Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/745

Rh Nobody couldn't pronounce the name, and it never was intended anybody should. The public always turned it, as a regular rule, into Chopski. In the line he was called Chops; partly on that account, and partly because his real name, if he ever had a real name (which was very dubious), was Stakes.

He was an uncommon small man, he really was. Certainly not so small as he was made out to be, but where is your dwarf as is? He was a most uncommon small man with a most uncommon large'ed; and what he had inside that'ed, nobody never knowed but himself; even supposin' himself to have ever took stock of it, which it would have been a stiff job for even him to do.

The kindest little man as never growed! Spirited, but not proud. When he travelled with the spotted baby, though he knowed himself to be a nat'ral dwarf, and knowed the baby's spots to be put upon him artificial, he nursed the baby like a mother. You never heerd him give a ill-name to a giant. He did allow himself to break out into strong language respecting the fat lady from Norfolk; but that was an affair of the 'art; and when a man's 'art has been trifled with by a lady, and the preference give to a Indian, he ain't master of his actions.

He was always in love, of course; every human nat'ral phenomenon is. And he was always in love with a large woman; I never knowed the dwarf as could be got to love a small one. Which helps to keep 'em the curiosities they are.

One singular idea he had in that'ed of his, which must have meant something, or it wouldn't have been there. It was always his opinion that he was entitled to property. He never would but his name to anything. He had been taught to write, by the young man without arms, who got his living with his toes (quite a writing-master he was, and taught scores in the line), but Chops would have starved to death afore he'd have gained a bit of bread by putting his hand to a paper. This is the more curious to bear in mind, because HE had no property, nor hope of property, except his house and a sarser. When I say his house, I mean the box, painted and got up outside like a regular six-roomer, that he used to creep into, with a diamond ring (or quite as good to look at) on his forefinger, and ring a little bell out of what the public