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A SHABBY GENTEEL STORY 9
came into play. He was very much changed, poor fellow ! and
humbled ; and from two cards that hung outside the blind, I am
led to believe that he did not disdain to be agent to the " London
and Jamaica Ginger-Beer Company," and also for a certain preparation
called " Gaster's Infants' Farinacio, or Mothers' Invigorating
Substitute,"—a damp, black, mouldy half-pound packet of which
stood in permanence at one end of the " office " mantelpiece ; while
a fly-blown ginger-beer bottle occupied the other extremity
Nothing else indicated that this ground-floor chamber was an office,
except a huge black inkstand, in which stood a stumpy pen, richly
crusted with ink at the nib, and to all appearance for many months
enjoying a sinecure.
To this room you saw every day, at two o'clock, the employé
from the neighbouring hotel bring two quarts of beer ; and if you
called at that hour, a tremendous smoke, and smell of dinner,
would gush out upon you from the " office," as you stumbled over
sundry battered tin dish-covers, which lay gaping at the threshold.
Thus had that great bulwark of gentility, the dining at six o'clock,
been broken in ; and the reader must therefore judge that the
house of Gann was in a demoralised state.
Gann certainly was. After the ladies had retired to the backparlour
(which, with yellow gauze round the frames, windowcurtains,
a red silk cabinet piano, and an album, was still tolerably
genteel), Gann remained, to transact business in the office. This
took place in the presence of friends, and usually consisted in the
production of a bottle of gin from the corner cupboard, or, mayhap,
a litre of brandy, which was given by Gann with a knowing wink,
and a fat finger placed on a twinkling red nose : when Mrs. G. was
out, James would also produce a number of pipes, that gave this
room a constant and agreeable odour of shag tobacco.
In fact, Mr. Gann had nothing to do from morning till night.
He was now a fat bald-headed man of fifty ; a dirty dandy on
week-days, with a shawl-waistcoat, a tuft of hair to his great double
chin, a snuffy shirt-frill and enormous breast-pin and seals : he had
a pilot-coat, with large mother-of-pearl buttons, and always wore a
great rattling telescope, with which he might be seen for hours on
the sea-shore or the pier, examining the ships, the bathing-machines,
the ladies' schools as they paraded up and down the esplanade, and
all other objects which the telescopic view might give him. He
knew every person connected with every one of the Deal and Dover
coaches, and was sure to be witness to the arrival or departure of
several of them in the course of the day ; he had a word for the
ostler about "that grey marc," a nod for the "shooter" or guard,
and a bow for the dragsman; he could send parcels for nothing up