PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
VOL. 1.
SEPTEMBER 18, 1841.
THE HEIR OF APPLEBITE.
CHAPTER IV.
HAS A GREAT DEAL TO SAY ABOUT SOME ONE ELSE BESIDES OURHERO.
Kindness was a characteristic ofAgamemnon’s disposition, and it is not therefore a matter ofsurprise that “the month”—the month,par excellence, of “all the months i’thekalendar”—produced a succession of those annoyanceswhich, in the best regulated families, are certain to be partiallyexperienced by the masculine progenitor. O, bachelors! be warned intime; let not love link you to his flowery traces and draw you intothe temple of Hymen! Be not deluded by the glowing fallacies ofAnacreon and Boccaccio, but remember that they were bachelors.There is nothing exhilarating in caudle, nor enchanting inKensington-gardens, when you are converted into a light porter ofchildren. We have been married, and are now seventy-one, and wear a“brown George;” consequently, we have experience andcool blood in our veins—two excellent auxiliaries in theformation of a correct judgment in all matters connected with theheart.
Our pen must have been the pinion of a wild goose, or why thesecontinued digressions?
Agamemnon’s troubles commenced with the first cough ofMrs. Pilcher on the door-mat. Mrs. P. was the monthly nurse, andmonthly nurses always have a short cough. Whether this phenomenonarises from the obesity consequent upon arm-chairs and good living,or from an habitual intimation that they are present, and have notreceived half-a-crown, or a systematic declaration that the throatis dry, and would not object to a gargle of gin, and perhaps alittle water, or—but there is no use hunting conjecture, whenyou are all but certain of not catching it.
Mrs. Pilcher was “the moral of a nurse;” she wasabout forty-eight and had, according to her own account,“been the mother of eighteen lovely babes, born inwedlock,” though her most intimate friends had never beenintroduced to more than one young gentleman, with a nose like awart, and hair like a scrubbing-brush. When he made hisdebut, he was attired in a suit of blue drugget, with thepewter order of the parish of St. Clement on his bosom; and rumourdeclared that he owed his origin to half-a-crown a week, paid everySaturday. Mrs. Pilcher weighed about thirteen stone, including herbundle, and a pint medicine-bottle, which latter article sheinvariably carried in her dexter pocket, filled with a strongtincture of juniper berries, and extract of cloves. This mixturehad been prescribed to her for what she called a“sinkingness,” which afflicted her about 10 A.M., 11A.M. (dinner), 2 P.M., 3 P.M. 4 P.M. 5 P.M. (tea), 7 P.M., 8 P.M.(supper), 10 P.M., and at uncertain intervals during the night.
Mrs. Pilcher was a martyr to a delicate appetite, for she couldnever “make nothing of a breakfast if she warn’t coaxedwith a Yarmouth bloater, a rasher of ham, or a little bit of steakdone with the gravy in.”
Her luncheon was obliged to be a mutton-chop, or a grilled bone,and a pint of porter, bread and cheese having the effect ofrendering her “as cross as two sticks, and as sour aswerjuice.” Her dinner, and its satellites, tea and supper,were all required to be hot, strong, and comfortable. A peculiarhallucination under which she laboured is worthy of remark. Wheneating, it was always her declared conviction that she ne