Pieman

“ The street Pieman with his “cry,” of “Pies all hot! hot!! hot!!!—Penny pies, all hot! hot!!—fruit, eel, beef, veal or kidney pies! pies, all hot-hot-hot,” is one of the most ancient of street callings, and to London boys of every degree, “Familiar in their mouths as household words.” Nor is the itinerant trade in pies—“Eel, beef, veal, kidney or fruit,” confined to the great metropolis. All large provincial towns have, from a time going back much farther than even the proverbial “oldest inhabitant” can recollect, had their old and favourite “Penny Pieman,” or, “Old-all-Hot!” ”

“ The eye the secret tells.
('Tis known the pie of county fairs all other pies excels.)
So when he saw upon the road,
Some fifty feet away,
A pieman, Simple Simon strode
Toward him, shouting: "Hey!
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What kinds?" as lordly as a prince.
The pieman said: "I've pumpkin, quince,
Blueberry, lemon, peach, and mince:"
And, showing his array,
He added: "Won't you try one, sir? They're very nice to-day." ”

“ The sellers of food are of course among these. “Hot Peascod,” and “Hot Sheep’s-feet,” are not popular delicacies, as in the time of Lydgate. “Hot Wardens,” and “Hot Codlings,” are not the cries which invite us to taste of stewed pears and baked apples. But we have still apples hissing over a charcoal fire; also roasted chesnuts, and potatoes steaming in a shining apparatus, with savoury salt-butter to put between the “fruit” when cut; the London pieman still holds his ground in spite of the many penny pie-shops now established. Rice-milk is yet sold out in halfpennyworths. ”

“ Simple Simon is proved to be an undischarged bankrupt. Discharged accordingly. Pieman bound over to keep the pies. He pleads for mercy.
7 The Pieman’s nightmare. Procession of dogs, cats, horses, and rats, headed by the Pied Piper. The Pieman’s coat-of-arms: On a field sanguinary semée de Melton Mowbray proper, a microbe vert, armed cap-à-pie.
SEE-SAW, MARGERY DAW
1 Miss Margery Daw’s home in Thibet. Her boudoir. With inimitable nonchalance she lights a cigarette. She turns pale. She dies. She disappears from history. ”

“ These are two busy men, indeed; one cries food for the mind, and the other p. 46food for the body. Neither of these tradesmen keep long in one place. The news-boy would be very glad to have a hot plumcake, but he has not time to eat it; nor will the pieman wait to hear what the news is. So that they are not only busy men, but what is very different, men of business. They are passing by The Obelisk, in Fleet Street, built by the City of London, on the spot which was once the centre of Fleet Ditch, which flowed as high as Holborn Bridge, under that part which Fleet Market is now built upon. ”

“ Streatham Park, 1 June 1797.
My dear Mrs. Pennington,—I feel your good-natured expressions very sensibly, and so does our poor dear Master; he is grown a sad invalid, always having the Gout, and crying out with pain. But the sick people live, whilst the well people dye, you know; so sings the sublime Mrs. Piozzi in her Journey to Italy, and so experience teaches. ”

“ What men looked for in Pitt now was not the economist or the reformer, but the son of Chatham, the heir of his father's courage, of his father's faith in the greatness of England. And what they looked for they found. Pitt was no born War Minister; he had none of the genius that commands victory, or of the passionate enthusiasm that rouses a nation to great deeds of arms. But he had faith in England. Even when she stood alone against the world he never despaired. ”

“ At the moment when we must present him to our readers, Pitman was in his studio alone, by the dying light of the October day. He sat (sure enough with 'unaffected simplicity') in a Windsor chair, his low-crowned black felt hat by his side; a dark, weak, harmless, pathetic little man, clad in the hue of mourning, his coat longer than is usual with the laity, his neck enclosed in a collar without a parting, his neckcloth pale in hue and simply tied; the whole outward man, except for a pointed beard, tentatively clerical. ”

“ Do my eyes deceive me, or is that object up there a—a pie? It can’t be a pie.’
‘Yes, it’s a pie, Wegg,’ replied Mr Boffin, with a glance of some little discomfiture at the Decline and Fall.
‘Have I lost my smell for fruits, or is it a apple pie, sir?’ asked Wegg.
‘It’s a veal and ham pie,’ said Mr Boffin.
‘Is it indeed, sir? And it would be hard, sir, to name the pie that is a better pie than a weal and hammer,’ said Mr Wegg, nodding his head emotionally. ”

“ No impassioned personage wishes he had been born in the age of Pitt, that his ardent youth might have eaten the dearest bread, dressed itself with the longest coat-tails and the shortest waist, or heard the loudest grumbling at the heaviest war-taxes ”

“ We must place the affair, in short, in the hands of some one with fewer scruples and more resources.”
“A private detective, perhaps?” suggested Pitman.
“There are times when you fill me with pity,” observed the lawyer. “By the way, Pitman,” he added in another key, “I have always regretted that you have no piano in this den of yours. Even if you don’t play yourself, your friends might like to entertain themselves with a little music while you were mudding.” ”

“ Pym are already well known to the public through the medium of the daily press. It is feared that the few remaining chapters which were to have completed his narrative, and which were retained by him, while the above were in type, for the purpose of revision, have been irrecoverably lost through the accident by which he perished himself. ”

“ You will be relieved to hear that I am rich, sir, very rich. You can't go into this sort of thing too thoroughly, Pitman; the whole secret is preparation, and I can get up my biography from the beginning, and I could tell it you now, only I have forgotten it.'
'Perhaps I'm stupid—' began Pitman.
'That's it!' cried Michael. 'Very stupid; but rich too—richer than I am. I thought you would enjoy it, Pitman, so I've arranged that you were to be literally wallowing in wealth. But then, on the other hand, you're only an American, and a maker of india-rubber overshoes at that. ”

“ Pitt was enchanting.' He also quotes Wilkes, who was a good judge of social qualifications. 'Mr. Pitt, by the most manly sense and the fine sallies of a warm and sportive imagination, can charm the whole day, and, as the Greek said, his entertainments please even the day after they are given.' But, after all, these must have been rare occasions, as Pitt does not seem to have seen much of society, for his health kept him a recluse; and as years went on he seems to have found it both irksome and impolitic to see much of mankind. ”

“ It stirs and vibrates in their hearts and other sounds grow faint. So they wander through Pied Piper Street away from Hamelin town.
I get thinking sometimes if the Pied Piper is really dead, or if he may not still be roaming up and down our streets and lanes, but playing now so softly that only the children hear him. Why do the little faces look so grave and solemn when they pause awhile from romping, and stand, deep wrapt, with straining eyes? They only shake their curly heads and dart back laughing to their playmates when we question them. ”

“ When, in 1795, Pitt declared in the House of Commons that an apparently attractive measure brought forward hastily was "like a Swafton pie, which we are asked to swallow without full knowledge of its contents," the fame of the "Dragon" may be taken as at its zenith and its yard became a fashionable meeting-place for coach parties who had driven over from London and from Oxford. Tradition of the road asserts that the Prince fell an early victim to the appetising air from the hills and the flavour of the pie, and might be seen at least once a month driving Mrs. ”

“ Piozzi, [103] who is scarce in his wits for very agony. But these are always my months of misery. Don't you remember what a winter I pass'd with that Drummond? It was just the same season of the year.
Well! public affairs do yet claim some attention, tho' private ones be never so pressing. You are an odd Girl to talk of Fleming's famous Sermon now for a newish thing. Were we not all raving about it last winter? And have not I mentioned it in my Synonymes? And did not I read you the passage? Or did all that I allude to pass between me and dear Mrs. Siddons? ”

“ Finsbury, do not trifle with my misery,” cried Pitman. “You see before you a man who has been all his life—I do not hesitate to say it—eminently respectable. Even in this solemn hour I can lay my hand upon my heart without a blush. Except on the really trifling point of the smuggling of the Hercules (and even of that I now humbly repent) , my life has been entirely fit for publication. I never feared the light,” cried the little man; “and now—now——!”
“Cheer up, old boy,” said Michael. ”

“ Pym has given the figures of the chasm without comment, and speaks decidedly of the indentures found at the extremity of the most easterly of these chasms as having but a fanciful resemblance to alphabetical characters, and, in short, as being positively not such. This assertion is made in a manner so simple, and sustained by a species of demonstration so conclusive (viz., the fitting of the projections of the fragments found among the dust into the indentures upon the wall) , that we are forced to believe the writer in earnest ”

“ Pitt, and I said aloud, “And, if Pitt, why not Potts?” That was a most healing recollection. I revelled in it for a long time. “How true is it,” I continued, “that the halo of greatness illumines all within its circle, and the man is merged in the grandeur of his achievements. The men who start in life with high sounding designations have but to fill a foregone pledge,—to pay the bill that fortune has endorsed. Not so was our case, Pitt. To us is it to lay every foundation stone of our future greatness. ”

“ This is the sacred charm. One and all the animals [75] have blessed it, and through your life, if you have faith, nothing will harm you.” Piang’s eyes darted around the strange circle, and, indeed, the animals accepted him as naturally as they did Ganassi.
“The time has come, Piang. The heavens have watched over you from babyhood, and you have proved your worth and bravery many times. I am ready to reward you. Come!”
Trembling, the boy advanced. Kneeling before the hermit, Piang clasped his hands and prayed that he might be worthy of the great honor about to be bestowed upon him. ”

“ Pitt against his own will is impossible. And, therefore, at present there seems to be nothing to be done, if Mr. Pitt is determined (which, I should still hope, he would not finally be) , but with your lordship (Chesterfield) , the Duke of Bedford, my Lord Gower, to get as many individuals as we can to carry us through till the rebellion is over: and then we shall be at liberty to take such part as we shall think most consistent with our own honour and the public service.' [171]
Observe: without Pitt we are not in a condition to carry on. ”

“ Our little Boy left us yesterday, and for Mr. Davies's credit and his own, left us chearfully. A sweeter temper'd creature lives not, nor one better disposed to smooth down life's asperities before him, either by well applied strength, or by a power happier still, of rolling over them, and suffering little hurt.
Miss Thrale has written to me very civilly from Lowestoffe. We have the whole island between us; for Mr. Piozzi promises me a dip in our Irish Channel next week, and we go on Thursday next to a Bathing Place called Prestatyn, about 14 miles off. ”

“ Hearken.—You, Michael, on to Rudersheim—
MICHAEL
And leave her here? No, no!
PIPER
Then take the girl.
BARBARA
To Rudersheim? No, never, never!
PIPER
Well . . .
Hearken.—There is the hermit, over the hill.
[Apart, wildly]
But how—suppose she will not marry him?
I will not take her where the children are.
And yet—
[An idea strikes him. To her]
Hark, now;—hark, now, and tell me truly;
Can you spin cloth?
BARBARA [amazed] I? Spin?
PIPER [eagerly] Can you make shoes? ”

“ A memory of some duty faintly stirred Piang’s subconsciousness, and his senses tried to respond to the call. Bright and intense grew the twin fires. One instant they seemed as minute as fireflies, the next as large as moons. [146] Yes, the tree was alive; it was moving. A giant creeper was swaying toward him, would grasp him in its toils.
“Lē lē li li!” persistently the call was repeated. “Lē lē li li!” A duty! What was it? Charm boy? Who was charm boy? Involuntarily Piang’s hand sought the charm on his breast and grasped it. He was saved! ”

“ Piozzi is all tenderness; he is, you may easily conceive, low spirited enough. Let us pray to God that Dr. Hagarth has been deceiv'd, or at least, if he has not, that the complaint may be got the better of. I am sorry indeed to hear how ill you have been, do, dear Creature, get well, and accept of the comfortable independence which is offer'd you by so amiable a person. Will it not in some measure soften the affliction the former part of my letter must have given you, to tell you that my belov'd Mother is at length cur'd of her complaint, and quite an alter'd woman? ”

“ Pennington replies. "In an early stage of our acquaintance, speaking of you to Mr. Greatheed, I recollect his exclaiming, 'Oh! if you like her so much now, what will you do when you see her miserable? She is so comical then, that she is quite too charming.' And comical you are, sure enough, my dearest Mrs. Piozzi! You scare one with ugly words, and then are half-angry that one is frightened. At above 200 miles distance, was it possible to hear of 'Fever and Typhus' in the town, and even in your house, and not be alarmed?" ... ”