"Mr. Chuckster" — Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s eleventh illustration for Dickens's "The Old Curiosity Shop" (1867)

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Mr. Chuckster

Sol Eytinge, Jr.

1867

Wood-engraving

9.9 x 7.4 cm (framed)

Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop & Reprinted Pieces (Diamond Edition), facing XII, 241.

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Context of the Illustration: Chuckster's Jealousy of Kit

"And what’s the news?" said Richard [Swiveller].

"The town’s as flat, my dear feller," replied Mr Chuckster, "as the surface of a Dutch oven. There’s no news. By-the-bye, that lodger of yours is a most extraordinary person. He quite eludes the most vigorous comprehension, you know. Never was such a feller!"

"What has he been doing now?" said Dick.

"By Jove, Sir," returned Mr. Chuckster, taking out an oblong snuff-box, the lid whereof was ornamented with a fox’s head curiously carved in brass, "that man is an unfathomable. Sir, that man has made friends with our articled clerk. There’s no harm in him, but he is so amazingly slow and soft. Now, if he wanted a friend, why couldn’t he have one that knew a thing or two, and could do him some good by his manners and conversation. I have my faults, sir," said Mr .Chuckster —

"No, no," interposed Mr. Swiveller.

"Oh yes I have, I have my faults, no man knows his faults better than I know mine. But," said Mr. Chuckster, ‘I’m not meek. My worst enemies — every man has his enemies, Sir, and I have mine — never accused me of being meek. And I tell you what, Sir, if I hadn’t more of these qualities that commonly endear man to man, than our articled clerk has, I’d steal a Cheshire cheese, tie it round my neck, and drown myself. I’d die degraded, as I had lived. I would upon my honour."

Mr. Chuckster paused, rapped the fox’s head exactly on the nose with the knuckle of the fore-finger, took a pinch of snuff, and looked steadily at Mr Swiveller, as much as to say that if he thought he was going to sneeze, he would find himself mistaken.

"Not contented, Sir," said Mr. Chuckster, "with making friends with Abel, he has cultivated the acquaintance of his father and mother. Since he came home from that wild-goose chase, he has been there— actually been there. He patronises young Snobby besides; you’ll find, Sir, that he’ll be constantly coming backwards and forwards to this place: yet I don’t suppose that beyond the common forms of civility, he has ever exchanged half-a-dozen words with me. Now, upon my soul, you know," said Mr. Chuckster, shaking his head gravely, as men are wont to do when they consider things are going a little too far, ‘this is altogether such a low-minded affair, that if I didn’t feel for the governor, and know that he could never get on without me, I should be obliged to cut the connection. I should have no alternative." [Chapter LVI, 241]

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. The Old Curiosity Shop and Reprinted Pieces. 18 Illustrations by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. XII.

Last modified 20 November 2020