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‘Births.—On Saturday, the 18th inst., in Great Russell-street, the lady of Charles Kitterbell, Esq., of a son.’ ‘It is a boy!’ he exclaimed, dashing down the paper, to the astonishment of the waiters. ‘It is a boy!’ But he speedily regained his composure as his eye rested on a paragraph quoting the number of infant deaths from the bills of mortality.
Evening came—and so did Dumps’s pumps, black silk stockings, and white cravat which he had ordered to be forwarded, per boy, from Pentonville. The depressed godfather dressed himself at a friend’s counting-house, from whence, with his spirits fifty degrees below proof, he sallied forth—as the weather had cleared up, and the evening was tolerably fine—to walk to Great Russell-street.
For some days I tried in vain to do any thing towards it; but on the Sunday, passing from Great Russell-street to Long-acre, through the worst part of St. Giles's, I saw the awful state of that district, and declared to my companion, himself a devoted Irishman, my fixed resolve to have a church there.
L -'s window, which commanded a view of the whole square, to watch the procession pass up Russell-street to the place of interment. The morning was intensely cold, and large snow-flakes fell lazily and heavily to the earth. The poor dingy sparrows, with their feathers ruffled up, hopped mournfully along the pavement in search of food; they, "In spite of all their feathers, were a-cold."
Six weeks passed away, and as no communication had been received from the Kitterbells, Dumps was beginning to flatter himself that the child was dead, when the following note painfully resolved his doubts:— ‘Great Russell-street, Monday morning. ‘DEAR UNCLE,—You will be delighted to hear that my dear Jemima has left her room, and that your future godson is getting on capitally.
Charles Kitterbell was one of the most credulous and matter-of-fact little personages that ever took to himself a wife, and for himself a house in Great Russell-street, Bedford-square. ‘No, but, uncle, ’pon my life you must—you must promise to be godfather,’ said Mr. Kitterbell, as he sat in conversation with his respected relative one morning. ‘I cannot, indeed I cannot,’ returned Dumps.
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