An idea had suddenly seized me; and I must
say, that up to this time, it was the most brilliant
one that ever entered my mind. My ignorance of
Mr. I. D. Dawkins's affairs was still highly inconvenient
and oppressive, and I was determined, with
my friend's assistance, to remove it.

“Tickle,” said I, “I really believe the doctor
has only half resuscitated me; my body is pretty
well, but my mind is only so-so. Would you believe
it, my memory is quite gone?”

“As to your debts, certainly,” said Jack; “so is
mine.”

“Ged,” said I, “'tis gone altogether. Really, it
seems to me as if I had only begun existence this
morning; my recollection of all events (and even
persons known) anterior to my sop in the river, is
so imperfect, you can't conceive. Would you believe
it, I really didn't know that rogue Sniggles,
and had to ask him his name! The ladies, too,
Jack—Miss Smith, Miss Small, and the rest that
you were talking about—who the deuse are they?

[figure description] Page 158.[end figure description]

I have heard much talk of my uncle, too. Have I
an uncle? and if so, who and what is he? for I
swear, 'pon honour, Jack, I know no more than the
man in the moon. In a word, Jack, demmee, I am
in my second childhood, and you must help me out
of it. Give me, therefore, my history, my whole
history, and tell me all about me; for may I be
dunned to death if I rightly know who I am!”

“You don't?” said Jack; “well, that's funny;
but I have heard of such things before. Is a dip
in cold water, then, so hard on the memory? I
say, Dawky, my fellow, couldn't we contrive some
way to dip our creditors? But, eged now, Dawky,
you a'n't serious?”

“I am,” said I; “and I beg you'll give me an
idea who I am, and all other things appertaining.”

“Oh!” said Tickle, who seemed vastly diverted
by my embarrassment, “that is soon done. You
are a dandy of pure blood, and poor as a church
mouse, but not yet out of favour. Your father, who
was a dandy before you, and in prime esteem,
having bought his way into notice with two or
three cargoes of indigo and young hyson (for he
was an India merchant), properly laid out in elegant
entertainments, gave up trade to live a gentleman,
and died one; leaving you, an elegant fellow
and ignoramus, as a gentleman's son should be, to
spend his leavings. This you have done, Dawky,
and most gloriously. For five years, none of us,
the sons of nabobocracy, could compare with you
in dash, flash, and splash. But even Phaeton fell!

[figure description] Page 159.[end figure description]

Horses galloped away, buggies and curricles rolled
into the gutter, and tailors looked alarmed—stocks
flew out at the window, bricks and mortar took to
themselves wings, and your stockings began to
want darning. Then said Dawkins, `I will marry
a wife,' and he looked loving at Periwinkle's fair
daughter; and Periwinkle's fair daughter looked
loving at Dawkins; and Dawkins calling counsel
of his friend, John Tickle, of Ticklesbury Manor,
beheld and lo! Periwinkle's fair daughter's father's
fine estate was fenced round with rows of
mortgages, as thick and thorny as prickly-pears.
Whereupon the inconstant swain, forgetting his
vows, ran to the elegant Miss Small, who smiled
on him, and married another; and the loss of this
adorable fair, fortune and all, together with an
uncommon fit of dunning, so affected my friend's
spirits, that he threw himself into the Schuylkill,
whence he was fished by a fellow called What-d'-ye-call-it,
a brewer.”

“Well,” said I; “but do you mean to say I
have squandered all my property?”

“Every sous,” said my friend; “it is just six
weeks since you spent the last dollar of the last
term of your annuity.”

“What annuity?” said I.

“Why, the five years' annuity you bought of
old Goldfist. Is it possible you don't recollect
him? Don't you remember the row of negro-houses
you owned down in Southwark?”

“I don't,” said I.

[figure description] Page 160.[end figure description]

“A piece of arrant cheating! sheer swindling!”
said Tickle; “but when did old Skinner ever
make an honest bargain? The houses and lot of
ground worth two thousand, as they stood; but
title good and indefeisible, and capable of being
made worth twenty thousand: I remember you
offered 'em to old Goldfist for seven. What said
the old hunks? `Give me immediate possession,
and thereupon you shall have a bonus of a thousand
on the nail, together with the same sum
yearly for five years, provided you live so long—
if not, then as long as you live.' Snapped like a
gudgeon, and was bit; and on the fifth year—beginning
of August last, had the last integer of payment,
with comfort of seeing a property you had
sold for six thousand, yielding its possessor just
that much a year.”

“The geds!” said I; “has old Goldfist six
thousand a year?”

“Say sixty,” replied Jack.

“Tickle,” said I, “the old curmudgeon has a
daughter: I'll marry her.”

“No you won't,” said my friend, shaking his
head mournfully: “old Goldfist is too well acquainted
with your affairs; and unless you have
his consent, what will you get by her?”

“Tickle,” said I, “I must marry somebody, or
be ruined. But stay, there's my uncle; now, my
dear fellow, who is he?”

“Faith,” said Tickle, “I don't know; always
supposed he belonged to the Apocrypha, and was

[figure description] Page 161.[end figure description]

used to argue duns into good manners: nobody
sues a young fellow that has good expectations
from a rich uncle. But, now I think of it, I believe
you did once tell me you had an uncle—
some vagabond trading fellow or other—in the
west; but I never heard you say you expected any
thing of him. I thought you called him Wiggins;
but Sniggles says Wilkins. All's one, however;
for I remember you said he had brats of his
own.”

I began to feel uncomfortable; and, upon questioning
my friend further, I discovered that my situation
was far from being agreeable. I had a horrible
quantity of debts on my shoulders, and no fund
to discharge them; and, what was worse, I found
that my means of subsistence were not only precarious,
but I had good reason to fear they were
any thing but reputable. My dear friend John
Tickle, though a gentleman and dandy, it was
plain, was a personage who lived by his wits; and
I began to see that Mr. I. D. Dawkins was another.
From Tickle's expressions, I perceived that our
chief dependance lay in the noble trade of pigeon-hunting.
As this is a word some of my readers
may be too unsophisticated to understand, I will
explain it, and in very few words. As there are
in the world young fellows of plebeian origin but
full pockets, who are ambitious to figure in elegant
society, so there are also in elegant society sundry
youths of better fame than fortune, who are willing
to patronise them, provided any thing can be made

[figure description] Page 162.[end figure description]

by their condescension; in which case, the happy
Phaeton is taught to spend his money in ways
most advantageous to his patrons, though by no
means to his own profit. Such a young gentleman
is then called a pigeon, and is allowed to flutter in
the sunbeams, while his eagle-clawed friends are
helping themselves to his feathers; the last of
which being abstracted, he is commonly called a
fine fellow, and kicked out of their company. I
cannot pretend to say what degree of relish my
prototype, the true I. D. Dawkins, may have had
for such a mode of existence; but I must aver in
my own defence, that I had, throughout the whole
adventure, while in his body, so much of Sheppard
Lee's original sense of honour and honesty hanging
about me, that I was more than once shocked
at the meanness and depravity of such a course of
life; and when I first understood the thing from
Tickle, I was so ashamed of myself, that had I
lighted upon the body of any decent man at the
moment, I do verily believe I should have done
my best to get into it, and so put an end to Mr. I.
D. Dawkins altogether. But men's bodies are not
like the dry-goods dealers' boxes in Market-street,
to be stumbled into at any moment.

It was some comfort to me to find that our practice
in this particular was so little known, that both
Tickle and myself—but myself more especially—
were considered in the main very excellent, exemplary
young men, as far as dandies could be,
and were still allowed to mingle in elegant

[figure description] Page 163.[end figure description]

society. As for Tickle, indeed, I soon discovered he
was in but doubtful odour with the ladies, at least
with their mammas; for he had been for some years
living on his wits: but I, on the contrary, being
pretty universally regarded as the heir-expectant of
a rich uncle, and being besides a prettier fellow,
was received with general favour and approbation.

Having obtained from Tickle as much of my (or
Mr. I. D. Dawkins's) history as was necessary, I
gave my worthy friend to understand I should need
his advice and assistance in returning into society;
“for,” said I, and very truly too, “I really
sha'n't know anybody, and shall feel very awkward.
Here,” I added, “are two invitations for
this very evening—one from Mrs. Pickup, and the
other from the Misses Oldstyle. Now who is Mrs.
Pickup? and who are the Oldstyles? and where
the mischief do they live?”

“It is very odd you should forget so much,”
said Tickle; and then proceeded to give me the information
I wanted, promising also to go with me to
both places himself, and prompt me through all
difficulties.

p016-173

Previous section

Next section