"I say — there's fowls to-morrow — not skinny ones. Oh, no!" — Fred Barnard's twelfth illustration for Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit in the Household Edition, Volume Two (1872), (Chapter IX), page 65. 10.7 cm x 13.8 cm, or 4 ¼ high by 5 ⅜ inches, framed. Engraving by the Dalziels. The Pecksniff sisters with the Puritan Christian names: Charity ("Cherry")and Mercy ("Merry") and the precocious servant, Bailey, Junior, at Mrs. Todgers's boarding house near Wren's Monument to the Great Fire of London. The dialogue provides a satirical glimpse into boarding-house domestic management and in particular what we today would recognise as compromises to food safety. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Developing the Character of Mr. Bailey
"I say," he whispered, stopping in one of his journeys to and fro, "young ladies, there's soup to-morrow. She's a-making it now. An't she a-putting in the water? Oh! not at all neither!"
In the course of answering another knock, he thrust in his head again.
"I say! There's fowls to-morrow. Not skinny ones. Oh no!"
Presently he called through the key-hole:
"There's a fish to-morrow. Just come. Don't eat none of him!" And, with this special warning, vanished again.
By-and-bye, he returned to lay the cloth for supper; it having been arranged between Mrs. Todgers and the young ladies, that they should partake of an exclusive veal-cutlet together in the privacy of that apartment. He entertained them on this occasion by thrusting the lighted candle into his mouth, and exhibiting his face in a state of transparency; after the performance of which feat, he went on with his professional duties; brightening every knife as he laid it on the table, by breathing on the blade and afterwards polishing the same on the apron already mentioned. When he had completed his preparations, he grinned at the sisters, and expressed his belief that the approaching collation would be of "rather a spicy sort."
"Will it be long, before it's ready, Bailey?" asked Mercy.
"No," said Bailey, "it is cooked. When I come up, she was dodging among the tender pieces with a fork, and eating of 'em." [Chapter IX, 74]
Commentary: Bailey, Jr. — a Quintessential Londoner
The presiding genius of the London rooming-house where the Pecksniffs stay is not "M. Todgers," the nominal owner, but her general factotum, the "boots," the precocious, red-headed Young Bailey. Hidden inside the diminutive body is a street-wise Londoner whose eyes and ears miss nothing that goes on within the establishment or the adjacent streets. He will be transformed later in the novel as the footman of the oily financier "Tigg Montague," proprietor and board chair of the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company.
Relevant Illustrations, 1843-1867: Bailey and the Bird-fancying Barber
Left: Hablot Knight Browne's Easy Shaving (November 1843). Centre: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Mr. Bailey and Poll Sweedlepipe (1867). [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.
_____. Martin Chuzzlewit. Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. 55 vols. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. New York: Sheldon and Co., 1863. Vol. 2 of 4.
_____. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Junior. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. 2.
_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated Sterling Edition. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne and Frederick Barnard. Boston: Dana Estes, n. d. [1890s]
_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 7.
_____. Scenes and Characters from Dickens by Fred Barnard, Phiz, Charles Green, and Others. London: Chapman and Hall, 1908.
Kyd [Clayton J. Clarke]. Characters from Dickens. Nottingham: John Player & Sons, 1910.
Matz, B. W., and Kate Perugini; illustrated by Harold Copping. Character Sketches from Dickens. London: Raphael Tuck, 1924.
Steig, Michael. "From Caricature to Progress: Master Humphrey's Clock and Martin Chuzzlewit." Ch. 3, Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U.P., 1978. Pp. 51-85. [See e-text in Victorian Web.]
Steig, Michael. "Martin Chuzzlewit's Progress by Dickens and Phiz. Dickens Studies Annual 2 (1972): 119-149.
Last modified 9 July 2016
Last updated 17 November 2024