Mens Wives | Page 6

the perfumer--some opera tickets,
a treat to Greenwich, and a piece of real Genoa velvet for a bonnet (it
had originally been intended for a waistcoat), from the admiring tailor,
she had been equally kind to each, and in return had made each a
present of a lock of her beautiful glossy hair. It was all she had to give,
poor girl! and what could she do but gratify her admirers by this cheap
and artless testimony of her regard? A pretty scene and quarrel took
place between the rivals on the day when they discovered that each was
in possession of one of Morgiana's ringlets.
Such, then, were the owners and inmates of the little "Bootjack," from
whom and which, as this chapter is exceedingly discursive and
descriptive, we must separate the reader for a while, and carry him--it is
only into Bond Street, so no gentleman need be afraid-- carry him into
Bond Street, where some other personages are awaiting his
consideration.
Not far from Mr. Eglantine's shop in Bond Street, stand, as is very well
known, the Windsor Chambers. The West Diddlesex Association
(Western Branch), the British and Foreign Soap Company, the
celebrated attorneys Kite and Levison, have their respective offices
here; and as the names of the other inhabitants of the chambers are not
only painted on the walls, but also registered in Mr. Boyle's "Court
Guide," it is quite unnecessary that they should be repeated here.
Among them, on the entresol (between the splendid saloons of the Soap
Company on the first floor, with their statue of Britannia presenting a
packet of the soap to Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and the West
Diddlesex Western Branch on the basement)- -lives a gentleman by the
name of Mr. Howard Walker. The brass plate on the door of that
gentleman's chambers had the word "Agency" inscribed beneath his
name; and we are therefore at liberty to imagine that he followed that
mysterious occupation. In person Mr. Walker was very genteel; he had

large whiskers, dark eyes (with a slight cast in them), a cane, and a
velvet waistcoat. He was a member of a club; had an admission to the
opera, and knew every face behind the scenes; and was in the habit of
using a number of French phrases in his conversation, having picked up
a smattering of that language during a residence "on the Continent;" in
fact, he had found it very convenient at various times of his life to
dwell in the city of Boulogne, where he acquired a knowledge of
smoking, ecarte, and billiards, which was afterwards of great service to
him. He knew all the best tables in town, and the marker at Hunt's
could only give him ten. He had some fashionable acquaintances too,
and you might see him walking arm-in-arm with such gentlemen as my
Lord Vauxhall, the Marquess of Billingsgate, or Captain Buff; and at
the same time nodding to young Moses, the dandy bailiff; or Loder, the
gambling-house keeper; or Aminadab, the cigar-seller in the Quadrant.
Sometimes he wore a pair of moustaches, and was called Captain
Walker; grounding his claim to that title upon the fact of having once
held a commission in the service of Her Majesty the Queen of Portugal.
It scarcely need be said that he had been through the Insolvent Court
many times. But to those who did not know his history intimately there
was some difficulty in identifying him with the individual who had so
taken the benefit of the law, inasmuch as in his schedule his name
appeared as Hooker Walker, wine-merchant, commission-agent,
music-seller, or what not. The fact is, that though he preferred to call
himself Howard, Hooker was his Christian name, and it had been
bestowed on him by his worthy old father, who was a clergyman, and
had intended his son for that profession. But as the old gentleman died
in York gaol, where he was a prisoner for debt, he was never able to put
his pious intentions with regard to his son into execution; and the
young fellow (as he was wont with many oaths to assert) was thrown
on his own resources, and became a man of the world at a very early
age.
What Mr. Howard Walker's age was at the time of the commencement
of this history, and, indeed, for an indefinite period before or afterwards,
it is impossible to determine. If he were eight-and-twenty, as he
asserted himself, Time had dealt hardly with him: his hair was thin,
there were many crows'-feet about his eyes, and other signs in his
countenance of the progress of decay. If, on the contrary, he were forty,

as Sam Snaffle declared, who himself had misfortunes in early life, and
vowed he knew Mr. Walker in Whitecross Street Prison