Original Penny Readings: A Series of Short Sketches

Chapter Twenty One.
The Evils of a Wig

Now it’s all very well to say that truth is strange – stranger than fiction; but the saying won’t wash, it isn’t fast colours, but partakes of the nature of those carried by certain Austrian regiments – it runs; for there is no rule without an exception, and no person in the full enjoyment of his mental faculties will pretend to say that truth was stranger than fiction in the case of Mr Smith’s wig, for the fiction – the wig – was, to all intents and purposes, stranger than the truth – the genuine head of hair.

Mr Smith – Mr Artaxerxes Smith – in his younger days had often visited the hairdresser’s, to sit in state with a flowing print robe tucked in all round his neck, but not so close but the tiny snips and chips from his Hyperion curls would get down within his shirt-collar, and tickle and tease for hours after; he had listened while the oily-tongued – scented oily-tongued – hairdresser had snipped away and told him that his hair was turning a little grey, or that it was growing thin at the crown, or very dry, or full of dandriff, or coming off, or suffering from one of those inevitable failings which are never discoverable save when having one’s hair cut. “Our Philo-homo-coma Brushitinibus would remove the symptoms in a few days, sir,” the hairdresser would say; “remove the dandriff, clarify the scalp, soften the hair, and bring up a fine soft down that would soon strengthen into flowing locks.” But though in the glass before him Mr Smith could see the noble hair and brilliant whiskers of his operator, he would not listen, he only growled out, “Make haste,” or “Never mind,” or something else very rude, and the consequence was that he suffered for his neglect of the good hairdressers advice, so that at last Mr Smith couldn’t have given any one a lock of his hair to save his life. He was bald – completely bald – his head looked like vegetable ivory, and in despair he consulted a Saville-row physician.

“Nature, sir, nature,” said the great man; “a peculiarity of constitution, a failing in the absorbents and dessicating, wasting in the structural development of the cuticle and sub-cuticle – the hair being a small filament issuing from the surface of the scalp from a bulbous radix, and forming a capillary covering; which covering, in your case, has failed, sir, failed.”

Mr Smith knew that before he made up his mind to invest a guinea, but he only said —

“And what course should you pursue in my case?”

“Well, yes – er – er – um, ah! I should – er – that is to say, I should wear a wig.”

That was just what Mr Smith’s hairdresser had told him for nothing, though, certainly, with sundry ideas in petto that it might fall to his task to make this wig; but Mr Smith had expected something else from a man who put MD at the end of his name.

“Too big for his profession,” said Mr Smith, and he bought a pot of the Count de Caput Medusae’s Golden Balm, prepared from the original recipe given by that inventive Count to the aunt’s cousin’s uncle of the proprietor.

“Try another pot, sir,” said the vendor, examining the bare head with a powerful magnifying glass. “Perfect down on the surface, sir, though not plain to the naked eye. I should advise the large twenty-two shilling pots, sir, and the vigorous rubbing in, to be continued night and morning.”

But if there had been any down it knew better than to stop and suffer the scrubbing inflicted by Mr Smith upon his bare poll, and a month only found him with the scalp turned from waxy-white to pinky-red, while his head was sore to a degree.

“Jackal’s formula produces hair, beard, or whiskers upon the smoothest skin.”

But, perhaps, Mr Smith’s was not the smoothest skin, but not for want of rubbing and polishing, and the formula did not produce anything but a great many naughty words, while “Brimstone Degenerator,” “The Capillary Attraction,” and a score of other things, only made holes in several five-pound notes, while Mr Smith, unable to discover any more filaments issuing from the surface of his scalp from bulbous radices, came to the conclusion that he really must have a wig.

He had it; and found it light and warm, and tried to make himself believe that it could not be told from the real thing. He would brush it before the glass, or run his hands through the curls when any one was looking, and pretend to scratch his head, but the brute of a thing would slip on one side, or get down over his forehead, or go back, or do something stupid, as if of impish tendencies and exclaiming to the world at large, “I’m a wig, I am!”

Brushed up carefully was that wig every now and then by the maker, who would send it back glossed and pomatumed to a wonderful degree of perfection; when again Mr Smith would try and persuade himself that with such a skin parting no one could fail to be deceived, but the people found him out when he lost his hat from a puff of wind, which jumped it off and sent it rolling along the pavement.

We have most of us chased our hats upon a windy day, now getting close up, now being left behind, and have tried, as is the correct thing, to smile; but who could smile if the pomatum had adhered to the lining of the hat, and he was scudding under a bare pole in chase of hat and wig.

After that episode in his life, Mr Smith brushed up his wig himself, and always used oil; while he found his wig decidedly economical, for it never wanted cutting.

Being a bachelor with plenty of time on his hands, Mr Smith used to spend it as seemed good in his own eyes, and a very favourite pursuit of his was visit-paying to the various cathedral towns, for the purpose of studying what he termed the “architectural points.” The consequence was, that after spending an afternoon examining nave and chancel; chapel, window, pillar, arch, and groin; frowning at corbels, and grinning at the grotesque gutter-bearers; Mr Smith found himself seated at dinner in that far-famed hostelry known as the “Golden Bull,” in the cathedral town of Surridge.

The dinner was good, the wine might have been worse, the linen and plate were clean, and at length, seated in front of the comfortable fire, sipping his port, Mr Smith mused upon the visit he had paid to the cathedral. After a while, from habit, he scratched his head and drew the wig aside, which necessitated his rising to adjust the covering by the glass, after which Mr Smith sighed and filled his glass again.

At length the bell brought the waiter, and the waiter brought the boots, and the boots brought the boot-jack and the slippers, and then the chambermaid brought the hand candlestick, and the maiden ushered the visitor up to Number 25 in the great balcony which surrounded the large yard, where even now a broken-winded old stagecoach drew up once a week, as if determined to go till it dropped, in spite of all the railways in the kingdom.

But Mr Smith had not been five minutes in his bedroom, and divested himself of only one or two articles of his dress, when he remembered that he had given no orders for an early breakfast, so as to meet the first up-train.

The bell soon brought the chambermaid, who looked rather open-mouthed as Mr Smith gave his orders. He then prepared himself for bed, wherein, with a comfortable cotton nightcap pulled over his head, he soon wandered into the land of dreams.

About an hour had passed, and Mr Smith was mentally busy making a drawing of a grim old corbel – a most grotesque head in the cathedral close, when he was terribly bothered because the moss-covered, time-eaten old stony face would not keep still: now it winked, now it screwed up its face, now it thrust its tongue first into one cheek and then into the other, making wrinkles here, there, and everywhere, till he put down his pencil, and asked what it meant. But instead of answering, the face nodded and came down nearer and nearer, backing him further and further away, till he was shut up in one of the cloisters, and hammering at the door to get out.

“Open the door!” he roared again and again; till he woke to find that it was somebody outside knocking at his door and thundering to get in.

“Here, open the door now, or it’ll be the wuss for yer!” growled a hoarse voice, whereupon tearing off his cap, Mr Smith leaped out of bed, and into some garments, and then stood shivering and wondering whether the place was on fire.

“What’s all the noise?” cried some one in the gallery.

“Madman, sir, outer the ’sylum, and keepers want to ketch him.”

“Poor fellow,” was the response; and then came the demand for admittance, and the thundering again.

“Go away!” cried Mr Smith, in an agitated and very cracked voice. “Go away, there’s no one here!”

“Ho! ain’t there,” said the gruff voice; and then there was a suppressed titter. “You’re sure it’s him?” said another voice.

“Oh, yes,” said some one in a high treble; “he’s got his head shaved.”

“Right you are,” said the same gruff voice, and then Mr Smith turned all of a cold perspiration.

“But my good man,” he gasped out at last through the keyhole, as he shivered in the dark, “it’s all a mistake: I’m not the man.”

“Now, are you a-going to stash that ere gammon, or am I to come through the door? – that’s what I wants to know,” growled the voice.

“Good heavens! what a position,” gasped Mr Smith. “My good man,” he cried again, “I’m not mad at all.”

“Oh, no, of course not; nobody never said you was,” said the voice. “It’s all right; open the door; it’s only me, Grouser, yer know.”

But Mr Smith didn’t know Grouser; neither did he wish to; for he wanted a quiet night’s rest, and to go off by the first train; but he resolved to try another appeal.

“M-m-m-m-my good man, will you go away, please?”

Bump! came a heavy body against the door, making the lock chatter, and the inner partition vibrate.

“Go away, please,” gasped Mr Smith; “or I’ll call the landlord.”

Bump! came the noise, and then the gruff voice, “Now, you’d best open, my tulip.”

“Landlord!” screamed Mr Smith.

“Yes, sir, I’m here!” cried a fresh voice. “Now, why don’t you come quietly, sir; the gentleman only means it for your good, and if you have any money, I hope you’ll pay your bill.”

“He ain’t got a blessed halfpenny, bless you,” growled the voice of the man Mr Smith took to be the keeper, but he was so confused by waking up from a heavy sleep, that he began to pass his hand over his head, and to wonder whether he really was sane.

Bump! came the noise again, and then there was a whispering, and the gruff voice cried, “Don’t you go away!” And then, to his great horror, through the thin wood partition, Mr Smith heard people moving in the next room, and a clattering noise as if a washstand was being moved from before the door that he had tried that night and found fast, but piled the chairs up against for safety sake. Directly after came the rattling of a key, and the cracking of the paint-stuck door, as if it were years since it had been opened; but Mr Smith could stop to hear no more. Hurriedly turning his key, he dashed open his door, gave a yell of terror, and charging out, scattered half a score of the inn-tenants standing in the gallery, candle in hand. There was a wild shrieking, the overturning of candlesticks, and women fainting, and then, as two or three made very doubtful efforts to stop the bald-headed figure, it leaped over a prostrate chambermaid, and dashed along the balcony.

“Hie! stop him, hie!” was the shout that rang behind; but Mr Smith ran on, then along the other side, closely followed by him of the gruff voice, while two more went the other way.

“Look out,” roared the keeper, “or he’ll do you a mischief!” and so, as Mr Smith came along the fourth side of the yard balcony, the landlord and helper allowed themselves to be dashed aside, and this time with force; while with shrieking women in front of him, Mr Smith rushed on.

Screams and yells, and cries, as the fugitive panted on reaching the second turn of the gallery, when hearing the gruff-voiced one close behind, he stole a look over his shoulder, and shuddered at the faint glimpse he obtained of a huge, burly figure, whose aspect made him tear on more frightened than ever, as the gruff voice roared to him to stop.

But there was no stop in Mr Smith, for as the moonbeams shone through the glass at his side, he could just make out that some one was holding a door in front ajar and peeping out, when, without thinking of anything else but getting somewhere to parley with his pursuer, Mr Smith dashed at the door, sent some one staggering backwards, while he had the door banged to and locked in an instant.

“For Heaven’s sake, save me,” gasped Mr Smith; “and excuse this intrusion, Sir.”

“Oh, to be sure,” said a voice from the corner, where it was quite dark; “but you need not have knocked at the door so loud. You are from the moon, of course, and how did you leave Plutina and the Bluegobs?”

“Wh, wh-wh-wh-what?” gasped Mr Smith.

“Come to the window, Sir, and we’ll enlighten the present generation; I’m the grand Porkendillo, Sir, and – ”

“Now, then, open this here door,” growled a savage voice in the gallery.

“Begone, slave,” cried the voice from out of the dark, and then to Mr Smith’s horror, a short figure crossed to the window, and he could see the outline of a smooth bald head upon the blind, which was directly afterwards dragged down and wrapped round the person into whose room the fugitive had run.

A light now broke upon Mr Smith; here was the real Simon Pure; but what a position to be in, locked in the same room with a madman – a shaven-headed lunatic, escaped from some private asylum.

“My Lord; Most Grand one, open the door and admit your slave,” came in a hoarse whisper through the keyhole.

“Is the banquet prepared?” said the madman.

“Yes, my lord,” croaked the keeper.

“Is Bootes there? Have Arcturus, Aldebaran, Orion, and Beta Pi assembled?”

“Yes, my lord, and it’s done to a touch,” growled the keeper.

“Prostrate thyselves, then, slaves, and let the winds all blow and boom. I come. Ha! a spy,” cried the madman, rushing at Mr Smith, who in his great horror leaped upon the bed, and buried himself beneath the clothes in which he enveloped himself so closely, that his adversary could not drag him forth.

“Come forth, thou traitor,” shrieked the madman, tearing at the clothes so fiercely, that a huge bundle rolled off the bed on to the floor, wherein, half-smothered, lay poor Mr Smith, in a most profuse state of perspiration.

All at once there was a cessation of the kicks and thumps, but a threatening of an increased state of suffocation, for there seemed to the covered man to be a struggle going on, and two or three people fell upon him. Then there came the buzz of voices, and he found himself gently unrolled from the mass of clothing, to sit up, staring around with white head and flushed face at the room full of people, while in one corner closely guarded by his keeper stood the Grand Porkendillo, sucking his thumb, and leering at every one in turn. For this gentleman having made his escape from the neighbouring establishment of a famous doctor, had taken refuge in the Golden Bull, whose landlord was most profuse in his apologies to Mr Smith, for the mistake that had been made.

But, as the chambermaid said when Mr Smith had taken his departure: —

“Lor’, Sir, as soon as they said the poor man’s head was shaved, I made sure it was him.”

Chapter Twenty Two.
To be Sold by Auction

“Sale now on,” was stuck upon the door-posts of a good-sized house that I was passing the other day – a house that an agent would call “a genteel family mansion;” for the agent, taught by his trade, knows that it is not always expedient to call a spade a spade, so he tickles the taste of his customers by talking of “villas, cottages ornées, snug boxes, delightful residences,” etcetera; in short, anything but what a plain, matter-of-fact person would bring forth to dub the home wherein he passed his hours of rest. “Sale now on,” in black letters six inches high. There were bills in the windows bearing the name of a well-known auctioneer, which was in itself sufficient to guarantee that it was a genuine sale; a large hearthrug was swung, banner fashion, out of the first-floor window, bearing also a bill, enumerating the valuable household furniture, and about the door were several snuffy-looking men in carpet caps, some with very Israelitish aspects, but all looking very fleecy and fluffy, and wearing the appearance of buying a secondhand suit of clothes once in a year, putting it on, and keeping it on until it dropped off of its own accord.

Being something of a saunterer, auction sales very frequently come under my notice, and possess something of an attraction for me; not that I go as a bargain hunter, for it is only on very, very rare occasions that I make a purchase; but I like to see how my fellow-man and woman buy their bargains, and also to moralise, in my own small way, upon the changes that may have taken place in the house before the “whole of the valuable and modern household furniture” was placed in the hands of the “going, going, gone” man, to dispose of without reserve. I have been in some strange places in my travels, and seen some strange auctions, especially those in the electro-plate line at a shop in a leading thoroughfare; but the touter at the door never asks me in now, and the gentleman in the rostrum never seeks to catch my eye for another bid. My impression is that they do not want me, but look upon me as a rogue towards them; and verily I believe that I am, if they occupy the standard position of honest men. I could fill some pages with the reflections I have made upon different auctions at which I have been present – of the struggling, failing tradesman, turned out of house and home, watching with bitterness his household gods sacrificed upon the altar of Mammon – of the recklessly furnished house of the bankrupt speculator – of the little four-roomed house in the suburbs – all have their own especial history; but upon this occasion I am writing of the buyers more especially, and of the especial house spoken of at the head of this paper.

“Sale now on; fuss floor, sir,” said one of the grubby individuals before referred to; and as I ascended the stairs, which showed plainly where the rich velvet pile carpet, lot 94 in the catalogue, had lain, I was attacked on both flanks by a couple of gentlemen of very seedy, but decidedly not ripened appearance, who were very desirous of executing any little commissions for me. “Was there anything I had marked in the catalogue?” One of these gents soon gave me up, but the other seemed determined that if he failed in hooking a gudgeon, it should not be for want of perseverance; so he followed me up most pertinaciously, and on reaching the sale room – the three drawing-rooms thrown into one – began to expatiate upon everything which seemed to have attracted my eye. The pianoforte was the very one that would suit me, and he could tell me the figure to a T that I ought to give for it, which was not the strict letter of the truth.

It was of no avail that I tried to get rid of him, so I sat down in a corner near the auctioneer, and watched the progress of the sale and the countenances of the buyers.

“Going at three ten; going at three ten; going at three ten– ”

“Tap” went the hammer, and a Mr Cohen became the owner of a rosewood loo table.

Several more lots were disposed of, when a large feather-bed was placed by the porters upon the table. It might have been stuffed with feathers of gold from the way in which it was immediately attacked and punched. I was almost knocked over in the rush; and for a moment it appeared as though the twelve tribes of Israel had resolved, to a man, upon thrusting their arms right up to the elbow in the soft and yielding bed.

“Bargain at a fi-pun note, sir; let me bid for you. Be a sin to let such a chance go. Better let me bid, or them Jews ’ll run it up.”

In spite of myself I could not refrain from turning round and gazing upon my tormentor’s profile, which was as thoroughly Israelitish as ever spoke of race or told of Eastern origin. But for a very peremptory negative I should undoubtedly have become the possessor of the capital feather-bed; which, however, became the property of a Mr Moss.

In fact, the richly historical names that were given in after almost every purchase showed how very little there was of the Christian element in the sale: Lazarus, Abrahams, Marks, Levy, Solomon, and the refined Sloman – Moss, a capital name for a money grubber, and far preferable, no doubt, to the more familiar Moses – such names as these seemed of the most familiar, while Brown, Jones, Robinson, or Smith only occurred at long intervals.

I stayed some two hours, and watched the greed and avarice displayed by the bidders; and came away with the full determination not to buy at sales, for I could see one thing very plainly, and that was, that there was no fear of an article being sold for less than its value, as there were plenty of experienced men waiting to close at once upon a bargain; and therefore these brokers would, amongst them, run every lot up to nearly its full worth; the consequence being, that if you did not give the real value for an article that you were almost buying in the dark as to its quality, you would give for it perhaps considerably more than it was worth – buying blindly – every lot being knocked down to the buyer with all its defects and failings.

I am not going to say that bargains are not to be picked up at sales, for no doubt many are to be come at in this way; but it seems to me to be absolutely necessary that the purchaser should possess a shrewd business perception and keen business capabilities, or the chances are that he will be greatly disappointed when he pays his money and has his goods delivered to him. And this is what I thought as I watched the different little “dodges” employed by the initiated to give the auctioneer notice when they bid. One man scratched his head; another winked his right eye; another winked his left; one thrust his tongue into his cheek; another raised his eyebrows; others rubbed their noses, tapped their teeth, coughed, pulled their whiskers; while the most expert seemed to do it with a look.

“Said I then to myself, here’s a lesson for me,” though I do not know with what favour Dr Watts would have looked upon such a misappropriation of his ode, and I then rose to leave the room, closely followed by my broker friend, who was strongly of opinion, when we reached the staircase, that he ought to drink my health. However, I did not agree with him, being so unimaginative as to consider that my health would not be in the slightest degree improved by being drunk, while that of my companion would decidedly suffer by potations such as are supplied in our London public-houses.