On Nothing and Kindred Subjects (14 page)

Again, even if one's private means be small, and if Parliament by
some neglect omit to endow one's new splendour, the common sense of
England will come to the help of any man so situated if he is worth
his salt. He will with the greatest ease obtain positions of
responsibility and emolument, notably upon the directorate of public
companies, and can often, if he finds his salary insufficient,
persuade his fellow-directors to increase it, whether by threatening
them with exposure or by some other less drastic and more convivial
means.

If after reading these lines there is anyone who still doubts the
attitude that an honest man should take upon this matter, it is
enough to point out in conclusion how Providence itself appears to
have designed the whole hierarchy of Lords with a view to tempting
man higher and ever higher. Thus, if some reader of this happens to
be a baron, he might think perhaps that it is not worth a further
effort to receive another grade of distinction. He would be wrong,
for such an advance gives a courtesy title to his daughters; one
more step and the same benefit accrues to his sons. After that there
is indeed a hiatus, nor have I ever been able to see what advantage
is held out to the viscount who desires to become a marquis—unless,
indeed, it be marquises that become viscounts. Anyhow, it is the
latter title which is the less English and the less manly and which
I am glad to hear it is proposed to abolish by a short, one-clause
bill in the next Session of Parliament. Above these, the dukes in
the titles of their wives and the mode in which they are addressed
stand alone. There is, therefore, no stage in a man's upward
progress upon this ancient and glorious ladder where he will not
find some great reward for the toil of ascending. In view of these
things, I for my part hope, in common with many another, that the
foolish pledge given some years ago when the Liberal Party was in
opposition, that it would create no more Lords, will be revised now
that it has to consider the responsibilities of office; a revision
for which there is ample precedent in the case of other pledges
which were as rashly made but of which a reconsideration has been
found necessary in practice.

NOTE.—
I find I am wrong upon Viscounts, but as I did not
discover this until my book was in the press I cannot correct it.
The remainder of the matter is accurate enough, and may be relied on
by the student.

The sad and lamentable history of Jack Bull, son of the late John
Bull, India Merchant, wherein it will be seen how this prosperous
merchant left an heir that ran riot with 'Squires, trainbands, Black
men, and Soldiers, and squandered all his substance, so that at last
he came to selling penny tokens in front of the Royal Exchange in
Threadneedle Street, and is now very miserably writing for the
papers.

John Bull, whom I knew very well, drove a great trade in tea, cotton
goods, and bombazine, as also in hardware, all manner of cutlery,
good and bad, and especially sea-coal, and was very highly respected
in the City of London, of which he was twice Sheriff and once Lord
Mayor. When he went abroad some begged of him, and to these he would
give a million or so at a time openly in the street, so that a crowd
would gather and cry, "Lord! what a generous fellow is this Mr.
Bull!" Some, again, of better station would pluck his sleeve and
take him aside into Broad Street Corner or Mansion House Court, and
say, "Mr. Bull, a word in your ear. I have more paper about than I
care for in these hard times, and I could pay you handsomely for a
short loan." These always found Mr. Bull willing and ready, sure and
silent, and, withal, cheaper at a discount than any other. For
buying cloth all came to Bull; and for buying other wares his house
was preferred to those of Frog and Hans and the rest, because he was
courteous and ready, always to be found in his office (which was
near the Wool-pack in Leaden Hall Street, next to Mr. Marlow's, the
Methodist preacher), and moreover he was very attentive to little
things. This last habit he would call the soul of business. In such
fashion Mr. Bull had accumulated a sum of five hundred thousand
million pounds, or thereabouts, and when he died the neighbours said
this and that spiteful thing about his son Jack whom he had trained
up to the business, making out that
they knew more than they
cared to say
, that
Jack was not John
, that
they had heard of Pride
going before a fall
, and so much tittle-tattle as jealousy will breed.
But they were very much disappointed in their malice, for this same
Jack went sturdily to work and trod in his father's steps, so that
his wealth increased even beyond what he had inherited, and he had at
last more risks upon the sea in one way and another than any other
merchant in the City. And if you would know how Jack (who was, to
tell the truth, more flighty and ill-informed than his father) came to
go so wisely, it was thus: Old John had left him a few directions writ
up in pencil on the mantelpiece, which ran in this way:—-

1. Never go into an adventure unless the feeling of your neighbours
be with you.

2. Spend no more than you earn—nay, put by every year.

3. Put out no money for show in your business but only for use, save
only on the occasion of the Lord Mayor's Show, your taking of an
office, or on the occasion of public holidays, as, when the King's
wife or daughter lies in.

4. Live and let live, for be sure your business can only thrive on
the condition that others do also.

5. Vex no man at your door; buy and sell freely.

6. Do not associate with Drunkards, Brawlers and Poets; and God's
blessing be with you.

Now when Jack was grown to about thirty years old, he came, most
unfortunately, upon a certain Sir John Snipe, Bart., that was a very
scandalous young squire of Oxfordshire, and one that had published
five lyrics and a play (enough to warn any Bull against him), who
spoke to him somewhat in this fashion:—-

"La! Jack, what a pity you and I should live so separate! I'll be
bound you're the best fellow in the world, the very backbone of the
country. To be sure there's a silly old-fashioned lot of Lumpkins in
our part that will have it you're no gentleman, but I say, 'Gentle
is as Gentle does,' and fair play's a jewel. I will enter your
counting-house as soon as drink to you, as I do here."

Whereat Jack cried—

"God 'a' mercy, a very kind gentleman! Be welcome to my house. Pray
take it as your own. I think you may count me one of you? Eh? Be
seated. Come, how can I serve you?": and at last he had this
Jackanapes taking a handsome salary for doing nothing.

When Jack's friends would reproach him and say, "Oh, Jack, Jack,
beware this fine gentleman; he will be your ruin," Jack would
answer, "A plague on all levellers," or again, "What if he be a
gentleman? So that he have talent 'tis all I seek," or yet further,
"Well, gentle or simple, thank God he's an honest Englishman."
Whereat Jack added to the firm, Isaacs of Hamburg, Larochelle of
Canada, Warramugga of Van Dieman's Land, Smuts Bieken of the Cape of
Good Hope, and the Maharajah of Mahound of the East Indies that was
a plaguey devilish-looking black fellow, pock-marked, and with a
terrible great paunch to him.

So things went all to the dogs with poor Jack, that would hear no
sense or reason from his father's old friends, but was always seen
arm in arm with Sir John Snipe, Warra Mugga, the Maharajah and the
rest; drinking at the sign of the "Beerage," gambling and dicing at
"The Tape," or playing fisticuffs at the "Lord Nelson," till at last
he quarrelled with all the world but his boon companions and, what
was worse, boasted that his father's brother's son, rich Jonathan
Spare, was of the company. So if he met some dirty dog or other in
the street he would cry, "Come and sup to-night, you shall meet
Cousin Jonathan!" and when no Jonathan was there he would make a
thousand excuses saying, "Excuse Jonathan, I pray you, he has
married a damned Irish wife that keeps him at home"; or, "What!
Jonathan not come? Oh! we'll wait awhile. He never fails, for we are
like brothers!" and so on; till his companions came to think at last
that he had never met or known Jonathan; which was indeed the case.

About this time he began to think himself too fine a gentleman to
live over the shop as his father had done, and so asked Sir John
Snipe where he might go that was more genteel; for he still had too
much sense to ask any of those other outlandish fellows' advice in
such a matter. At last, on Snipe's bespeaking, he went to Wimbledon,
which is a vastly smart suburb, and there, God knows, he fell into a
thousand absurd tricks so that many thought he was off his head.

He hired a singing man to stand before his door day and night
singing vulgar songs out of the street in praise of Dick Turpin and
Molly Nog, only forcing him to put in his name of Jack Bull in the
place of the Murderer or Oyster Wench therein celebrated.

He would drink rum with common soldiers in the public-houses and
then ask them in to dinner to meet gentlemen, saying "These are
heroes and gentlemen, which are the two first kinds of men," and
they would smoke great pipes of tobacco in his very dining-room to
the general disgust.

He would run out and cruelly beat small boys unaware, and when he
had nigh killed them he would come back and sit up half the night
writing an account of how he had fought Tom Mauler of Bermondsey and
beaten him in a hundred and two rounds, which (he would add) no man
living but he could do.

He would hang out of his window a great flag with a challenge on it
"to all the people of Wimbledon assembled, or to any of them
singly," and then he would be seen at his front gate waving a great
red flag and gnawing a bone like a dog, saying that he loved Force
only, and would fight all and any.

When he received any print, newspaper, book or pamphlet that praised
any but himself, he would throw it into the fire in a kind of
frenzy, calling God to witness that he was the only person of
consequence in the world, that it was a horrible shame that he was
so neglected, and Lord knows what other rubbish.

In this spirit he quarrelled with all his fellow-underwriters and
friends and comrades, and that in the most insolent way. For knowing
well that Mr. Frog had a shrew of a wife, he wrote to him daily
asking "if he had had a domestic broil of late, and how his poor
head felt since it was bandaged." To Mr. Hans, who lived in a small
way and loved gardening, he sent an express "begging him to mind his
cabbages and leave gentlemen to their greater affairs." To Niccolini
of Savoy, the little swarthy merchant, he sent indeed a more polite
note, but as he said in it "that he would be very willing to give
him charity and help him as he could" and as he added "for my father
it was that put you up in business" (which was a monstrous lie, for
Frog had done this) he did but offend. Then to Mr. William Eagle,
that was a strutting, arrogant fellow, but willing to be a friend,
he wrote every Monday to say that the house of Bull was lost unless
Mr. Eagle would very kindly protect it and every Thursday to
challenge him to mortal combat, so that Mr. Eagle (who, to tell the
truth, was no great wit, but something of a dullard and moreover
suffering from a gathering in the ear, a withered arm, and poor
blood) gave up his friendship and business with Bull and took to
making up sermons and speeches for orators.

He would have no retainers but two, whose common names were Hocus
and Pocus, but as he hated the use of common names and as no one had
heard of Hocus' lineage (nor did he himself know it) he called him,
Hocus, "Freedom" as being a high-sounding and moral name for a
footman and Pocus (whose name was of an ordinary decent kind) he
called "Glory" as being a good counterweight to Freedom; both these
were names in his opinion very decent and well suited for a
gentleman's servants.

Now Freedom and Glory got together in the apple closet and put it to
each other that, as their master was evidently mad it would be a
thousand pities to take no advantage of it, and they agreed that
whatever bit of jobbing Hocus Freedom should do, Pocus Glory should
approve; and contrariwise about. But they kept up a sham quarrel to
mask this; thus Hocus was for Chapel, Pocus for Church, and it was
agreed Hocus should denounce Pocus for drinking Port.

The first fruit of their conspiracy was that Hocus recommended his
brother and sister, his two aunts and nieces and four nephews, his
own six children, his dog, his conventicle-minister, his laundress,
his secretary, a friend of whom he had once borrowed five pounds,
and a blind beggar whom he favoured, to various posts about the
house and to certain pensions, and these Jack Bull (though his
fortune was already dwindling) at once accepted.

Thereupon Pocus loudly reproached Hocus in the servants' hall,
saying that the compact had only stood for things in reason, whereat
Hocus took off his coat and offered to "Take him on," and Pocus,
thinking better of it, managed for his share to place in the
household such relatives as he could, namely, Cohen to whom he was
in debt, Bernstein his brother-in-law and all his family of five
except little Hugh that blacked the boots for the Priest, and so was
already well provided for.

In this way poor Jack's fortune went to rack and ruin. The clerks in
his office in the City (whom he now never saw) would telegraph to him
every making-up day that there was loss that had to be met, but to
these he always sent the same reply, namely, "Sell stock and scrip to
the amount"; and as that phrase was costly, he made a code-word, to
wit, "Prosperity," stand for it. Till one day they sent word "There
is nothing left." Then he bethought him how to live on credit, but
this plan was very much hampered by his habit of turning in a passion
on all those who did not continually praise him. Did an honest man
look in and say, "Jack, there is a goat eating your cabbages," he
would fly into a rage and say, "You lie, Pro-Boer, my cabbages are
sacred, and Jove would strike the goat dead that dared to eat them,"
or if a poor fellow should touch his hat in the street and say,
"Pardon, sir, your buttons are awry," he would answer, "Off, villain!
Zounds, knave! Know you not that my Divine buttons are the model of
things?" and so forth, until he fell into a perfect lunacy.