Sketches by Boz Part 32

Joseph Tuggs was a grocer. It might be supposed that a grocer was beyond the breath of calumny; but no-the neighbours stigmatised him as a chandler; and the poisonous voice of envy distinctly a.s.serted that he dispensed tea and coffee by the quartern, retailed sugar by the ounce, cheese by the slice, tobacco by the screw, and b.u.t.ter by the pat. These taunts, however, were lost upon the Tuggses. Mr. Tuggs attended to the grocery department; Mrs. Tuggs to the cheesemongery; and Miss Tuggs to her education. Mr. Simon Tuggs kept his father's books, and his own counsel.

One fine spring afternoon, the latter gentleman was seated on a tub of weekly Dorset, behind the little red desk with a wooden rail, which ornamented a corner of the counter; when a stranger dismounted from a cab, and hastily entered the shop. He was habited in black cloth, and bore with him, a green umbrella, and a blue bag.

'Mr. Tuggs?' said the stranger, inquiringly.

'_My_ name is Tuggs,' replied Mr. Simon.

'It's the other Mr. Tuggs,' said the stranger, looking towards the gla.s.s door which led into the parlour behind the shop, and on the inside of which, the round face of Mr. Tuggs, senior, was distinctly visible, peeping over the curtain.

Mr. Simon gracefully waved his pen, as if in intimation of his wish that his father would advance. Mr. Joseph Tuggs, with considerable celerity, removed his face from the curtain and placed it before the stranger.

'I come from the Temple,' said the man with the bag.

'From the Temple!' said Mrs. Tuggs, flinging open the door of the little parlour and disclosing Miss Tuggs in perspective.

'From the Temple!' said Miss Tuggs and Mr. Simon Tuggs at the same moment.

'From the Temple!' said Mr. Joseph Tuggs, turning as pale as a Dutch cheese.

'From the Temple,' repeated the man with the bag; 'from Mr. Cower's, the solicitor's. Mr. Tuggs, I congratulate you, sir. Ladies, I wish you joy of your prosperity! We have been successful.' And the man with the bag leisurely divested himself of his umbrella and glove, as a preliminary to shaking hands with Mr. Joseph Tuggs.

Now the words 'we have been successful,' had no sooner issued from the mouth of the man with the bag, than Mr. Simon Tuggs rose from the tub of weekly Dorset, opened his eyes very wide, gasped for breath, made figures of eight in the air with his pen, and finally fell into the arms of his anxious mother, and fainted away without the slightest ostensible cause or pretence.

'Water!' screamed Mrs. Tuggs.

'Look up, my son,' exclaimed Mr. Tuggs.

'Simon! dear Simon!' shrieked Miss Tuggs.

'I'm better now,' said Mr. Simon Tuggs. 'What! successful!' And then, as corroborative evidence of his being better, he fainted away again, and was borne into the little parlour by the united efforts of the remainder of the family, and the man with the bag.

To a casual spectator, or to any one unacquainted with the position of the family, this fainting would have been unaccountable. To those who understood the mission of the man with the bag, and were moreover acquainted with the excitability of the nerves of Mr. Simon Tuggs, it was quite comprehensible. A long-pending lawsuit respecting the validity of a will, had been unexpectedly decided; and Mr. Joseph Tuggs was the possessor of twenty thousand pounds.

A prolonged consultation took place, that night, in the little parlour-a consultation that was to settle the future destinies of the Tuggses. The shop was shut up, at an unusually early hour; and many were the unavailing kicks bestowed upon the closed door by applicants for quarterns of sugar, or half-quarterns of bread, or penn'orths of pepper, which were to have been 'left till Sat.u.r.day,' but which fortune had decreed were to be left alone altogether.

'We must certainly give up business,' said Miss Tuggs.

'Oh, decidedly,' said Mrs. Tuggs.

'Simon shall go to the bar,' said Mr. Joseph Tuggs.

'And I shall always sign myself "Cymon" in future,' said his son.

'And I shall call myself Charlotta,' said Miss Tuggs.

'And you must always call _me_ "Ma," and father "Pa,"' said Mrs. Tuggs.

'Yes, and Pa must leave off all his vulgar habits,' interposed Miss Tuggs.

'I'll take care of all that,' responded Mr. Joseph Tuggs, complacently.

He was, at that very moment, eating pickled salmon with a pocket-knife.

'We must leave town immediately,' said Mr. Cymon Tuggs.

Everybody concurred that this was an indispensable preliminary to being genteel. The question then arose, Where should they go?

'Gravesend?' mildly suggested Mr. Joseph Tuggs. The idea was unanimously scouted. Gravesend was _low_.

'Margate?' insinuated Mrs. Tuggs. Worse and worse-n.o.body there, but tradespeople.

'Brighton?' Mr. Cymon Tuggs opposed an insurmountable objection. All the coaches had been upset, in turn, within the last three weeks; each coach had averaged two pa.s.sengers killed, and six wounded; and, in every case, the newspapers had distinctly understood that 'no blame whatever was attributable to the coachman.'

'Ramsgate?' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Cymon, thoughtfully. To be sure; how stupid they must have been, not to have thought of that before! Ramsgate was just the place of all others.

Two months after this conversation, the City of London Ramsgate steamer was running gaily down the river. Her flag was flying, her band was playing, her pa.s.sengers were conversing; everything about her seemed gay and lively.-No wonder-the Tuggses were on board.

'Charming, ain't it?' said Mr. Joseph Tuggs, in a bottle-green great-coat, with a velvet collar of the same, and a blue travelling-cap with a gold band.

'Soul-inspiring,' replied Mr. Cymon Tuggs-he was entered at the bar.

'Soul-inspiring!'

'Delightful morning, sir!' said a stoutish, military-looking gentleman in a blue surtout b.u.t.toned up to his chin, and white trousers chained down to the soles of his boots.

Mr. Cymon Tuggs took upon himself the responsibility of answering the observation. 'Heavenly!' he replied.

'You are an enthusiastic admirer of the beauties of Nature, sir?' said the military gentleman.

'I am, sir,' replied Mr. Cymon Tuggs.

'Travelled much, sir?' inquired the military gentleman.

'Not much,' replied Mr. Cymon Tuggs.

'You've been on the continent, of course?' inquired the military gentleman.

'Not exactly,' replied Mr. Cymon Tuggs-in a qualified tone, as if he wished it to be implied that he had gone half-way and come back again.

'You of course intend your son to make the grand tour, sir?' said the military gentleman, addressing Mr. Joseph Tuggs.

As Mr. Joseph Tuggs did not precisely understand what the grand tour was, or how such an article was manufactured, he replied, 'Of course.' Just as he said the word, there came tripping up, from her seat at the stern of the vessel, a young lady in a puce-coloured silk cloak, and boots of the same; with long black ringlets, large black eyes, brief petticoats, and unexceptionable ankles.

'Walter, my dear,' said the young lady to the military gentleman.

'Yes, Belinda, my love,' responded the military gentleman to the black-eyed young lady.

'What have you left me alone so long for?' said the young lady. 'I have been stared out of countenance by those rude young men.'

'What! stared at?' exclaimed the military gentleman, with an emphasis which made Mr. Cymon Tuggs withdraw his eyes from the young lady's face with inconceivable rapidity. 'Which young men-where?' and the military gentleman clenched his fist, and glared fearfully on the cigar-smokers around.