Somebodys Luggage | Page 9

in every part and parcel of his luggage.
There was writing in his dressing-case, writing in his boots, writing
among his shaving-tackle, writing in his hat-box, writing folded away
down among the very whalebones of his umbrella.
His clothes wasn't bad, what there was of 'em. His dressing-case was
poor,--not a particle of silver stopper,--bottle apertures with nothing in
'em, like empty little dog-kennels,--and a most searching description of
tooth-powder diffusing itself around, as under a deluded mistake that
all the chinks in the fittings was divisions in teeth. His clothes I parted
with, well enough, to a second-hand dealer not far from St. Clement's
Danes, in the Strand,--him as the officers in the Army mostly dispose
of their uniforms to, when hard pressed with debts of honour, if I may

judge from their coats and epaulets diversifying the window with their
backs towards the public. The same party bought in one lot the
portmanteau, the bag, the desk, the dressing-case, the hat-box, the
umbrella, strap, and walking-stick. On my remarking that I should have
thought those articles not quite in his line, he said: "No more ith a
man'th grandmother, Mithter Chrithtopher; but if any man will bring
hith grandmother here, and offer her at a fair trifle below what the'll
feth with good luck when the'th thcoured and turned--I'll buy her!"
These transactions brought me home, and, indeed, more than home, for
they left a goodish profit on the original investment. And now there
remained the writings; and the writings I particular wish to bring under
the candid attention of the reader.
I wish to do so without postponement, for this reason. That is to say,
namely, viz. i.e., as follows, thus:- Before I proceed to recount the
mental sufferings of which I became the prey in consequence of the
writings, and before following up that harrowing tale with a statement
of the wonderful and impressive catastrophe, as thrilling in its nature as
unlooked for in any other capacity, which crowned the ole and filled
the cup of unexpectedness to overflowing, the writings themselves
ought to stand forth to view. Therefore it is that they now come next.
One word to introduce them, and I lay down my pen (I hope, my
unassuming pen) until I take it up to trace the gloomy sequel of a mind
with something on it.
He was a smeary writer, and wrote a dreadful bad hand. Utterly
regardless of ink, he lavished it on every undeserving object--on his
clothes, his desk, his hat, the handle of his tooth-brush, his umbrella.
Ink was found freely on the coffee-room carpet by No. 4 table, and two
blots was on his restless couch. A reference to the document I have
given entire will show that on the morning of the third of February,
eighteen fifty-six, he procured his no less than fifth pen and paper. To
whatever deplorable act of ungovernable composition he immolated
those materials obtained from the bar, there is no doubt that the fatal
deed was committed in bed, and that it left its evidences but too plainly,
long afterwards, upon the pillow-case.
He had put no Heading to any of his writings. Alas! Was he likely to
have a Heading without a Head, and where was HIS Head when he
took such things into it? In some cases, such as his Boots, he would

appear to have hid the writings; thereby involving his style in greater
obscurity. But his Boots was at least pairs,--and no two of his writings
can put in any claim to be so regarded. Here follows (not to give more
specimens) what was found in



CHAPTER II
--HIS BOOTS

"Eh! well then, Monsieur Mutuel! What do I know, what can I say? I
assure you that he calls himself Monsieur The Englishman."
"Pardon. But I think it is impossible," said Monsieur Mutuel,--a
spectacled, snuffy, stooping old gentleman in carpet shoes and a cloth
cap with a peaked shade, a loose blue frock-coat reaching to his heels, a
large limp white shirt-frill, and cravat to correspond,--that is to say,
white was the natural colour of his linen on Sundays, but it toned down
with the week.
"It is," repeated Monsieur Mutuel, his amiable old walnut-shell
countenance very walnut-shelly indeed as he smiled and blinked in the
bright morning sunlight,--"it is, my cherished Madame Bouclet, I think,
impossible!"
"Hey!" (with a little vexed cry and a great many tosses of her head.)
"But it is not impossible that you are a Pig!" retorted Madame Bouclet,
a compact little woman of thirty-five or so. "See then,--look
there,--read! 'On the second floor Monsieur L'Anglais.' Is it not so?"
"It is so," said Monsieur Mutuel.
"Good. Continue your morning walk. Get out!" Madame Bouclet
dismissed him with a lively snap