CHAPTER CXXII.

TWO OF THE READER’S OLD FRIENDS.

Bucklersbury--a tortuous street, leading from Cheapside to

Walbrook--abounds in dining-rooms, where for fifteen pence the “City

man” can procure a meal somewhat on the “cheap and nasty” principle.

There’s ten-pence for a plate of meat, cut off a joint--two-pence, a

pint of porter--a penny, potatoes--a penny, bread--and a penny the

waiter.

The moment a person enters one of these establishments and seats

himself at a table, a waiter with a dirty apron to his waist, and

a ditto napkin over his arm, rushes up, and gabbles through the

bill-of-fare, just in the same rapid and unintelligible manner as an

oath is administered to a juryman or a witness in a court of justice.

It was while the preceding scenes were taking place at the West End of

London, that two gentlemen lounged into a dining-room in Bucklersbury,

and took their places, facing each other, at one of the numerous

little tables that were spread with dirty cloths and strewn in a

random fashion with knives, forks, salt-sellars, pepper-boxes, and

vinegar-cruets,--all in preparation for the afternoon’s process of

“feeding.”

Scarcely had the two gentlemen thus brought themselves to an anchor,

when the waiter darted up to them as if the necessity of speed were

a matter of life or death;--and, heedless whether the visitors were

attending to him or not, the domestic functionary hurried over the list

of delicacies at that moment in readiness in the kitchen.

“Roast beef--biled beef--roast leg of pork--biled leg of pork and pease

pudding--fillet of veal and ’am--beef steak pie--biled leg of mutton

and caper sarse--greens--colliflowers--and taturs. Give your orders,

gentle-_men_.”

But were the rapidity of the waiter’s utterance properly represented

in print, his repetition of the bill-of-fare would more properly stand

thus:--

“Roast beef biled beef roast leg of pork biled leg of pork and pease

pudding fillet of veal and ’am beefsteak pie biled leg of mutton

and caper sarse greens colliflowers and taturs give your orders

gentle-_men_!”

“Well--what shall we have, old fellow?” said the younger gentleman of

the two to his companion.

“Be Jasus! ’an it’s afther boiled leg of por-r-rk and paze pudding that

I am, my frind!” was the emphatic reply, delivered with a ferocious

look at the waiter as much as to let that individual know that he had

better not have any of his nonsense--although nothing was farther from

the poor devil’s thoughts at the moment.

“Very good, sir!” cried the waiter. “Biled pork and pease pudding!”

he shouted out for the behoof of the young lady within the bar at the

remote end of the room.

“And the same for me,” said the Irishman’s companion.

“Same for gentle-_man_!” bawled the waiter, again addressing himself to

the young lady just alluded to. “Ale or stout, gentle-_men_?”

“Porther--a pint!” exclaimed the ferocious Hibernian.

“Pale ale for me,” intimated his friend.

“Pint of porter and pint palale for gentle-_men_!” vociferated the

waiter. “Weggitubles--bread?” he next demanded.

“No bread--greens!” ejaculated the Irishman.

“Bread and potatoes for me,” said his companion.

“One bread--one greens--one taturs--for gentle-_men_!” cried the

waiter, thus conveying his last instructions to the young lady who

officiated at the bar; and the said young lady sent each fresh order

down a pipe communicating with the kitchen--her own voice being as

affected and her manner as lackadaisical as the waiter was natural,

rapid, and bustling.

But before the various luxuries thus commanded were hoisted from the

kitchen to the bar by means of the moveable dumb-waiter that worked

up and down between the two places just mentioned,--we must pause

to inform our readers--if indeed they have not already suspected

the fact--that the two visitors to the dining-establishment in

Bucklersbury, were our old friends Captain O’Blunderbuss and Mr.

Francis Curtis!

The gallant Irishman had now numbered sixty-four years; and although

the lapse of time had rendered his head completely bald, and turned his

whiskers and moustachios to a bright silver, the ferocity of his aspect

remained unaltered, and his fiery disposition was unsubdued. He was

still the terrible Captain O’Blunderbuss--ready to exchange shots with

any one and on all occasions--and more devoted to poteen than ever. His

form was as erect as when in the prime of life; and his military coat,

all frogged and braided, was buttoned over an ample chest that no stoop

had contracted. The captain had grown somewhat stouter than when we

took leave of him nineteen years previously to our present date; but

his physical strength seemed to have remained unimpaired.

Frank Curtis was now forty-three. He also had “filled out,” as the

phrase is; but his countenance, in fattening, had lost nothing of its

ignoble expression of self-sufficiency and impudent conceit; and his

manner was as flippant as ever. Neither had he laid aside any portion

of his mendacious habits, but had rather added thereto by varying the

style of his boastings and the nature of his lies. He continued to

dress in a flashy way--delighting in a hat of strange appearance, and

in a waistcoat concentrating in a yard of stuff all the colours which

have existence and name upon earth.

We must however admit--for the truth cannot be blinked in this

respect--that there was a certain air of seediness about both the

captain and Mr. Frank Curtis, which neither the bullying insolence

of the former nor the impertinent self-sufficiency of the latter

could altogether throw into the shade. It was evident that they had

lost the confidence of their tailors and hatters--and even of their

washerwomen;--for their garments might have been less thread-bare, and

their wristbands a trifle cleaner. We say “wristbands,” because those

were the only portions of their shirts which met the eye--the captain’s

frogged coat and Mr. Curtis’s faded double-breasted waistcoat being

each buttoned up to its owner’s throat.

“Waiter-r!” vociferated the gallant officer, when about a minute and a

half had elapsed from the time that the orders had been given for the

repast.

“Yes, sir--coming, sir,” cried the functionary thus addressed, as he

hurried away in quite another direction.

“Be Jasus!” ejaculated the captain, thumping his fist so vigorously

down upon the table that the pepper box danced the polka with the

mustard-pot, and the knives and forks performed a _pas de quatre_. “Is

that boiled por-r-rk and paze pudding afther coming to-day at all, at

all?”

“Just coming, sir!” said the waiter, under no excitement whatever,

though in an immense bustle--for waiters always remain cool and

imperturbable when most in a hurry.

“If it don’t come in sivin seconds, ye villain,” thundered the captain,

“I’ll skin ye alive!”

“Very good, sir,” said the waiter, as he hastened to attend upon some

new-comers.

“The beauty of the French eating-houses is that the moment you order

things they appear on the table by magic,” observed Frank Curtis, in

a tone loud enough to let every one present know that he had been in

France. “When I was in Paris--on that secret mission from the English

Government, you know, captain-----”

“Be Jasus! and I remimber quite well,” exclaimed the gallant officer.

“’Twas at the same time that I wint to offer my swor-r-d and services

to the Imperor of the Tur-r-rks--the Sulthan, I mane.”

“Just so,” said Frank. “Well--as I was going to tell you----”

“Two biled pork--two pease pudding--for gentle-_men_,” cried the waiter

at this juncture, as he set the plates upon the table. “One--bread--one

greens--one taturs--for gentle-_men_.”

The captain and Mr. Curtis fell to work upon the delicacies thus placed

before them; and after an interval of silence, during which the boiled

pork and _et ceteras_ disappeared with astonishing rapidity, the latter

leaning across the table, said in a low whisper, “It was a deuced lucky

thing that I met my friend Styles just now; for if he hadn’t lent me

this sovereign, we might have gone without dinner as well as without

breakfast.”

“Be Jasus! and that’s thrue enough, Frank!” returned the gallant

officer, likewise in _sotto voce_. “Where did ye appint to mate Misther

Styles again this afternoon?”

“At a nice quiet little public that I know of--where there’s a good

parlour and capital spirits,” answered Mr. Curtis.

“Ah! the thrue potheen--the rale cratur!” said the captain. “Well

that’s a blissing, at all evints! And, be Jasus! I hope your frind

Misther Styles will be after putting us up to do a something, as he

suggisted--for, be the power-r-rs! Frank, it’s hard work looking about

for the sinews of war-r-r!”

“Styles is a splendid fellow, captain,” replied Mr. Curtis, smacking

his lips after his last glass of pale ale--or “palale,” as the waiter

denominated it. “Why, God bless you! It was him who got up the London

and Paris Balloon Conveyance Company, with Parachute Branches to Dover

and Calais.”

“And how came it to fail?” demanded the gallant officer.

“Simply because it was never meant to succeed,” answered Frank, in

a matter-of-fact way. “The object was to make money by showing the

balloons and parachutes that were to be used in the business; and the

press took up the affair quite seriously. As long as curiosity was kept

alive, Styles cleared upwards of five guineas a-day by the admissions

at a shilling a head. Ah! he’s a clever fellow--a deuced clever fellow,

I can tell you. But it’s pretty near time we went to meet him: for,

though he hasn’t any thing particular to do at present, he always

pretends to be in a hurry, and never waits one minute over the hour for

an appointment:--that’s the way he has got himself the character of a

man of punctuality and business-habits.”

“Waiter-r!” vociferated Captain O’Blunderbuss.

“Coming, sir!” cried the functionary thus adjured: then, rushing up to

the table, he said interrogatively, “Cheese, gentle-_men_?”

“No. What’s to pay?” demanded Curtis.

The waiter enumerated the items in a rapid manner and mentioned the

amount, which was forthwith discharged by Frank, who ostentatiously

threw down a sovereign as if he had plenty more of the same kind

of coin in his pocket. On receiving his change, he gave the waiter

sixpence--a specimen of liberality which induced that discriminating

personage to disregard all the other demands made at the moment upon

his services, until he had duly escorted the two gentlemen to the door.

Upon quitting the dining-rooms, Captain O’Blunderbuss and Mr. Frank

Curtis proceeded arm-in-arm into Cheapside; and, on catching a glimpse

of the clock of Bow Church, the latter gentleman said, “We are in lots

of time. It’s only half-past two--and we’re to meet Styles at three at

a public in Fleet Street. So we needn’t gallop along as if a troop of

sheriffs’ officers were at our heels.”

“Be Jasus! d’ye remember what fine fun we had with the snaking

scoundrels up in Baker Street?” cried the gallant officer. “Why--it

must be upwards of twenty years ago--or nineteen at the laste!”

“Yes--and do you remember what larks we had in the Bench too, during

the time that the sleepy old Commissioners remanded me for?” said

Curtis.

“Be the holy poker-r! and I’ve forgotten nothing of all that same!”

ejaculated the captain. “But it was a sad blow to ye, my frind, when

Sir Christopher-r died without laving ye a single sixpence!”

“I can’t bear to think of it, captain--although a dozen years or more

have passed since then. But who do you think I saw the other day,

riding in her carriage just as if she had been a lady all her life?”

“Be Jasus! and ye mane Sir Christopher’s wife that was!” exclaimed the

gallant officer. “Had she got the fine stout livery-servant standing up

behind as usual?”

“Yes--and young Blunt was inside,” added Curtis. “He’s as like the

stout footman as ever a lad was to a middle-aged man in this world--the

same pudding face--sandy hair--stupid-looking eyes----”

“Now be the power-rs! I think you’re too hard upon the footman, Frank!”

interrupted the captain. “He’s not such an ugly fellow as you would

be afther making him out. I don’t say, for insthance, that he’s so

handsome as you, my dear frind--or yet so well made as me, Frank----”

“Very far from it, captain,” cried Mr. Curtis. “I don’t think that

we’re the worst looking chaps in Cheapside at this moment. That’s

exactly what Styles said to us this morning. ‘_I want a couple of

genteel fellows like you_,’ says he, ‘_to join me in something that I

have in hand._’”

“We’re the very boys to co-operate with him, Frank!” exclaimed the

captain: “and what’s more, you and me can play into ache-other’s hands.

’Tisn’t for nothing that we’ve been frinds for the last twinty years.”

“In which time we’ve seen many ups and downs, captain,” observed

Frank,--“had many a good dinner, and gone many a time without

one--spent many a guinea, and seen many a day when we didn’t know where

the devil to get a shilling----”

“Be the power-rs! and had many a rar-r lar-r-rk into the bargin!”

said Captain O’Blunderbuss. “D’ye renumber our gitting into the

station-house the night afther your dear wife left ye to jine the old

gintleman that fell in love with her, and----”

“And who was kind enough to take her off my hands, children and

all!” exclaimed Frank, laughing heartily. “Ah! that was a glorious

business--that was--I mean, old Shipley relieving me of my dear spouse

and the five responsibilities.”

“And didn’t I conduct the bargin for ye?” demanded the captain. “Didn’t

I make him pony down a thousand pounds to prevint an action of _crim.

con._? Be the potheen of ould Ireland--I did that same business as nate

and clane as iver such a thing was setthled in this wor-r-rld!”

“True enough, captain,” said Frank. “But it’s just on the stroke of

three, I declare!” he exclaimed, glancing up at Saint Bride’s, which

they were now passing. “How we must have dawdled along! I wish you

wouldn’t loiter to stare at the gals so, captain,” he added, laughing.

“Be Jasus! and it’s yourself, Frank, that ogles all the lasses that

we mate,” cried the captain, throwing back an insinuation that was

intended as a friendly compliment. “But which is the place, me boy?”

“Here,” said Curtis, turning into a public-house in Fleet Street just

as the clock struck three.