Passage Illustrated: Peter Dalton Incensed

“No, — is it?” cried Dalton, starting up from his seat; “did you say no?”

Kraus nodded twice, slowly and deliberately.

“Then bad luck to the rap ever you'll see more of my money,” cried Peter, passionately. “You old Jewish thief, I ought to have known you long ago; fifty, sixty, seventy per cent I was paying for the use of my own cash, and every bill I gave as good as the bank paper! Ain't you ashamed of yourself, tell me that, — ain't you downright ashamed of yourself?”

“I tink not; I have no occasions for shame,” said the other, calmly.

“Faix! I believe you there,” retorted Dalton. “Your line of life doesn't offer many opportunities of blushing. But if I can't bring you to know shame, maybe I can teach you to feel sorrow. Our dealing is ended from this day out. Peter Dalton doesn't know you more! He never saw you! he never heard of your name! D'ye mind me now? None of your boasting among the English here that you have Mr. Dalton's business. If I hear of your saying it, it's not a contradiction will satisfy me. Understand me well — it's not to leave a mark of friendship that I'll come in here again!”

The fierce tone in which Dalton said these words, and the gesture he made with a tremendous walking-stick, were certainly well calculated to excite Abel's terrors, who, opening a little movable pane of the window, looked out into the street, to assure himself of succor in case of need.

“What's the use of family, rank, or fortune,” cried Dalton, indignantly, as he paced up and down the little shop, in a perfect frenzy of passion, “if a little dirty Jew, with a face like a rat-terrier, can insult you? My uncle is one of the first men in Austria, and my daughter's a Princess; and there's a creature you would't touch with the tongs has the impudence to—to—to—” Evidently the precise offence did not at once occur to Dalton's memory, for after several efforts to round off his phrase —“to outrage me —— to outrage me!” he cried, with the satisfaction of one who had found a missing object.

Meanwhile Abel, who had gradually resumed his courage, was busily engaged in some deep and intricate calculations, frequently referring to a number of ill-scrawled scraps of paper on a file before him, not heeding, if he heard, the storm around him.

“Dere, saar,” said he at length, as he pushed a slip of paper towards Dalton, — “dere, saar; our affairs is closed, as you say. Dere is your debit, — eighteen hundred and seventy-three florins, 'convenzion money.' Dere may be leetle charges to be added for commissions and oder tings; but dat is de chief sum, which you pay now.”

There was a sharp emphasis on the last monosyllable that made Dalton start.

“I'll look over it; I'll compare it with my books at home,” said he, haughtily, as he stuffed the slip of paper into his waistcoat-pocket.

“Den you no pay to-day?” asked Abel.

“Nor to-morrow, nor the day after, nor, maybe, awhile longer,” said Dalton, with a composure he well knew how to feel in like circumstances.

“Very well, den; I will have securities. I will have bail for my moneys before tree o'clock this day. Dere is de sommation before de Tribunal, Herr von Dalton.” Aud he handed a printed document, stamped with the official seal of a law court, across the table. “You will see,” added the Jew, with a malicious grin, “dat I was not unprepared for all dis. Abel Kraus is only an old Jew, but he no let de Gentile cheat him!”

Dalton was stunned by the suddenness of this attack. The coolly planned game of the other so overmatched all the passionate outbreak of his own temper that he felt himself mastered at once by his wily antagonist.

“To the devil I fling your summons!” cried he, savagely. “I can't even read it.”

“Your avocat will explain it all. He will tell you dat if you no pay de moneys herein charged, nor give a goot and sufficient surety dereof before de Civil Grericht, dis day, dat you will be consign to de prison of de State at Carlsruhe, dere to remain your 'leben lang,' if so be you never pay.”

“Arrest me for debt the day it's demanded!” cried Dalton, whose notions of the law's delay were not a little shocked by such peremptory proceedings. “It is in criminal as well as in civil Grericht to draw on a banker beyond your moneys, and no pay, on demand.”

“There's justice for you!” cried Dalton, passionately. “Highway robbery, housebreaking, is decenter. There's some courage, at least, in them! But I wouldn't believe you if you were on your oath. There isn't such a law in Europe, nor in the East 'Ingies'!”

Abel grinned, but never uttered a word.

“So any ould thief, then, can trump up a charge against a man —— can send him off to jail — before he can look around him!”

“If he do make false charge, he can be condem to de galleys,” was the calm reply.

“And what's the use of that?” cried Dalton, in a transport of rage. “Isn't the galleys as good a life as sitting there? Isn't it as manly a thing to strain at an oar as to sweat a guinea?”

“I am a burgher of the Grand Duchy,” said Abel, boldly; “and if you defame me, it shall be before witnesses!” And as he spoke he threw wide the window, so that the passers-by might hear what took place.

Dalton's face became purple; the veins in his forehead swelled like a thick cordage, and he seemed almost bursting with suppressed passion. For an instant it was even doubtful if he could master his struggling wrath. At last he grasped the heavy chair he had been sitting on, and dashing it down on the ground, broke it into atoms; and then, with an execration in Irish, the very sound of which rang like a curse, he strode out of the shop, and hastened down the street. [Chapter LVIII, "The 'Cursaal'," pp. 524-525]

Commentary: Peter Dalton's Reversals Continue at his Banker's

Having received large remittances from his daughter Kate, the "princess-designate" in St. Petersburg, Peter Dalton grows even more self-important, vainglorious, and profligate. Although he has just lost at least twenty thousand Francs or about four hundred and forty Napoleons, at the gaming tables, the seemingly unperturbed "Count" then escorts the Ricketts party to the dining-room and treats them to all manner of exotic dishes and costly vintages. Finally in his bedroom that night he realizes that he may not have enough credit remaining with the local banker (and money-lender) Abel Kraus to cover his gambling debts and charges for sumptuous dinners. Having passed a restless and feverish night as he recalls his folly at the play-tables and the crashing loss as the banker cried 'Rouge perd et couleur!" (II: 155), he summons up the courage to visit his banker and landlord, Abel Kraus, at his money-changer's den.

Kraus has been watching the state of Dalton's finances carefully, and has noted a falling off in the Russian remittances. Moreover, the shrewd financier is well aware of his angry client's losses the night before. Ironically, the bluff Irishman believes his banker cannot possibly as yet know about his losses at play, and expects that he can touch Kraus for another five hunded Naps. The cheerful little broker does not permit Peter Dalton's tantrum to affect his self-composure in the complementary Phiz illustration, even though he must certainly construe Daltron's having just smashed one of the two chairs in his foyer as a threat. In sharp contrast to Dalton's fashionable attire and protruding stomach, the lean, boney Kraus is a model of quiet decorum, and his place of business positively spartan. Phiz's diminutive figure behind the counter grins slightly, but not malignantly, as he threatens Dalton with a German version of the English debtor's prison: "de prison of the de State at Carlsruhe" (524).

A Bibliographical Note to the 1859 Cheap Edition

This is one of only eight 1852 engravings of the original forty-eight. The other seven are as follows:

• the fine vertical frontispiece, A Journey (ii),
• Frank Visits his Uncle (facing 18),
• A Discovery (facing 52),
• Teaching the Old Idea how to shoot (Chapter 51),
• The Benediction (facing 115),
• Norwood's Exit (facing 267),
• Retribution (facing 332).

Bibliography

Browne, John Buchanan. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's, 1978.

Downey, Edmund. Charles Lever: His Life in Letters. 2 vols. London: William Blackwood, 1906.

Fitzpatrick, W. J. The Life of Charles Lever. London: Downey, 1901.

Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Lever, Charles. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1852, rpt. 1859, and 1872. [Two volumes as one, with separate page numbers in the 1859 volume, after I: 362.]

_______. The Daltons and A Day's Ride. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). Vol VI of Lever's Works. New York: P. F. Collier, 1882. [This large-format American edition reproduces only six of the original forthy-eight Phiz illustrations.]

Lever, Charles James. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. Vol. 2. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32062/32062-h/32062-h.htm

Skinner, Anne Maria. Charles Lever and Ireland. University of Liverpool. PhD dissertation. May 2019.

Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell & Russell, 1939, rpt. 1969.

_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.

---

Victorian
Web

Illustra-
tion

Phiz

The
Daltons

Next

Created 24 May 2022