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Mr Peter Bowley, the landlord of the 'Mother Bunch, was the late butler of the late Sir Plumberry Muggs; and having succeeded, on the demise of the baronet, to a legacy of L.500, and finding himself unable any longer to resist the charms of his seven years' comforter and counsellor, the cook, supplemented as they were by the attractions of a legacy of the like amount, he had united his destiny and wealth with hers in one common cause.
Now Muggs, though he carried upon his shoulder a ridiculous pair of elfin skates, was much too small a boy, his brother thought, to embark upon the ice, wherefore he stood like a sentinel upon the shore and drummed and ate incessantly, until an orange catapulted from an overcrowded pocket, when he pursued it with a roar.
Those insignia of rank were as dear to Muggs as the apple of his eye. They were to him what the sceptre and crown were to Napoleon. It was like tugging at his heartstrings to unfasten the belt and sash, and lay the sword upon the table. Marsyas suffered not more when Apollo removed his skin than Muggs did when the landlord stripped off his coat and epaulets.
Scott, in Mexico, said to Smith's brigade, "Brave rifles, you have been baptized in fire, and have come out steel." And Muggs, at Bluetown, after the last manoeuvre, said, "Feller sogers, that 'ere was prime and now less adjourn to the tavern and likker up at my expense." It is questionable whether any speech of Napoleon or Scott ever excited more enthusiasm.
But we've inthrajooced it into this counthry, an' whin I was down seein' if I cud injooce Rafferry, th' Janitor iv th' Isaac Muggs Grammar School, f'r to vote f'r Riordan an' he's goin' to I dhropped in on Cassidy's daughter, Mary Ellen, an' see her kindygartnin'. Th' childher was settin' ar-round on th' flure an' some was moldin' dachshunds out iv mud an' wipin' their hands on their hair, an' some was carvin' figures iv a goat out iv paste-board an' some was singin' an' some was sleepin' an' a few was dancin' an' wan la-ad was pullin' another la-ad's hair.
He did not speak. Neither, from that time on, did he permit any lapse in his industry. What Muggs did, from drum to drum-sticks, he did well. Muggs ate turkey and mashed turnips. Muggs ate potatoes, cranberry sauce, boiled onions, and quite a little celery. He glinted ahead at a pie on the sideboard, seemed to make hurried structural calculations, and pushed his plate again toward the turkey.
Jim fastened a great chunk of suet to a tree-trunk and very soon a red-breasted nuthatch was busy with his Christmas breakfast. Altogether Roger's bang-up Christmas began with terrific bustle, with Annie, from whose kitchen already floated odors that set the insatiable Muggs to sniffing, by far the busiest of them all. The grandfather's clock struck ten.
The Doctor was devoutly hoping that Muggs had never been in jail for stealing food or drums, when Muggs himself appeared clinging desperately to the hand of Mike. He seemed on the verge of a lachrymose explosion. Mike's face was very red but it was also very hopeful. "Jim said to tell ye," he mumbled.
When the hat and plume were laid upon the altar of offended Mammon, Muggs uttered a deep groan, and departed in his shirt sleeves. If we were a great historical painter, we should prefer this subject to that of Washington resigning his commission as commander-in-chief of the revolutionary army. The same integrity distinguished Captain Muggs throughout his life.
It was well that the Doctor had a way with boys, for there was a problem to be solved here with infinite tact a problem of protuberant eyes and paralyzing self-consciousness, of unnatural silences and then unexpected attempts at speech that died in painful rasps and gurgles, of stubbing toes and nudging elbows, of a centipedal supply of arms and legs that interfered with abortive and conscience-stricken attempts at courtesy, and above all an interest in the weave of the carpet that was at once a mania and an epidemic but by the time supper was well under way, things, in the language of Roger, had begun to hum, and by the time the Doctor had mastered the identities of his guests, from Jim, the shy, sullen boy who would not meet his eyes, to Mike's little brother, Muggs, who consumed prodigious quantities of everything in staring silence, and looked something like a girl save for a tardily-cast-off suit of Mike's, somewhat oceanic in flow and fit, the hum had become celebrative and distinctly a thing of Christmas.
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