The Uncommercial Traveller

by Dickens, Charles

  vermin ran all over my sleep. Evermore, when on a breezy day I see

  Page 33

  Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller

  Poor Mercantile Jack running into port with a fair wind under all

  sail, I shall think of the unsleeping host of devourers who never

  go to bed, and are always in their set traps waiting for him.

  CHAPTER VI - REFRESHMENTS FOR TRAVELLERS

  In the late high winds I was blown to a great many places - and

  indeed, wind or no wind, I generally have extensive transactions on

  hand in the article of Air - but I have not been blown to any

  English place lately, and I very seldom have blown to any English

  place in my life, where I could get anything good to eat and drink

  in five minutes, or where, if I sought it, I was received with a

  welcome.

  This is a curious thing to consider. But before (stimulated by my

  own experiences and the representations of many fellow-travellers

  of every uncommercial and commercial degree) I consider it further,

  I must utter a passing word of wonder concerning high winds.

  I wonder why metropolitan gales always blow so hard at Walworth. I

  cannot imagine what Walworth has done, to bring such windy

  punishment upon itself, as I never fail to find recorded in the

  newspapers when the wind has blown at all hard. Brixton seems to

  have something on its conscience; Peckham suffers more than a

  virtuous Peckham might be supposed to deserve; the howling

  neighbourhood of Deptford figures largely in the accounts of the

  ingenious gentlemen who are out in every wind that blows, and to

  whom it is an ill high wind that blows no good; but, there can

  hardly be any Walworth left by this time. It must surely be blown

  away. I have read of more chimney-stacks and house-copings coming

  down with terrific smashes at Walworth, and of more sacred edifices

  being nearly (not quite) blown out to sea from the same accursed

  locality, than I have read of practised thieves with the appearance

  and manners of gentlemen - a popular phenomenon which never existed

  on earth out of fiction and a police report. Again: I wonder why

  people are always blown into the Surrey Canal, and into no other

  piece of water! Why do people get up early and go out in groups,

  to be blown into the Surrey Canal? Do they say to one another,

  'Welcome death, so that we get into the newspapers'? Even that

  would be an insufficient explanation, because even then they might

  sometimes put themselves in the way of being blown into the

  Regent's Canal, instead of always saddling Surrey for the field.

  Some nameless policeman, too, is constantly, on the slightest

  provocation, getting himself blown into this same Surrey Canal.

  Will SIR RICHARD MAYNE see to it, and restrain that weak-minded and

  feeble-bodied constable?

  To resume the consideration of the curious question of Refreshment.

  I am a Briton, and, as such, I am aware that I never will be a

  slave - and yet I have latent suspicion that there must be some

  slavery of wrong custom in this matter.

  I travel by railroad. I start from home at seven or eight in the

  morning, after breakfasting hurriedly. What with skimming over the

  open landscape, what with mining in the damp bowels of the earth,

  what with banging, booming and shrieking the scores of miles away,

  I am hungry when I arrive at the 'Refreshment' station where I am

  expected. Please to observe, expected. I have said, I am hungry;

  perhaps I might say, with greater point and force, that I am to

  some extent exhausted, and that I need - in the expressive French

  Page 34

  Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller

  sense of the word - to be restored. What is provided for my

  restoration? The apartment that is to restore me is a wind-trap,

  cunningly set to inveigle all the draughts in that country-side,

  and to communicate a special intensity and velocity to them as they

  rotate in two hurricanes: one, about my wretched head: one, about

  my wretched legs. The training of the young ladies behind the

  counter who are to restore me, has been from their infancy directed

  to the assumption of a defiant dramatic show that I am NOT

  expected. It is in vain for me to represent to them by my humble

  and conciliatory manners, that I wish to be liberal. It is in vain

  for me to represent to myself, for the encouragement of my sinking

  soul, that the young ladies have a pecuniary interest in my

  arrival. Neither my reason nor my feelings can make head against

  the cold glazed glare of eye with which I am assured that I am not

  expected, and not wanted. The solitary man among the bottles would

  sometimes take pity on me, if he dared, but he is powerless against

  the rights and mights of Woman. (Of the page I make no account,

  for, he is a boy, and therefore the natural enemy of Creation.)

  Chilling fast, in the deadly tornadoes to which my upper and lower

  extremities are exposed, and subdued by the moral disadvantage at

  which I stand, I turn my disconsolate eyes on the refreshments that

  are to restore me. I find that I must either scald my throat by

  insanely ladling into it, against time and for no wager, brown hot

  water stiffened with flour; or I must make myself flaky and sick

  with Banbury cake; or, I must stuff into my delicate organisation,

  a currant pincushion which I know will swell into immeasurable

  dimensions when it has got there; or, I must extort from an ironbound

  quarry, with a fork, as if I were farming an inhospitable

  soil, some glutinous lumps of gristle and grease, called pork-pie.

  While thus forlornly occupied, I find that the depressing banquet

  on the table is, in every phase of its profoundly unsatisfactory

  character, so like the banquet at the meanest and shabbiest of

  evening parties, that I begin to think I must have 'brought down'

  to supper, the old lady unknown, blue with cold, who is setting her

  teeth on edge with a cool orange at my elbow - that the pastrycook

  who has compounded for the company on the lowest terms per head, is

  a fraudulent bankrupt, redeeming his contract with the stale stock

  from his window - that, for some unexplained reason, the family

  giving the party have become my mortal foes, and have given it on

  purpose to affront me. Or, I fancy that I am 'breaking up' again,

  at the evening conversazione at school, charged two-and-sixpence in

  the half-year's bill; or breaking down again at that celebrated

  evening party given at Mrs. Bogles's boarding-house when I was a

  boarder there, on which occasion Mrs. Bogles was taken in execution

  by a branch of the legal profession who got in as the harp, and was

  removed (with the keys and subscribed capital) to a place of

  durance, half an hour prior to the commencement of the festivities.

  Take another case.

  Mr. Grazinglands, of the Midland Counties, came to London by

  railroad one morning last week, accompanied by the amiable and

  fascinating Mrs. Grazinglands. Mr. G. is a gentleman of a

  comfortable property, and had a little business to transact at the

>   Bank of England, which required the concurrence and signature of

  Mrs. G. Their business disposed of, Mr. and Mrs. Grazinglands

  viewed the Royal Exchange, and the exterior of St. Paul's

  Cathedral. The spirits of Mrs. Grazinglands then gradually

  beginning to flag, Mr. Grazinglands (who is the tenderest of

  husbands) remarked with sympathy, 'Arabella', my dear, 'fear you

  are faint.' Mrs. Grazing-lands replied, 'Alexander, I am rather

  faint; but don't mind me, I shall be better presently.' Touched by

  the feminine meekness of this answer, Mr. Grazinglands looked in at

  a pastrycook's window, hesitating as to the expediency of lunching

  Page 35

  Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller

  at that establishment. He beheld nothing to eat, but butter in

  various forms, slightly charged with jam, and languidly frizzling

  over tepid water. Two ancient turtle-shells, on which was

  inscribed the legend, 'SOUPS,' decorated a glass partition within,

  enclosing a stuffy alcove, from which a ghastly mockery of a

  marriage-breakfast spread on a rickety table, warned the terrified

  traveller. An oblong box of stale and broken pastry at reduced

  prices, mounted on a stool, ornamented the doorway; and two high

  chairs that looked as if they were performing on stilts,

  embellished the counter. Over the whole, a young lady presided,

  whose gloomy haughtiness as she surveyed the street, announced a

  deep-seated grievance against society, and an implacable

  determination to be avenged. From a beetle-haunted kitchen below

  this institution, fumes arose, suggestive of a class of soup which

  Mr. Grazinglands knew, from painful experience, enfeebles the mind,

  distends the stomach, forces itself into the complexion, and tries

  to ooze out at the eyes. As he decided against entering, and

  turned away, Mrs. Grazinglands becoming perceptibly weaker,

  repeated, 'I am rather faint, Alexander, but don't mind me.' Urged

  to new efforts by these words of resignation, Mr. Grazinglands

  looked in at a cold and floury baker's shop, where utilitarian buns

  unrelieved by a currant, consorted with hard biscuits, a stone

  filter of cold water, a hard pale clock, and a hard little old

  woman with flaxen hair, of an undeveloped-farinaceous aspect, as if

  she had been fed upon seeds. He might have entered even here, but

  for the timely remembrance coming upon him that Jairing's was but

  round the corner.

  Now, Jairing's being an hotel for families and gentlemen, in high

  repute among the midland counties, Mr. Grazinglands plucked up a

  great spirit when he told Mrs. Grazinglands she should have a chop

  there. That lady, likewise felt that she was going to see Life.

  Arriving on that gay and festive scene, they found the second

  waiter, in a flabby undress, cleaning the windows of the empty

  coffee-room; and the first waiter, denuded of his white tie, making

  up his cruets behind the Post-Office Directory. The latter (who

  took them in hand) was greatly put out by their patronage, and

  showed his mind to be troubled by a sense of the pressing necessity

  of instantly smuggling Mrs. Grazinglands into the obscurest corner

  of the building. This slighted lady (who is the pride of her

  division of the county) was immediately conveyed, by several dark

  passages, and up and down several steps, into a penitential

  apartment at the back of the house, where five invalided old platewarmers

  leaned up against one another under a discarded old

  melancholy sideboard, and where the wintry leaves of all the

  dining-tables in the house lay thick. Also, a sofa, of

  incomprehensible form regarded from any sofane point of view,

  murmured 'Bed;' while an air of mingled fluffiness and heeltaps,

  added, 'Second Waiter's.' Secreted in this dismal hold, objects of

  a mysterious distrust and suspicion, Mr. Grazinglands and his

  charming partner waited twenty minutes for the smoke (for it never

  came to a fire), twenty-five minutes for the sherry, half an hour

  for the tablecloth, forty minutes for the knives and forks, threequarters

  of an hour for the chops, and an hour for the potatoes.

  On settling the little bill - which was not much more than the

  day's pay of a Lieutenant in the navy - Mr. Grazinglands took

  heart to remonstrate against the general quality and cost of his

  reception. To whom the waiter replied, substantially, that

  Jairing's made it a merit to have accepted him on any terms:

  'for,' added the waiter (unmistakably coughing at Mrs.

  Grazinglands, the pride of her division of the county), 'when

  indiwiduals is not staying in the 'Ouse, their favours is not as a

  rule looked upon as making it worth Mr. Jairing's while; nor is it,

  indeed, a style of business Mr. Jairing wishes.' Finally, Mr. and

  Page 36

  Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller

  Mrs. Grazinglands passed out of Jairing's hotel for Families and

  Gentlemen, in a state of the greatest depression, scorned by the

  bar; and did not recover their self-respect for several days.

  Or take another case. Take your own case.

  You are going off by railway, from any Terminus. You have twenty

  minutes for dinner, before you go. You want your dinner, and like

  Dr. Johnson, Sir, you like to dine. You present to your mind, a

  picture of the refreshment-table at that terminus. The

  conventional shabby evening-party supper - accepted as the model

  for all termini and all refreshment stations, because it is the

  last repast known to this state of existence of which any human

  creature would partake, but in the direst extremity - sickens your

  contemplation, and your words are these: 'I cannot dine on stale

  sponge-cakes that turn to sand in the mouth. I cannot dine on

  shining brown patties, composed of unknown animals within, and

  offering to my view the device of an indigestible star-fish in

  leaden pie-crust without. I cannot dine on a sandwich that has

  long been pining under an exhausted receiver. I cannot dine on

  barley-sugar. I cannot dine on Toffee.' You repair to the nearest

  hotel, and arrive, agitated, in the coffee-room.

  It is a most astonishing fact that the waiter is very cold to you.

  Account for it how you may, smooth it over how you will, you cannot

  deny that he is cold to you. He is not glad to see you, he does

  not want you, he would much rather you hadn't come. He opposes to

  your flushed condition, an immovable composure. As if this were

  not enough, another waiter, born, as it would seem, expressly to

  look at you in this passage of your life, stands at a little

  distance, with his napkin under his arm and his hands folded,

  looking at you with all his might. You impress on your waiter that

  you have ten minutes for dinner, and he proposes that you shall

  begin with a bit of fish which will be ready in twenty. That

  proposal declined, he suggests - as a neat originality - 'a weal or

  mutton cutlet.' You close with either cutlet, any cutlet,

  anything. He goes, leisurely, behind a door and calls down some

  unseen shaft. A ventriloq
uial dialogue ensues, tending finally to

  the effect that weal only, is available on the spur of the moment.

  You anxiously call out, 'Veal, then!' Your waiter having settled

  that point, returns to array your tablecloth, with a table napkin

  folded cocked-hat-wise (slowly, for something out of window engages

  his eye), a white wine-glass, a green wine-glass, a blue fingerglass,

  a tumbler, and a powerful field battery of fourteen casters

  with nothing in them; or at all events - which is enough for your

  purpose - with nothing in them that will come out. All this time,

  the other waiter looks at you - with an air of mental comparison

  and curiosity, now, as if it had occurred to him that you are

  rather like his brother. Half your time gone, and nothing come but

  the jug of ale and the bread, you implore your waiter to 'see after

  that cutlet, waiter; pray do!' He cannot go at once, for he is

  carrying in seventeen pounds of American cheese for you to finish

  with, and a small Landed Estate of celery and water-cresses. The

  other waiter changes his leg, and takes a new view of you,

  doubtfully, now, as if he had rejected the resemblance to his

  brother, and had begun to think you more like his aunt or his

  grandmother. Again you beseech your waiter with pathetic

  indignation, to 'see after that cutlet!' He steps out to see after

  it, and by-and-by, when you are going away without it, comes back

  with it. Even then, he will not take the sham silver cover off,

  without a pause for a flourish, and a look at the musty cutlet as

  if he were surprised to see it - which cannot possibly be the case,

  he must have seen it so often before. A sort of fur has been

  produced upon its surface by the cook's art, and in a sham silver

  Page 37

  Dickens, Charles - The Uncommercial Traveller

  vessel staggering on two feet instead of three, is a cutaneous kind

  of sauce of brown pimples and pickled cucumber. You order the

  bill, but your waiter cannot bring your bill yet, because he is

  bringing, instead, three flinty-hearted potatoes and two grim head

  of broccoli, like the occasional ornaments on area railings, badly

  boiled. You know that you will never come to this pass, any more

  than to the cheese and celery, and you imperatively demand your

  bill; but, it takes time to get, even when gone for, because your