Tales and Novels Volume I Part 16

"Dat king wash very grand fool, beg his majesty's pardon," said the Jew, with a shrewd smile; "but kings know better nowadays. Heaven bless dere majesties."

Charles had a great mind to vindicate the philosophic fame of Francis the First, but a new idea suddenly started into his head.

"My dearest aunt," cried he, stopping her hand as she was giving her diamond ear-rings to Mr. Carat--"stay, my dearest aunt, one instant, till I have seen whether this is a good day for selling diamonds."

"O my dear young gentleman, no day in de Jewish calendar more proper for de purchase," said the Jew.

"For the purchase! yes," said Charles; "but for the sale?"

"My love," said his aunt, "surely you are not so foolish as to think there are lucky and unlucky days."

"No, I don't mean any thing about lucky and unlucky days," said Charles, running up to consult the barometer; "but what I mean is not foolish indeed: in some book I've read that the dealers in diamonds buy them when the air is light, and sell them when it is heavy, if they can; because their scales are so nice that they vary with the change in the atmosphere. Perhaps I may not remember exactly the words, but that's the sense, I know. I'll look for the words; I know whereabout to find them."

He jumped upon a chair, to get down the book.

"But, Master Charles," said the Jew, with a show of deference, "I will not pretend to make a bargain with you--I see you know a great deal more than I of these traffics."

To this flattery Charles made no answer, but continued looking for the pa.s.sage he wanted in his book. Whilst he was turning over the leaves, a gentleman, a friend of Mrs. Howard, who had promised her to meet Mr.

Carat, came in. He was the gentleman formerly mentioned by the name of _the traveller_: he was a good judge of diamonds, and, what is better, he was a good judge of the human heart and understanding. He was much pleased with Charles's ready recollection of the little knowledge he possessed, with his eagerness to make that knowledge of use to his aunt, and more with his perfect simplicity and integrity; for Charles, after a moment's thought, turned to the Jew and said,--

"But the day that is good for my aunt must be bad for you. The buyers and sellers should each have fair play. Mr. Carat, your weights should be diamonds, and then the changes in the weight of the air would not signify one way or the other.[3]"

[Footnote 3: This observation was literally made by a boy of ten years of age.]

Mr. Carat smiled at this speech, but, suppressing his contempt for the young gentleman, only observed, that he should most certainly follow Mr.

Charles's advice, whenever he _wash_ rich enough to have diamonds for weights.

The traveller drew from his pocket a small book, took a pen, and wrote in the t.i.tle-page of it, _For one who will make a good use of it_; and, with Mrs. Howard's permission, he gave the book to her nephew.

"I do not believe," said the gentleman, "that there is at present another copy in England: I have just got this from France by a private hand."

The sale of his aunt's books appeared to Charles a much more serious affair than the parting with her diamonds. He understood something of the value of books, and he took a sorrowful leave of many which he had read, and of many more which he had intended to read. Mrs. Howard selected a few for her own use, and she allowed her nephew to select as many for himself as she had done. He observed that there was a beautiful edition of Shakspeare, which he knew his aunt liked particularly, but which she did not keep, reserving instead of it Smith's Wealth of Nations, which would in a few years, she said, be very useful to him.

He immediately offered his favourite Etudes de la Nature to redeem the Shakspeare; but Mrs. Howard would not accept of it, because she justly observed, that she could read Shakspeare _almost_ as well without its being in such a beautiful binding. Her readiness to part with all the luxuries to which she had been for many years accustomed, and the freedom and openness with which she spoke of all her affairs to her nephew, made a great impression upon his mind.

Those are mistaken who think that young people cannot be interested in such things: if no mystery be made of the technical parts of business, young people easily learn them, and they early take an interest in the affairs of their parents, instead of learning to separate their own views from those of their friends. Charles, young as he was, at this time, was employed by his aunt frequently to copy, and sometimes to write, letters of business for her. He drew out a careful inventory of all the furniture before it was disposed of; he took lists of all the books and papers: and at this work, however tiresome, he was indefatigable, because he was encouraged by the hope of being useful.

This ambition had been early excited in his mind.

When Mrs. Howard had settled her affairs, she took a small neat house near Westminster school[4], for the purpose of a boarding-house for some of the Westminster boys. This plan she preferred, because it secured an independent means of support, and at the same time enabled her, in some measure, to a.s.sist in her nephew's education, and to enjoy his company.

She was no longer able to afford a sufficient salary to a well-informed private tutor; therefore she determined to send Charles to Westminster school; and, as he would board with her, she hoped to unite by this scheme, as much as possible, the advantages of a private and of a public education. Mr. Russell desired still to have the care of Mrs. Howard's nephew; he determined to offer himself as a tutor at Westminster school; and, as his acquirements were well known to the literary world, he was received with eagerness.

[Footnote 4: See the account of Mrs. C. Ponten, in Gibbon's Life.]

"My dear boy," said Mrs. Howard to her nephew, when he first went to Westminster, "I shall not trouble you with a long chapter of advice: do you remember that answer of the oracle, which seemed to strike you so much the other day, when you were reading the life of Cicero?"

"Yes," said Charles, "I recollect it--I shall never forget it. When Cicero asked how he should arrive at the height of glory, the oracle answered, 'By making his own genius, and not the opinion of the people, the guide of his life.'"

"Well," said Mrs. Howard, smiling, "if I were your oracle, and you were to put the same question to me, I think I should make you nearly the same answer; except that I should change the word genius into good sense; and, instead of _the people_, I should say _the world_, which, in general, I think, means all the _silly people_ of one's acquaintance.

Farewell: now go to the Westminster world."

Westminster was quite a new world to young Howard. The bustle and noise at first astonished his senses, and almost confounded his understanding; but he soon grew accustomed to the din, and familiarized to the sight of numbers. At first, he thought himself much inferior to all his companions, because practice had given them the power of doing many things with ease, which to him appeared difficult, merely because he had not been used to them. In all their games and plays, either of address or force, he found himself foiled. In a readiness of repartee, and a certain ease and volubility of conversation, he perceived his deficiency; and though he frequently was conscious that his ideas were more just, and his arguments better, than those of his companions, yet he could not at first bring out his ideas to advantage, or manage his arguments so as to stand his ground against the mixed raillery and sophistry of his school fellows. He had not yet the tone of his new society, and he was as much at a loss as a traveller in a foreign country, before he understands the language of a people who are vociferating round about him. As fast, however, as he learned to translate the language of his companions into his own, he discovered that there was not so much meaning in their expressions as he had been inclined to imagine whilst they had remained unintelligible: but he was good-humoured and good-natured, so that, upon the whole, he was much liked; and even his inferiority, in many little trials of skill, was, perhaps, in his favour. He laughed with those that laughed at him, let them triumph in his awkwardness, but still persisted in new trials, till at last, to the great surprise of the spectators, he succeeded.

The art of boxing cost him more than all the rest; but as he was neither deficient in courage of mind nor activity of body, he did not despair of acquiring the _necessary_ skill in this n.o.ble science--necessary, we say, for Charles had not been a week at Westminster before he was made sensible of the necessity of practising this art in his own defence. He had yet a stronger motive; he found it necessary for the defence of one who looked up to him for protection.

There was at this time at Westminster, a little boy of the name of Oliver, a Creole, lively, intelligent, open-hearted, and affectionate in the extreme, but rather pa.s.sionate in his temper, and adverse to application. His _literary_ education had been strangely neglected before he came to school, so that his ignorance of the common rudiments of spelling, reading, grammar, and arithmetic, made him the laughing-stock of the school. The poor boy felt inexpressible shame and anguish; his cheek burned with blushes, when every day, in the public cla.s.s, he was ridiculed and disgraced; but his dark complexion, perhaps, prevented those blushes from being noticed by his companions, otherwise they certainly would have suppressed, or would have endeavoured to repress, some of their insulting peals of laughter. He suffered no complaint or tear to escape him in public; but his book was sometimes blistered with the tears that fell when n.o.body saw them: what was worse than all the rest he found insurmountable difficulties, at every step, in his grammar. He was unwilling to apply to any of his more learned companions for explanations or a.s.sistance. He began to sink into despair of his own abilities, and to imagine that he must for ever remain, what indeed he was every day called, a dunce. He was usually flogged three times a week. Day after day brought no relief, either to his bodily or mental sufferings: at length his honest pride yielded, and he applied to one of the elder scholars for help. The boy to whom he applied was Augustus Holloway, Alderman Holloway's son, who was acknowledged to be one of the best Latin scholars at Westminster. He readily helped Oliver in his exercises, but he made him pay most severely for this a.s.sistance, by the most tyrannical usage; and, in all his tyranny, he thought himself fully justifiable, because little Oliver, beside his other misfortunes, had the misfortune to be a f.a.g.

There may be--though many schoolboys will, perhaps, think it scarcely possible--there may be, in the compa.s.s of the civilised world, some persons so barbarously ignorant as not to know what is meant by the term f.a.g. To these it may be necessary to explain, that at some English schools it is the custom, that all little boys, when they first go to school, should be under the dominion of the elder boys. These little boys are called f.a.gs, and are forced to wait upon and obey their master-companions. Their duties vary in different schools. I have heard of its being customary in some places, to make use of a f.a.g regularly in the depth of winter instead of a warming-pan, and to send the s.h.i.+vering urchin through ten or twenty beds successively to take off the chill of cold for their luxurious masters. They are expected, in most schools, to run of all the elder boys' errands, to be ready at their call, and to do all their high behests. They must never complain of being tired, or their complaints will, at least, never be regarded, because, as the etymology of the word implies, it is their business to be tired. The substantive _f.a.g_ is not to be found in Dr. Johnson's Dictionary; but the verb to f.a.g is there a verb neuter, from fatigo, Latin, and is there explained to mean, "to grow weary, to faint with weariness." This is all the satisfaction we can, after the most diligent research, afford the curious and learned reader upon the subject of _f.a.gs_ in general.

In particular, Mr. Augustus Holloway took great delight in teasing his f.a.g, little Oliver. One day it happened that young Howard and Holloway were playing at nine-pins together, and little Oliver was within a few yards of them, sitting under a tree, with a book upon his knees, anxiously trying to make out his lesson. Holloway, whenever the nine-pins were thrown down, called to Oliver, and made him come from his book and set them up again: this he repeatedly did, in spite of Howard's remonstrances, who always offered to set up the nine-pins, and who said it teased the poor little fellow to call him every minute from what he was about.

"Yes," said Holloway, "I know it teases him--that I see plain enough, by his running so fast back to his _form_, like a hare--there he is, _squatting_ again: halloo! halloo! come, start again here," cried Holloway; "you have not done yet: bring me the bowl, halloo!"

Howard did not at all enjoy the diversion of hunting the poor boy about in this manner, and he said, with some indignation,

"How is it possible, Holloway, that the boy can get his lesson, if you interrupt him every instant?"

"Pooh! what signifies his foolish lesson?"

"It signifies a great deal to him," replied Howard: "you know what he suffered this morning because he had not learned it."

"Suffered! why, what did he suffer?" said Holloway, upon whose memory the sufferings of others made no very deep impression. "Oh, ay, true--you mean he was flogged: more shame for him!--why did not he mind and get his lesson better?"

"I had not time to understand it rightly," said Oliver, with a deep sigh; "and I don't think I shall have time to-day either."

"More shame for you," repeated Holloway: "I'll lay any bet on earth, I get all you have to get in three minutes."

"Ah, you, to be sure," said Oliver, in a tone of great humiliation; "but then you know what a difference there is between you and me."

Holloway misunderstood him; and, thinking he meant to allude to the difference in their age, instead of the difference of their abilities, answered sharply,

"When I was your age, do you think I was such a dunce as you are, pray?"

"No, that I am sure you never were," said Oliver; "but perhaps you had some good father or mother, or somebody, who taught you a little before you came to school."

"I don't remember any thing about that," replied Holloway; "I don't know who was so good as to teach me, but I know I was so good as to learn fast enough, which is a goodness, I've a notion, some folks will never have to boast of--so trot, and fetch the bowl for me, do you hear, and set up the nine-pins. You've sense enough to do that, have not you? and as for your lesson, I'll drive that into your head by and by, if I can,"

added he, rapping with his knuckles upon the little boy's head.

"As to my lesson," said the boy, putting aside his head from the insulting knuckles, "I had rather try and make it out by myself, if I can."

"If you can!" repeated Holloway, sneering; "but we all know you can't."

"Why can't he, Holloway?" exclaimed Howard, with a raised voice, for he was no longer master of his indignation.

"Why can't he?" repeated Holloway, looking round upon Howard, with a mixture of surprise and insolence. "You must answer that question yourself, Howard: I say he can't."

"And I say he can, and he shall," replied Howard; "and he _shall_ have time to learn: he's willing, and, I'll answer for it, able to learn; and he shall not be called a dunce; and he shall have time; and he shall have justice."

"Shall! shall! shall!" retorted Holloway, vociferating with a pa.s.sion of a different sort from Howard's. "Pray, sir, who allowed you to say shall to me? and how dare you to talk in this _here_ style to me about justice?--and what business have you, I should be glad to know, to interfere between me and my f.a.g? What right have you to him, or his time either? And if I choose to call him a dunce forty times a day, what then? he is a dunce, and he will be a dunce to the end of his days, I say, and who is there thinks proper to contradict me?"

"I," said Howard, firmly; "and I'll do more than contradict you--I'll prove that you are mistaken. Oliver, bring your book to me."