“Consider, also,” – pursued the lady, – “consider that Stammer is a very common kind of word; nay, it is a mere verb of Dutch extraction (as that great man Doctor Johnson says), which signifies stuttering; and to articulate which, there is a graceless double chopping of the under jaw – as if a person was taking a bite out of something: – try now, try, Stammer – Stammer!”
“Egad, it’s – it’s very true,” said Sir William: “I – I never remarked that before.”
“But,” resumed the lady with the masculine understanding, “the word Steemer, on the contrary, has a soft, bland, liquid sound, perfectly adapted to genteel table-talk. To pronounce Steemer, you will perceive, Sir William, there is a slight tendency to a lisp: the tip of the tongue presses gently against the upper gums, and a nice extension of the lips approaching toward a smile, gives an agreeable sensation, as well as a polite complacency of countenance to the addresser. – Now, try!”
Sir William lisped and capitulated – on express condition; first, that the old County Clare tone of Stammer, in its natural length and breadth, should be preserved when the name was used by or to the Corporation of Dublin.
“Granted,” said the lady with the masculine understanding.
“Secondly, amongst the aldermen of Skinners’ Alley.”
“Granted.”
“Thirdly, in the Court of Conscience.”
“Granted.”
“Fourthly, in my own counting-house.”
“Granted – according to the rank of the visitor.”
“Fifthly, as to all my country acquaintance.”
“Granted, with the exception of such as hold any offices, or get into good company.”
The articles were arranged, and the treaty took effect that very evening.
Sir William no doubt acquired one distinction hereby, which he never foresaw. Several other aldermen of Dublin city have been since converted into baronets of the United Kingdom, but not one of them has been able to alter a single syllable in his name, or to make it sound even a semitone more genteel than when it belonged to a commonplace alderman. There was no lack of jesting, however, on those occasions. A city punster, I think it was a gentleman called, by the Common Council, Gobbio, waggishly said, “That the Corporation of Dublin must be a set of incorrigible Tories, inasmuch as they never have a feast without King-James1 being placed at the head of their table.”
It is said that this joke was first cracked at the Castle of Dublin by a gentleman of the long robe, and that Mr. Gobbio gave one of the footmen (who attended and took notes) half a guinea for it. Though a digression, I cannot avoid observing that I hear, from good authority, there are yet some few wits surviving in Dublin; and it is whispered that the butlers and footmen in genteel families (vails having been mostly abolished since the Union) pick up, by way of substitute, much ready money by taking notes of the “good things” they hear said by the lawyers at their masters’ dinner parties, and selling them to aldermen, candidates for the sheriffry, and city humourists, wherewith to embellish their conversation and occasionally their speeches. Puns are said to sell the best, they being more handy to a corporator, who has no great vocabulary of his own: puns are of easy comprehension; one word brings on another, and answers for two meanings, like killing two birds with one stone, and they seem much more natural to the memory of a common councilman than wit or any thing classical – which Alderman Jekey Poole used to swear was only the d – ’d garbage (gibberish) of schoolmasters.
Had the Jubilee concern ended here, all would have been smooth and square: – but as events in families seldom come alone, Providence had decreed a still more severe trial for Sir William Steemer– because one of a more important character, and requiring a more prompt as well as expensive decision.
Soon after the luxurious celebration of the Jubilee throughout the three united kingdoms (except among such of the Irish as happened to have nothing in their houses to eat or drink, let their loyalty be ever so greedy), I chanced to call at the Mansion House on official business; and Sir William, always hospitable and good-natured, insisted on my staying to taste (in a family way) some “glorious turtle” he had just got over from the London Tavern, and a bottle of what he called “old Lafitte with the red nightcap,” which, he said, he had been long preserving wherewith to suckle his Excellency the Duke of Richmond.
I accepted his invitation: we had most excellent cheer, and were busily employed in praising the vintage of 1790, when a sealed packet, like a government dispatch, was brought in by the baronet’s old porter. We all thought it was something of consequence, when Sir William, impatiently breaking the seal, out started a very beautiful painting on parchment or vellum, gilded and garnished with ultramarine, carmine, lapis caliminaris, and all the most costly colours.
“Heyday!” said Sir William, staring: “what the deuce have we here? Hollo! Christopher – Kit – I say Kit – who – who – or where the devil did this come from?”
“By my sowl, my lord,” replied Christopher, “I dunnough who that same man was that fetched it; but he was neat an’ clean, and had good apparel on his body, though it was not a livery like mine, my lord.”
“Did – did – he say nothing, Kit?” said Sir William, surprised.
“Oh yes, plenty my lord; he desired me on my peril to give the thing safe and sound to your lordship’s own self. He swore, like any trooper, that it was as good as a ten thousand pound bank of Ireland note in your pocket any how. So I curdled up at that word, my lord; I towld him plain and plump he need not talk about peril to me; that I was nothing else but an honest sarvant; and if the said thing was worth fifty pounds in ready money it would be as safe as a diamond stone with me, my lord.”
“And was that all, Christopher?” said Sir William.
“Oh no, my lord,” replied Kit, “the man grinned at me all as one as a monkey; and said that, maybe, I’d be a master myself one of these days. ‘By my sowl, maybe so, Sir,’ says I, ‘many a worse man arrived at being an attorney since I came into service;’ and at the word, my lord, the said man held his hand quite natural, as if he’d fain get something into it for his trouble; but the devil a cross I had in my fob, my lord, so I turned my fob inside out to show I was no liar, and he bowed very civilly and went out of the street-door, laughing that the whole street could hear him; though I could swear by all the books in your lordship’s office, that he had nothing to laugh at: and that’s all I had act or part in it, my lord.”
Sir William now seemed a little puzzled, desired Christopher to be gone, and throwing the painting on the table, said, “I didn’t want any arms or crests. I had very good ones of my own, and I don’t understand this matter at all. My family had plenty of arms and crests since King William came over the water.”
“So have mine – a very nice lion rampant of their own, my lord,” said her ladyship, as excellent a woman as could be: “I’m of the Rawins’s,” continued she, “and they have put me into your arms, Sir William: – look!”
“Oh that is all as it should be, my dear,” said his lordship, who was a very tender husband. But regarding it more closely, her ladyship’s colour, as she looked over his shoulder, mantled a few shades higher than its natural roseate hue, and she seemed obviously discontented.
“I tell you, Sir William,” said she, “it is a malicious insult; and if you were out of the mayoralty, or my boy, Lovelace Steemer, had arrived at full maturity, I have no doubt the person who sent this would be made a proper example of. I hope you feel it, Sir William.”
“Feel! – feel what, my love?” said Sir William, calmly, he being not only a courteous, but a most peaceful citizen. “Don’t be precipitate, my darling! – let us see – let us see.”
“See!” said her ladyship, still more