Vanity Fair (8 page)

"Hold out your other hand, sir," roars Cuff to his little
schoolfellow, whose face was distorted with pain. Dobbin quivered,
and gathered himself up in his narrow old clothes.

"Take that, you little devil!" cried Mr. Cuff, and down came the
wicket again on the child's hand.—Don't be horrified, ladies, every
boy at a public school has done it. Your children will so do and be
done by, in all probability. Down came the wicket again; and Dobbin
started up.

I can't tell what his motive was. Torture in a public school is as
much licensed as the knout in Russia. It would be ungentlemanlike
(in a manner) to resist it. Perhaps Dobbin's foolish soul revolted
against that exercise of tyranny; or perhaps he had a hankering
feeling of revenge in his mind, and longed to measure himself
against that splendid bully and tyrant, who had all the glory,
pride, pomp, circumstance, banners flying, drums beating, guards
saluting, in the place. Whatever may have been his incentive,
however, up he sprang, and screamed out, "Hold off, Cuff; don't
bully that child any more; or I'll—"

"Or you'll what?" Cuff asked in amazement at this interruption.
"Hold out your hand, you little beast."

"I'll give you the worst thrashing you ever had in your life,"
Dobbin said, in reply to the first part of Cuff's sentence; and
little Osborne, gasping and in tears, looked up with wonder and
incredulity at seeing this amazing champion put up suddenly to
defend him: while Cuff's astonishment was scarcely less. Fancy our
late monarch George III when he heard of the revolt of the North
American colonies: fancy brazen Goliath when little David stepped
forward and claimed a meeting; and you have the feelings of Mr.
Reginald Cuff when this rencontre was proposed to him.

"After school," says he, of course; after a pause and a look, as
much as to say, "Make your will, and communicate your last wishes to
your friends between this time and that."

"As you please," Dobbin said. "You must be my bottle holder,
Osborne."

"Well, if you like," little Osborne replied; for you see his papa
kept a carriage, and he was rather ashamed of his champion.

Yes, when the hour of battle came, he was almost ashamed to say, "Go
it, Figs"; and not a single other boy in the place uttered that cry
for the first two or three rounds of this famous combat; at the
commencement of which the scientific Cuff, with a contemptuous smile
on his face, and as light and as gay as if he was at a ball, planted
his blows upon his adversary, and floored that unlucky champion
three times running. At each fall there was a cheer; and everybody
was anxious to have the honour of offering the conqueror a knee.

"What a licking I shall get when it's over," young Osborne thought,
picking up his man. "You'd best give in," he said to Dobbin; "it's
only a thrashing, Figs, and you know I'm used to it." But Figs, all
whose limbs were in a quiver, and whose nostrils were breathing
rage, put his little bottle-holder aside, and went in for a fourth
time.

As he did not in the least know how to parry the blows that were
aimed at himself, and Cuff had begun the attack on the three
preceding occasions, without ever allowing his enemy to strike, Figs
now determined that he would commence the engagement by a charge on
his own part; and accordingly, being a left-handed man, brought that
arm into action, and hit out a couple of times with all his might—
once at Mr. Cuff's left eye, and once on his beautiful Roman nose.

Cuff went down this time, to the astonishment of the assembly.
"Well hit, by Jove," says little Osborne, with the air of a
connoisseur, clapping his man on the back. "Give it him with the
left, Figs my boy."

Figs's left made terrific play during all the rest of the combat.
Cuff went down every time. At the sixth round, there were almost as
many fellows shouting out, "Go it, Figs," as there were youths
exclaiming, "Go it, Cuff." At the twelfth round the latter champion
was all abroad, as the saying is, and had lost all presence of mind
and power of attack or defence. Figs, on the contrary, was as calm
as a quaker. His face being quite pale, his eyes shining open, and
a great cut on his underlip bleeding profusely, gave this young
fellow a fierce and ghastly air, which perhaps struck terror into
many spectators. Nevertheless, his intrepid adversary prepared to
close for the thirteenth time.

If I had the pen of a Napier, or a Bell's Life, I should like to
describe this combat properly. It was the last charge of the Guard—
(that is, it would have been, only Waterloo had not yet taken
place)—it was Ney's column breasting the hill of La Haye Sainte,
bristling with ten thousand bayonets, and crowned with twenty
eagles—it was the shout of the beef-eating British, as leaping down
the hill they rushed to hug the enemy in the savage arms of battle—
in other words, Cuff coming up full of pluck, but quite reeling and
groggy, the Fig-merchant put in his left as usual on his adversary's
nose, and sent him down for the last time.

"I think that will do for him," Figs said, as his opponent dropped
as neatly on the green as I have seen Jack Spot's ball plump into
the pocket at billiards; and the fact is, when time was called, Mr.
Reginald Cuff was not able, or did not choose, to stand up again.

And now all the boys set up such a shout for Figs as would have made
you think he had been their darling champion through the whole
battle; and as absolutely brought Dr. Swishtail out of his study,
curious to know the cause of the uproar. He threatened to flog Figs
violently, of course; but Cuff, who had come to himself by this
time, and was washing his wounds, stood up and said, "It's my fault,
sir—not Figs'—not Dobbin's. I was bullying a little boy; and he
served me right." By which magnanimous speech he not only saved his
conqueror a whipping, but got back all his ascendancy over the boys
which his defeat had nearly cost him.

Young Osborne wrote home to his parents an account of the
transaction.

Sugarcane House, Richmond, March, 18—

DEAR MAMA,—I hope you are quite well. I should be much obliged to
you to send me a cake and five shillings. There has been a fight
here between Cuff & Dobbin. Cuff, you know, was the Cock of the
School. They fought thirteen rounds, and Dobbin Licked. So Cuff is
now Only Second Cock. The fight was about me. Cuff was licking me
for breaking a bottle of milk, and Figs wouldn't stand it. We call
him Figs because his father is a Grocer—Figs & Rudge, Thames St.,
City—I think as he fought for me you ought to buy your Tea & Sugar
at his father's. Cuff goes home every Saturday, but can't this,
because he has 2 Black Eyes. He has a white Pony to come and fetch
him, and a groom in livery on a bay mare. I wish my Papa would let
me have a Pony, and I am

Your dutiful Son, GEORGE SEDLEY OSBORNE

P.S.—Give my love to little Emmy. I am cutting her out a Coach in
cardboard. Please not a seed-cake, but a plum-cake.

In consequence of Dobbin's victory, his character rose prodigiously
in the estimation of all his schoolfellows, and the name of Figs,
which had been a byword of reproach, became as respectable and
popular a nickname as any other in use in the school. "After all,
it's not his fault that his father's a grocer," George Osborne said,
who, though a little chap, had a very high popularity among the
Swishtail youth; and his opinion was received with great applause.
It was voted low to sneer at Dobbin about this accident of birth.
"Old Figs" grew to be a name of kindness and endearment; and the
sneak of an usher jeered at him no longer.

And Dobbin's spirit rose with his altered circumstances. He made
wonderful advances in scholastic learning. The superb Cuff himself,
at whose condescension Dobbin could only blush and wonder, helped
him on with his Latin verses; "coached" him in play-hours: carried
him triumphantly out of the little-boy class into the middle-sized
form; and even there got a fair place for him. It was discovered,
that although dull at classical learning, at mathematics he was
uncommonly quick. To the contentment of all he passed third in
algebra, and got a French prize-book at the public Midsummer
examination. You should have seen his mother's face when Telemaque
(that delicious romance) was presented to him by the Doctor in the
face of the whole school and the parents and company, with an
inscription to Gulielmo Dobbin. All the boys clapped hands in token
of applause and sympathy. His blushes, his stumbles, his
awkwardness, and the number of feet which he crushed as he went back
to his place, who shall describe or calculate? Old Dobbin, his
father, who now respected him for the first time, gave him two
guineas publicly; most of which he spent in a general tuck-out for
the school: and he came back in a tail-coat after the holidays.

Dobbin was much too modest a young fellow to suppose that this happy
change in all his circumstances arose from his own generous and
manly disposition: he chose, from some perverseness, to attribute
his good fortune to the sole agency and benevolence of little George
Osborne, to whom henceforth he vowed such a love and affection as is
only felt by children—such an affection, as we read in the charming
fairy-book, uncouth Orson had for splendid young Valentine his
conqueror. He flung himself down at little Osborne's feet, and
loved him. Even before they were acquainted, he had admired Osborne
in secret. Now he was his valet, his dog, his man Friday. He
believed Osborne to be the possessor of every perfection, to be the
handsomest, the bravest, the most active, the cleverest, the most
generous of created boys. He shared his money with him: bought him
uncountable presents of knives, pencil-cases, gold seals, toffee,
Little Warblers, and romantic books, with large coloured pictures of
knights and robbers, in many of which latter you might read
inscriptions to George Sedley Osborne, Esquire, from his attached
friend William Dobbin—the which tokens of homage George received
very graciously, as became his superior merit.

So that Lieutenant Osborne, when coming to Russell Square on the day
of the Vauxhall party, said to the ladies, "Mrs. Sedley, Ma'am, I
hope you have room; I've asked Dobbin of ours to come and dine here,
and go with us to Vauxhall. He's almost as modest as Jos."

"Modesty! pooh," said the stout gentleman, casting a vainqueur look
at Miss Sharp.

"He is—but you are incomparably more graceful, Sedley," Osborne
added, laughing. "I met him at the Bedford, when I went to look for
you; and I told him that Miss Amelia was come home, and that we were
all bent on going out for a night's pleasuring; and that Mrs. Sedley
had forgiven his breaking the punch-bowl at the child's party.
Don't you remember the catastrophe, Ma'am, seven years ago?"

"Over Mrs. Flamingo's crimson silk gown," said good-natured Mrs.
Sedley. "What a gawky it was! And his sisters are not much more
graceful. Lady Dobbin was at Highbury last night with three of
them. Such figures! my dears."

"The Alderman's very rich, isn't he?" Osborne said archly. "Don't
you think one of the daughters would be a good spec for me, Ma'am?"

"You foolish creature! Who would take you, I should like to know,
with your yellow face?"

"Mine a yellow face? Stop till you see Dobbin. Why, he had the
yellow fever three times; twice at Nassau, and once at St. Kitts."

"Well, well; yours is quite yellow enough for us. Isn't it, Emmy?"
Mrs. Sedley said: at which speech Miss Amelia only made a smile and
a blush; and looking at Mr. George Osborne's pale interesting
countenance, and those beautiful black, curling, shining whiskers,
which the young gentleman himself regarded with no ordinary
complacency, she thought in her little heart that in His Majesty's
army, or in the wide world, there never was such a face or such a
hero. "I don't care about Captain Dobbin's complexion," she said,
"or about his awkwardness. I shall always like him, I know," her
little reason being, that he was the friend and champion of George.

"There's not a finer fellow in the service," Osborne said, "nor a
better officer, though he is not an Adonis, certainly." And he
looked towards the glass himself with much naivete; and in so doing,
caught Miss Sharp's eye fixed keenly upon him, at which he blushed a
little, and Rebecca thought in her heart, "Ah, mon beau Monsieur! I
think I have YOUR gauge"—the little artful minx!

That evening, when Amelia came tripping into the drawing-room in a
white muslin frock, prepared for conquest at Vauxhall, singing like
a lark, and as fresh as a rose—a very tall ungainly gentleman, with
large hands and feet, and large ears, set off by a closely cropped
head of black hair, and in the hideous military frogged coat and
cocked hat of those times, advanced to meet her, and made her one of
the clumsiest bows that was ever performed by a mortal.

This was no other than Captain William Dobbin, of His Majesty's
Regiment of Foot, returned from yellow fever, in the West Indies, to
which the fortune of the service had ordered his regiment, whilst so
many of his gallant comrades were reaping glory in the Peninsula.

He had arrived with a knock so very timid and quiet that it was
inaudible to the ladies upstairs: otherwise, you may be sure Miss
Amelia would never have been so bold as to come singing into the
room. As it was, the sweet fresh little voice went right into the
Captain's heart, and nestled there. When she held out her hand for
him to shake, before he enveloped it in his own, he paused, and
thought—"Well, is it possible—are you the little maid I remember
in the pink frock, such a short time ago—the night I upset the
punch-bowl, just after I was gazetted? Are you the little girl that
George Osborne said should marry him? What a blooming young
creature you seem, and what a prize the rogue has got!" All this he
thought, before he took Amelia's hand into his own, and as he let
his cocked hat fall.