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Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody, essay(s) by Andrew Lang |
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LETTER: From Montague Tigg, Esq., to Mr. David Crimp |
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_ LETTER: From Montague Tigg, Esq., to Mr. David Crimp The following letter needs no explanation for any who have studied the fortunes and admired the style of that celebrated and sanguine financier, Mr. Montague Tigg, in "Martin Chuzzlewit." His chance meeting with the romantic Comte de Monte Cristo naturally suggested to him the plans and hopes which he unfolds to an unsympathetic capitalist. 1542 Park Lane, May 27, 1848. My Premium Pomegranate,--Oracles are not in it, David, with you, my pippin, as auspicious counsellors of ingenious indigence. The remark which you uttered lately, when refusing to make the trumpery advance of half-a-crown on a garment which had been near to the illustrious person of my friend Chevy Slime, that remark was inspired. "Go to Holborn!" you said, and the longest-bearded of early prophets never uttered aught more pregnant with Destiny. I went to Holborn, to the humble establishment of the tuneful tonsor, Sweedle-pipe. All things come, the poet says, to him who knows how to wait--especially, I may add, to him who knows how to wait behind thin partitions with a chink in them. Ensconced in such an ambush- -in fact, in the back shop--I bided my time, intending to solicit pecuniary accommodation from the barber, and studying human nature as developed in his customers. There are odd customers in Kingsgate Street, Holborn--foreign gents and refugees. Such a cove my eagle eye detected in a man who entered the shop wearing a long black beard streaked with the snows of age, and who requested Poll to shave him clean. He was a sailor-man to look at; but his profile, David, might have been carved by a Grecian chisel out of an iceberg, and that steel grey eye of his might have struck a chill, even through a chink, into any heart less stout than beats behind the vest of Montague Tigg. The task of rasping so hirsute a customer seemed to sit heavy on the soul of Poll, and threatened to exhaust the resources of his limited establishment. The barber went forth to command, as I presume, a fresher strop, or more keenly tempered steel, and glittering cans of water heated to a fiercer heat. No sooner was the coast clear than the street-door opened, and my stranger was joined by a mantled form, that glided into Poll's emporium. The new-comer doffed a swart sombrero, and disclosed historic features that were not unknown to the concealed observer--meaning me. Yes, David, that aquiline beak, that long and waxed moustache, that impassible mask of a face, I had seen them, Sir, conspicuous (though their owner be of alien and even hostile birth) among England's special chivalry. The foremost he had charged on the Ides of April (I mean against the ungentlemanly Chartist throng) and in the storied lists of Eglinton. The new-comer, in short, was the nephew of him who ate his heart out in an English gaol (like our illustrious Chiv)--in fact, he was Prince Louis N- B-. Gliding to the seat where, half-lathered, the more or less ancient Mariner awaited Poll's return, the Prince muttered (in the French lingo, familiar to me from long exile in Boulogne): "Hist, goes all well?" "Magnificently, Sire!" says the other chap. "Our passages taken?" "Ay, and private cabins paid for to boot, in case of the storm's inclemency." The Prince nodded and seemed pleased; then he asked anxiously, "The Bird? You have been to Jamrach's?" "Pardon me, Sire," says the man who was waiting to be shaved, "I can slip from your jesses no mercenary eagle. These limbs have yet the pith to climb and this heart the daring to venture to the airiest crag of Monte d'Oro, and I have ravished from his eyrie a true Corsican eagle to be the omen of our expedition. Wherever this eagle is your uncle's legions will gather together."__ "'Tis well; and the gold?" "TRUST MONTE CRISTO!" says the bearded man; and then, David, begad! I knew I had them! "We meet?" "At Folkestone pier, 7.45, tidal train." "I shall be there without fail," says the Prince, and sneaks out of the street-door just as Poll comes in with the extra soap and strop. Well, David, to make it as short as I can, the man of the icy glance was clean-shaved at last, and the mother who bore him would not have known him as he looked in the glass when it was done. He chucked Poll a diamond worth about a million piastres, and, remarking that he would not trouble him for the change, he walked out. By this characteristic swagger, of course, he more than confirmed my belief that he was, indeed, the celebrated foreigner the Count of Monte Cristo; whose name and history even YOU must be acquainted with, though you may not be what I have heard my friend Chevy Slime call himself, "the most literary man alive." A desperate follower of the star of Austerlitz from his youth, a martyr to the cause in the Chateau d'If, Monte Cristo has not deserted it now that he has come into his own--or anybody else's. Of course I was after him like a shot. He walked down Kingsgate Street and took a four-wheeler that was loitering at the corner. I followed on foot, escaping the notice of the police from the fact, made only too natural by Fortune's cursed spite, that under the toga-like simplicity of Montague Tigg's costume these minions merely guessed at a cab-tout. Well, David, he led me a long chase. He got out of the four- wheeler (it was dark now) at the Travellers', throwing the cabman a purse--of sequins, no doubt. At the door of the Travellers' he entered a brougham; and, driving to the French Embassy in Albert Gate, he alighted, IN DIFFERENT TOGS, quite the swell, and LET HIMSELF IN WITH HIS OWN LATCH-KEY. In fact, Sir, this conspirator of barbers' shops, this prisoner of the Chateau d'If, this climber of Corsican eyries, is to-day the French Minister accredited to the Court of St. James's! And now perhaps, David, you begin to see how the land lies, the Promised Land, the land where there is corn and milk and honey-dew. I hold those eminent and highly romantic parties in the hollow of my hand. A letter from me to M. Lecoq, of the Rue Jerusalem, and their little game is up, their eagle moults, the history of Europe is altered. But what good would all that do Montague Tigg? Will it so much as put that delightful coin, a golden sovereign, in the pocket of his nether garments? No, Tigg is no informer; a man who has charged at the head of his regiment on the coast of Africa is no vulgar spy. There is more to be got by making the Count pay through the nose, as we say; chanter, as the French say; "sing a song of sixpence"--to a golden tune. But, as Fortune now uses me, I cannot personally approach his Excellency. Powdered menials would urge me from his portals. An advance, a small advance--say 30l.--is needed for preliminary expenses: for the charges of the clothier, the bootmaker, the hosier, the barber. Give me 30l. for the restoration of Tigg to the semblance of the Montagues, and with that sum I conquer millions. The diamonds of Monte Cristo, the ingots, the rubies, the golden crowns with the image and superscription of Pope Alexander VI.--all are mine: I mean are ours. More, David; more, my premium tulip: we shall make the Count a richer man than ever he has been. We shall promote new companies, we shall put him on the board of directors. I see the prospectuses from afar. UNIVERSAL INTERNATIONAL TREASURE RECOVERY COMPANY. Chairman. His Excellency the COMTE DE MONTE CRISTO. K.G., K.C.B., Knight of the Black Eagle. Directors. CHEVY SLIME, Esq., Berkeley Square.
"Disinterested Association for Securing the Rights of Foundlings," again with Monte Cristo in the chair. David, you have saved a few pounds; in the confidence of unofficial moments you have confessed as much (though not exactly HOW much) to me. Will you neglect one of those opportunities which only genius can discover, but which the humble capitalist can help to fructify? With thirty, nay, with twenty pounds, I can master this millionaire and tame this Earthly Providence. Behind us lies penury and squalor, before us glitters jewelled opulence. You will be at 1542 Park Lane to-morrow WITH THE DIBS?--Yours expectantly, MONTAGUE TIGG.
D. CRIMP. _ |
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