第58章

When these ogres come out into the world, you don't suppose they show their knives, and their great teeth? A neat simple white neck-cloth, a merry rather obsequious manner, a cadaverous look, perhaps, now and again, and a rather dreadful grin; but I know ogres very considerably respected: and when you hint to such and such a man, "My dear sir, Mr.Sharpus, whom you appear to like, is, I assure you, a most dreadful cannibal;" the gentleman cries, "Oh, psha, nonsense! Dare say not so black as he is painted.Dare say not worse than his neighbors." We condone everything in this country--private treason, falsehood, flattery, cruelty at home, roguery, and double dealing.What! Do you mean to say in your acquaintance you don't know ogres guilty of countless crimes of fraud and force, and that knowing them you don't shake hands with them; dine with them at your table; and meet them at their own? Depend upon it, in the time when there were real live ogres in real caverns or castles, gobbling up real knights and virgins, when they went into the world--the neighboring market-town, let us say, or earl's castle--though their nature and reputation were pretty well known, their notorious foibles were never alluded to.You would say, "What, Blunderbore, my boy! How do you do? How well and fresh you look! What's the receipt you have for keeping so young and rosy?" And your wife would softly ask after Mrs.Blunderbore and the dear children.Or it would be, "My dear Humguffin! try that pork.It is home-bred, homefed, and, I promise you, tender.Tell me if you think it is as good as yours? John, a glass of Burgundy to Colonel Humguffin!"You don't suppose there would be any unpleasant allusions to disagreeable home-reports regarding Humguffin's manner of furnishing his larder? I say we all of us know ogres.We shake hands and dine with ogres.And if inconvenient moralists tell us we are cowards for our pains, we turn round with a tu quoque, or say that we don't meddle with other folk's affairs; that people are much less black than they are painted, and so on.What! Won't half the county go to Ogreham Castle? Won't some of the clergy say grace at dinner?

Won't the mothers bring their daughters to dance with the young Rawheads? And if Lady Ogreham happens to die--I won't say to go the way of all flesh, that is too revolting--I say if Ogreham is a widower, do you aver, on your conscience and honor, that mothers will not be found to offer their young girls to supply the lamented lady's place? How stale this misanthropy is! Something must have disagreed with this cynic.Yes, my good woman.I dare say you would like to call another subject.Yes, my fine fellow; ogre at home, supple as a dancing-master abroad, and shaking in thy pumps, and wearing a horrible grin of sham gayety to conceal thy terror, lest I should point thee out:--thou art prosperous and honored, art thou? I say thou hast been a tyrant and a robber.Thou hast plundered the poor.Thou hast bullied the weak.Thou hast laid violent hands on the goods of the innocent and confiding.Thou hast made a prey of the meek and gentle who asked for thy protection.

Thou hast been hard to thy kinsfolk, and cruel to thy family.Go, monster! Ah, when shall little Jack come and drill daylight through thy wicked cannibal carcass? I see the ogre pass on, bowing right and left to the company; and he gives a dreadful sidelong glance of suspicion as he is talking to my lord bishop in the corner there.

Ogres in our days need not be giants at all.In former times, and in children's books, where it is necessary to paint your moral in such large letters that there can be no mistake about it, ogres are made with that enormous mouth and ratelier which you know of, and with which they can swallow down a baby, almost without using that great knife which they always carry.They are too cunning now-a-days.They go about in society, slim, small, quietly dressed, and showing no especially great appetite.In my own young days there used to be play ogres--men who would devour a young fellow in one sitting, and leave him without a bit of flesh on his bones.They were quiet gentlemanlike-looking people.They got the young fellow into their cave.Champagne, pate-de-foie-gras, and numberless good things, were handed about; and then, having eaten, the young man was devoured in his turn.I believe these card and dice ogres have died away almost as entirely as the hasty-pudding giants whom Tom Thumb overcame.Now, there are ogres in City courts who lure you into their dens.About our Cornish mines I am told there are many most plausible ogres, who tempt you into their caverns and pick your bones there.In a certain newspaper there used to be lately a whole column of advertisements from ogres who would put on the most plausible, nay, piteous appearance, in order to inveigle their victims.You would read, "A tradesman, established for seventy years in the City, and known, and much respected by Messrs.N.M.

Rothschild and Baring Brothers, has pressing need for three pounds until next Saturday.He can give security for half a million, and forty thousand pounds will be given for the use of the loan," and so on; or, "An influential body of capitalists are about to establish a company, of which the business will be enormous and the profits proportionately prodigious.They will require A SECRETARY, of good address and appearance, at a salary of two thousand per annum.He need not be able to write, but address and manners are absolutely necessary.As a mark of confidence in the company, he will have to deposit," &c.; or, "A young widow (of pleasing manners and appearance) who has a pressing necessity for four pounds ten for three weeks, offers her Erard's grand piano, valued at three hundred guineas; a diamond cross of eight hundred pounds; and board and lodging in her elegant villa near Banbury Cross, with the best references and society, in return for the loan." I suspect these people are ogres.There are ogres and ogres.Polyphemus was a great, tall, one-eyed, notorious ogre, fetching his victims out of a hole, and gobbling them one after another.There could be no mistake about him.But so were the Sirens ogres--pretty blue-eyed things, peeping at you coaxingly from out of the water, and singing their melodious wheedles.And the bones round their caves were more numerous than the ribs, skulls, and thigh-bones round the cavern of hulking Polypheme.

To the castle-gates of some of these monsters up rides the dapper champion of the pen; puffs boldly upon the horn which hangs by the chain; enters the hall resolutely, and challenges the big tyrant sulking within.We defy him to combat, the enormous roaring ruffian! We give him a meeting on the green plain before his castle.Green? No wonder it should be green: it is manured with human bones.After a few graceful wheels and curvets, we take our ground.We stoop over our saddle.'Tis but to kiss the locket of our lady-love's hair.And now the vizor is up: the lance is in rest (Gillott's iron is the point for me).A touch of the spur in the gallant sides of Pegasus, and we gallop at the great brute.

"Cut off his ugly head, Flibbertygibbet, my squire!" And who are these who pour out of the castle? the imprisoned maidens, the maltreated widows, the poor old hoary grandfathers, who have been locked up in the dungeons these scores and scores of years, writhing under the tyranny of that ruffian! Ah ye knights of the pen! May honor be your shield, and truth tip your lances! Be gentle to all gentle people.Be modest to women.Be tender to children.And as for the Ogre Humbug, out sword, and have at him.