Christmas Penny Readings: Original Sketches for the Season. Fenn George Manville

water grows less and less steamy, there stand two hollow leather cylinders loaded with fearful pains to be discharged at your devoted feet.

      There isn’t a sensible shoemaker on the face of the earth. I’ve tried them one after the other until I’m tired of them. One recommends calf, another kid, another dog-skin, and another “pannus corium,” and my feet are worse than ever. I won’t believe in them any more, though they do show me lasts made to my feet, and insult me with hideous nubbly, bunkly abortions carved in wood, which they say represent my feet – my feet, those suffering locomotives. I’ll take to sandals, or else follow the advice of the Countess de Noailles, and go barefoot like the old hen in the nursery rhyme.

      I could suffer the bodily pain if it were not for the mental accompaniment, and the total want of pity and compassion shown by people. Only the other day, going down one of those quiet cab-stand streets, one of the idle wretches that I intended to engage shouted out to his companions, —

      “I say, old ’uns, here’s Peter Pindar a-coming.”

      “Who?” shouted another.

      “Cove as turned pilgrim, and went with peas in his shoes,” cried Number One; while, writhing with agony, and gnashing my teeth, I shook my stick at the rascal.

      “You scoundrel,” I cried, “it’s my corn, – it’s not peas.”

      “Then get it ground, sir,” groaned the fellow; when I was so vexed that I took the omnibus instead, or rather the omnibus took me, and as soon as I had entered, I was shot into the lap of a stout elderly lady who looked daggers at me, and revenged herself by putting her fat umbrella ferrule on my corn at every opportunity. I believe it was Mrs Saunders herself, the friend of Mrs Bardell, of Goswell Street. And oh! what I suffered in that vehicle! Would that I could have performed the operation recommended by the conductor – a man with a gash across his face when he laughed – to put my toes in my pocket, or go and dispose of my troubles at Mark Lane.

      It was of no use to try: every one who came in or went out of that ’bus, either trod upon or poked my worst corn with stick or umbrella, and then in the height of my anguish, when my countenance was distorted with pain, a stout, wheezing old lady opposite must “Drat my imperance,” and want to know whether I meant to insult her.

      I hobbled out of the place of torture as quickly as I could, and stepped into one of those mud trimmings the scavengers delight in leaving by our pavements, covering the glossy leather with the foul refuse, so that, naturally particular about my boots, I was reduced to the extremity of having a polish laid on by one of those young scarlet rascals, who kneel at the corners of the streets.

      “Black yer boots, sir,” cried first one and then another, but I could not trust to the first I met with, for he looked too eager, the next too slow, while the third seemed a doubtful character, so I waited till I reached a fourth.

      “Do you see that slight eminence, you dog?”

      “Wot that knobble, sir,” said the boy.

      “That eminence, boy,” I said, fiercely. “That covers a corn.”

      “All right, sir,” said the boy, “I won’t hurt it. I’ll go a tip-toe over him, you see if I don’t. I often cleans boots for gents as has corns, and I’m used to ’em, and – ”

      “Yah-h-h-h,” I shrieked, for it was impossible to help it, and at the same moment brought down my umbrella fiercely on the little scoundrel’s head. Fancy my feelings all you who suffer, for it must have been done purposely; just as the young ruffian was grinding away with an abomination of a hard brush – a very hard brush, so hard that there was more wood than bristles – he looked up at me and grinned while I was perspiring with fear and pain, and then with one furious stroke he caught the edge of his brush right upon the apex of Mount Agony, causing me to shriek, seize my half-cleaned boot with both hands, and dance round upon one leg regardless of appearances, and to the extreme delight of the collecting crowd.

      “Don’t you do that agen, now come,” whimpered the boy, guarding his head with both arms, and smearing his black countenance where a few tears trickled down.

      “You dog!” I shouted; “I’ll – I’ll – I’ll – ”

      “Oh, ah! I dessay you will,” whined the boy; “I never said nothin’ to you. Why don’t you pull off your boots then, and not go a-knockin’ me about?”

      Of course I hurried away with my boots half-cleaned, and so I have to hurry through life – a miserable man, suffering unheard-of torment, but with no one to pity me. Time back, people would ask what ailed me, but now they “pooh, pooh” my troubles, since it is only my corns. I would not care if people would tread upon me anywhere else, but they won’t, and I feel now reduced to my last hope.

      Did not somebody once say, “Great oaks from little acorns grow – great aches from little toe-corns grow”? How true – how telling! But there, I give up, with the determination to bear my pains as I can, for I feel assured that no one will sympathise with me who does not suffer from corns.

      Chapter Three

      A Ghastly Deed

      In Portsmouth harbour the good ship lay,

      Her cruising ended for many a day,

      And gathered on deck while receiving their pay,

      The sailors most thickly were mustered.

      The Jews on the wharves were all eagerly bent

      On supplying poor Jack, while most likely by scent,

      There were sharks by the score

      On all parts of the shore.

      Both he sharks and she sharks enough, ay and more,

      To devour poor Jack,

      When they made their attack,

      And there on the land they all clustered.

      Only think; from a cruise of four years returned,

      And paid in clean money! No wonder it burned,

      And Jack’s canvass pockets were ready to give.

      But, there: not so ready as Jack who would live

      To the top of his income – the very main truck,

      And when to the bottom of pocket, why luck,

      Would never turn back

      On poor happy-faced Jack,

      Who never said die

      In his life. And would try

      To face any storm if his officers spoke,

      Or the wildest of sights that the hurricane woke.

      Now Dick Sprit was a sailor,

      Tight and bold in a gale or

      A storm. He would cheer in a fight,

      ’Mid the bullets’ flight,

      And sooner than hear any praise or flattery,

      Would have run his head in a “Rooshun” battery.

      Now Dick his pockets had ten times slapped,

      His fingers snapped, and his trousers clapped;

      He had thought of his home and the Christmas-time,

      The long shore days ’mid the frosty rime.

      He had gone on shore, run the gauntlet well,

      ’Scaped the Jews’ oiled words and the grog-shops’ smell.

      The night was cold and the way was dark,

      What mattered when Dick was free of his bark,

      And with kit on his back, and stick in his fist,

      His pay in his pocket, and cheek full of twist,

      He started off for his six miles’ tramp

      To his native spot, spite of snow or damp.

      Dick twisted his twist, and he flourished his stick,

      And