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“‘Well damn my straps and whiskers,’ says Tom. . . .”
Thomas Onwhyn [unsigned]
steel engraving
10.9 cm high by 11.7 cm wide (4 ½ by 4 ⅜ inches), vignetted
June 30, 1837 (third instalment)
Charles Dickens's The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Chapter XIV, “Comprising A Brief Description of the Company at The Peacock Assembled; and A Tale told by a Bagman.” (August 1836), facing page 137.
[Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
‘The bay mare splashed away, through the mud and water, with drooping ears; now and then tossing her head as if to express her disgust at this very ungentlemanly behaviour of the elements, but keeping a good pace notwithstanding, until a gust of wind, more furious than any that had yet assailed them, caused her to stop suddenly and plant her four feet firmly against the ground, to prevent her being blown over. It’s a special mercy that she did this, for if she had been blown over, the vixenish mare was so light, and the gig was so light, and Tom Smart such a light weight into the bargain, that they must infallibly have all gone rolling over and over together, until they reached the confines of earth, or until the wind fell; and in either case the probability is, that neither the vixenish mare, nor the clay-coloured gig with the red wheels, nor Tom Smart, would ever have been fit for service again.
‘“Well, damn my straps and whiskers,” says Tom Smart (Tom sometimes had an unpleasant knack of swearing) — “damn my straps and whiskers,” says Tom, “if this ain’t pleasant, blow me!”
‘You’ll very likely ask me why, as Tom Smart had been pretty well blown already, he expressed this wish to be submitted to the same process again. I can’t say — all I know is, that Tom Smart said so — or at least he always told my uncle he said so, and it’s just the same thing.
“‘Blow me,” says Tom Smart; and the mare neighed as if she were precisely of the same opinion.
“‘Cheer up, old girl,” said Tom, patting the bay mare on the neck with the end of his whip. “It won’t do pushing on, such a night as this; the first house we come to we’ll put up at, so the faster you go the sooner it’s over. Soho, old girl — gently — gently.”
‘Whether the vixenish mare was sufficiently well acquainted with the tones of Tom’s voice to comprehend his meaning, or whether she found it colder standing still than moving on, of course I can’t say. But I can say that Tom had no sooner finished speaking, than she pricked up her ears, and started forward at a speed which made the clay-coloured gig rattle until you would have supposed every one of the red spokes were going to fly out on the turf of Marlborough Downs; and even Tom, whip as he was, couldn’t stop or check her pace, until she drew up of her own accord, before a roadside inn on the right-hand side of the way, about half a quarter of a mile from the end of the Downs. [Chapter XIV, “Comprising A Brief Description of the Company at The Peacock Assembled; and A Tale told by a Bagman,” 137]
‘“Well, damn my straps and whiskers,” says Tom Smart, ‘if this ain’t pleasant, blow me’” Page 137.
This story was not illustrated at the time Chapman and Hall issued it in the fifth instalment. For whatever reason, the original illustrators of the serial novel only occasionally provided pictorial realisations of the various interpolated tales, namely for "The Dying Clown," "The Last Visit of Heyling to the Old Man," "The Goblin and the Sexton," and "The Ghostly Passengers in the Ghost of a Mail." Although the original serial did not include a plate complementing the humorous tale of the supernatural, Thomas Nast and Phiz in the American and British Household Editions have risen to the challenge of realizing Tom's colloquy with the spirit of the chair in his room at the inn.
To render the humorous tale with supernatural elements more plausible, Onwhyn prefaces the scene with the talking chair with Tom's approaching the inn earlier in his gig as he crosses the Marlborough Downs through a nasty rain squall. The illustrator manifests Tom's extreme discomfort by sharply distorting his facial expression.
Left: Nast's American Household composite woodblock engraving A most extraordinary change seemed to come over it (1873). Right: Phiz's Household Edition woodcut The chair was an ugly old gentleman; and what as more, he was winking at Tom Smart (1874). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Dickens, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Robert Seymour, Robert Buss, and Phiz. London: Chapman and Hall, November 1837. With 32 additional illustrations by Thomas Onwhyn (London: E. Grattan, April-November 1837).
Titley, Graham D. C. "Thomas Onwhyn: a Life in Illustration (1811-1886)." Pearl. University of Plymouth (2018-07-12).
Created 9 February 2024