange fellow. Handsome. Astonishingly talented. But strange. An architect as well as a writer – builds theatres, and then writes the plays to fill 'em. Well, why not put up the place where you'll provide the entertainment – as the murderer said when he was required to erect his own gibbet.'

‘You can't stop, can you?'

‘Well, Beazley was there before me, and I must always give him credit – as the landlord of the public house said when he wanted the thirsty son of his enemy sent to a debtors' prison. One of the comparisons from that farce was: “Come on, as the man said to the tight boot.” Another was: “I'm down upon you, as the extinguisher said to the rushlight.” Sometimes, even if they weren't that funny, I liked the way they linked things together. There was one that went: “I know the world, as the monkey said when he cut off his tail.” And another I remember was: “I will be quick, as the fly said when he hopped out of the mustard pot.”'

‘Beazley may have started it, but yours are better, Sam.'

‘I thank you. Here is the thing – one night, after a performance, Beazley came backstage and I got talking to him – and we went to this very public house where we are chatting now. I started asking him questions about himself, the way you are asking me. “Why do you like this
as the so-and-so said to the so-and-so
?” I asked him. He said he just wanted people to smile, and that he liked twisting a phrase and using it in a way it had never been used before. I said, “I reckon there's more to it than that.” And he replied that we are educating people into becoming the same, and he wanted to shake them up, and he said that he couldn't help himself from playing with words. It was one of the things that made him happy. Then he made one of the most memorable comments I have ever heard a man make: “The happiness of life is like a lawyer's bill: there are all these items, line by line, each in their own way insignificant, but the bill gets longer and longer, and then you see the great total at the end.” I think there is a lot of truth in that. Want to know more?'