Pickwickian Studies | Page 9

on each side of
the door with a sort of little lane between the wall and each bed. Mr.
Pickwick, we are told, actually crept into this lane, got to the end where
there was a chair, and in this straight, confined situation proceeded to
take off his coat and vest and to fold them up. It was thus artfully
brought about that he appeared to have gone to bed, and could look out
from the dimity curtains without having done so. It does not strike
every one that Mr. Pickwick, under ordinary circumstances, would
have taken off his "things" before the fire just as the lady did, in the

free and open space, and not huddled up in a dark corner. However, as
Mr. Weller says: "It wos to be, and--it wos," or we should have had no
story and no laugh.
There is a pleasant story--quite akin to Mr. Pickwick's adventure--of
what befell Thackeray when travelling in America. Going up to bed, he
mistook the floor, and entered a room the very counterpart of his own.
He had begun to take off his clothes, when a soft voice came from
within--"Is that you, George?" In a panic, he bundled up his things, like
Mr. Pickwick, and hurriedly rushed out, thinking what would be the
confusion should he encounter "George" at the door. Anthony Trollope,
my old, pleasant friend and sponsor at the Garrick Club, used to relate
another of these hotel misadventures which, he protested, was the most
"side-splitting" thing ever he heard of. A gentleman who was staying at
one of the monster Paris hotels with his lady, was seized with some
violent cold or pulmonary attack. She went down to try and get him a
mustard plaster, which, with much difficulty, she contrived. Returning
in triumph, as Mr. Pickwick did with his recovered watch, she found
that he had fallen into a gentle sleep, and was lying with his head
buried in the pillows. With much softness and deftness, she quickly
drew away the coverings, and, without disturbing him, managed to
insinuate the plaster into its proper place. Having done her duty, she
then proceeded to lie down, when the sleeping man, moving uneasily,
awoke and showed his face. It was not her husband! She fled from the
room. The humour of the thing--as described by Trollope--was the
bewilderment of the man on discovering the damp and burning mass
that had been applied to him, and the amazing disappearance of his
visitant. What did it all mean? The mystery probably remained
unsolved to the day of his death.
But the Great White Horse received an important cosmopolitan
compliment from across the seas--at the Chicago Exhibition--when a
large and complete model was prepared and set up in the building. This
was an elaborate as well as important tribute to the Book which it was
assumed that every one knew by heart.

V.--Ipswich Theatre
Boz, on his travels, with his strong theatrical taste, was sure to have
gone to the little theatre in Tacket Street, now a Salvation Army
meeting- house. It is the same building, though much altered and pulled
about, as that in which David Garrick made his first appearance on the
stage, as Mr. Lyddal, about 150 years ago. I have before me now a
number of Ipswich play bills, dated in the year 1838, just after the
conclusion of "Pickwick," and which, most appropriately, seem to
record little but Boz's own work. Pickwick, Oliver, Nickleby, and
others, are the Bill of Fare, and it may be conceived that audiences
would attend to see their own Great White Horse, and the spinster lady
in her curl papers, and Mr. Nupkins, the Mayor, brought on the boards.
These old strips of tissue paper have a strange interest; they reflect the
old-fashioned theatre and audiences; and the Pickwickian names of the
characters, so close after the original appearance, have a greater reality.
Here, for instance, is a programme for Mr. Gill's benefit, on January 19,
1839, when we had "The Pickwickians at half-price." This was "a
comic drama, in three acts, exhibiting the life and manners of the
present day, entitled--
"PICKWICK, or the sayings and doings of Sam Weller!" Adapted
expressly for this Theatre from the celebrated Pickwick Papers, by Boz!
"The present drama of Pickwick has been honoured by crowded houses,
and greeted by shouts of laughter and reiterated peals of applause upon
every representation, and has been acknowledged by the public Press to
be the only successful adaptation.
The ILLUSTRATIONS designed and executed by popular PHIZ-ES.
The new music by Mr. Pindar. The quadrilles under the direction of Mr.
Harrison."
All the characters are given.
"Mr. Pickwick," founder of the Club, and travelling the counties of
Essex and Suffolk in pursuit of knowledge.

"Snodgrass," a leetle bit