On rolled the coach over Westminster Bridge, through Lambeth, in
picturesqueness and power, a sympathetic survival of aristocratic
days. The aristocracy and power so vital in the coach was soon
communicated to those upon it. And now when Jem Gregory, the
celebrated whip, with one leg swinging over the side, tootled, the
passers-by seemed littler than ever, the hansoms at the corner seemed
smaller, and the folk standing at their poor doors seemed meaner. As
they passed through those hungry streets, ragged urchins came
alongside, throwing themselves over and over, beseeching coppers from
Muchross, and he threw a few, urging them to further prostrations.
Tootle, Jim, tootle; whether they starve or whether they feed, we
have no thought. The clatter of the hooves of the bays resounds
through those poor back-rooms, full of human misery; the notes of our
horn are perhaps sounding now in dying ears. Tootle, Jim, tootle;
what care we for that pale mother and her babe, or that toiling
coster whose barrow is too heavy for him! If there is to be
revolution, it will not be in our time; we are the end of the world.
Laura is with us to-day, Bessie sits on the box, Kitty is with our
Don Juan; we know there is gold in our pockets, we see our courtesans
by us, our gallant bays are bearing us away to pleasure. Tootle, Jim,
my boy, tootle; the great Muchross is shouting derision at the poor
perspiring coster. "Pull up, you devil, pull up," he cries, and
shouts to the ragged urchins and scatters halfpence that they may
tumble once more in the dirt. See the great Muchross, the
clean-shaven face of the libertine priest, the small sardonic eyes.
Hurrah for the great Muchross! Long may he live, the singer of "What
cheer, Ria?" the type and epitome of the life whose outward signs are
drags, brandies-and-soda, and pale neckties.
Gaily trotted the four bays, and as Clapham was approached brick
tenements disappeared in Portland stone and iron railings. A girl was
seen swinging; the white flannels of tennis players passed to and
fro, and a lady stood by a tall vase watering red geraniums. Harding
told Mike that the shaven lawns and the greenhouses explained the
lives of the inhabitants, and represented their ideas; and Laura's
account of the money she had betted was followed by an anecdote
concerning a long ramble in a wood, with a man who had walked her
about all day without even so much as once asking her if she had a
mouth on her.
"Talking of mouths," said Mike, as they pulled up to change horses,
"we had to start without breakfast. I wonder if one could get a
biscuit and a glass of milk."
"Glass of milk!" screamed Muchross, "no milk allowed on this coach."
"Well, I don't think I could drink a brandy-and-soda at this time in
the morning."
"At what time could you drink one then? Why, it is nearly eleven
o'clock! What will you have, Kitty? A brandy?"
"No, I think I'll take a glass of beer."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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