The Lazy Tour of Two Idle ApprenticesDickens, Charles
General
The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices
Dickens, Charles
Apprentices -- Fiction; Cumbria (England) -- Description and travel -- Fiction; Walking -- England -- Cumbria -- Fiction
Thursday morning. After a tremendous night of crowding, shouting,
drinking-house expectoration, Gong-donkey, and correct cards. Symptoms
of yesterday’s gains in the way of drink, and of yesterday’s losses in
the way of money, abundant. Money-losses very great. As usual, nobody
seems to have won; but, large losses and many losers are unquestionable
facts. Both Lunatics and Keepers, in general very low. Several of both
kinds look in at the chemist’s while Mr. Goodchild is making a purchase
there, to be ‘picked up.’ One red-eyed Lunatic, flushed, faded, and
disordered, enters hurriedly and cries savagely, ‘Hond us a gloss of sal
volatile in wather, or soom dommed thing o’ thot sart!’ Faces at the
Betting Rooms very long, and a tendency to bite nails observable.
Keepers likewise given this morning to standing about solitary, with
their hands in their pockets, looking down at their boots as they fit
them into cracks of the pavement, and then looking up whistling and
walking away. Grand Alliance Circus out, in procession; buxom
lady-member of Grand Alliance, in crimson riding-habit, fresher to look
at, even in her paint under the day sky, than the cheeks of Lunatics or
Keepers. Spanish Cavalier appears to have lost yesterday, and jingles
his bossed bridle with disgust, as if he were paying. Reaction also
apparent at the Guildhall opposite, whence certain pickpockets come out
handcuffed together, with that peculiar walk which is never seen under
any other circumstances—a walk expressive of going to jail, game, but
still of jails being in bad taste and arbitrary, and how would _you_ like
it if it was you instead of me, as it ought to be! Mid-day. Town filled
as yesterday, but not so full; and emptied as yesterday, but not so
empty. In the evening, Angel ordinary where every Lunatic and Keeper has
his modest daily meal of turtle, venison, and wine, not so crowded as
yesterday, and not so noisy. At night, the theatre. More abstracted
faces in it than one ever sees at public assemblies; such faces wearing
an expression which strongly reminds Mr. Goodchild of the boys at school
who were ‘going up next,’ with their arithmetic or mathematics. These
boys are, no doubt, going up to-morrow with _their_ sums and figures.
Mr. Palmer and Mr. Thurtell in the boxes O. P. Mr. Thurtell and Mr.
Palmer in the boxes P. S. The firm of Thurtell, Palmer, and Thurtell, in
the boxes Centre. A most odious tendency observable in these
distinguished gentlemen to put vile constructions on sufficiently
innocent phrases in the play, and then to applaud them in a Satyr-like
manner. Behind Mr. Goodchild, with a party of other Lunatics and one
Keeper, the express incarnation of the thing called a ‘gent.’ A
gentleman born; a gent manufactured. A something with a scarf round its
neck, and a slipshod speech issuing from behind the scarf; more depraved,
more foolish, more ignorant, more unable to believe in any noble or good
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account