The Christmas Books of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh | Page 4

as you read on his back door.
"Binks and Minchin's Reports" are probably known to my legal friends:
this is the Minchin in question.
He is decidedly genteel, and is rather in request at the balls of the
Judges' and Serjeants' ladies: for he dances irreproachably, and goes out
to dinner as much as ever he can.
He mostly dines at the Oxford and Cambridge Club, of which you can
easily see by his appearance that he is a member; he takes the joint and
his half-pint of wine, for Minchin does everything like a gentleman. He
is rather of a literary turn; still makes Latin verses with some neatness;
and before he was called, was remarkably fond of the flute.
When Mr. Minchin goes out in the evening, his clerk brings his bag to
the Club, to dress; and if it is at all muddy, he turns up his trousers, so
that he may come in without a speck. For such a party as this, he will
have new gloves; otherwise Frederick, his clerk, is chiefly employed in

cleaning them with India-rubber.
He has a number of pleasant stories about the Circuit and the
University, which he tells with a simper to his neighbor at dinner; and
has always the last joke of Mr. Baron Maule. He has a private fortune
of five thousand pounds; he is a dutiful son; he has a sister married, in
Harley Street; and Lady Jane Ranville has the best opinion of him, and
says he is a most excellent and highly principled young man.
Her ladyship and daughter arrived just as Mr. Minchin had popped his
clogs into the umbrella-stand; and the rank of that respected person,
and the dignified manner in which he led her up stairs, caused all
sneering on the part of the domestics to disappear.
THE BALL-ROOM DOOR.
A hundred of knocks follow Frederick Minchin's: in half an hour
Messrs. Spoff, Pinch, and Clapperton have begun their music, and
Mulligan, with one of the Miss Bacons, is dancing majestically in the
first quadrille. My young friends Giles and Tom prefer the
landing-place to the drawing-rooms, where they stop all night, robbing
the refreshment-trays as they come up or down. Giles has eaten
fourteen ices: he will have a dreadful stomach-ache to- morrow. Tom
has eaten twelve, but he has had four more glasses of negus than Giles.
Grundsell, the occasional waiter, from whom Master Tom buys
quantities of ginger-beer, can of course deny him nothing. That is
Grundsell, in the tights, with the tray. Meanwhile direct your attention
to the three gentlemen at the door: they are conversing.
1st Gent.--Who's the man of the house--the bald man?
2nd Gent.--Of course. The man of the house is always bald. He's a
stockbroker, I believe. Snooks brought me.
1st Gent.--Have you been to the tea-room? There's a pretty girl in the
tea-room; blue eyes, pink ribbons, that kind of thing.
2nd Gent.--Who the deuce is that girl with those tremendous shoulders?

Gad! I do wish somebody would smack 'em.
3rd Gent.--Sir--that young lady is my niece, sir,--my niece--my name is
Blades, sir.
2nd Gent.--Well, Blades! smack your niece's shoulders: she deserves it,
begad! she does. Come in, Jinks, present me to the Perkinses.-- Hullo!
here's an old country acquaintance--Lady Bacon, as I live! with all the
piglings; she never goes out without the whole litter. (Exeunt 1st and
2nd Gents.)
LADY BACON, THE MISS BACONS, MR. FLAM.
Lady B.--Leonora! Maria! Amelia! here is the gentleman we met at Sir
John Porkington's.
[The MISSES BACON, expecting to be asked to dance, smile
simultaneously, and begin to smooth their tuckers.]
Mr. Flam.--Lady Bacon! I couldn't be mistaken in YOU! Won't you
dance, Lady Bacon?
Lady B.--Go away, you droll creature!
Mr. Flam.--And these are your ladyship's seven lovely sisters, to judge
from their likenesses to the charming Lady Bacon?
Lady B.--My sisters, he! he! my DAUGHTERS, Mr. Flam, and THEY
dance, don't you, girls?
The Misses Bacon.--O yes!
Mr. Flam.--Gad! how I wish I was a dancing man!
[Exit FLAM.
MR. LARKINS.
I have not been able to do justice (only a Lawrence could do that) to my

respected friend Mrs. Perkins, in this picture; but Larkins's portrait is
considered very like. Adolphus Larkins has been long connected with
Mr. Perkins's City establishment, and is asked to dine twice or thrice
per annum. Evening-parties are the great enjoyment of this simple
youth, who, after he has walked from Kentish Town to Thames Street,
and passed twelve hours in severe labor there, and walked back again to
Kentish Town, finds no greater pleasure than to attire his lean person in
that elegant evening costume which you see, to walk into town again,
and to dance at anybody's house who will invite him. Islington,
Pentonville, Somers Town, are