The Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush — John Shaqi
The Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. YellowplushThackeray, William Makepeace
General
The Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush
Thackeray, William Makepeace
Didactic fiction; England -- Fiction; Household employees -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Master and servant -- Fiction
My poor mother died one morning, Hev'n bless her! and I was left alone
in this wide wicked wuld, without so much money as would buy me a penny
roal for my brexfast. But there was some amongst our naybors (and let me
tell you there's more kindness among them poor disrepettable creaturs,
than in half a dozen lords or barrynets) who took pity upon poor Sal's
orfin (for they bust out laffin when I called her Miss Montmorency), and
gev me bred and shelter. I'm afraid, in spite of their kindness, that
my MORRILS wouldn't have improved if I'd stayed long among 'em. But a
benny-violent genlmn saw me, and put me to school. The academy which I
went to was called the Free School of Saint Bartholomew's the Less--the
young genlmn wore green baize coats, yellow leather whatsisnames, a tin
plate on the left arm, and a cap about the size of a muffing. I stayed
there sicks years; from sicks, that is to say, till my twelth year,
during three years of witch I distinguished myself not a little in the
musicle way, for I bloo the bellus of the church horgin, and very fine
tunes we played too.
Well, it's not worth recounting my jewvenile follies (what trix we
used to play the applewoman! and how we put snuff in the old clark's
Prayer-book--my eye!); but one day, a genlmn entered the school-room--it
was on the very day when I went to subtraxion--and asked the master for
a young lad for a servant. They pitched upon me glad enough; and nex
day found me sleeping in the sculry, close under the sink, at Mr. Bago's
country-house at Pentonwille.
Bago kep a shop in Smithfield market, and drov a taring good trade in
the hoil and Italian way. I've heard him say, that he cleared no less
than fifty pounds every year by letting his front room at hanging time.
His winders looked right opsit Newgit, and many and many dozen chaps has
he seen hanging there. Laws was laws in the year ten, and they screwed
chaps' nex for nex to nothink. But my bisniss was at his country-house,
where I made my first ontray into fashnabl life. I was knife, errint,
and stable-boy then, and an't ashamed to own it; for my merrits have
raised me to what I am--two livries, forty pound a year, malt-licker,
washin, silk-stocking, and wax candles--not countin wails, which is
somethink pretty considerable at OUR house, I can tell you.
I didn't stay long here, for a suckmstance happened which got me a very
different situation. A handsome young genlmn, who kep a tilbry and a
ridin horse at livry, wanted a tiger. I bid at once for the place; and,
being a neat tidy-looking lad, he took me. Bago gave me a character, and
he my first livry; proud enough I was of it, as you may fancy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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