In the meantime certain little incidents had occurred in London, which we must faithfully chronicle before we proceed with the adventures of the newly married couple,—adventures, which, could Charles have possibly foreseen——

But we were for a moment oblivious of the scenes that require our attention in London, and which took place while Charles Hatfield and Perdita were as yet on their way to Paris.

Charterhouse Square—situate between Aldersgate Street and St. John Street (Smithfield)—has a mournful, gloomy, and sombre appearance, which even the green foliage in the circular enclosure cannot materially relieve. The houses are for the most part of antiquated structure and dingy hue—the windows and front-doors are small—and, pass by them when you will, you never behold a human countenance at any one of the casements. The curtains and the blinds,—and, in the winter time, glimpses of the fires burning in the parlours,—these are, to a certain extent, symptoms that the houses are tenanted: but no farther signs of the fact can be discovered. Often and often as we have passed through that Square, we never beheld a soul coming out of, nor going into, any one of the gloomy abodes: we have observed a baker’s boy and a butcher’s ditto hurrying rapidly round—but never could satisfy ourselves that either of them had any particular business there, for they did not knock at a single door;—and on one—and only one occasion—when we met a two-penny post-man in the Square, he seemed to be as much astonished at finding himself in that quarter as we were to encounter him there. As for the beadle—his occupation seems to consist of lounging about, switching a cane, strolling into the Fox and Anchor public-house, and chatting for half-an-hour at a time with the very sober-looking porter of the Charter House.

There is a something really solemn and awful in the silence of that Square,—not a silence and a repose which seem to afford relief to the mind and rest to the ear after escaping from the tremendous din of the crowded streets,—but a silence that strikes like a chill to the heart. Whence arises this sensation?—is it because, while traversing the Square, we are reminded that in the vast cloistral building to the north are pent up eighty old men—the Poor Brothers of the Charter House,—eighty denizens of a Protestant Monastery in the very heart of civilised London,—eighty worn-out and decrepid persons who drag out the wretched remnant of their lives beneath the iron sway of a crushing ecclesiastical discipline! Does the silence of the Square borrow its solemnity from that far more awful silence which reigns within the Charter House itself,—a silence so awe-inspiring—so dead—so tomb-like, that even in the noon of a hot summer-day, the visitor shudders with a cold feeling creeping over him as he crosses the cloistral enclosure!

The reader will probably remember that, when Mr. Bubbleton Styles had propounded his grand Railway scheme to Captain O’Blunderbuss and Mr. Frank Curtis, he gave each of those gentlemen a ten-pound note, desiring them to take respectable lodgings, and refer, if necessary, to him. We know not precisely how it happened that the gallant officer and his friend should have selected Charterhouse Square as the place most likely to suit them with regard to apartments; but thither they assuredly did repair—and in that gloomy quarter did they hire three rooms: namely, a parlour on the first floor, and two bed-chambers on the second. The landlady of the house was a widow; and, having some small pittance in the shape of regular income, eked out by letting a portion of her abode. She was an elderly woman—tall, starch, and prim—and very particular in obtaining good references—or, at least, what she considered to be good ones—respecting any applicants for her apartments; and therefore, previously to admitting Captain O’Blunderbuss and Mr. Frank Curtis into her house, she had sought all possible information concerning them at the hands of Mr. Styles. His account was satisfactory, and the two gentlemen were thereupon duly installed in their lodgings at Mrs. Rudd’s, Charterhouse Square.

The first two or three days passed comfortably enough, because the captain and Frank, having ready money in their pockets, took their dinner and supper—aye, and their grog too—at some convenient tavern,—troubling Mrs. Rudd only in reference to their breakfast, which she cheerfully prepared for them, because she thereby obtained whole and sole controul over their groceries. She was a very pious woman, and attended a Methodist Chapel regularly every Sunday; but being, as she often expressed herself, “a lone widow,” she thought there was no harm in using her lodgers’ tea, sugar, and butter for her own repasts. “Heaven was very good to her,” she would often tell her neighbours, “and enabled her to make the most of her little means:” she might have added—“and of her lodgers’ also.”

The captain and Frank, however, soon began to find that their evening entertainments at the tavern were very expensive; and, as they could not again draw upon Mr. Styles for some time—all his resources being required for the promotion of the railway—they resolved to economise. The best method of carrying this object into effect, was to take their dinner, supper, and poteen at home; and Mrs. Rudd, on being sounded in respect to the plan, willingly assented—for the excellent woman felt assured that her lodgers would not miss a slice or two off a cold joint any more than they noticed the marvellous disappearance of their groceries. So the captain and his friend became more domestic; and as Frank did not get particularly drunk on the two first evenings, Mrs. Rudd had no complaints to make.

But at last she began to suspect that she had some ground for doubting the steadiness of her lodgers. It was on a Sunday evening, and the worthy woman had just returned from chapel, where she had heard a most refreshing and savoury discourse by the Reverend Mr. Flummery,—when, on crossing the threshold of the house door, and while still ruminating on the truly Christian manner in which the eloquent minister had promised hell-flames to all heathens,—she was suddenly startled by hearing a terrific noise proceeding from up-stairs.

She paused—and listened!

Yes: the sound did emanate from above; and most strange sounds they were, too. Deeply disgusted—nay, profoundly shocked at this desecration of the Sabbath, Mrs. Rudd crept up stairs; and the nearer she drew to the parlour-door, the more convinced did she become that Captain O’Blunderbuss and Mr. Curtis were fighting a single combat with the shovel and poker. The conflict was, however, only in fun: for the clash of the fire-irons was accompanied by tremendous shouts of laughter, and such ejaculations as these:—“There, be Jasus! I have ye again, Frank! Blood and thunther, keep up your guar-r-d, man! Now, would ye be afther a feint? Be the powers! and ye can’t touch me at all, at all! Hit hard, me friend—niver mind the damned ould poker-r-r—the ould woman is at chapel!”

Mrs. Rudd was astounded—stupefied. Was it possible that these were the lodgers whom Mr. Styles—a respectable “City man”—had recommended as the very patterns of quietness and steadiness? Why, if she had let her rooms to two Bedlamites, things could not have been worse! She was positively afraid to go in to remonstrate; and, having recovered the use of those limbs which wonder had for several minutes paralysed, she hurried down stairs to consider what was best to be done, while supping off her racketty lodgers’ cold joint.

That same night Frank Curtis got so gloriously inebriated, that he threw up his bed-room window and treated the whole Square to a specimen of his vocal powers—singing some favourite Bacchanalian song, and introducing the most terrific yells by way of variations. The captain, who had also imbibed a little too much, soon after threw up his window, and exerted all the powers of his lungs in chorus with his friend; so that the deep, solemn, and awe-inspiring silence of Charterhouse Square was broken in a fashion that seemed to surprise the very echoes themselves. Without any figure of speech, it is certain that the inhabitants were surprised; for their night, usually passed in such death-like tranquillity, was unexpectedly and suddenly “made hideous;” and several nervous old ladies, dwelling in the neighbourhood, fancied that the frightful yells were warnings of fire, and went off into strong hysterics.

Vainly did Mrs. Rudd knock first at the captain’s door—then at Frank’s: they heard her not—or, if they did, took no heed of her remonstrances;—and when the beadle, who had been aroused from his bed, came and thundered at the front-door, the two lodgers simultaneously emptied their water-pitchers on his head. Then, satisfied with this exploit, they closed their windows and retired to rest.

When they descended to their parlour to breakfast in the morning, Mrs. Rudd acquainted them, in a tone evincing the most violent concentration of rage, that she could not possibly think of harbouring Captain O’Blunderbuss and Mr. Curtis any longer. But, to her amazement, they both swore that they were perfectly innocent of the disturbance of the previous night,—alleging that they themselves were as much annoyed by the row as the landlady herself. Mrs. Rudd could scarcely believe her ears: had she been dreaming? No: the noise had really taken place—for her lodgers admitted that they had heard it—though, to use a common phrase, they swore “eyes and limbs” that they had not made it. However, she gave them a week’s warning, and then calmly reminded them that a week’s rent was already due; whereupon Captain O’Blunderbuss flew into a terrific rage at the idea of “the maneness of the woman in spaking of such a thrifle!” Mrs. Rudd was frightened, and turned in an appealing manner to Mr. Frank Curtis, who declared point blank that the captain was cashier, and that she must draw upon him: but, finding that the gallant officer was a cashier without cash, Mrs. Rudd was compelled to retire—muttering something about her being “a lone widow,” and intimating a hope that the two weeks’ rent would be paid “all in a lump” on the following Monday morning.

The captain and Mr. Curtis now completely threw off the mask. They no longer affected even to be “steady, quiet men of regular habits,” as Mr. Styles had represented them; but they drank poteen “till all was blue,” as Frank Curtis said—or, in the language of the gallant officer, “till they couldn’t see a hole through a lath-er.” The disturbances they created at night were hideous; and poor Mrs. Rudd received from all her neighbours the most positive threats that they would indict her house as a nuisance. At last, in the depth of her despair, she had recourse to that excellent man, the Reverend Mr. Flummery; and the Reverend Mr. Flummery, having heard her sad tale, undertook to go in person and remonstrate with “these men of Belial.”

Accordingly, one afternoon, just as the captain and Frank had finished a couple of bottles of stout by way of giving themselves an appetite for dinner, they were somewhat surprised when the parlour-door was thrown open, and in walked a short, podgy, red-faced man, dressed in deep black. Still more amazed were they when he announced himself as the Reverend Emanuel Flummery, and stated that he had come to remonstrate with them on their behaviour towards “a lone widow.” The captain, winking at Curtis, desired the minister to be seated, and proposed to discuss the business over another bottle of stout. His reverence thought there was something so affable in the offer, that it would be churlish to refuse it; and he accordingly gave his assent. The stout was produced; and Mr. Flummery, being thirsty and hot, enjoyed it excessively.

He then began a long remonstrance with the two gentlemen—the gist of which was that Mrs. Rudd would be very much obliged to them if they would pay their rent and remove to other lodgings. The captain and Frank pretended to listen with attention; and the reverend minister, finding them in such a tractable humour, as he supposed, did not choose to mar the harmony of the interview by declining a second bottle of stout. Talking had renewed his thirst—and, moreover, if there were one special beverage which the Reverend Emanuel Flummery loved more than another, it was Guinness’s stout. Accordingly, he emptied his tumbler, and then continued his remonstrance and his representations, in which, however he was cut short by a sudden pain in the stomach—doubtless produced by the effervescent malt liquor. The captain was prompt with a remedy; and Mr. Flummery had swallowed a good dram of whiskey before an eye could twinkle thrice. Thus cheered, and finding the two gentlemen most docile and respectful, his reverence consented to partake of a hot glass of toddy with them, just to convince them that he was inclined to be friendly;—and this one glass led to a second—and then Frank Curtis cunningly brewed him a third, while the reverend minister was expatiating upon the good qualities of Mrs. Rudd. In fine, Mr. Emanuel Flummery became so much disguised in liquor, that, when he took his leave, he swore the captain and Frank Curtis were two excellent gentlemen—begged them not to put themselves to any inconvenience in moving—and assured them that he would make it all right with the landlady.

Mrs. Rudd, however, was mightily shocked when she beheld the condition in which the reverend gentleman presented himself at her own parlour-door; and she could indeed scarcely believe her eyes. But when, after hiccupping out some unintelligible words, that self-same reverend gentleman—the pastor of an admiring flock, and whose sermons were so refreshing and so savoury,—when he,—the individual whom she had looked upon as the essence of human perfection,—when he, we say, cast his arms around her neck and administered to her somewhat wrinkled cheeks a hearty smack,—then, what did she do? Why—she put up with the affront—doubtless to save the reputation of the minister;—and, perhaps with the same charitable desire to avoid the scandal of an exposure, she permitted him to repeat his caresses as often as he chose during the half-hour that he remained in her company. She even made him some tea, which materially tended to sober him; and, when he had at length taken his departure, she muttered several times to herself, “Well—after all, this saint of a man is mere flesh and blood like any other!”

But when Mrs. Rudd’s more pleasurable reflections had ceased,—for pleasurable they certainly were, both during the reverend gentleman’s presence and for a short time after the door had closed behind him,—she remembered that her disagreeable lodgers were, still in the house, notwithstanding the remonstrances which, according to his statement to the widow, the pious minister had most eloquently addressed to them. And that they were still in the dwelling, she was very soon made to understand;—for the obstreperous behaviour of those “dreadful men,” to use Mrs. Rudd’s own words, recommenced in the form of the most hearty peals of laughter—and the clashing of the fire-irons—and the stamping of feet, as if the two gentlemen were mad.

“They have begun their booze,” said Mrs. Rudd to herself, looking up in despair at the ceiling, as if she thought the captain and his friend must inevitably come through upon her devoted head. “But never mind!” she suddenly exclaimed aloud, as a thought—a very bright thought struck her: “I will put up with it for this once—and to-morrow—to-morrow——”

Here Mrs. Rudd stopped short; for she would not even trust the empty air with the lucid idea which had struck her.

We may however inform our readers that this said idea was nothing more nor less than to lock out the two gentlemen when they went for their usual walk on the morrow.

Tranquillized by the excellence of the scheme, Mrs. Rudd refreshed herself with a small drop of brandy, and then spread her huge Bible open on the table before her—not to read it, but merely because “it looked pious-like,” as she thought, if any of her neighbours should happen to drop in. For Mrs. Rudd delighted in the reputation for sanctity which she enjoyed amongst her acquaintances in general, and the frequenters of the reverend gentleman’s chapel in particular.

Let us now return to Mr. Frank Curtis and Captain O’Blunderbuss, who, as the landlady rightly concluded, were enjoying themselves in their own peculiar fashion up-stairs.

Having partaken of a cold joint, and the slip-shod girl of the house having provided them with a jug of hot water, the two gentlemen commenced the evening’s orgie. The whiskey-punch which they brewed was of that kind which is libellously alleged to be peculiarly affected by ladies—namely, “hot, strong, and plenty of it;”—and, under its influence, they soon manifested their wonted exuberance of spirits. First, Captain O’Blunderbuss would insist upon giving Frank a lesson with the broad-sword—the one using the poker, and the other the shovel;—and every time the gallant officer thrust his friend in the ribs, a hearty shout of laughter burst from their lips—for they considered it prime fun.

When they were tired of this amusement, they resumed their seats—replenished their glasses—and chatted on divers matters interesting to themselves. Presently Frank started up, and leapt over a chair in order to show his agility, although he had grown somewhat stout of late years;—and as he acquitted himself in a clumsy manner, the captain volunteered to teach him how to do it. But the gallant officer only tumbled over the chair, causing a tremendous split in his trousers—an accident at which they nevertheless both laughed more heartily than ever.

“Be Jasus!” cried the captain, “and it’s the only pair of unmintionables that I possess! But niver mind: I’ll be afther telling the gal to take them round to the tailor’s the first thing in the morning; and so I’ll take my breakfast in bed, Frank. They’ll soon be sent home again.”

“Let’s see? we’ve got to meet Styles to-morrow at three in the afternoon,” said Curtis; “and, by Jove! we must make him come down with the dust.”

“Be the power-rs! and you’re right, my frind!” exclaimed the captain. “It’s eighteen-pince that’s left in my pocket at this prisint spaking——”

“And nothing at all in mine,” interrupted Frank, both his hands diving at the same time down into the depths of the empty conveniences alluded to. “Deuce take this railway affair! It gets on precious slow. I remember when I was in Paris two or three-and-twenty years ago, they were making a new path-way through my friend the Archbishop’s estate at Fontainbleau; and if his Grace didn’t go and swear at the men all day long, they never would have got on with it.”

“Be the power-rs! if it’s a thrifle of swearing that would make Misther Styles push a-head,” said the gallant officer, “I’m the boy to help him on with that same.”

“You see there’s been what they call a tightness in the Money-Market lately,” observed Frank: “at least, that’s what Styles told me the other day——”

“And it’s an infer-r-rnal tightness that’s got hould of our Money-Market, my frind,” interrupted the captain. “Be Jasus! there’s the potheen bottle empty—and no tick at the public!”

“You’ve got eighteen-pence in your pocket, captain,” suggested Curtis.

“Right, me boy!”—and he rang the bell furiously.

The slip-shod girl answered the summons, and was forthwith despatched for a supply of whiskey at the wine-vaults which the lodgers honoured with their custom.

“Now we’re altogether aground,” said Curtis, after a pause which had followed the departure of the servant. “But we’ve every thing necessary in the house for to-morrow morning’s breakfast, except the milk——”

“And bar-r-ring my breeches, ye spalpeen!” cried the captain. “They must be immediately menthed, any how.”

“Oh! the tailor won’t think of asking for the money when he brings them home,” said Curtis: then, beholding the comical expression of his friend’s countenance, which was elongated with sore misgivings respecting the amount of confidence the snip might choose to put in his honour, Frank burst out into a tremendous fit of laughter.

“Arrah! and be Jasus! and it’s all mighty fine for you, Misther Curtis, to make a damned fool of yourself in that fashion,” exclaimed Captain O’Blunderbuss, becoming as red as a turkey-cock: “but I can assure ye that it’s no joking matther for me to contimplate the prospict of lying in bed for a week or two till I get my breeches back again. And now, if you’re not afther houlding your tongue, Frank, I’ll tip ye a small rap on the head with the poker—by the howly poker-r, I will!”

“Don’t get into a rage, captain,” said Curtis, putting a bridle upon his mirth in consequence of the threat just held out—a threat which he knew his amiable friend was perfectly capable of putting into force. “I will go out the first thing in the morning and see Styles—and I have no doubt he will give me some money. I shall be back again by the time the tailor comes home with—with——”

“The unmintionables!” vociferated the captain, his wrath reviving as he saw that his friend was once more on the point of giving vent to a hearty cachinnation. “But here’s the gal coming up stairs with the potheen; and so we’ll be afther enjoying ourselves for the prisint, and think of the tightness of the Money-Mar-r-rket in the morning.”

“Well, what the deuce has made you so long?” demanded Frank Curtis, as the slip-shod domestic entered the room.

“Long, sir!” echoed the girl, as if in surprise. “Lor, sir—I ain’t been a minit!”

“Not a minute!” cried Frank, who always bullied servants—when they weren’t footmen who could knock him down for his impudence: “I tell you, you’ve been more than a quarter of an hour.”

“Well, sir—and if so be I have,” said the girl, suddenly recollecting something which had occurred to hinder her on her errand, “it was because as I went out of the street-door a man come up and asked me if so be as Mr. Smith lived here. ‘No,’ says I: ‘he don’t.’—‘Well, then,’ says the man, ‘Mr. Brown does.’—‘No, he don’t, though,’ I says, says I; ‘nor yet Mr. Jones, nor Mr. Noakes neether.’—‘Well, who does live here, then?’ says the man; and as I thought it would teach him not to be so precious knowing another time, I out and told him slap as how two gentlemen lived here as was named Blunderbuss—leastways, O’Blunderbuss, and Curtis.”

“The devil you did!” ejaculated the two lodgers as it were in the same breath, and exchanging significant glances which expressed the same apprehension.

“To be sure I did, sir,” responded the girl, not perceiving the alarm which she had created in the minds of the gentlemen, but rather attributing their excited ejaculations to an approval of her conduct: “for I thinks to myself, thinks I, ‘Now, my fine feller, you’ll believe that there’s no Smiths or Browns here; and you won’t be quite so positive another time.’”

“Well—and what did the man say?” demanded Frank Curtis, darting another uneasy glance at his friend.

“He only said ‘Oh!’ and went away,” returned the girl; “and that’s what kept me a little in going——”

“What sort of a looking fellow was he?” asked Curtis.

“He warn’t a gentleman, sir—and he smelt horrible of drink,” said the domestic.

“But what should you take him for?” demanded Frank, impatiently.

“A thief, sir,” was the ingenuous response.

“Be Jasus! and thin it’s a shiriff’s——” ejaculated Captain O’Blunderbuss, starting in his chair: but, instantly stopping short ere he completed the sentence, he added in a few moments and in a less excited tone, “You may go down stairs, my dear; and if any one comes and asks for Misther Frank Cur-r-tis or Captain O’Bluntherbuss, ye must deny us, mind—or I’ll be afther skinning ye alive!”

“Lor, sir!” cried the girl; and, horrified by the dreadful threat, she hastened from the room as if the individual who had uttered the menace were preparing to carry it into execution.

For some few minutes after she had taken her departure, Captain O’Blunderbuss and Mr. Curtis sate eyeing each other in silence,—the same idea evidently occupying both—and both fearful to express it; as if to give utterance to the thought were positively to meet the dreaded misfortune half-way.

“Well,” exclaimed Curtis, at length, “and what do you think of that?”

“Be Jasus! and it’s what do you think of it?” cried the captain.

“For my part I think it’s Rumrigg and Kaysay the lawyers, who’ve found out where we are, and mean to take us on that cursed cognovit we gave them last Christmas for the discounter’s affair,” said Mr. Curtis, who, having now fully expressed his fears, no longer hesitated to look particularly blank upon the matter.

“Faith! and that same’s my opinion also,” exclaimed the gallant officer; then, grasping the poker very tight in his hand, he said, “But if the thunthering villains of shiriff’s-officers crape into this house, it’s myself that’ll sind ’em out again with a flay in their ear. So don’t make yourself unhappy at all, at all, my frind; but let’s dhrink bad luck to the bastes of the airth!”

“With all my heart,” cried Frank, brewing for himself a strong glass of toddy. “The only thing is——”

“Is what?” demanded the captain, suddenly desisting from his occupation of mixing a tumbler of grog for himself, and fixing his eyes sternly upon his friend.

“The breeches,” was the laconic answer.

“Ah! now—and can’t ye be asy about those same unmintionables?” cried the gallant officer. “I suspicted it was afther them ye was harping again and again. It’ll become a sore subject in time, Frank. So dhrink—and bad luck to the inexprissibles.”

And the two gentlemen did drink, until the bottle was empty, when they retired to rest—the captain having previously informed the servant-girl that he should leave his trousers outside his chamber door, and that she must take them round to the tailor the very first thing in the morning, with instructions for him to mend and return them as speedily as possible.