Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Thackeraysame form. The smile was just as broad, as bright, asjolly, as I remember it in the past—unforgotten, thoughnot seen or thought of, for how many decades of years,and quite and instantly familiar, though so long out ofsight.Any contemporary of that coin who takes it up andreads the inscription round the laurelled head, “GeorgiusIV. Britanniarum Rex. Fid. Def. 1823,” if he will butlook steadily enough at the round, and utter the properincantation, I dare say may conjure back his life there.Look well, my elderly friend, and tell me what you see?First, I see a Sultan, with hair, beautiful hair, and acrown of laurels round his head, and his name is GeorgiusRex. Fid. Def., and so on. Now the Sultan has disappeared;and what is that I see? A boy,—a boy in a jacket.He is at a desk; he has great books before him, Latinand Greek books and dictionaries. Yes, but behind thegreat books, which he pretends to read, is a little one,with pictures, which he is really reading. It is—yes, Ican read now—it is the “Heart of Mid Lothian,” by theauthor of “Waverley”—or, no, it is “Life in London, orthe Adventures of Corinthian Tom, Jeremiah Hawthorn,and their friend Bob Logic,” by Pierce Egan; and it haspictures—oh! such funny pictures! As he reads, therecomes behind the boy, a man, a dervish, in a black gown,like a woman, and a black square cap, and he has abook in each hand, and he seizes the boy who is readingthe picture-book, and lays his head upon one of hisbooks, and smacks it with the other. The boy makesfaces, and so that picture disappears.Now the boy has grown bigger. He has got on a blackgown and cap, something like the dervish. He is at atable, with ever so many bottles on it, and fruit, andtobacco; and other young dervishes come in. They seemas if they were singing. To them enters an old moollah,he takes down their names, and orders them all to go tobed. What is this? a carriage, with four beautiful horsesall galloping—a man in red is blowing a trumpet. Manyyoung men are on the carriage—one of them is drivingthe horses. Surely they won’t drive into that?—ah! theyhave all disappeared. And now I see one of the youngmen alone. He is walking in a street—a dark street—65