THE LAMPLIGHTER(点灯人)

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THE LAMPLIGHTER

'If you talk of Murphy and Francis Moore, gentlemen,' said the

lamplighter who was in the chair, 'I mean to say that neither of 'em ever

had any more to do with the stars than Tom Grig had.'

'And what had HE to do with 'em?' asked the lamplighter who

officiated as vice.

'Nothing at all,' replied the other; 'just exactly nothing at all.'

'Do you mean to say you don't believe in Murphy, then?' demanded the

lamplighter who had opened the discussion.

'I mean to say I believe in Tom Grig,' replied the chairman. 'Whether I

believe in Murphy, or not, is a matter between me and my conscience; and

whether Murphy believes in himself, or not, is a matter between him and

his conscience. Gentlemen, I drink your healths.'

The lamplighter who did the company this honour, was seated in the

chimney-corner of a certain tavern, which has been, time out of mind, the

Lamplighters' House of Call. He sat in the midst of a circle of

lamplighters, and was the cacique, or chief of the tribe.

If any of our readers have had the good fortune to behold a

lamplighter's funeral, they will not be surprised to learn that lamplighters

are a strange and primitive people; that they rigidly adhere to old

ceremonies and customs which have been handed down among them from

father to son since the first public lamp was lighted out of doors; that they

intermarry, and betroth their children in infancy; that they enter into no

plots or conspiracies (for who ever heard of a traitorous lamplighter?); that

they commit no crimes against the laws of their country (there being no

instance of a murderous or burglarious lamplighter); that they are, in short,

notwithstanding their apparently volatile and restless character, a highly

moral and reflective people: having among themselves as many

traditional observances as the Jews, and being, as a body, if not as old as

the hills, at least as old as the streets. It is an article of their creed that the

first faint glimmering of true civilisation shone in the first street-light

maintained at the public expense. They trace their existence and high

position in the public esteem, in a direct line to the heathen mythology;

and hold that the history of Prometheus himself is but a pleasant fable,

whereof the true hero is a lamplighter.

THE LAMPLIGHTER

'Gentlemen,' said the lamplighter in the chair, 'I drink your healths.'

'And perhaps, Sir,' said the vice, holding up his glass, and rising a little

way off his seat and sitting down again, in token that he recognised and

returned the compliment, 'perhaps you will add to that condescension by

telling us who Tom Grig was, and how he came to be connected in your

mind with Francis Moore, Physician.'

'Hear, hear, hear!' cried the lamplighters generally.

'Tom Grig, gentlemen,' said the chairman, 'was one of us; and it

happened to him, as it don't often happen to a public character in our line,

that he had his what-you-may-call-it cast.'

'His head?' said the vice.

'No,' replied the chairman, 'not his head.'

'His face, perhaps?' said the vice. 'No, not his face.' 'His legs?'

'No, not his legs.' Nor yet his arms, nor his hands, nor his feet, nor his

chest, all of which were severally suggested.

'His nativity, perhaps?'

'That's it,' said the chairman, awakening from his thoughtful attitude at

the suggestion. 'His nativity. That's what Tom had cast, gentlemen.'

'In plaster?' asked the vice.

'I don't rightly know how it's done,' returned the chairman. 'But I

suppose it was.'

And there he stopped as if that were all he had to say; whereupon there

arose a murmur among the company, which at length resolved itself into a

request, conveyed through the vice, that he would go on. This being

exactly what the chairman wanted, he mused for a little time, performed

that agreeable ceremony which is popularly termed wetting one's whistle,

and went on thus:

'Tom Grig, gentlemen, was, as I have said, one of us; and I may go

further, and say he was an ornament to us, and such a one as only the good

old times of oil and cotton could have produced. Tom's family,

gentlemen, were all lamplighters.'

'Not the ladies, I hope?' asked the vice.

'They had talent enough for it, Sir,' rejoined the chairman, 'and would

have been, but for the prejudices of society. Let women have their rights,

THE LAMPLIGHTER

Sir, and the females of Tom's family would have been every one of 'em in

office. But that emancipation hasn't come yet, and hadn't then, and

consequently they confined themselves to the bosoms of their families,

cooked the dinners, mended the clothes, minded the children, comforted

their husbands, and attended to the house-keeping generally. It's a hard

thing upon the women, gentlemen, that they are limited to such a sphere of

action as this; very hard.

'I happen to know all about Tom, gentlemen, from the circumstance of

his uncle by his mother's side, having been my particular friend. His

(that's Tom's uncle's) fate was a melancholy one. Gas was the death of

him. When it was first talked of, he laughed. He wasn't angry; he

laughed at the credulity of human nature. "They might as well talk," he

says, "of laying on an everlasting succession of glow-worms;" and then he

laughed again, partly at his joke, and partly at poor humanity.

'In course of time, however, the thing got ground, the experiment was

made, and they lighted up Pall Mall. Tom's uncle went to see it. I've

heard that he fell off his ladder fourteen times that night, from weakness,

and that he would certainly have gone on falling till he killed himself, if

his last tumble hadn't been into a wheelbarrow which was going his way,

and humanely took him home. "I foresee in this," says Tom's uncle faintly,

and taking to his bed as he spoke - "I foresee in this," he says, "the

breaking up of our profession. There's no more going the rounds to trim

by daylight, no more dribbling down of the oil on the hats and bonnets of

ladies and gentlemen when one feels in spirits. Any low fellow can light

a gas-lamp. And it's all up." In this state of mind, he petitioned the

government for - I want a word again, gentlemen - what do you call that

which they give to people when it's found out, at last, that they've never

been of any use, and have been paid too much for doing nothing?'

'Compensation?' suggested the vice.

'That's it,' said the chairman. 'Compensation. They didn't give it

him, though, and then he got very fond of his country all at once, and went

about saying that gas was a death-blow to his native land, and that it was a

plot of the radicals to ruin the country and destroy the oil and cotton trade

for ever, and that the whales would go and kill themselves privately, out of

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摘要：

THELAMPLIGHTER1THELAMPLIGHTERTHELAMPLIGHTER2'IfyoutalkofMurphyandFrancisMoore,gentlemen,'saidthelamplighterwhowasinthechair,'Imeantosaythatneitherof'emeverhadanymoretodowiththestarsthanTomGrighad.''AndwhathadHEtodowith'em?'askedthelamplighterwhoofficiatedasvice.'Nothingatall,'repliedtheother;'justex...

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