THE TETTERBY FAMILY. [From Dickens' Fancy for Christmas-time—The Haunted Man.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 403, 13 June 1849, Page 4

THE TETTERBY FAMILY. [From Dickens' Fancy for Christmas-time — The Haunted Man.]

A small man sat in a small parlour, partitioned off from a small shop by a small screen pasted all over with small scraps of newspapers. In company with the small man was almost any amount of children you may please to name, at least it seemed so : they made in that very limited sphere of action such an imposing effect in point of numbers. Of these small fry two had, by some strong machinery, been got into bed in a corner, where they might have reposed snugly enough iv the sleep of innocence but for a constitutional propensity to keep awake, and, also, to scuffle in and out of bed. The immediate occasion of these predatory dashes at the waking world was the construction of an oyster-shell wall in a corner by two other youths of tender age, on which fortification the two in bed made harrassing descents, like those accursed Picts and Scots who beleaguer the early historical studies of most young Britons, and ~then withdrew to their own territory. In addition to the stir attendant on these inroads and the retorts of the invaded, who pursued hotly, and made lunges at the bedclothes under which the marauders took refuge, another little boy, in another little bed, contributed his might of confusion to the family stock, by casting his boots upon the waters ; in other words, by launching these and several small objects, inoffensive in themselves, though of a hard substance considered as missiles, at the disturbers of his repose, who were not slow to return these compliments. Besides which, another little boy —the biggest there, but still little —was tottering to and fro, bent on one side, and considerably affected in his knees, by the weight of a large baby, which he was supposed, by a fiction that obtains sometimes in sanguine families, to be hushing to sleep. But oh ! the inexhaustible regions of contemplation and watchfulness into which this baby's eyes were then only beginning to compose themselves to stare, over his unconscious si oulder! It was a very Moloch of a baby, on whose insatiate altar the whole existence of this particular youug brother was offered up a daily sacrifice. Its personality may be said to have consisted in its never being quiet, in any one place, for five consecutive minutes, and never going to sleep when required. " Tetterby's baby" was as well known in the neighbourhood as the postman or the potboy. It roved from doorstep to doorstep, in the arms of little Johnny Tetterby, and lagged heavily at the rear of juveniles who followed the Tumblers or the Monkey, and came up all on one side, a little too late for everything that was attractive, from Monday morning until Saturday night. Wherever childhood -congregated to play, there was little Moloch making Johnny.fag and toil. Wherever Johnny desired to stay, little Moloch became fractious, and would not remain. Whenever Johnny 'wanted to go out, Moloch was asleep, and must be watched. Whenever Johnny wanted to stay at home, Moloch was awake, and must be taken out. Yet Johnny was verily persuaded that it was a faultless baby, without its peer in the realm of Englaud, and was quite content to catch meek glimpses of things in general from behind its skirts, or over its limp flapping bonnet, and to go staggering about with it like a very little porter with a very large parcel, which was not directed lo anybody, and could never be delivered anywhere. The small man who sat in the small parlour, making fruitless attempts to read his newspaper peaceably, in the midst of this disturbance, was the father of the family, and the chief of the firm described in the inscription over the little shop front, by the name and title of "A. Tetterby & Co., Newsmen." indeed, strictly speaking, he was the only personage answering to that designation, as Co. was a mere poetical abstraction, altogether baseless and impersonal. Tetterby's was the corner shop in Jerusa-lem-buildings. There was a good show of literature in the windows, chiefly consisting of picture newspapers out of, date, and serial pirates and footpads, -Walking-sticks, likewise, and marbles were included in the stock-in-trade. It had once-extended into the light confectionery line ; - but it would seem that

those elegancies of life were not in demand about Jerusalem buildings, for nothing connected with that branch of commerce remained in the window except a sort of small glass lantern, contained a languishing mass of bull's-eyes, which had melted in the summer and congealed in the winter until all hope of ever getting them out, or of eating them without the lantern too, was gone for ever. Tetterby's had tried its hands at several things. It had once made a feeble little dart at the toy business ; for, in another lantern, there was a heap of minute wax dolls, all sticking together upside down, in the direst confusion, with their feet on one another's hands, and a precipitate of broken arms and legs at the bottom. It had made a move in the millinery direction, which a few dry, wiry bonnet shapes remained in a corner of the window to attest. It had fancied that a living might lie hidden in the tobacco trade, and had stuck up a representation of a native of each of the three integral portions of the British empire in the act of consuming that fragrant weed, with a poetic legend attached, importing that united in one cause they sat and joked, one chewed tobacco, one took snuff, and one smoked, but nothing seemed to have come of it, except flies. Time had been when it had put a forlorn trust in imitative jewellery, for, in one pane of glass, there was a card of cheap seals, and another of pencilcases, and a mysterious black amulet, of inscrutable intention, labelled ninepence. But, to that hour, Jerusalem-buildings had bought none of them. In short, Tetterby's had tried so hard to get a livelihood out of Jerusalembuildings, in one way or other, and appeared to have done so indifferently in all, that the best position in the firm was too evidently Cos. Co., as a bodiless creation, being untroubled with the vulgar inconveniences of hunger and thirst, being chargeable neither to the poor-rates nor the assessed taxes, and having no family to p-ovide for. Tetterby himself, however, in his little parlour, as already mentioned, having the presence of a young family impressed upon his mind, in a manner too clamorous to be disregarded, or to comport with the quiet perusal of a newspaper, laid down his paper, wheeled, in his distraction, a iew times round the parlour, like an undecided carrier pigeon, made an ineffectual rush at one or two fiying little figures in bed-gowns that skimmed past him, and then, bearing suddenly down upon the only unoffending member of the family., boxed the ears of little Moloch's nurse. "You bad boy.!" said Mr. Tetlerby, " haven't you any feeling for your poor father after the fatigues and anxieties of a hard winter's day, since five o'clock in the morning, but must you wither his rest, and corrode his latest intelligence, with your wicious tricks ? Isn't it enough, sir, that your brother 'Dolphus is tolling and moiling in the fog and cold, and you rolling in the lap of luxury, with a — with a bal.y, and every think you can wish for," said Mr. Tetterby, heaping this up as a great climax of blessings, " but you muse make a wilderness of home, and maniacs of your parents 1 Must you, Johnny ? Hey ?" At each interrogation Mr. Tetterby made a feint of boxing his ears again, but thought better of it, and held his hand. *" Ob, father !" whimpered Johnny, " when I wasn't doing anything, I'm sure, but taking such care of Sally, and getting her to sleep. Oh, father!" " I wish my little woman would come home !'* said Mr. Tetterby, relenting and repeuting, "I only wish my little woman would come home ! I ain't fit to deal with 'em. They make my head go round, and get the better of me. Oh, Johnny ! Isn't it enough that your dear mother has provided you with that sweet 6ister ?" indicating Moloch ; "isn't it enough that you were seven boys before, without a ray of gal, and that your dear mother went through what she did go through, on purpose that you might all of you have a little sister, but must you so behave yourself as to make my head swim ?" Softening more and more, as his own tender feelings and those of his injured son were worked on, Mr. Tetterby concluded by embracing him, and immediately breaking away to catch one of the real delinquents. A reasonably good start occurring he succeeded, after a short but smart run, and some rather severe cross-country work under and over the bedsteads, and in and out among the intricacies of the chairs, in capturing this infant, whom he condignly punished and bore to bed. 1 bis example had a powerful and apparently mesmeric influence on him of the boots, who instantly fell into a deep sleep, though he had been, but a moment before, broad awake, and in the highest possible feather. Nor was it lost upon the two young architects, who retired to bed,iu an adjoining closet, with great privacy and speed. The comrade of the intercepted one also shrinking into his nest with similar discretion, Mr. Tetterby, when he paused for breath, found himself unexpectedly in a scene of j>eace.

" My little woman herself," said Mr. Tetterby, wiping his flushed face, "could hardly have done it better ! I only wish my little woman had had it to do, I do indeed !" Mr. Tetterby sought upon liis screen fora passage appropriate to be impressed upon his children's minds on the occasion, and read the following : " • It is an undoubted fact that all remarkable men have had remarkable mothers, and have respected them in after life as their best friends.' Think of your own remarkable mother, my boys," said Mr. Tetterby, "and know her value while she is still among you." He sat down again in his chair by the fire, and composed himself, cross-legged, over his newspaper. " Let anybody, I don't care who it is, get out of bed again," said Tetterby, as a general proclamation, delivered in a very soft-hearted manner, 4l and astonishment will be the portion of that respected contemporary !" which expression Mr. Tetlerby selected from his screen. " Johnny, my child, take care of your only sister, Sally, for she's the brightest gem that ever sparkled on your early brow." Johnny sat down on a little stool, and devotedly crushed himself beneath the weight of Moloch. " Ah,, what a gift that baby is to you Johnny !" said his father, ■" and how thankful you ought to be! 'It is not generally known,' Johnny," he was now referring to the screen again, " 'but it is a fact ascertained, by accuratexjalculations, that the following immense ppr centage of babies never attain to two years old, that is to say — ' " " Oh, don't, father, please !" cried Johnny. " I can't bear it, when I think of Sally." Mr. Tetterby desisting, Johnny, with a profounder sense of his trust, wiped his eyes, and hushed his sister. " Your brother 'Dolphus," said his father, poking up the fire, "is late to-night, Johnny, and will come home likealumpofice. What's got your precious mother ?" " Here's mother, and 'Dolphus, too, father !" exclaimed Johnny, v I think." " You're light," returned the father, listening. " Yes, that's the footstep of my little woman." (To be continued.)