service, were bound to their employers for a term
of years; and it was represented to me, that, in
addition to suiting my own purpose, I should be
assisting a deserving charity by taking a boy from
the establishment. Accordingly, the week before
we were married, Emma Maria and I, accompanied by her aunt, went to inspect the school.
Sundry boys were called forward, and put through
their facings, as it were, before us. Among these
was one of the most ungainly youths I ever
remember to have seen. His bones stuck out all
over him in great lumps; his head was of the
most peculiar shape, all angles where ordinary
heads have curves; and there was that in his face
which made me whisper to Emma Maria, in my
droll way, that I was sure an admirably interesting melodramatic story might be written, suggested by his appearance, entitled, “Skeggs; or
the Fatal Orphan.” As he came from his seat
towards us, he took the most absurd and exaggerated pains to tread on the tips of his toes, so as
to avoid noise; a mode of progression which
ended in his overbalancing, falling heavily against
a desk, and eventually rolling up to Emma Maria's
little boots, much to her alarm, though she
couldn’t help laughing when he had picked himself
up, at his rueful expression, and the ape-like way
in which he rubbed himself.
When we adjourned to the superintendent’s room, I was asked if I should like to select a boy. I modestly said that as I knew nothing about any of the youths, I should much prefer leaving it to the superintendent to send me one whom he could thoroughly recommend. He said he would think the matter over, and promised that we should find a boy at our house on our return from our wedding tour, which Emma Maria’s aunt, who I am bound to say took a more leading part in the arrangement than I altogether approved of, had told him was at hand.
At that epoch, when we drove up to our door, behind the friends who were in the hall waiting to receive us, my eye discerned a well-remembered hideous face, and I involuntarily exclaimed, in tones of horror, “Skeggs!” I thought Emma Maria would have fainted.
However, there was Skeggs, sure enough, resplendent in bright buttons (I had made arrangements about the clothing question), and on the mantelpiece was a note from the superintendent, stating that Skeggs’ name was Bernard Wilkins, and that in his (the superintendent’s) opinion, he was the very boy for us.
Emma Maria was rather mollified by this note; she said Bernard was a nice name, and would sound so well. I had misgivings, but I only shook my head; after all, they were but misgivings; I knew nothing about the lad, and could hardly send him back because of his looks. Besides, we were to have him a month on trial before binding him for three years. I may state, too, that the resources of sartorial science had considerably diminished the angularity of his appearance.
During his month of probation, Skeggs so conducted himself as to cause me many pangs of self-reproach for my first judgment of him. He was respectful and attentive, perhaps a shade too demonstratively so: though this may be an after-thought, begotten of subsequent events. The knives and boots were resplendent, the door was “answered“ without undue delay; and the maid- servant’s report was in addition so favourable, that, on a certain day, I, the superintendent of the asylum, and Skeggs, set our hands and seals respectively to a document whereby I bound myself to provide Skeggs with food, shelter, and raiment for three years — which was about the worst quarter of an hour’s work T ever did.
Very shortly after this the perfidious hypocrite threw off the mask, openly stating to Mary, the maid-servant, “that we had him for three years, and that he wasn’t going to slave as he had bin.” He became idle, saucy, and gluttonous to a degree I should have before thought incredible; he was always eating, notwithstanding which it came to my knowledge that he had complained to a neighbour’s servant that we — that is, Emma Maria and I — were “a rubbishing, starving lot; and that he could hardly get enough to keep body and soul together;“ and that he had likewise given to the world sundry other statements, which, though ingeniously and diabolically falsified, were yet sufficiently based upon circumstances of actual occurrence to convince me that he had acquired habits of persevering and judicious eaves-dropping. He speedily became the bane of my life; never did I leave the house in the morning, without some unpleasant reminder of his presence there; never did I return in the evening, but to hear the voice of lamentation and complaint respecting his behaviour. Unblacked were now the boots, unpolished the cutlery, unheeded the knocker and the bell; nay one day he absolutely declined to wait upon Emma Maria at dinner, (I dined at a chop-house near my place of business), and was so violent that, on my return at night, I found her in tears.
I couldn’t believe that any sane person would behave as Skeggs had done without some cause, fancied or real, and demanded particulars.
“He just said he wouldn’t.”
“But, my dear,” I asked, “didn’t you reason with him on such preposterous conduct?“
Y es. Emma Maria had reasoned with him.
“And what did he do then?“
“He da- da-danced at me;“ with sobbing. I admitted the difficulty of refuting this argument, and descended to the kitchen. But I could do no good with him, and I found that the notion that “we had him” for so long a time, had taken entire possession of him.
So, on the morrow, I presented myself before the superintendent of the asylum, and laid before him my complaint. I found him a different man from what he had been at our last interview— cold, not to say uncivil
“It was very strange; Wilkins had always shown himself a remarkably good boy; if I doubted this, I could see his character duly certified in the books of the institution.”
I declined this solace, not seeing its exact bearing on my case, and being already aware from experience that Skeggs was a finished hypocrite. Shall I confess that I only kept my temper with difficulty, seeing as I did in the superintendent’s manner, an evident expression of opinion that I