Chapter: Dobbin of Ours

Cuff's fight with Dobbin, and the unexpected issue of that contest,
will long be remembered by every man who was educated at Dr.
Swishtail's famous school.  The latter Youth (who used to be called
Heigh-ho Dobbin, Gee-ho Dobbin, and by many other names indicative of
puerile contempt) was the quietest, the clumsiest, and, as it seemed,
the dullest of all Dr. Swishtail's young gentlemen. His parent was a
grocer in the city: and it was bruited abroad that he was admitted into
Dr. Swishtail's academy upon what are called "mutual principles"--that
is to say, the expenses of his board and schooling were defrayed by his
father in goods, not money; and he stood there--most at the bottom of
the school--in his scraggy corduroys and jacket, through the seams of
which his great big bones were bursting--as the representative of so
many pounds of tea, candles, sugar, mottled-soap, plums (of which a
very mild proportion was supplied for the puddings of the
establishment), and other commodities.  A dreadful day it was for young
Dobbin when one of the youngsters of the school, having run into the
town upon a poaching excursion for hardbake and polonies, espied the
cart of Dobbin & Rudge, Grocers and Oilmen, Thames Street, London, at
the Doctor's door, discharging a cargo of the wares in which the firm
dealt.

Young Dobbin had no peace after that.  The jokes were frightful, and
merciless against him.  "Hullo, Dobbin," one wag would say, "here's
good news in the paper.  Sugars is ris', my boy." Another would set a
sum--"If a pound of mutton-candles cost sevenpence-halfpenny, how much
must Dobbin cost?" and a roar would follow from all the circle of young
knaves, usher and all, who rightly considered that the selling of goods
by retail is a shameful and infamous practice, meriting the contempt
and scorn of all real gentlemen.

"Your father's only a merchant, Osborne," Dobbin said in private to the
little boy who had brought down the storm upon him.  At which the
latter replied haughtily, "My father's a gentleman, and keeps his
carriage"; and Mr. William Dobbin retreated to a remote outhouse in the
playground, where he passed a half-holiday in the bitterest sadness and
woe.  Who amongst us is there that does not recollect similar hours of
bitter, bitter childish grief? Who feels injustice; who shrinks before
a slight; who has a sense of wrong so acute, and so glowing a gratitude
for kindness, as a generous boy? and how many of those gentle souls do
you degrade, estrange, torture, for the sake of a little loose
arithmetic, and miserable dog-latin?

Now, William Dobbin, from an incapacity to acquire the rudiments of the
above language, as they are propounded in that wonderful book the Eton
Latin Grammar, was compelled to remain among the very last of Doctor
Swishtail's scholars, and was "taken down" continually by little
fellows with pink faces and pinafores when he marched up with the lower
form, a giant amongst them, with his downcast, stupefied look, his
dog's-eared primer, and his tight corduroys.  High and low, all made
fun of him.  They sewed up those corduroys, tight as they were. They
cut his bed-strings.  They upset buckets and benches, so that he might
break his shins over them, which he never failed to do.  They sent him
parcels, which, when opened, were found to contain the paternal soap
and candles.  There was no little fellow but had his jeer and joke at
Dobbin; and he bore everything quite patiently, and was entirely dumb
and miserable.

Cuff, on the contrary, was the great chief and dandy of the Swishtail
Seminary.  He smuggled wine in.  He fought the town-boys. Ponies used
to come for him to ride home on Saturdays.  He had his top-boots in his
room, in which he used to hunt in the holidays.  He had a gold
repeater: and took snuff like the Doctor.  He had been to the Opera,
and knew the merits of the principal actors, preferring Mr. Kean to Mr.
Kemble.  He could knock you off forty Latin verses in an hour.  He
could make French poetry. What else didn't he know, or couldn't he do?
They said even the Doctor himself was afraid of him.

Cuff, the unquestioned king of the school, ruled over his subjects, and
bullied them, with splendid superiority. This one blacked his shoes:
that toasted his bread, others would fag out, and give him balls at
cricket during whole summer afternoons.  "Figs" was the fellow whom he
despised most, and with whom, though always abusing him, and sneering
at him, he scarcely ever condescended to hold personal communication.

One day in private, the two young gentlemen had had a difference. Figs,
alone in the schoolroom, was blundering over a home letter; when Cuff,
entering, bade him go upon some message, of which tarts were probably
the subject.

"I can't," says Dobbin; "I want to finish my letter."

"You CAN'T?" says Mr. Cuff, laying hold of that document (in which many
words were scratched out, many were mis-spelt, on which had been spent
I don't know how much thought, and labour, and tears; for the poor
fellow was writing to his mother, who was fond of him, although she was
a grocer's wife, and lived in a back parlour in Thames Street).  "You
CAN'T?" says Mr. Cuff: "I should like to know why, pray? Can't you
write to old Mother Figs to-morrow?"

"Don't call names," Dobbin said, getting off the bench very nervous.

"Well, sir, will you go?" crowed the cock of the school.

"Put down the letter," Dobbin replied; "no gentleman readth letterth."

"Well, NOW will you go?" says the other.

"No, I won't.  Don't strike, or I'll THMASH you," roars out Dobbin,
springing to a leaden inkstand, and looking so wicked, that Mr. Cuff
paused, turned down his coat sleeves again, put his hands into his
pockets, and walked away with a sneer.  But he never meddled personally
with the grocer's boy after that; though we must do him the justice to
say he always spoke of Mr. Dobbin with contempt behind his back.

Some time after this interview, it happened that Mr. Cuff, on a
sunshiny afternoon, was in the neighbourhood of poor William Dobbin,
who was lying under a tree in the playground, spelling over a favourite
copy of the Arabian Nights which he had apart from the rest of the
school, who were pursuing their various sports--quite lonely, and
almost happy.  If people would but leave children to themselves; if
teachers would cease to bully them; if parents would not insist upon
directing their thoughts, and dominating their feelings--those feelings
and thoughts which are a mystery to all (for how much do you and I know
of each other, of our children, of our fathers, of our neighbour, and
how far more beautiful and sacred are the thoughts of the poor lad or
girl whom you govern likely to be, than those of the dull and
world-corrupted person who rules him?)--if, I say, parents and masters
would leave their children alone a little more, small harm would
accrue, although a less quantity of as in praesenti might be acquired.

Well, William Dobbin had for once forgotten the world, and was away
with Sindbad the Sailor in the Valley of Diamonds, or with Prince Ahmed
and the Fairy Peribanou in that delightful cavern where the Prince
found her, and whither we should all like to make a tour; when shrill
cries, as of a little fellow weeping, woke up his pleasant reverie; and
looking up, he saw Cuff before him, belabouring a little boy.

It was the lad who had peached upon him about the grocer's cart; but he
bore little malice, not at least towards the young and small. "How dare
you, sir, break the bottle?" says Cuff to the little urchin, swinging a
yellow cricket-stump over him.

The boy had been instructed to get over the playground wall (at a
selected spot where the broken glass had been removed from the top, and
niches made convenient in the brick); to run a quarter of a mile; to
purchase a pint of rum-shrub on credit; to brave all the Doctor's
outlying spies, and to clamber back into the playground again; during
the performance of which feat, his foot had slipt, and the bottle was
broken, and the shrub had been spilt, and his pantaloons had been
damaged, and he appeared before his employer a perfectly guilty and
trembling, though harmless, wretch.

"How dare you, sir, break it?" says Cuff; "you blundering little thief.
You drank the shrub, and now you pretend to have broken the bottle.
Hold out your hand, sir."

Down came the stump with a great heavy thump on the child's hand.  A
moan followed.  Dobbin looked up. The Fairy Peribanou had fled into the
inmost cavern with Prince Ahmed: the Roc had whisked away Sindbad the
Sailor out of the Valley of Diamonds out of sight, far into the clouds:
and there was everyday life before honest William; and a big boy
beating a little one without cause.

"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.

His history since he left school, until the very moment when we have
the pleasure of meeting him again, although not fully narrated, has
yet, I think, been indicated sufficiently for an ingenious reader by
the conversation in the last page.  Dobbin, the despised grocer, was
Alderman Dobbin--Alderman Dobbin was Colonel of the City Light Horse,
then burning with military ardour to resist the French Invasion.
Colonel Dobbin's corps, in which old Mr. Osborne himself was but an
indifferent corporal, had been reviewed by the Sovereign and the Duke
of York; and the colonel and alderman had been knighted.  His son had
entered the army: and young Osborne followed presently in the same
regiment.  They had served in the West Indies and in Canada.  Their
regiment had just come home, and the attachment of Dobbin to George
Osborne was as warm and generous now as it had been when the two were
schoolboys.

So these worthy people sat down to dinner presently. They talked about
war and glory, and Boney and Lord Wellington, and the last Gazette.  In
those famous days every gazette had a victory in it, and the two
gallant young men longed to see their own names in the glorious list,
and cursed their unlucky fate to belong to a regiment which had been
away from the chances of honour.  Miss Sharp kindled with this exciting
talk, but Miss Sedley trembled and grew quite faint as she heard it.
Mr. Jos told several of his tiger-hunting stories, finished the one
about Miss Cutler and Lance the surgeon; helped Rebecca to everything
on the table, and himself gobbled and drank a great deal.

He sprang to open the door for the ladies, when they retired, with the
most killing grace--and coming back to the table, filled himself bumper
after bumper of claret, which he swallowed with nervous rapidity.

"He's priming himself," Osborne whispered to Dobbin, and at length the
hour and the carriage arrived for Vauxhall.

 Another kid at the school was Cuff, who was the popular, bullying jock type. Everyone who was there will always remember the day Dobbin saw Cuff about to beat up George. It's not really clear how old everyone is at this point. We'll hazard a guess that George was 9ish, Dobbin 11ish, and Cuff 14ish. Point being that Cuff was way bigger than George. Dobbin intervened, and he and Cuff planned to fight after school. The fight was very much one-sided, with a half-crazed Dobbin "licking" Cuff . After this, Dobbin's reputation went way up, and the other kids started being so nice to him that he actually began doing really well in school. Turns out he wasn't stupid after all, but just too miserable to study or otherwise function. The other result of the fight? Dobbin and George became best friends. Or rather, George condescended to let Dobbin be really attached to him. Since all this happened, however, Dobbin's dad has become an alderman and has gotten knighted, meaning he is now Sir Dobbin, and is thus a much higher social class than when Dobbin was at school. Dobbin is now Captain Dobbin and is an officer in George's regiment. The reason for all this history? To explain why George invites Dobbin to Vauxhall as kind of a fifth wheel. Dobbin comes over to the Sedley house, sees Amelia, and instantly falls in love with her. The five young people hang out, having a good time, until it's time to go. Jos has a few strong drinks for the road, or maybe to give himself some liquid courage to ask Becky to marry him.

