Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, September 12, 1841Various
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, September 12, 1841
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
My friend Tom is a fine specimen of the genus. He is about fifteen hands
high, rising thirty, herring-bowelled, small head, large ears, close mane,
broad chest, and legs a la parentheses ( ). His dress is a long
brown-holland jacket, covering the protuberance known in Bavaria by the
name of _pudo_, and in England by that of _bustle_. His breeches are of
cord about an inch in width, and of such capacious dimensions, that a
truss of hay, or a quarter of oats, might be stowed away in them with
perfect convenience: not that we mean to insinuate they are ever thus
employed, for when we have seen them, they have been in a collapsed state,
hanging (like the skin of an elephant) in graceful festoons about the
mid-person of the wearer. These necessaries are confined at the knee by a
transverse row of pearl buttons crossing the _genu patella_. The _pars
pendula_ is about twelve inches wide, and supplies, during conversation or
rumination, a resting-place for the thumbs or little fingers. His legs are
encased either in white ribbed cotton stockings, or that peculiar kind of
gaiter 'yclept _kicksies_. His feet know only one pattern shoe, the
_ancle-jack_ (or _highlow_ as it is sometimes called), resplendent with
"Day and Martin," or the no less brilliant "Warren." Genius of propriety,
we have described his tail before that index of the mind, that idol of
phrenologists, his pimple!--we beg pardon, we mean his head. Round, and
rosy as a pippin, it stands alone in its native loveliness, on the heap of
clothes beneath.
Tom is not a low man; he has not a particle of costermongerism in his
composition, though his discourse savours of that peculiar slang that
might be considered rather objectionable in the _salons_ of the _elite_.
The bell which he has the honour to answer hangs at the gate of a west-end
livery-stables, and his consequence is proportionate. To none under the
degree of a groom does he condescend a nod of recognition--with a second
coachman he drinks porter--and purl (a compound of beer and blue ruin)
with the more respectable individual who occupies the hammer-cloth on
court-days. Tom estimates a man according to his horse, and his civility
is regulated according to his estimation. He pockets a gratuity with as
much ease as a state pensioner; but if some unhappy wight should, in the
plenitude of his ignorance, proffer a sixpence, Tom buttons his pockets
with a smile, and politely "begs to leave it till it becomes more."
With an old meerschaum and a pint of tolerable sherry, we seat ourselves
at our window, and hold many an imaginative conversation with our friend
Tom. Sometimes we are blest with more than ideality; but that is only when
he unbends and becomes jocular and noisy, or chooses a snug corner
opposite our window to enjoy his _otium_--confound that phrase!--we would
say his indolence and swagger--
"A pound to a hay-seed agin' the bay."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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