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Article A QUEER CAREER. ← Page 2 of 13 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
A Queer Career.
—it was then as much the rage as " My Grandfather's Clock " is now ; and , when I sang it I always joined in the coronach , and cried too . You have heard it—all of you . It has recently been revived , and with much success . It isn't half a bad bit of lachrymoseness . It displays a young female—with a tendency to gush—in various phases of feminine life , as maid—bride—widow , and so on . I never hear it but I am reminded of MrMoleI to focus friendto him she of the and
. . propose my , pose , as roses orange blossoms attitudinises—as Mrs . Langtry and Mrs . Cornwallis " West and Miss Eveleen Eayne—if their names may be reverently mentioned by one of the most devoted of their myriad slaves—are " photographed like this and are photographed like that . " I will with your permission trot out my friend and invite your inspection of him in some dozen avatars of his wonderful biography .
I say , my friend , because , having known him—by sight that is to say—for five-andthirty years , somehow I feel that I should miss him and be sad if I knew that I was never to behold him again . I never exchanged a word with him in my life . As I have said , I don't even know his name . True , I heard him announce what he professed to be his name once , and even beheld him adduce documentary evidence in support of his assertion : but—don't you agree with me?—the appellation was too preposterous to
be accepted as genuine . I clubbed him Mr . Mole from a peculiar wart disfiguring one side of his face . Ah , me ! how that dreadful bump has developed in a generation . In the early days of the "forties" it was only a beauty spot—just such a delicate dab as you see in the portraits on the pearly cheeks of the beauties of the early Hanoverian days—by the position of which fair politicians used to indicate their party preferences ; but now—when I saw my old acquaintance but yesterday—the—the— "Why—why , will
Lieutenant Bardolph's nose , so immercifully chaffed at mess by his commanding officer , occur to my mind at this moment ? But let me not anticipate . I wonder whether Mr . Mole knows me when he meets me—whether it ever occurs to him , as I curiously regard him , to make the reflection to himself , " That man has been turning up in my path , in one way or another , since ' 44 : he was only a boy then—I wonder who he is . " Sometimes I fancy he gives me a kind of furtive leer of recognition when he catches sight of me ; but this may be conceit on my part . Perhaps the pensive air of interest with which I contemplate him amuses him ; Quien sale ?
I have heard him assert—he was always a profuse talker—that he stood high in the Tarsity betting books for " a good place " in the honours list at Maudlin , or Trinity , or Corpus—at Oxford or Cambridge—in the year 'forty something or other . I have no reason to doubt this statement . I know I came across him once when he was " off duty , " as it were , and he—I verily believe conscientiously under the impression that he was wholly unobserved—was reclining on a green bank , and reading an Elzevir
edition of JEschylus—yes , sir , reading it with obvious enjoyment and appreciation . It was in a _ little coppice off Phunstead Common , at Charlton Fair time—that naughty Horn Fair , you know , the origin of which is so delicately—or indelicately—connected with the incognito improprieties of wicked Lackland . Mr . Mole lolled in an indolent but graceful attitude , with a red bandana cotton handkerchief over his head to keep away the flies . His tall shiny black sills : hat—a " four-ancl-nine" we boys used
irreverentl y to call this description of head covering—was upright on the grass by his side . His coat was black , but seedy , tightly buttoned , and shiny . Paper collars were not yet invented , so no white relieved the blackness around his neck , and it was the only occasion I ever saw him without shoes and stockings . And here let me observe that that black , tall , and shimmery hat appears to have be ? n Mr . Mole ' s amulet or talisman for nearly the interval of a generation . I believe it to be the
very same " Golgotha " which he bought second-hand in Houndsditch , probably in order to be smart for the opening of the exhibition in ' 51 . It isn't—accurately speaking—an anchor in the holding ground of the genteel world , but my hero evidently regards it as a sort of warp or spring upon the cable attached to-that instrument , as connecting the vagabond fraternity afloat on the ocean of cadgery—lightly and insecurely it may be but still somehow connecting it , with a society that doesn't habitually " doss " on the
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
A Queer Career.
—it was then as much the rage as " My Grandfather's Clock " is now ; and , when I sang it I always joined in the coronach , and cried too . You have heard it—all of you . It has recently been revived , and with much success . It isn't half a bad bit of lachrymoseness . It displays a young female—with a tendency to gush—in various phases of feminine life , as maid—bride—widow , and so on . I never hear it but I am reminded of MrMoleI to focus friendto him she of the and
. . propose my , pose , as roses orange blossoms attitudinises—as Mrs . Langtry and Mrs . Cornwallis " West and Miss Eveleen Eayne—if their names may be reverently mentioned by one of the most devoted of their myriad slaves—are " photographed like this and are photographed like that . " I will with your permission trot out my friend and invite your inspection of him in some dozen avatars of his wonderful biography .
I say , my friend , because , having known him—by sight that is to say—for five-andthirty years , somehow I feel that I should miss him and be sad if I knew that I was never to behold him again . I never exchanged a word with him in my life . As I have said , I don't even know his name . True , I heard him announce what he professed to be his name once , and even beheld him adduce documentary evidence in support of his assertion : but—don't you agree with me?—the appellation was too preposterous to
be accepted as genuine . I clubbed him Mr . Mole from a peculiar wart disfiguring one side of his face . Ah , me ! how that dreadful bump has developed in a generation . In the early days of the "forties" it was only a beauty spot—just such a delicate dab as you see in the portraits on the pearly cheeks of the beauties of the early Hanoverian days—by the position of which fair politicians used to indicate their party preferences ; but now—when I saw my old acquaintance but yesterday—the—the— "Why—why , will
Lieutenant Bardolph's nose , so immercifully chaffed at mess by his commanding officer , occur to my mind at this moment ? But let me not anticipate . I wonder whether Mr . Mole knows me when he meets me—whether it ever occurs to him , as I curiously regard him , to make the reflection to himself , " That man has been turning up in my path , in one way or another , since ' 44 : he was only a boy then—I wonder who he is . " Sometimes I fancy he gives me a kind of furtive leer of recognition when he catches sight of me ; but this may be conceit on my part . Perhaps the pensive air of interest with which I contemplate him amuses him ; Quien sale ?
I have heard him assert—he was always a profuse talker—that he stood high in the Tarsity betting books for " a good place " in the honours list at Maudlin , or Trinity , or Corpus—at Oxford or Cambridge—in the year 'forty something or other . I have no reason to doubt this statement . I know I came across him once when he was " off duty , " as it were , and he—I verily believe conscientiously under the impression that he was wholly unobserved—was reclining on a green bank , and reading an Elzevir
edition of JEschylus—yes , sir , reading it with obvious enjoyment and appreciation . It was in a _ little coppice off Phunstead Common , at Charlton Fair time—that naughty Horn Fair , you know , the origin of which is so delicately—or indelicately—connected with the incognito improprieties of wicked Lackland . Mr . Mole lolled in an indolent but graceful attitude , with a red bandana cotton handkerchief over his head to keep away the flies . His tall shiny black sills : hat—a " four-ancl-nine" we boys used
irreverentl y to call this description of head covering—was upright on the grass by his side . His coat was black , but seedy , tightly buttoned , and shiny . Paper collars were not yet invented , so no white relieved the blackness around his neck , and it was the only occasion I ever saw him without shoes and stockings . And here let me observe that that black , tall , and shimmery hat appears to have be ? n Mr . Mole ' s amulet or talisman for nearly the interval of a generation . I believe it to be the
very same " Golgotha " which he bought second-hand in Houndsditch , probably in order to be smart for the opening of the exhibition in ' 51 . It isn't—accurately speaking—an anchor in the holding ground of the genteel world , but my hero evidently regards it as a sort of warp or spring upon the cable attached to-that instrument , as connecting the vagabond fraternity afloat on the ocean of cadgery—lightly and insecurely it may be but still somehow connecting it , with a society that doesn't habitually " doss " on the