Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices

Lazy Tour of Two Idle
Apprentices

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lazy Tour of Two Idle
Apprentices
by Charles Dickens (#23 in our series by Charles Dickens)
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Title: The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices

Author: Charles Dickens
Release Date: April, 1997 [EBook #888] [This file was first posted on
April 28, 1997] [Most recently updated: May 11, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LAZY
TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES ***

Transcribed from the 1905 edition by David Price, email
[email protected]

THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES

CHAPTER I

In the autumn month of September, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven,
wherein these presents bear date, two idle apprentices, exhausted by the
long, hot summer, and the long, hot work it had brought with it, ran
away from their employer. They were bound to a highly meritorious
lady (named Literature), of fair credit and repute, though, it must be
acknowledged, not quite so highly esteemed in the City as she might be.
This is the more remarkable, as there is nothing against the respectable
lady in that quarter, but quite the contrary; her family having rendered
eminent service to many famous citizens of London. It may be
sufficient to name Sir William Walworth, Lord Mayor under King
Richard II., at the time of Wat Tyler's insurrection, and Sir Richard

Whittington: which latter distinguished man and magistrate was
doubtless indebted to the lady's family for the gift of his celebrated cat.
There is also strong reason to suppose that they rang the Highgate bells
for him with their own hands.
The misguided young men who thus shirked their duty to the mistress
from whom they had received many favours, were actuated by the low
idea of making a perfectly idle trip, in any direction. They had no
intention of going anywhere in particular; they wanted to see nothing,
they wanted to know nothing, they wanted to learn nothing, they
wanted to do nothing. They wanted only to be idle. They took to
themselves (after HOGARTH), the names of Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr.
Francis Goodchild; but there was not a moral pin to choose between
them, and they were both idle in the last degree.
Between Francis and Thomas, however, there was this difference of
character: Goodchild was laboriously idle, and would take upon
himself any amount of pains and labour to assure himself that he was
idle; in short, had no better idea of idleness than that it was useless
industry. Thomas Idle, on the other hand, was an idler of the unmixed
Irish or Neapolitan type; a passive idler, a born-and- bred idler, a
consistent idler, who practised what he would have preached if he had
not been too idle to preach; a one entire and perfect chrysolite of
idleness.
The two idle apprentices found themselves, within a few hours of their
escape, walking down into the North of England, that is to say, Thomas
was lying in a meadow, looking at the railway trains as they passed
over a distant viaduct--which was HIS idea of walking down into the
North; while Francis was walking a mile due South against time--which
was HIS idea of walking down into the North. In the meantime the day
waned, and the milestones remained unconquered.
'Tom,' said Goodchild, 'the sun is getting low. Up, and let us go
forward!'
'Nay,' quoth Thomas Idle, 'I have not done with Annie Laurie yet.' And
he proceeded with that idle but popular ballad, to the effect that for the

bonnie young person of that name he would 'lay him doon and
dee'--equivalent, in prose, to lay him down and die.
'What an ass that fellow was!' cried Goodchild, with the bitter emphasis
of contempt.
'Which fellow?' asked Thomas Idle.
'The fellow in your song. Lay him doon and dee! Finely he'd show off
before the girl by doing THAT. A sniveller!