Pickwick Abroad: A Companion to the Pickwick Papers — page 330: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. 81 into a fury of language, which it would do no good to repeat in this place, as indeed it sent poor Briggs shuddering out of the room; and with her we will shut the door upon the figure of the frenzied old man, wild with hatred, and insane with baffled desire. One day after he went to Queen’s Craw- Jey, he burst like a madman into the room she had used when there—dashed open her boxes with his foot, and flung about her pa- pers, clothes, and other relics. Miss Hor- rocks, the butler’s daughter, took some of them. The children dressed themselves and acted plays in the others. It was buta few days after the poor mother had gone to her lonely burying-place ; and was laid, un- wept and disregarded, in a vault full of strangers. ‘¢ Suppose the old lady doesn’t come to,”’ Rawdon said to his little wife, as they sat together in the snug little Brompton lodg- ings. She had been trying the new piano all the morning.» ‘The new gloves fitted her to a nicety; the new shawls became her wonderfully ; the new rings glittered on her little hands, and the new watch ticked at her waist; ‘‘suppose she don’t come round, eh, Becky ?”’ ‘* 7’l] make your fortune,” she said ; and Dalilah patted Samson’s cheek. ‘* You can do any thing,” he said, kissing the little hand. ‘By Jove, you can; and we’ll drive down to the Star and Garter, and dine, by Jove.” CHAPTER XVII. HOW CAPTAIN DOBBIN BOUGHT A PIANO. Ir there is any exhibition in all Vanity Fair which Satire and Sentiment can visit arm in arm together; where you light on the strangest contrasts, laughable and tearful: where you may be gentle and pathetic, or savage and cynical with perfect propriety : it is at one of those public assemblies, a crowd of which are advertised every day in the last page of the Times newspaper, and over which the late Mr. George Robins used to preside with so much dignity. ‘There are very few London people, as I fancy, who have not attended at these meetings, and all with a taste for moralizing must have thought, with a sensation and interest not a little startling and queer, of the day when their turn shall come too, and Mr. Ham- merdown will sell by the orders of Dio- genes’s assignees; or will be instructed by the executors, to offer to public competition, the library, furniture, plate, wardrobe, and choice cellar of wines of Epicurus, deceased. Even with the most selfish disposition, the Vanity-fairian, as he witnesses this sordid part of the obsequies of a departed friend, A peep can’t but feel some sympathies and regret. My Lord Dives’s remains are in the family vault; the statuaries are cutting an inscrip- tion veraciously commemorating his virtues, and the sorrows of his heir, who is disposing of his goods. What guest at Dives’s table can pass the familiar house without a sigh ? the familiar house of which the lights used to shine so cheerfully at seven o’clock, of which the hall doors opened so readily, of which the obsequious servants, as you passed up the comfortable stair, sounded your name from landing to landing, until it reached the apartment where jolly old Dives welcomed his friends! What a number of them he had ; and what a noble way of entertaining them. How witty people used to be here who were morose when they got out of the door; and how courteous and friendly men who slandered and hated each other every where else! He was pompous, but with such a cook what would one not swallow ? He was rather dull, perhaps, but would not such wine make any conversation pleasant ? We must get some of his Burgundy at any price, the mourners cry at his club. ‘I got this box at old Dives’s sale,’’ Pincher says, handing it round; ‘‘one of Louis XV.’s mistresses—pretty thing, is it not ?—sweet miniature,’ and they talk of the way in which young Dives is dissipating his fortune. How changed the house is, though! The front is patched ‘over with bills, setting forth the particulars of the furniture in staring capitals. ‘hey have hung a shred of car- pet out of an up-stairs window—a half-dozen of porters are lounging on the dirty steps— the hall swarms with dingy guests of oriental countenance, who thrust printed cards into your hand, and offer to bid. Old women and amateurs have invaded the upper apart- ments, pinching the bed curtains, poking into the feathers, shampooing the mattresses, * and clapping the wardrobe drawers to and fro. Enterprising young heddeduhnnediie measuring the looking-glasses and hangings to see if they will suit the new ménage— (Snob will brag for years that he has pur- chased this or that at Dives’s sale)—and Mr. Hammerdown is sitting on the great ma- hogany dining-tables, in the dining-room be- low, waving the ivory hammer, and employ- ing all the artifices of eloquence, enthusiasm, entreaty, reason, despair; shouting to his people ; satirizing Mr. Davids for his slug- gishness ; inspiriting Mr. Moss into action ; imploring, commanding, - bellowing, until down comes the hammer like fate, and we pass to the next lot. O Dives, whe would ever have thought, as we sat round the broad table sparkling with plate and spotless linen, ever to have seen such a dish at the head of it as that roaring auctioneer ? It was rather late in the sale. The ex- cellent drawing-room furniture by the best makers; the rare and famous wines select- COMICOOOKS.CO