Doctor Marigold - Charles Dickens (most read books .txt) š
- Author: Charles Dickens
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I was born on the Queenās highway, but it was the Kingās at that time. A doctor was fetched to my own mother by my own father, when it took place on a common; and in consequence of his being a very kind gentleman, and accepting no fee but a tea-tray, I was named Doctor, out of gratitude and compliment to him. There you have me.
Doctor Marigold.
I am at present a middle-aged man of a broadish build, in cords, leggings, and a sleeved waistcoat the strings of which is always gone behind. Repair them how you will, they go like fiddle-strings.
You have been to the theatre, and you have seen one of the wiolin-players screw up his wiolin, after listening to it as if it had been whispering the secret to him that it feared it was out of order, and then you have heard it snap. Thatās as exactly similar to my waistcoat as a waistcoat and a wiolin can be like one another.
I am partial to a white hat, and I like a shawl round my neck wore loose and easy. Sitting down is my favourite posture. If I have a taste in point of personal jewelry, it is mother-of-pearl buttons.
There you have me again, as large as life.
The doctor having accepted a tea-tray, youāll guess that my father was a Cheap Jack before me. You are right. He was. It was a pretty tray. It represented a large lady going along a serpentining up-hill gravel-walk, to attend a little church. Two swans had likewise come astray with the same intentions. When I call her a large lady, I donāt mean in point of breadth, for there she fell below my views, but she more than made it up in heighth; her heighth and slimness wasāin short THE heighth of both.
I often saw that tray, after I was the innocently smiling cause (or more likely screeching one) of the doctorās standing it up on a table against the wall in his consulting-room. Whenever my own father and mother were in that part of the country, I used to put my head (I have heard my own mother say it was flaxen curls at that time, though you wouldnāt know an old hearth-broom from it now till you come to the handle, and found it wasnāt me) in at the doctorās door, and the doctor was always glad to see me, and said, āAha, my brother practitioner! Come in, little M.D. How are your inclinations as to sixpence?ā
You canāt go on for ever, youāll find, nor yet could my father nor yet my mother. If you donāt go off as a whole when you are about due, youāre liable to go off in part, and two to one your headās the part. Gradually my father went off his, and my mother went off hers. It was in a harmless way, but it put out the family where I boarded them. The old couple, though retired, got to be wholly and solely devoted to the Cheap Jack business, and were always selling the family off. Whenever the cloth was laid for dinner, my father began rattling the plates and dishes, as we do in our line when we put up crockery for a bid, only he had lost the trick of it, and mostly let āem drop and broke āem. As the old lady had been used to sit in the cart, and hand the articles out one by one to the old gentleman on the footboard to sell, just in the same way she handed him every item of the familyās property, and they disposed of it in their own imaginations from morning to night. At last the old gentleman, lying bedridden in the same room with the old lady, cries out in the old patter, fluent, after having been silent for two days and nights: āNow here, my jolly companions every one,āwhich the Nightingale club in a village was held, At the sign of the Cabbage and Shears, Where the singers no doubt would have greatly excelled, But for want of taste, voices and ears,ānow, here, my jolly companions, every one, is a working model of a used-up old Cheap Jack, without a tooth in his head, and with a pain in every bone: so like life that it would be just as good if it wasnāt better, just as bad if it wasnāt worse, and just as new if it wasnāt worn out.
Bid for the working model of the old Cheap Jack, who has drunk more gunpowder-tea with the ladies in his time than would blow the lid off a washerwomanās copper, and carry it as many thousands of miles higher than the moon as naught nix naught, divided by the national debt, carry nothing to the poor-rates, three under, and two over.
Now, my hearts of oak and men of straw, what do you say for the lot?
Two shillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence, fourpence. Twopence? Who said twopence? The gentleman in the scarecrowās hat? I am ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrowās hat. I really am ashamed of him for his want of public spirit. Now Iāll tell you what Iāll do with you. Come! Iāll throw you in a working model of a old woman that was married to the old Cheap Jack so long ago that upon my word and honour it took place in Noahās Ark, before the Unicorn could get in to forbid the banns by blowing a tune upon his horn. There now! Come! What do you say for both?
Iāll tell you what Iāll do with you. I donāt bear you malice for being so backward. Here! If you make me a bid thatāll only reflect a little credit on your town, Iāll throw you in a warming-pan for nothing, and lend you a toasting-fork for life. Now come; what do you say after that splendid offer? Say two pound, say thirty shillings, say a pound, say ten shillings, say five, say two and six. You donāt say even two and six? You say two and three? No.
You shanāt have the lot for two and three. Iād sooner give it to you, if you was good-looking enough. Here! Missis! Chuck the old man and woman into the cart, put the horse to, and drive āem away and bury āem!ā Such were the last words of Willum Marigold, my own father, and they were carried out, by him and by his wife, my own mother, on one and the same day, as I ought to know, having followed as mourner.
My father had been a lovely one in his time at the Cheap Jack work, as his dying observations went to prove. But I top him. I donāt say it because itās myself, but because it has been universally acknowledged by all that has had the means of comparison. I have worked at it. I have measured myself against other public speakers,āMembers of Parliament, Platforms, Pulpits, Counsel learned in the law,āand where I have found āem good, I have took a bit of imagination from āem, and where I have found āem bad, I have let āem alone. Now Iāll tell you what. I mean to go down into my grave declaring that of all the callings ill used in Great Britain, the Cheap Jack calling is the worst used. Why aināt we a profession? Why aināt we endowed with privileges? Why are we forced to take out a hawkerās license, when no such thing is expected of the political hawkers? Whereās the difference betwixt us? Except that we are Cheap Jacks and they are Dear Jacks, I donāt see any difference but whatās in our favour.
For look here! Say itās election time. I am on the footboard of my cart in the marketplace, on a Saturday night. I put up a general miscellaneous lot. I say: āNow here, my free and independent woters, Iām a going to give you such a chance as you never had in all your born days, nor yet the days preceding. Now Iāll show you what I am a going to do with you. Hereās a pair of razors thatāll shave you closer than the Board of Guardians; hereās a flat-iron worth its weight in gold; hereās a frying-pan artificially flavoured with essence of beefsteaks to that degree that youāve only got for the rest of your lives to fry bread and dripping in it and there you are replete with animal food; hereās a genuine chronometer watch in such a solid silver case that you may knock at the door with it when you come home late from a social meeting, and rouse your wife and family, and save up your knocker for the postman; and hereās half-a-dozen dinner plates that you may play the cymbals with to charm baby when itās fractious. Stop! Iāll throw in another article, and Iāll give you that, and itās a rolling-pin; and if the baby can only get it well into its mouth when its teeth is coming and rub the gums once with it, theyāll come through double, in a fit of laughter equal to being tickled. Stop again! Iāll throw you in another article, because I donāt like the looks of you, for you havenāt the appearance of buyers unless I lose by you, and because Iād rather lose than not take money to-night, and thatās a looking-glass in which you may see how ugly you look when you donāt bid. What do you say now? Come! Do you say a pound? Not you, for you havenāt got it. Do you say ten shillings? Not you, for you owe more to the tallyman. Well then, Iāll tell you what Iāll do with you. Iāll heap āem all on the footboard of the cart,āthere they are! razors, flat watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and away for four shillings, and Iāll give you sixpence for your trouble!ā This is me, the Cheap Jack. But on the Monday morning, in the same marketplace, comes the Dear Jack on the hustingsāHIS cartāand, what does HE say?
āNow my free and independent woters, I am a going to give you such a chanceā (he begins just like me) āas you never had in all your born days, and thatās the chance of sending Myself to Parliament. Now Iāll tell you what I am a going to do for you. Hereās the interests of this magnificent town promoted above all the rest of the civilised and uncivilised earth. Hereās your railways carried, and your neighboursā railways jockeyed. Hereās all your sons in the Post-office. Hereās Britannia smiling on you. Hereās the eyes of Europe on you. Hereās uniwersal prosperity for you, repletion of animal food, golden cornfields, gladsome homesteads, and rounds of applause from your own hearts, all in one lot, and thatās myself.
Will you take me as I stand? You wonāt? Well, then, Iāll tell you what Iāll do with you. Come now! Iāll throw you in anything you ask for. There! Church-rates, abolition of more malt tax, no malt tax, universal education to the highest mark, or uniwersal ignorance to the lowest, total abolition of flogging in the army or a dozen for every private once a month all round, Wrongs of Men or Rights of Womenāonly say which it shall be, take āem or leave āem, and Iām of your opinion altogether, and the lotās your own on your own terms.
There! You wonāt take it yet! Well, then, Iāll tell you what Iāll do with you. Come! You ARE such free and independent woters, and I am so proud of you,āyou ARE such a noble and enlightened constituency, and I AM so ambitious
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