Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
Not far from Mr. Eglantine's shop in Bond Street, stand, as is very well
known, the Windsor Chambers. The West Diddlesex Association (Western
Branch), the British and Foreign Soap Company, the celebrated attorneys
Kite and Levison, have their respective offices here; and as the names
of the other inhabitants of the chambers are not only painted on the
walls, but also registered in Mr. Boyle's “Court Guide,” it is quite
unnecessary that they should be repeated here. Among them, on the
entresol (between the splendid saloons of the Soap Company on the first
floor, with their statue of Britannia presenting a packet of the soap to
Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and the West Diddlesex Western Branch
on the basement)--lives a gentleman by the name of Mr. Howard Walker.
The brass plate on the door of that gentleman's chambers had the word
“Agency” inscribed beneath his name; and we are therefore at liberty
to imagine that he followed that mysterious occupation. In person Mr.
Walker was very genteel; he had large whiskers, dark eyes (with a slight
cast in them), a cane, and a velvet waistcoat. He was a member of a
club; had an admission to the opera, and knew every face behind the
scenes; and was in the habit of using a number of French phrases in his
conversation, having picked up a smattering of that language during a
residence “on the Continent;” in fact, he had found it very convenient
at various times of his life to dwell in the city of Boulogne, where
he acquired a knowledge of smoking, ecarte, and billiards, which was
afterwards of great service to him. He knew all the best tables in
town, and the marker at Hunt's could only give him ten. He had some
fashionable acquaintances too, and you might see him walking arm-in-arm
with such gentlemen as my Lord Vauxhall, the Marquess of Billingsgate,
or Captain Buff; and at the same time nodding to young Moses, the
dandy bailiff; or Loder, the gambling-house keeper; or Aminadab, the
cigar-seller in the Quadrant. Sometimes he wore a pair of moustaches,
and was called Captain Walker; grounding his claim to that title upon
the fact of having once held a commission in the service of Her Majesty
the Queen of Portugal. It scarcely need be said that he had been through
the Insolvent Court many times. But to those who did not know his
history intimately there was some difficulty in identifying him with the
individual who had so taken the benefit of the law, inasmuch as in
his schedule his name appeared as Hooker Walker, wine-merchant,
commission-agent, music-seller, or what not. The fact is, that though he
preferred to call himself Howard, Hooker was his Christian name, and it
had been bestowed on him by his worthy old father, who was a clergyman,
and had intended his son for that profession. But as the old gentleman
died in York gaol, where he was a prisoner for debt, he was never able
to put his pious intentions with regard to his son into execution; and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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