CHAPTER I

ABOVE BUTTONS

Long after the hours when tradesmen are in the habit of commencing

business, the shutters of a certain shop in the town of

Lymport-on-the-Sea remained significantly closed, and it became known

that death had taken Mr. Melchisedec Harrington, and struck one off the

list of living tailors. The demise of a respectable member of this class

does not ordinarily create a profound sensation. He dies, and his equals

debate who is to be his successor: while the rest of them who have come

in contact with him, very probably hear nothing of his great launch and

final adieu till the winding up of cash-accounts; on which occasions we

may augur that he is not often blessed by one or other of the two great

parties who subdivide this universe. In the case of Mr. Melchisedec it

was otherwise. This had been a grand man, despite his calling, and in the

teeth of opprobrious epithets against his craft. To be both generally

blamed, and generally liked, evinces a peculiar construction of mortal.

Mr. Melchisedec, whom people in private called the great Mel, had been at

once the sad dog of Lymport, and the pride of the town. He was a tailor,

and he kept horses; he was a tailor, and he had gallant adventures; he

was a tailor, and he shook hands with his customers. Finally, he was a

tradesman, and he never was known to have sent in a bill. Such a

personage comes but once in a generation, and, when he goes, men miss the

man as well as their money.

That he was dead, there could be no doubt. Kilne, the publican opposite,

had seen Sally, one of the domestic servants, come out of the house in

the early morning and rush up the street to the doctor's, tossing her

hands; and she, not disinclined to dilute her grief, had, on her return,

related that her master was then at his last gasp, and had refused, in so

many words, to swallow the doctor.

'"I won't swallow the doctor!" he says, "I won't swallow the doctor!"'

Sally moaned. '"I never touched him," he says, "and I never will."'

Kilne angrily declared, that in his opinion, a man who rejected medicine

in extremity, ought to have it forced down his throat: and considering

that the invalid was pretty deeply in Kilne's debt, it naturally assumed

the form of a dishonest act on his part; but Sally scornfully dared any

one to lay hand on her master, even for his own good. 'For,' said she,

'he's got his eyes awake, though he do lie so helpless. He marks ye!'

'Ah! ah!' Kilne sniffed the air. Sally then rushed back to her duties.

'Now, there 's a man!' Kilne stuck his hands in his pockets and began his

meditation: which, however, was cut short by the approach of his

neighbour Barnes, the butcher, to whom he confided what he had heard, and

who ejaculated professionally, 'Obstinate as a pig!' As they stood

together they beheld Sally, a figure of telegraph, at one of the windows,

implying that all was just over.

'Amen!' said Barnes, as to a matter-of-fact affair.

Some minutes after, the two were joined by Grossby, the confectioner, who

listened to the news, and observed:

'Just like him! I'd have sworn he'd never take doctor's stuff'; and,

nodding at Kilne, 'liked his medicine best, eh?'

'Had a-hem!--good lot of it,' muttered Kilne, with a suddenly serious

brow.

'How does he stand on your books?' asked Barnes.

Kilne shouldered round, crying: 'Who the deuce is to know?'

'I don't,' Grossby sighed. 'In he comes with his "Good morning, Grossby,

fine day for the hunt, Grossby," and a ten-pound note. "Have the kindness

to put that down in my favour, Grossby." And just as I am going to say,

"Look here,--this won't do," he has me by the collar, and there's one of

the regiments going to give a supper party, which he's to order; or the

Admiral's wife wants the receipt for that pie; or in comes my wife, and

there's no talking of business then, though she may have been bothering

about his account all the night beforehand. Something or other! and so we

run on.'

'What I want to know,' said Barnes, the butcher, 'is where he got his

tenners from?'

Kilne shook a sagacious head: 'No knowing!'

'I suppose we shall get something out of the fire?' Barnes suggested.

'That depends!' answered the emphatic Kilne.

'But, you know, if the widow carries on the business,' said Grossby,

'there's no reason why we shouldn't get it all, eh?'

'There ain't two that can make clothes for nothing, and make a profit out

of it,' said Kilne.

'That young chap in Portugal,' added Barnes, 'he won't take to tailoring

when he comes home. D' ye think he will?'

Kilne muttered: 'Can't say!' and Grossby, a kindly creature in his way,

albeit a creditor, reverting to the first subject of their discourse,

ejaculated, 'But what a one he was!--eh?'

'Fine!--to look on,' Kilne assented.

'Well, he was like a Marquis,' said Barnes.

Here the three regarded each other, and laughed, though not loudly. They

instantly checked that unseemliness, and Kilne, as one who rises from the

depths of a calculation with the sum in his head, spoke quite in a

different voice:

'Well, what do you say, gentlemen? shall we adjourn? No use standing

here.'

By the invitation to adjourn, it was well understood by the committee

Kilne addressed, that they were invited to pass his threshold, and

partake of a morning draught. Barnes, the butcher, had no objection

whatever, and if Grossby, a man of milder make, entertained any, the

occasion and common interests to be discussed, advised him to waive them.

In single file these mourners entered the publican's house, where Kilne,

after summoning them from behind the bar, on the important question, what

it should be? and receiving, first, perfect acquiescence in his views as

to what it should be, and then feeble suggestions of the drink best

befitting that early hour and the speaker's particular constitution,

poured out a toothful to each, and one to himself.

'Here's to him, poor fellow!' said Kilne; and was deliberately echoed

twice.

'Now, it wasn't that,' Kilne pursued, pointing to the bottle in the midst

of a smacking of lips, 'that wasn't what got him into difficulties. It

was expensive luckshries. It was being above his condition. Horses!

What's a tradesman got to do with horses? Unless he's retired! Then he's

a gentleman, and can do as he likes. It's no use trying to be a gentleman

if you can't pay for it. It always ends bad. Why, there was he,

consorting with gentlefolks--gay as a lark! Who has to pay for it?'

Kilne's fellow-victims maintained a rather doleful tributary silence.

'I'm not saying anything against him now,' the publican further observed.

'It 's too late. And there! I'm sorry he's gone, for one. He was as kind

a hearted a man as ever breathed. And there! perhaps it was just as much

my fault; I couldn't say "No" to him,--dash me, if I could!'

Lymport was a prosperous town, and in prosperity the much-despised

British tradesman is not a harsh, he is really a well-disposed, easy

soul, and requires but management, manner, occasional instalments--just

to freshen the account--and a surety that he who debits is on the spot,

to be a right royal king of credit. Only the account must never drivel.

'Stare aut crescere' appears to be his feeling on that point, and the

departed Mr. Melchisedec undoubtedly understood him there; for the

running on of the account looked deplorable and extraordinary now that

Mr. Melchisedec was no longer in a position to run on with it, and it was

precisely his doing so which had prevented it from being brought to a

summary close long before. Both Barnes, the butcher; and Grossby, the

confectioner, confessed that they, too, found it hard ever to say 'No' to

him, and, speaking broadly, never could.

'Except once,'said Barnes, 'when he wanted me to let him have a ox to

roast whole out on the common, for the Battle of Waterloo. I stood out

against him on that. "No, no," says I, "I'll joint him for ye, Mr.

Harrington. You shall have him in joints, and eat him at home";-ha! ha!'

'Just like him!' said Grossby, with true enjoyment of the princely

disposition that had dictated the patriotic order.

'Oh!--there!' Kilne emphasized, pushing out his arm across the bar, as

much as to say, that in anything of such a kind, the great Mel never had

a rival.

'That "Marquis" affair changed him a bit,' said Barnes.

'Perhaps it did, for a time,' said Kilne. 'What's in the grain, you know.

He couldn't change. He would be a gentleman, and nothing 'd stop him.'

'And I shouldn't wonder but what that young chap out in Portugal 'll want

to be one, too; though he didn't bid fair to be so fine a man as his

father.'

'More of a scholar,' remarked Kilne. 'That I call his worst

fault--shilly-shallying about that young chap. I mean his.' Kilne

stretched a finger toward the dead man's house. 'First, the young chap's

to be sent into the Navy; then it's the Army; then he's to be a judge,

and sit on criminals; then he goes out to his sister in Portugal; and now

there's nothing but a tailor open to him, as I see, if we're to get our

money.'

'Ah! and he hasn't got too much spirit to work to pay his father's

debts,' added Barnes. 'There's a business there to make any man's

fortune-properly directed, I say. But, I suppose, like father like son,

he'll becoming the Marquis, too. He went to a gentleman's school, and

he's had foreign training. I don't know what to think about it. His

sisters over there--they were fine women.'

'Oh! a fine family, every one of 'em! and married well!' exclaimed the

publican.

'I never had the exact rights of that "Marquis" affair,' said Grossby;

and, remembering that he had previously laughed knowingly when it was

alluded to, pursued: 'Of course I heard of it at the time, but how did he

behave when he was blown upon?'

Barnes undertook to explain; but Kilne, who relished the narrative quite

as well, and was readier, said: 'Look here! I 'll tell you. I had it from

his own mouth one night when he wasn't--not quite himself. He was coming

down King William Street, where he stabled his horse, you know, and I met

him. He'd been dining out-somewhere out over Fallow field, I think it

was; and he sings out to me, "Ah! Kilne, my good fellow!" and I, wishing

to be equal with him, says, "A fine night, my lord!" and he draws himself

up--he smelt of good company--says he, "Kilne! I'm not a lord, as you

know, and you have no excuse for mistaking me for one, sir!" So I

pretended I had mistaken him, and then he tucked his arm under mine, and

said, "You're no worse than your betters, Kilne. They took me for one at

Squire Uplift's to-night, but a man who wishes to pass off for more than

he is, Kilne, and impose upon people," he says, "he's contemptible,

Kilne! contemptible!" So that, you know, set me thinking about "Bath" and

the "Marquis," and I couldn't help smiling to myself, and just let slip a

question whether he had enlightened them a bit. "Kilne," said he, "you're

an honest man, and a neighbour, and I'll tell you what happened. The

Squire," he says, "likes my company, and I like his table. Now the Squire

'd never do a dirty action, but the Squire's nephew, Mr. George Uplift,

he can't forget that I earn my money, and once or twice I have had to

correct him." And I'll wager Mel did it, too! Well, he goes on: "There

was Admiral Sir Jackson Racial and his lady, at dinner, Squire Falco of

Bursted, Lady Barrington, Admiral Combleman--our admiral, that was; 'Mr.

This and That', I forget their names--and other ladies and gentlemen

whose acquaintance I was not honoured with." You know his way of talking.

"And there was a goose on the table," he says; and, looking stern at me,

"Don't laugh yet!" says he, like thunder. "Well, he goes on: Mr. George

caught my eye across the table, and said, so as not to be heard by his

uncle, 'If that bird was rampant, you would see your own arms, Marquis.'"

And Mel replied, quietly for him to hear, 'And as that bird is couchant,

Mr. George, you had better look to your sauce.' Couchant means squatting,

you know. That's heraldry! Well, that wasn't bad sparring of Mel's. But,

bless you! he was never taken aback, and the gentlefolks was glad enough

to get him to sit down amongst 'em. So, says Mr. George, 'I know you're a

fire-eater, Marquis,' and his dander was up, for he began marquising Mel,

and doing the mock polite at such a rate, that, by-and-by, one of the

ladies who didn't know Mel called him 'my lord' and 'his lordship.'

"And," says Mel, "I merely bowed to her, and took no notice." So that

passed off: and there sits Mel telling his anecdotes, as grand as a king.

And, by and-by, young Mr. George, who hadn't forgiven Mel, and had been

pulling at the bottle pretty well, he sings out, "It 's Michaelmas! the

death of the goose! and I should like to drink the Marquis's health!" and

he drank it solemn. But, as far as I can make out, the women part of the

company was a little in the dark. So Mel waited till there was a sort of

a pause, and then speaks rather loud to the Admiral, "By the way, Sir

Jackson, may I ask you, has the title of Marquis anything to do with

tailoring?" Now Mel was a great favourite with the Admiral, and with his

lady, too, they say--and the Admiral played into his hands, you see, and,

says he, "I 'm not aware that it has, Mr. Harrington." And he begged for

to know why he asked the question--called him, "Mister," you understand.

So Mel said, and I can see him now, right out from his chest he spoke,

with his head up "When I was a younger man, I had the good taste to be

fond of good society, and the bad taste to wish to appear different from

what I was in it": that's Mel speaking; everybody was listening; so he

goes on: "I was in the habit of going to Bath in the season, and

consorting with the gentlemen I met there on terms of equality; and for

some reason that I am quite guiltless of," says Mel, "the hotel people

gave out that I was a Marquis in disguise; and, upon my honour, ladies

and gentlemen--I was young then, and a fool--I could not help imagining I

looked the thing. At all events, I took upon myself to act the part, and

with some success, and considerable gratification; for, in my opinion,"

says Mel, "no real Marquis ever enjoyed his title so much as I did. One

day I was in my shop--No. 193, Main Street, Lymport--and a gentleman came

in to order his outfit. I received his directions, when suddenly he

started back, stared at me, and exclaimed:

'My dear Marquis! I trust you will pardon me for having addressed you

with so much familiarity.' I recognized in him one of my Bath

acquaintances. That circumstance, ladies and gentlemen, has been a lesson

to me. Since that time I have never allowed a false impression with

regard to my position to exist. "I desire," says Mel, smiling, "to have

my exact measure taken everywhere; and if the Michaelmas bird is to be

associated with me, I am sure I have no objection; all I can say is, that

I cannot justify it by letters patent of nobility." That's how Mel put

it. Do you think they thought worse of him? I warrant you he came out of

it in flying colours. Gentlefolks like straight-forwardness in their

inferiors--that's what they do. Ah!' said Kilne, meditatively, 'I see him

now, walking across the street in the moonlight, after he 'd told me

that. A fine figure of a man! and there ain't many Marquises to match

him.'

To this Barnes and Grossby, not insensible to the merits of the recital

they had just given ear to, agreed. And with a common voice of praise in

the mouths of his creditors, the dead man's requiem was sounded.