Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0057/00573.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 11KB | 211 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00573}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Mystery Of Edwin Drood, The
Fragment: How Mr. Sapsea Ceased To Be A Member Of The Eight Club}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dickens, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{eight
kimber
club
sapsea
peartree
poker
deny
member
name
say}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       Mystery Of Edwin Drood, The
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Fragment: How Mr. Sapsea Ceased To Be A Member Of The Eight Club

     [When Forster was just finishing his biography of Dickens, he found among
the leaves of one of the novelist's other manuscripts certain loose slips in
his writing, 'on paper only half the size of that used for the tale, a
cramped, interlined, and blotted as to be nearly illegible.' These proved,
upon examination, to contain a suggested chapter for Edwin Drood, in which
Sapsea, the auctioneer, appears as the principal figure, surrounded by a group
of characters new to the story.  That chapter, being among the last things
Dickens wrote, seems to contain so much of interest that it may be well to
reprint it here. - Ed.]

How Mr. Sapsea Ceased To Be A Member Of The Eight Club

     Told By Himself

     Wishing to take the air, I proceeded by a circuitous route to the Club,
it being our weekly night of meeting.  I found that we mustered our full
strength.  We were enrolled under the denomination of the Eight Club. We were
eight in number; we met at eight o'clock during eight months of the year; we
played eight games of four-handed cribbage, at eight-pence the game; our
frugal supper was composed of eight rolls, eight mutton chops, eight pork
sausages, eight baked potatoes, eight marrowbones, with eight toasts, and
eight bottles of ale.  There may, or may not be a certain harmony of colour in
the ruling idea of this (to adopt a phrase of our lively neighbours) reunion.
It was a little idea of mine.

     A somewhat popular member of the Eight Club, was a member by the name of
Kimber.  By profession, a dancing-master.  A commonplace, hopeful sort of man,
wholly destitute of dignity or knowledge of the world.

     As I entered the Club-room, Kimber was making the remark: 'And he still
half-believes him to be very high in the Church.'

     In the act of hanging up my hat on the eighth peg by the door, I caught
Kimber's visual ray.  He lowered it, and passed a remark on the next change of
the moon.  I did not take particular notice of this at the moment, because the
world was often pleased to be a little shy of ecclesiastical topics in my
presence.  For I felt that I was picked out (though perhaps only through a
coincidence) to a certain extent to represent what I call our glorious
constitution in Church and State.  The phrase may be objected to by cautious
minds; but I own to it as mine.  I threw it off in argument some little time
back.  I said: 'Our Glorious Constitution in Church and State.'

     Another member of the Eight Club was Peartree; also member of the Royal
College of Surgeons.  Mr. Peartree is not accountable to me for his opinions,
and I say no more of them here than that he attends the poor gratis whenever
they want him, and is not the parish doctor.  Mr. Peartree may justify it to
the grasp of his mind thus to do his republican utmost to bring an appointed
officer into contempt.  Suffice it that Mr. Peartree can never justify it to
the grasp of mine.

     Between Peartree and Kimber there was a sickly sort of feeble-minded
alliance.  It came under my particular notice when I sold off Kimber by
auction.  (Goods taken in execution.) He was a widower in a white under-
waistcoat, and slight shoes with bows, and had two daughters not ill- looking.
Indeed the reverse.  Both daughters taught dancing in scholastic
establishments for Young Ladies - had done so at Mrs. Sapsea's; nay,
Twinkleton's - and both, in giving lessons, presented the unwomanly spectacle
of having fiddles tucked under their chins.  In spite of which, the younger
one might, if I am correctly informed - I will raise the veil so far as to say
I know she might - have soared for life from this degrading taint, but for
having the class of mind allotted to what I call the common herd, and being so
incredibly devoid of veneration as to become painfully ludicrous.

     When I sold off Kimber without reserve, Peartree (as poor as he can hold
together) had several prime household lots knocked down to him.  I am not to
be blinded; and of course it was as plain to me what he was going to do with
them, as it was that he was a brown hulking sort of revolutionary subject who
had been in India with the soldiers, and ought (for the sake of society) to
have his neck broke.  I saw the lots shortly afterwards in Kimber's lodgings -
through the window - and I easily made out that there had been a sneaking
pretence of lending them till better times.  A man with a smaller knowledge of
the world than myself might have been led to suspect that Kimber had held back
money from his creditors, and fraudulently bought the goods.  But, besides
that I knew for certain he had no money, I knew that this would involve a
species of forethought not to be made compatible with the frivolity of a
caperer, inoculating other people with capering, for his bread.

     As it was the first time I had seen either of those two since the sale, I
kept myself in what I call Abeyance.  When selling him up, I had delivered a
few remarks - shall I say a little homily? - concerning Kimber, which the
world did regard as more than usually worth notice.  I had come up into my
pulpit, it was said, uncommonly like - and a murmur of recognition had
repeated his (I will not name whose) title, before I spoke.  I had then gone
on to say that all present would find, in the first page of the catalogue that
was lying before them, in the last paragraph before the first lot, the
following words: 'Sold in pursuance of a writ of execution issued by a
creditor.' I had then proceeded to remind my friends, that however frivolous,
not to say contemptible, the business by which a man got his goods together,
still his goods were as dear to him, and as cheap to society (if sold without
reserve), as though his pursuits had been of a character that would bear
serious contemplation.  I had then divided my text (if I may be allowed so to
call it) into three heads: firstly, Sold; secondly, In pursuance of a writ of
execution; thirdly, Issued by a creditor; with a few moral reflections on
each, and winding up with, 'Now to the first lot' in a manner that was
complimented when I afterwards mingled with my hearers.

     So, not being certain on what terms I and Kimber stood, I was grave, I
was chilling.  Kimber, however, moving to me, I moved to Kimber.  (I was the
creditor who had issued the writ.  Not that it matters.)

     'I was alluding, Mr. Sapsea,' said Kimber, 'to a stranger who entered
into conversation with me in the street as I came to the Club.  He had been
speaking to you just before, it seemed, by the churchyard; and though you had
told him who you were, I could hardly persuade him that you were not high in
the Church.'

     'Idiot?' said Peartree.

     'Ass!' said Kimber.

     'Idiot and Ass!' said the other five members.

     'Idiot and Ass, gentlemen,' I remonstrated, looking around me, 'are
strong expressions to apply to a young man of good appearance and dress.' My
generosity was roused; I own it.

     'You'll admit that he must be a Fool,' said Peartree.

     'You can't deny that he must be a Blockhead,' said Kimber.

     Their tone of disgust amounted to being offensive.  Why should the young
man be so calumniated?  What had he done?  He had only made an innocent and
natural mistake.  I controlled my generous indignation, and said so.

     'Natural?' repeated Kimber.  'He's a Natural!'

     The remaining six members of the Eight Club laughed unanimously.  It
stung me.  It was a scornful laugh.  My anger was roused in behalf of an
absent, friendless stranger.  I rose (for I had been sitting down).

     'Gentlemen,' I said with dignity, 'I will not remain one of this Club
allowing opprobrium to be cast on an unoffending person in his absence.  I
will not so violate what I call the sacred rites of hospitality. Gentlemen,
until you know how to behave yourselves better, I leave you. Gentlemen, until
then I withdraw, from this place of meeting, whatever personal qualifications
I may have brought into it.  Gentlemen, until then you cease to be the Eight
Club, and must make the best you can of becoming the Seven.'

     I put on my hat and retired.  As I went downstairs I distinctly heard
them give a suppressed cheer.  Such is the power of demeanour and knowledge of
mankind.  I had forced it out of them.

     Whom should I meet in the street, within a few yards of the door of the
inn where the Club was held, but the self-same young man whose cause I had
felt it my duty so warmly - and I will add so disinterestedly - to take up.

     'Is it Mr. Sapsea,' he said doubtfully, 'or is it - '

     'It is Mr. Sapsea,' I replied.

     'Pardon me, Mr. Sapsea; you appear warm, sir.'

     'I have been warm,' I said, 'and on your account.' Having stated the
circumstances at some length (my generosity almost overpowered him), I asked
him his name.

     'Mr. Sapsea,' he answered, looking down, 'your penetration is so acute,
your glance into the souls of your fellow men is so penetrating, that if I was
hardy enough to deny that my name is Poker, what would it avail me?'

     I don't know that I had quite exactly made out to a fraction that his
name was Poker, but I dare say I had been pretty near doing it.

     'Well, well,' said I, trying to put him at his ease by nodding my head in
a soothing way.  'Your name is Poker, and there is no harm in being named
Poker.'

     'Oh, Mr. Sapsea!' cried the young man, in a very well-behaved manner.
'Bless you for those words?' He then, as if ashamed of having given way to his
feelings, looked down again.

     'Come Poker,' said I, 'let me hear more about you.  Tell me Where are you
going to, Poker?  and where do you come from?'

     'Ah Mr. Sapsea!' exclaimed the young man.  'Disguise from you is
impossible.  You know already that I come from somewhere, and am going
somewhere else.  If I was to deny it, what would it avail me?'

     'Then don't deny it,' was my remark.

     'Or,' pursued Poker, in a kind of despondent rapture, 'or if I was to
deny that I came to this town to see and hear you sir, what would it avail me?
Or if I was to deny - '

     The End