In Which Mr Headstone Is Somewhat Premature In His Celebrations

Next to Christmas Day, the most pleasant annual epoch in existence is the advent of the New Year. There are a lachrymose set of people who usher in the New Year with watching and fasting, as if they were bound to attend as chief mourners at the obsequies of the old one. Mr Headstone is not one of these people, but is of the belief that it is a great deal more complimentary to see the old fellow out, and the new one in, with gaiety and glee. And so Mr Headstone is bound for a quadrille party in a grand house situated on the grand corner of a grand thoroughfare outside of which there is a grand confusion of hackney coaches and carriages. Mr Headstone arrives in a cab in a pair of boots with black cloth fronts, and brings his shoes in his coat-pocket, which shoes he is at this very moment putting on in the hall. Now he is announced by the man in the passage to another man in a blue coat, who signals to a man on the first landing to take Mr Headstone into his care.

The man on the first landing precedes the pedagogue to the drawing-room door and announces him again in a grand voice. Mr Headstone rubs his hands very hard, and smiles as if it were all capital fun, and keeps constantly bowing and turning himself round as he is introduced to the grand company. He glides into a chair at the corner of the sofa, and opens a miscellaneous conversation with the young ladies upon the weather, and the theatres, and the old year, and the last new murder, and the balloon, and the ladies' sleeves, and the festivities of the season, and a great many other topics of small talk.

At supper, Mr. Headstone shows to still greater advantage and is so droll, insisting on all the young ladies having their glasses filled, notwithstanding their repeated assurances that they never can, by any possibility, think of emptying them. After the toast has been drunk, and when the ladies have retired, Mr. Headstone requests that every gentleman will do him the favour of filling his glass, for he has a toast to propose: on which all the gentlemen cry 'Hear! hear!' and pass the decanters accordingly; and Mr. Headstone being informed by the master of the house that they are all charged, and waiting for his toast, rises, and proposes a toast to the New Year and all the good fortune that it will bring upon the present company. The toast is drunk with acclamation and the whole party rejoin the ladies in the drawing-room just as the first stroke of twelve peals from the neighbouring churches rings through the frosty air. And with each subsequent stroke the sound resolves itself into something more like a knock, and Mr Headstone is woken from his dream to find that Mr Guppy and Mr Snodgrass are at the door of his lodgings, and expect the pleasure of his company on this final night of the year at The Saracen’s Head.

Being A Good Humoured Christmas Chapter

Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused - in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened - by the recurrence of Christmas. Who can be insensible to the outpourings of good feeling, and the honest interchange of affectionate attachment, which abound at this season of the year? A Christmas family-party! We know nothing in nature more delightful! And of all the Christmas parties, what can be more delightful than the annual gathering of the Fezziwigs, and all their friends and relations? 

The floor has been swept and cleared and the fiddler is at his post with his music book, tuning his instrument like fifty stomach-aches. From the centre of the ceiling, Mr Fezziwig has just suspended, with his own hands, a huge branch of mistletoe, and this same branch instantaneously gives rise to a scene of the most delightful confusion: in the midst of which, Mr Headstone is struggling to maintain his dignity as the ladies of the party, young and old, avail themselves of the custom traditionally associated with that sprig of winter greenery. The fiddler strikes up a reel, and the revels begin with the entrance of the guests.

In comes Mr Winkle on the arm of a pretty black-eyed young lady in fur-topped boots. In comes Mr Snodgrass with his arm around the tiny waist of Miss Emily Wardle. In comes Bill Sykes, with his Nancy in a red dress. In comes Mark Tapley, who appears to be bearing up extremely well in the company of Mrs Lupin. In come Mr Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness, as mismatched a pair for dancing as you could possibly conceive. In come Mr Benjamin Allen and Mr Bob Sawyer, who make their way directly towards the bar and treat each other to a pint of Burton Ale in honour of the season. In come Mr and Mrs Crummles dressed in motley in readiness for a dramatic performance, which they have been prevailed upon to deliver for positively the very last time. In come Mr Guppy and Mr Tappertit, already half-drunk and determined to make up the difference. In comes Mr Poll Sweedlepipe together with Sairey Gamp, the lady much flushed in the face having just come in from the cold. In come Mr Toots and Diogenes, followed by the Game Chicken, whose footwork is much admired by all the ladies. In they all come, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all come, anyhow and everyhow.

There are dances and forfeits, and more dances, and there is cake, and there is smoking bishop, and there is a great piece of cold roast, and a great piece of cold boiled, and there are mince pies, and plenty of beer. The evening concludes with a glorious game of blind-man's-buff, in which Mr Headstone knocks down the fire-irons, tumbles over the chairs, bumps up against the piano, and smothers himself in the curtains but never catches anything but a footstool. When the clock strikes eleven the company breaks up, and Mr and Mrs Fezziwig take their stations, one on either side of the door, and, shaking hands with every person individually as he or she goes out, wishes him or her a Merry Christmas. Mr Headstone leaves arm in arm with Mr Bob Cratchit, whose acquaintance he has only just made this very evening, and the two weave a tipsy path through the snow, singing a Christmas carol as they go.

In Which Mr Headstone Prepares A Bowl Of Smoking Bishop

Mr Headstone’s friends and acquaintances are in agreement that of all the pedagogue’s manifold talents, it is in the concoction of alcoholic beverages that his true genius lies; and when it comes to the mixing of punch he is the Nonpareil. Hence, it is his custom at this season to prepare a large bowl of Smoking Bishop for the delight and degustation of the guests of the Fezziwigs, whose annual Christmas ball is as essential a part of the celebration of the holiday as roast goose and mistletoe. 

Accordingly, Mr Headstone has laid out before him all the necessary ingredients, viz: a dozen bitter oranges, half a pound of loaf-sugar, three bottles of claret, and a handful of cloves. He places the oranges upon the hearth to roast before the fire, and as he waits for them to brown, he uncorks a bottle of claret and takes a sip, on the principle that all good cooks should taste their wares before serving them to the public. His palate satisfied, he pours out another measure and holds the glass to the light, a method by which vintners are known to judge the qualities of colour and body. The firelight illuminates the deep rich purple hues to Mr Headstone’s satisfaction even as he tilts back the glass and puts it to his lips. With cautious fingers he turns the oranges upon the hearth and when they are burnished to a pale gold, he lays them in a tureen, pricks them with cloves as though they were pin cushions, pours in a bottle of claret and sprinkles the whole with loaf-sugar. He places a cover on the tureen, stands it close to the dying embers of the fire, and retires to bed.

On the morrow when he removes the cover, a rich aroma springs out from the bowl like a genie from its lamp. Mr Headstone busies himself with pressing the juice from the fruit with a spoon, which he accomplishes with no small degree of difficulty and at no small risk of ocular injury to himself. Armed with several culinary implements – to wit, a sieve, a saucepan and a trivet – the pedagogue completes the operation with no greater mishaps than a burnt thumb and a slight scalding of his left foot. At last the work is done and Mr Headstone ladles a generous portion of the steaming punch into a cup, and drinks to his own continued health.

Relating The Outcome Of The Contest Between The Game Chicken And The Larkey Boy

In anticipation of a visit from Mr Toots and the Game Chicken, Mr Headstone ordered in a dozen crumpets, threw an extra lump of coal upon the fire, and instructed his landlady to admit his visitors without delay lest the glory that they trailed behind them should become dissipated in the gloom. It was, indeed, cold, bleak, biting weather, foggy withal, and the pedagogue could hear the people in the street below go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already – it had not been light all day – and candles were flaring in the windows, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air.

Mrs Raddle was herself setting a lighted candle in the scullery window when, piercing the murky atmosphere on the other side of the glass, there appeared an apparition in white with a physiognomy so grotesque that it would have induced a lady of a delicate constitution to faint away upon the spot. As Mrs Raddle had never once in her life required the reviving properties of hartshorn, she acknowledged the presence of the stranger with equanimity and, putting her own head out of the window in the manner of a gargoyle atop a church tower, enquired whether he had come to see Mr Bradley Headstone. The answer being in the affirmative, the individual – whose shaggy great-coat and flat-brimmed hat now identified him as the Game Chicken – was admitted into the parlour, closely followed by Mr Toots and Diogenes.

Mr Headstone’s gratification on receiving his visitors was tempered by the appearance of the Chicken, which did not entirely meet with his expectations of the profile of a victor in the fine and noble art. The Chicken’s visage was, indeed, in a state of such great dilapidation, as to be hardly presentable in society with comfort to the beholders. The Chicken himself attributed this punishment to his having had the misfortune to get into Chancery early in the proceedings, when he was severely fibbed by the Larkey one, and heavily grassed.

Mr Headstone, who was unfamiliar with the lexicon of pugilism, appealed to Mr Toots for a gloss upon the Chicken’s description, whereupon that gentleman produced from his waistcoat pocket a gazette, which contained a full and faithful account of the fight. It appeared from the published record of that great contest that the Larkey Boy had had it all his own way from the beginning, and that the Chicken had been ‘tapped’, and ‘bunged’, and had ‘received pepper’, and had been made groggy, and had ‘come up piping’, and had endured a complication of similar strange inconveniences, until he had been gone into and finished.

It was the opinion of Mr Toots that the Game Chicken’s defeat at the hands of the Larkey Boy was of no consequence, and that his upcoming bout with the Westminster Costermonger would be sure to garland him with glory; which sentiment received the approbation of Mr Headstone as he handed round the hot-buttered crumpets.

In Which Mr Headstone Makes A Wise Investment

As they made their way to Chancery Lane, Mr Toots regaled Mr Headstone with a description of how the Game Chicken had but recently covered himself and his country in glory in a contest with the Nobby Shropshire One, and, for the pedagogue’s further edification, the Chicken obligingly re-enacted some of the more dramatic passages from that same contest by engaging in a mock bout or two with several startled passers-by. Mr Headstone’s appetite for the sporting spectacle was whetted by this display of the fine and noble art, and his interest was further piqued by Mr Toots’s prediction that his man would come out strong and go in to win, and that any money put down in support of said prognostication would return a dividend with interest more certain than any venture made upon ‘Change.

The reader might imagine, therefore, the disappointment that the pedagogue felt when, arriving at the Hole in the Wall, he learnt that the fight was to take place at Newbury; which, being a distance out of the city, made it an impossibility for him to attend in person. In anticipation of another famous victory by the Chicken, Mr Headstone made a wager with Mr Randall, the landlord of the pub, on the outcome; and Mr Randall, being a practitioner of the fine and noble art himself, obliged him by accepting it. There being a caravan starting from Tom Belcher’s at two, which would go right out and back again the next day, Mr Toots and the Chicken settled on this method for going down, and so parted company with Mr Headstone, promising to call upon the gentleman on the morrow with his share of the winnings.

In Which Mr Headstone Makes The Acquaintance Of The Game Chicken

The individual whom Mr Headstone had unceremoniously tumbled into the street had the appearance of a person of good breeding, his suit of clothes being one of the greatest marvels of sartorial elegance that the firm of Burgess & Co. had ever turned out. Getting to his feet and brushing down his trousers, the young gentleman assured the pedagogue that his condition was of no consequence; that the dirt could be washed out and the rents at the knees could be mended; and if they could not, it was still of no consequence as Burgess could always run up another pair; and, if that gentleman happened to be otherwise professionally engaged, then Co. would be sure to perform the service with equal despatch. Mr Headstone felt obliged to the gentleman for such good grace in the face of misfortune and would have shaken him by the hand as a token of his appreciation had he not been required by immediate circumstance to direct his attention to two other occurrences which had a direct bearing upon his own well-being. The first was the application of a set of canine teeth to the rear of his pantaloons, and the subsequent operation of those same teeth upon that sensitive part of his anatomy. The second was the approach of an interesting character in a shaggy white great-coat and flat-brimmed hat, who proceeded to knock him about the head in that vigorous manner which is the hallmark of a professional pugilist.

Exposed on both flanks, Mr Headstone was - like many a famous general in military history - on the point of capitulation when aid came from an unexpected quarter in the form of the young gentleman, who instructed both man and beast to desist in their hostilities, which orders they at once obeyed. The fray being over, the young gentleman handed the pedagogue a card – of which he had a plentiful supply – bearing the name of Toots. Mr Headstone returned the compliment and the two men shook hands warmly. Mr Toots intimated that the character in the great-coat, who was always to be heard of at the bar of the Black Badger, answered to his professional moniker of the Game Chicken. Thus introduced, the Chicken dropped his hat, made a dodge and a feint with his left hand, hit a supposed enemy a violent blow with his right, shook his head smartly, and recovered himself. The dog, whose bark indicated that he too desired an introduction, was called Diogenes, on account of his having been raised from a puppy in Doctor Blimber’s Academy and having received - like Mr Toots, who was also an alumnus of that institution - a classical education.

The Chicken was a stoical gentleman, with very short hair, a broken nose, and a considerable tract of bare and sterile country behind each ear. Mr Toots employed him as his chief instructor in the cultivation of those gentle arts which refine and humanise existence; and the Game Chicken had introduced to him a marker who taught billiards, a Life Guard who taught fencing, a jobmaster who taught riding, a Cornish gentleman who was up to anything in the athletic line, and two or three other friends connected no less intimately with the fine arts. In Mr Toots’s Pantheon, however, the Game Chicken was quite the Apollo, and he now demonstrated his prowess in the field by dancing round the pedagogue and jabbing at the air with a swift double motion of his gnarly fists.

Mr Toots was at that moment on his way to see the Chicken defeat the Larkey Boy in a contest of ten rounds, and announced that he would be honoured if, as a mark of their new-found friendship, Mr Headstone would accompany him to witness the Chicken’s triumph, which was already being spoken of as if it were a recorded fact. The pedagogue willingly accepted the invitation and the two new acquaintances set out for Jack Randall’s in Chancery Lane, with the Chicken dancing and sparring around them and Diogenes taking up the rear, which latter fact caused Mr Headstone no small amount of trepidation in respect of his pantaloons.

In Which Mr Headstone Demonstrates Athletic Prowess

Although Mr Headstone’s application for admittance made little impression upon the premises to which it was addressed, it was loud enough to attract the attention of the porter in the mulberry-coloured coat, whose stewardship of the street included amongst its manifold duties that of the keeping of the peace. It being the opinion of this officer that the pedagogue’s actions were clearly in breach of the law in this regard, the worthy guardian advanced upon the source of the disturbance, thrusting his staff of office before him, very like a knight from days of yore brandishing a lance. Observing the actions of the porter and perceiving that the pointed end of the instrument was aimed directly at his corporeal self, Mr Headstone judged it an opportune moment to retreat to a place of greater safety.

In a demonstration of the phenomenon of locomotive momentum, the porter in the mulberry-coloured coat gathered speed in his approach at an alarming rate, one that was not quite in keeping with the dignity of his office. As he pursued the harried pedagogue along Doughty Street, passers-by turned their heads to mark his progress and wonder at the circumstance that must have prompted this display of human velocity.

Mr Headstone, whose legs were as long as the porter’s were short, soon gained the advantage of distance over the ruby-faced officer, and he reached the end of the street with the confidence of an athlete who has successfully outpaced his opponent. His sense of victory was, however, fleeting for as he turned the corner he collided with an individual who was at that same moment attempting to restrain a large dog by the scruff of its neck, which endeavour the latter personage was obliged to relinquish by being tumbled into the gutter in a most unceremonious manner.