Master Humphreys Clock | Page 7

may be supposed to feel for it, I have deemed it
expedient to break off as they have seen.
But, still clinging to my old friend, and naturally desirous that all its
merits should be known, I am tempted to open (somewhat irregularly
and against our laws, I must admit) the clock-case. The first roll of
paper on which I lay my hand is in the writing of the deaf gentleman. I

shall have to speak of him in my next paper; and how can I better
approach that welcome task than by prefacing it with a production of
his own pen, consigned to the safe keeping of my honest Clock by his
own hand?
The manuscript runs thus
INTRODUCTION TO THE GIANT CHRONICLES
Once upon a time, that is to say, in this our time, - the exact year,
month, and day are of no matter, - there dwelt in the city of London a
substantial citizen, who united in his single person the dignities of
wholesale fruiterer, alderman, common-councilman, and member of the
worshipful Company of Patten-makers; who had superadded to these
extraordinary distinctions the important post and title of Sheriff, and
who at length, and to crown all, stood next in rotation for the high and
honourable office of Lord Mayor.
He was a very substantial citizen indeed. His face was like the full
moon in a fog, with two little holes punched out for his eyes, a very
ripe pear stuck on for his nose, and a wide gash to serve for a mouth.
The girth of his waistcoat was hung up and lettered in his tailor's shop
as an extraordinary curiosity. He breathed like a heavy snorer, and his
voice in speaking came thickly forth, as if it were oppressed and stifled
by feather-beds. He trod the ground like an elephant, and eat and drank
like - like nothing but an alderman, as he was.
This worthy citizen had risen to his great eminence from small
beginnings. He had once been a very lean, weazen little boy, never
dreaming of carrying such a weight of flesh upon his bones or of
money in his pockets, and glad enough to take his dinner at a baker's
door, and his tea at a pump. But he had long ago forgotten all this, as it
was proper that a wholesale fruiterer, alderman, common-councilman,
member of the worshipful Company of Patten- makers, past sheriff, and,
above all, a Lord Mayor that was to be, should; and he never forgot it
more completely in all his life than on the eighth of November in the
year of his election to the great golden civic chair, which was the day
before his grand dinner at Guildhall.
It happened that as he sat that evening all alone in his counting- house,
looking over the bill of fare for next day, and checking off the fat
capons in fifties, and the turtle-soup by the hundred quarts, for his
private amusement, - it happened that as he sat alone occupied in these

pleasant calculations, a strange man came in and asked him how he did,
adding, 'If I am half as much changed as you, sir, you have no
recollection of me, I am sure.'
The strange man was not over and above well dressed, and was very far
from being fat or rich-looking in any sense of the word, yet he spoke
with a kind of modest confidence, and assumed an easy, gentlemanly
sort of an air, to which nobody but a rich man can lawfully presume.
Besides this, he interrupted the good citizen just as he had reckoned
three hundred and seventy-two fat capons, and was carrying them over
to the next column; and as if that were not aggravation enough, the
learned recorder for the city of London had only ten minutes previously
gone out at that very same door, and had turned round and said, 'Good
night, my lord.' Yes, he had said, 'my lord;' - he, a man of birth and
education, of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple,
Barrister-at-Law, - he who had an uncle in the House of Commons, and
an aunt almost but not quite in the House of Lords (for she had married
a feeble peer, and made him vote as she liked), - he, this man, this
learned recorder, had said, 'my lord.' 'I'll not wait till to-morrow to give
you your title, my Lord Mayor,' says he, with a bow and a smile; 'you
are Lord Mayor DE FACTO, if not DE JURE. Good night, my lord.'
The Lord Mayor elect thought of this, and turning to the stranger, and
sternly bidding him 'go out of his private counting-house,' brought
forward the three hundred and seventy-two fat capons, and went on
with his account.