Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/84

 shape of enormous brazen eagles with outstretched wings from Birmingham, enormous candelabra and gaseliers of Gothic pattern from Liege, and sculptured pulpits and carved altar-rails from the Curtain-road, Shoreditch. Altar-cloths hang from the tables, and altar carpets, none of your common loom-woven stuff, but hand-worked and—as Herr Tubelkahn gives you to understand—by the fairest fingers are spread about to show their patterns to the best advantage; while there is so much stained glass about ready for immediate transfer to the oriel windows of country churches, that when the sun shines, Herr Tubelkahn's customers seem to be suddenly invested with Joseph's garment of many colours, and the whole shop lights up like a kaleidoscope.

Many of the customers both of Messrs. Cope and Tubelkahn were customers, or, more euphuistically, clients, of Messrs. Camoxon, who kept the celebrated Clerical and Educational Registry higher up the street; but these customers and clients invariably crossed and recrossed the road, in proceeding from the one to the other of these establishments, in order to avoid a certain door which lay midway between them. A shabby swing door sun-blistered, and with its bottom panel scored with heel and toe kicks from impatient entrance-seeking feet; a door flanked by two flaming bills, and surrounded by a host of close-shaven, sallow-faced men, in shabby clothes and shiny hats, and red noses, and swinging canes, noble Romans, roystering cavaliers, clamorous citizens, fashionable guests, virtuous peasants—all at a shilling a night; for the door was, in fact, the stage-door of the Cracksideum Theatre. The shabby men in threadbare jauntiness smiled furtively, and grinned at each other as they saw the sleek gentlemen in shining broadcloth step out of their path; but the said gentlemen felt the proximity of the Thespian temple very acutely, and did not scruple to say so to Messrs. Camoxon, who, as in duty bound, shrugged their shoulders deprecatingly, and—changed the conversation. They were very sorry, but—and they shrugged their shoulders! When men shrug their shoulders to their customers it's time that they should retire from business. It was time that the Messrs. Camoxon so retired, for the old gentleman now seldom appeared in Rutland-street, but remained at home at Wimbledon, enacting his favourite character of the British squire, and actually dressing the part in a blue coat and gilt buttons, grey knee-breeches, and Hessian boots; while young George Camoxon hunted with the queen's hounds, had dined twice at the Life Guards' mess at Windsor, and had serious thoughts of standing for the county. But the business was far too good to give up; every one who had a presentation or an advowson to sell took it to Camoxons'; the head clerk could tell you off-hand the net value of every valuable living in England, the age of the incumbent, and the state of his health, every rector who wanted assistance, every curate who wanted a change, in servants' phrase, "to better himself," every layman who wanted a title for orders, every vicar who, oddly enough, wanted to change a dull bleak living in the north for a pleasant social sphere of duty in a cheerful neighbourhood in the south of England; parents on the look-out for tutors, tutors in search of pupils—all inscribed their names on Camoxons' books, and looked to them for assistance in their extremity. There was a substantial, respectable, orthodox appearance about Camoxons', in the ground-glass windows, with the device of the Bible and Sceptre duly inscribed thereon; in the chaste internal fittings of polished mahogany and plain horsehair stools, with the Churchman's Almanack on the wall in mediæval type, very illegible, and in a highly mediæval frame, all bosses and clamps; in the big ledgers and address books, and in the Post-office Directory, which here shed its truculent red cover, and was scarcely recognisable in a meek sad-coloured calf binding; and, above all, in the grave, solemn, sable-clad clerks, who moved noiselessly about, and who looked like clergymen playing at business.

Up and down Rutland-street had Walter Joyce paced full a thousand times since his arrival in London. The name of the street and of its principal inhabitants were familiar to him, through the advertisements in the clerical newspaper which used to be sent to Mr. Ashurst at Helmingham; and no sooner was he settled down in his little lodging in Winchester-street, than he crossed the mighty artery of the Strand, and sought out the street and the shops of which he had already heard so much. He saw them, peered in at Copes' and at Tubelkahn's, and looked earnestly at Camoxons' ground-glass window, and half thought of going in to see whether they had anything which might suit him on their books. But he refrained until he had