Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/744

312 Mr. Magsman repeated, deliberately and emphatically, Along of a dwarf.

Might it be compatible with Mr. Magsman's inclination and convenience to enter, as a favor, into a few particulars?

Mr. Magsman entered into the following particulars. It was a long time ago, to begin with;—afore lotteries and a deal more was done away with. Mr. Magsman was looking about for a good pitch, and he see that house, and he says to himself, "I'll have you if you're to be had. If money'll get you, I'll have you."

The neighbors cut up rough, and made complaints; but Mr. Magsman don't know what they would have had. It was a lovely thing. First of all, there was the canvas representin' the picter of the giant, in Spanish trunks and a ruff, who was himself half the height of the house, and was run up with a line and pulley to a pole on the roof, so that his 'ed was coeval with the parapet. Then there was the canvas representin' the picter of the Albina lady, showin' her white 'air to the army and navy in correct uniform. Then there was the canvas representin' the picter of the wild Indian a-scalpin' a member of some foreign nation. Then there was the canvas representin' the picter of the child of a British planter, seized by two boa constrictors—not that we never had no child, nor no constrictors neither. Similarly there was the canvas representin' the picter of the wild ass of the prairies—not that we never had no wild asses, nor wouldn't have had 'em at a gift. Last there was the canvas representin' the picter of the dwarf, and like him too (considerin'), with George the Fourth in such a state of astonishment at him as his majesty couldn't with his utmost politeness and stoutness express. The front of the house was so covered with canvas, that there wasn't a spark of daylight ever visible on that side. "," fifteen foot long by two foot high, ran over the front door and parlor winders. The passage was a arbor of green baize and garden stuff. A barrel-organ performed there unceasing. And as to respectability—if threepence ain't respectable, what is?

But the dwarf is the principal article at present, and he was worth the money. He was wrote up as.