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Article A QUEER CAREER. ← Page 4 of 13 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
A Queer Career.
almost forgotten brochure , " The Gent" ( Bogue—Fleet Street ) , if you could get it anywhere , and then rest serenely confident in your approaching triumph . He wore a Joinville tie . He likewise " sported "—that is the correct term , I believe , —sported—a " box " ' coat—a very light drab garment then much in vogue . He was crowned with a white hat—it was one of the three occasions to which I have before alluded when I saw him otherwise thatched than with the conventional black " stove pipe . "
This chapeau , sirs , was none of your felt compromises of these latter decadent days of shoddy and cardboard . No , i' faith , it was a fluffy , shiny , real beaver texture affair , around which floated a gossamer green veil , and which—the tile not the veil—was adorned at a later period of the day with sundry small wooden articulated lay figures , stuck in the band after the manner in which his Most Christian Majesty Louis XI . was wont to decorate his shabby old felt bonnet with trumpery leaden images of Our Lady of
the Vosges , St . Catherine Catamaran , St . Hubert of the Forest , St . Boniface of the Eed Lion , etc ., etc ., etc . Then , Mr . Mole wore very large pattern tartan trousers , the extremities of which were very tightly drawn under the insteps of his drab-topped , tiny patent leather-tipped boots , and fastened there with three buttons to each leg , displaying the limb to the greatest advantage—they were called " gaiter-fronted , " and I always thought them remarkably graceful . My hero ' s hands were encased in primrose-tinted gloves , fitting faultlessly , and his cuffs were spotlessly white , and turned up over the sleeves of his body coat . He displayed two waistcoats , the under one of white , with lappels slightly
obtruding and turning over , and calling the attention , as it were , to the outer vest of flowered crimson velvet . He was adorned with as many chains as the fabulous Macheath , or the historical Jemmy McLean , only they were of gold , and displayed around the neck and over the bosom , whereas the highwaymens' were of iron , and supported by a red " belcher " about the epigastrium , and clinked upon their legs . Mr . Mole had a goodhumoured look on his pale , pasty , sickly-looking face—his excrescence seemed rather to redeem the insiiditof the expressionto communicate characteras it were . Later on
py , , in the day a flush , not altogether wholesome , replaced the pallor , and , later still , he had hidden his really handsome aquiline nose behind an abominable construction of pasteboard , pimply , and of most hideous redness and monstrous size , dependent from which was a pair of prodigiously large black horsehair moustaches . I saw him from the roof of the Guards' drag—where he was perched drinking champagne from a common publichouse quart pewter—purchase this article of adornment (?) from a gipsy-looking vagabond ,
who was exposing a number for sale , hoarsely bawling , " Here y ' ar , gents ! Cum along , me noble sportsmen . Nose AN' ' air a penny ! " I beheld the vendor make a feint of producing two shillings and fivepence change for the half-crown tossed to him , and I heard the generous Mole apply comminatory words to change in general , which naughtiness did not appear to incense the trader , who made no further attempt to wound his customer's feelings by unbecoming efforts to force the rejected balance upon his acceptance .
In those days there was a turnpike at Kennington , and the gate used to be kept on the evening of this annual saturnalia by relays of professional pugilists , specially hired for the occasion by the farmers of the trust . At ten o ' clock that night I beheld that Joinville tie very much disarranged , its owner being in point of fact engaged in a milling match at this barrier with one of the—well , not toohandsome—stipendiary athletes . I heard the amateur make rather incoherent references to the finished education he had received from Tom Cribb , Tom Spring , Ben Caiuit , Bendigo , Alec Keene , and other emeritii
of the " noble science . " The last 1 saw of that piquant wart on that occasion was in a ghastly apparition at the near window of the vehicle . Mr . Mole had been ignominiously rescued by his friends from the gladiatorial fists , and consigned—thrust in—fallen from his high estate of the box—to the degraded seclusion of the interior . His body , I have no doubt , was battered . His visage , I know , was bloody . He was weeping piteously . At the same time he was swearing profanely . He was alternately adjuring his sainted mother and cursing consumedly . Then he fell to laughing hysterically , and then to pleading plaintively with his companions for more hock and seltzer . He no longer " wore Iris beaver up , " or wore it at all , for I saw it tossed . somewhat
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
A Queer Career.
almost forgotten brochure , " The Gent" ( Bogue—Fleet Street ) , if you could get it anywhere , and then rest serenely confident in your approaching triumph . He wore a Joinville tie . He likewise " sported "—that is the correct term , I believe , —sported—a " box " ' coat—a very light drab garment then much in vogue . He was crowned with a white hat—it was one of the three occasions to which I have before alluded when I saw him otherwise thatched than with the conventional black " stove pipe . "
This chapeau , sirs , was none of your felt compromises of these latter decadent days of shoddy and cardboard . No , i' faith , it was a fluffy , shiny , real beaver texture affair , around which floated a gossamer green veil , and which—the tile not the veil—was adorned at a later period of the day with sundry small wooden articulated lay figures , stuck in the band after the manner in which his Most Christian Majesty Louis XI . was wont to decorate his shabby old felt bonnet with trumpery leaden images of Our Lady of
the Vosges , St . Catherine Catamaran , St . Hubert of the Forest , St . Boniface of the Eed Lion , etc ., etc ., etc . Then , Mr . Mole wore very large pattern tartan trousers , the extremities of which were very tightly drawn under the insteps of his drab-topped , tiny patent leather-tipped boots , and fastened there with three buttons to each leg , displaying the limb to the greatest advantage—they were called " gaiter-fronted , " and I always thought them remarkably graceful . My hero ' s hands were encased in primrose-tinted gloves , fitting faultlessly , and his cuffs were spotlessly white , and turned up over the sleeves of his body coat . He displayed two waistcoats , the under one of white , with lappels slightly
obtruding and turning over , and calling the attention , as it were , to the outer vest of flowered crimson velvet . He was adorned with as many chains as the fabulous Macheath , or the historical Jemmy McLean , only they were of gold , and displayed around the neck and over the bosom , whereas the highwaymens' were of iron , and supported by a red " belcher " about the epigastrium , and clinked upon their legs . Mr . Mole had a goodhumoured look on his pale , pasty , sickly-looking face—his excrescence seemed rather to redeem the insiiditof the expressionto communicate characteras it were . Later on
py , , in the day a flush , not altogether wholesome , replaced the pallor , and , later still , he had hidden his really handsome aquiline nose behind an abominable construction of pasteboard , pimply , and of most hideous redness and monstrous size , dependent from which was a pair of prodigiously large black horsehair moustaches . I saw him from the roof of the Guards' drag—where he was perched drinking champagne from a common publichouse quart pewter—purchase this article of adornment (?) from a gipsy-looking vagabond ,
who was exposing a number for sale , hoarsely bawling , " Here y ' ar , gents ! Cum along , me noble sportsmen . Nose AN' ' air a penny ! " I beheld the vendor make a feint of producing two shillings and fivepence change for the half-crown tossed to him , and I heard the generous Mole apply comminatory words to change in general , which naughtiness did not appear to incense the trader , who made no further attempt to wound his customer's feelings by unbecoming efforts to force the rejected balance upon his acceptance .
In those days there was a turnpike at Kennington , and the gate used to be kept on the evening of this annual saturnalia by relays of professional pugilists , specially hired for the occasion by the farmers of the trust . At ten o ' clock that night I beheld that Joinville tie very much disarranged , its owner being in point of fact engaged in a milling match at this barrier with one of the—well , not toohandsome—stipendiary athletes . I heard the amateur make rather incoherent references to the finished education he had received from Tom Cribb , Tom Spring , Ben Caiuit , Bendigo , Alec Keene , and other emeritii
of the " noble science . " The last 1 saw of that piquant wart on that occasion was in a ghastly apparition at the near window of the vehicle . Mr . Mole had been ignominiously rescued by his friends from the gladiatorial fists , and consigned—thrust in—fallen from his high estate of the box—to the degraded seclusion of the interior . His body , I have no doubt , was battered . His visage , I know , was bloody . He was weeping piteously . At the same time he was swearing profanely . He was alternately adjuring his sainted mother and cursing consumedly . Then he fell to laughing hysterically , and then to pleading plaintively with his companions for more hock and seltzer . He no longer " wore Iris beaver up , " or wore it at all , for I saw it tossed . somewhat