have all my little savings when my work is done (being all the world to me) and we must try to make him a wise man and a good man, mustn't we Major?'
'Madam' says the Major rising 'Jemmy Jackman is becoming an older file than I was aware of, and you put him to shame. You are thoroughly right Madam. You are simply and undeniably right.—And if you'll excuse me, I'll take a walk.'
So the Major being gone out and Jemmy being at home, I got the child into my little room here and I stood him by my chair and I took his mother's own curls in my hand and I spoke to him loving and serious. And when I had reminded the darling how that he was now in his tenth year and when I had said to him about his getting on in life pretty much what I had said to the Major I broke to him how that we must have this same parting, and there I was forced to stop for there I saw of a sudden the well-remembered lip with its tremble, and it so brought back that time! But with the spirit that was in him he controlled it soon and he says gravely nodding through his tears, 'I understand Gran—I know it MUST be, Gran—go on Gran, don't be afraid of ME.' And when I had said all that ever I could think of, he turned his bright steady face to mine and he says just a little broken here and there 'You shall see Gran that I can be a man and that I can do anything that is grateful and loving to you—and if I don't grow up to be what you would like to have me—I hope it will be—because I shall die.' And with that he sat down by me and I went on to tell him of the school of which I had excellent recommendations and where it was and how many scholars and what games they played as I had heard and what length of holidays, to all of which he listened bright and clear. And so it came that at last he says 'And now dear Gran let me kneel down here where I have been used to say my prayers and let me fold my face for just a minute in your gown and let me cry, for you have been more than father—more than mother—more than brothers sisters friends—to me!' And so he did cry and I too and we were both much the better for it.
From that time forth he was true to his word and ever blithe and ready, and even when me and the Major took him down into Lincolnshire he was far the gayest of the party though for sure and certain he might easily have been that, but he really was and put life into us only when it came to the last Good-bye, he says with a wistful look, 'You wouldn't have me not really sorry would you Gran?' and when I says 'No dear, Lord forbid!' he says 'I am glad of that!' and ran in out of sight.
But now that the child was gone out of the Lodgings the Major fell into a regularly moping state. It was taken notice of by all the Lodgers that the Major moped. He hadn't even the same air of being rather tall than he used to have, and if he varnished his boots with a single gleam of interest it was as much as he did.
One evening the Major came into my little room to take a cup of tea and a morsel of buttered toast and to read Jemmy's newest letter which had arrived that afternoon (by the very same postman more than middle-aged upon the Beat now), and the letter raising him up a little I says to the Major:
'Major you mustn't get into a moping way.'
The Major shook his head. 'Jemmy Jackman Madam,' he says with a deep sigh, 'is an older file than I thought him.'
'Moping is not the way to grow younger Major.'
'My dear Madam,' says the Major, 'is there ANY way of growing younger?'
Feeling that the Major was getting rather the best of that point I made a diversion to another.
'Thirteen years! Thir-teen years! Many Lodgers have come and gone, in the thirteen years that you have lived in the parlours Major.'
'Hah!' says the Major warming. 'Many Madam, many.'
'And I should say you have been familiar with them all?'
'As a rule (with its exceptions like all rules) my dear Madam' says the Major, 'they have honoured me with their acquaintance, and not unfrequently with their confidence.'
Watching the Major as he drooped his white head and stroked his black mustachios and moped again, a thought which I think must have been going about looking for an owner somewhere dropped into my old noddle if you will excuse the expression.
'The walls of my Lodgings' I says in a casual way—for my dear it is of no use going straight at a man who mopes—'might have something to tell if they could tell it.'
The Major neither moved nor said anything but I saw he was attending with his shoulders my dear— attending with his shoulders to what I said. In fact I saw that his shoulders were struck by it.
'The dear boy was always fond of story-books' I went on, like as if I was talking to myself. 'I am sure this house—his own home—might write a story or two for his reading one day or another.'
The Major's shoulders gave a dip and a curve and his head came up in his shirt-collar. The Major's head came up in his shirt-collar as I hadn't seen it come up since Jemmy went to school.
'It is unquestionable that in intervals of cribbage and a friendly rubber, my dear Madam,' says the Major, 'and also over what used to be called in my young times—in the salad days of Jemmy Jackman—the social glass, I have exchanged many a reminiscence with your Lodgers.'
My remark was—I confess I made it with the deepest and artfullest of intentions—'I wish our dear boy had heard them!'
'Are you serious Madam?' asked the Major starting and turning full round.
'Why not Major?'
'Madam' says the Major, turning up one of his cuffs, 'they shall be written for him.'
'Ah! Now you speak' I says giving my hands a pleased clap. 'Now you are in a way out of moping Major!'
'Between this and my holidays—I mean the dear boy's' says the Major turning up his other cuff, 'a good deal may be done towards it.'
'Major you are a clever man and you have seen much and not a doubt of it.'
'I'll begin,' says the Major looking as tall as ever he did, 'to– morrow.'
My dear the Major was another man in three days and he was himself again in a week and he wrote and wrote and wrote with his pen scratching like rats behind the wainscot, and whether he had many grounds to go upon or whether he did at all romance I cannot tell you, but what he has written is in the left-hand glass closet of the little bookcase close behind you.
Chapter II
How the Parlours Added a Few Words
I have the honour of presenting myself by the name of Jackman. I esteem it a proud privilege to go down to posterity through the instrumentality of the most remarkable boy that ever lived,—by the name of JEMMY JACKMAN LIRRIPER,—and of my most worthy and most highly respected friend, Mrs. Emma Lirriper, of Eighty-one, Norfolk Street, Strand, in the County of Middlesex, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
It is not for me to express the rapture with which we received that dear and eminently remarkable boy, on the occurrence of his first Christmas holidays. Suffice it to observe that when he came flying into the house with two splendid prizes (Arithmetic, and Exemplary Conduct), Mrs. Lirriper and myself embraced with emotion, and instantly took him to the Play, where we were all three admirably entertained.
Nor is it to render homage to the virtues of the best of her good and honoured sex—whom, in deference to her unassuming worth, I will only here designate by the initials E. L.—that I add this record to the bundle of papers with which our, in a most distinguished degree, remarkable boy has expressed himself delighted, before re- consigning the same to the left-hand glass closet of Mrs. Lirriper's little bookcase.
Neither is it to obtrude the name of the old original superannuated obscure Jemmy Jackman, once (to his degradation) of Wozenham's, long (to his elevation) of Lirriper's. If I could be consciously guilty of that piece of bad taste, it would indeed be a work of supererogation, now that the name is borne by JEMMY JACKMAN LIRRIPER.
No, I take up my humble pen to register a little record of our strikingly remarkable boy, which my poor capacity regards as presenting a pleasant little picture of the dear boy's mind. The picture may be interesting to himself when he is a man.
