The Passionate Elopement 26 – Mackenzie · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
The Passionate Elopement 26The Curtain Rod
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Literature · Romance
The Passionate Elopement 26
The Curtain Rod
MackenzieEnglish
The satirist stood in his publisher's back parlour, and, through the dusty glass of the partition, observed the Exquisite Mob purchase their castigation.
"'Tis strange," he pondered, "that mankind should be willing to pay four-and-sixpence to be laughed at. Yet it is!"
Mr. Lovely was awaiting a draught for one hundred guineas, and Mr. Paul Virgin, glad of anything that would delay for a while such an unwelcome disbursement, continued to bow and smirk over the counter as the neat little piles of new volumes speedily diminished. At last the hour for the midday meal arrived with a temporary lull in the storm of purchasers. Mr. Virgin turned with a sigh into his little back parlour and, wading carefully through the heaps of uncatalogued tomes, set out with a wry face to unlock his walnut writing-cabinet.
"We were hurried too much, Mr. Lovely, sir. We han't had leisure to bind the book as it should be bound. Ye would hurry us so, Mr. Lovely."
"You wouldn't pay me till the book was published, and I want the money, so d----n all grumbling and be grateful that you'll make a small fortune."
"A small fortune! What a jester you are, Mr. Lovely. I declare you put me in mind of the old plays, such jests!"
Mr. Paul Virgin seated before his cabinet, was writing the draught with tardy fingers.
"There ye are, Mr. Lovely, and never say I don't treat ye with consideration, with generosity, sir, for I dare swear I shall lose fifty pounds sterling by this adventure."
"Be d----d, you peevish rogue. Why all the world of fashion has thronged your shop since nine o'clock this morning."
"Yes, but it takes a deal to make a hundred guineas. Now let me make it pounds, Mr. Lovely, sir. Do let me make it pounds."
The latter snatched the draught from the old young bookseller and, having read it through with much deliberation, transferred it to the seclusion of his innermost pocket.
After this transaction, which was effected with a singular grace, I am sorry to add that he put his tapered finger to his tapered nose and winked several times at the disconsolate Mr. Virgin.
"The books are so ill-bound, look at this one, Mr. Lovely, your honour. The leaves are falling apart already, just because you would hurry us so terribly."
Mr. Lovely stooped and picked up some loose pages.
"Ay, 'tis autumn already with this copy," he said, glancing casually at the page he held in his hand. "Why who wrote this?"
"You did, Mr. Lovely, you did."
"I wrote this--this d----d vile verse, this--" and Charles read aloud the lines that so dismayed our heroine. "I wrote this damnable doggerel? By G----, Mr. Virgin, I never wrote this."
"Why, who else could have written it?"
"That's what I want to know. Come back, you hound," shouted the irate author, grabbing his publisher by the tails of his coat, just as he was edging his way back to the shop. "Come back," he said, jerking him over Mr. Bayle's Dictionary. "You moth-eaten vagabond, you impostor, you thief." Charles began to belabour Mr. Virgin with a folio copy of the Anatomy of Melancholy. Round and round the little back parlour he thumped the publisher; the dust rose from innumerable ancient tomes. Surely never were books so rudely disturbed since the niece and the Padre flung the library of the illustrious Don Quixote de la Mancha out of the window, and burned a hundred volumes of chivalry.
"How came these d----d lines into my book, eh, sir, answer me that, sir," and having dissected the Anatomy of Melancholy, Charles picked up Sir Roger L'Estrange's translation of AEsop to continue the assault.
"I don't understand, Mr. Lovely, sir. Pray desist, Mr. Lovely, your honour, sir. The printer must have printed them."
"'Sdeath and fury! you rascal, I know that. Who wrote them, who wrote them?"
In order to supply the correct twirl to this note of interrogation, Charles flung the little bookseller to the farthest corner of his little back parlour, at the same time arming himself with half a dozen fresh volumes.
Mr. Virgin cowered in the dust and cobwebs.
"Who wrote them?" Charles demanded.
"I don't----"
"What!" and the--th volume of the Gentleman's Magazine, newly arrived from the binder, winged its way in the direction of the quivering bookseller. This he ducked to avoid, but even as he ducked, the five volumes of Mr. Ozell's revision of Urquhart and Motteux' Rabelais burst over him like an exploded hand grenade.
"Who wrote them?"
"Truly I don't----"
This time Mr. Prior's Poems on Several Occasions carried his wig into obscurity, and the owner clapped a hand to his head just in time to receive the bevelled morocco edges of the Beggar's Opera full on the fingers.
"Mr. Lovely, sir, you are too violent."
"Violent, you dog? By G---- if you don't give the name of the son of a w---- that wrote these damnable lines, I'll flay you alive and bind my next edition of poems with your lousy skin." The foxy-faced old young man commenced to wring his hands.
"Mr. Lovely," he almost screamed. "Mr. Lovely, you're mad--go out of my shop."
"Who wrote those lines? Answer, or I'll break up your shop--ay! break it up with your own sign-board. At the Sign of the Woman--at the Sign of the Strumpet! Answer me, you lickspittle vermin, answer me."
Charles had now seized his wretched publisher by the neck-band, and shook him so roughly that the latter, fearing for his teeth, the most extravagant purchase in his mean little life, began to whine.
"A gentleman--a gentleman----"
"Well, you misbegotten toad, I never supposed 'twas a midwife."
"No, certainly not, Mr. Lovely, a gentleman--a gentleman."
"His name, dog."
"I don't know."
"Yes, you do, answer will you."
"He told me 'twas Amor."
"I knew it, I knew it, you sneaking son of a b----, and he gave you twenty guineas to print the verses."
"No, not twenty, only ten, Mr. Lovely, on my soul."
"On your soul! H---- l take your soul! Why you were spawned in a ditch, you viper. So you let my honour go for ten guineas. Give them to me."
"Oh! Mr. Lovely."
"Give them to me."
The miserable little old young man produced the money, unluckily for himself, in paper.
"Now since you love money so dearly, by heaven, you shall eat money." And Mr. Lovely, making a bolus of the bribe, crammed it down the reluctant bookseller's throat with his own ruler. Then our hero walked out of the shop.
I hope you will not deny this scene was in the true vein of heroism. Aye! aye! 'tis full of bombast as you very properly observe, ma'am or sir; but that is the part of a hero. He must follow the Prince of Denmark's directions to the players. Aye! aye! and 'tis full of wind, but so was the great Montgolfier balloon, and surely every aeronaut is a hero, even in his descents at the tail-end of a parachute.
So pray judge Mr. Lovely, not as a man, but as a hero, for I think you'll do me the justice to admit I never tried to conceal his position.
But he owes the villain a considerable sum of money. Of course he does, and this awkward fact is perplexing him very much indeed as he strides down Curtain High Street. To tell the truth, when he emerged from Mr. Virgin's shop, he found that when the Fates dipped him into Styx, they made the same mistake as Madame Thetis, with this difference, that, whereas Achilles was left with a vulnerable heel, our hero preserved a vulnerable conscience.
It would have been mighty heroick to march into the Blue Boar, run Mr. Vernon through the lungs, wed the injured heroine and tread after death the golden fields of Elysium; but his silly conscience would not allow him to kill a man to whom he was under a monetary obligation.
So he borrowed four hundred guineas from Mr. Antony Clare, who could ill afford the loan, and putting this sum with what he had earned from lashing the Curtain Polls in an extra thick paper envelope, he sealed it with his own heroick seal. This fulfilment of earthly debts he sent up to Mr. Francis Vernon by the hand of Mr. Daish himself, and set to work to make his conscience less vulnerable by many consecutive pints of heroick Burgundy.
You thought that he was going to turn out poor humanity after bullying Mr. Virgin so heroically? Egad, ma'am or sir, you thought wrong. You doubt anybody can be a Burgundian hero? So he can; there has been more than one Charles the Bold of Burgundy.
The very word is as fire to the most pusillanimous: the very thought of its crimson depths should set us all tilting.
'Bring me a quart bottle of Burgundy.' The phrase is like a trumpet-call outside the keep of Paradise.
'Bring me another quart of Burgundy.' Down goes the portcullis before the hero's charge.
Port may turn a man into a hero--in his dreams; yet I doubt they are too heavy. As for Sherry, it will serve to sharpen the wits of a dried-up attorney, but is poor stuff to weave into heroes. On Champagne, a man will talk like the crew of the Argo, but there's the end of the whole business.
Charles drank Burgundy and I promise you some fine heroicks presently.
