FROM MR. T. OLDCASTLE CONCERNING THE COAL EXCHANGE.
Reading edition
“Sir, Blue Dragon Arms, South Shields.
“I have just read in your ‘Household Words’ a pleasant enough account of the ‘Coal Exchange of London,’ in which my name is mentioned. I suppose I ought—and therefore I do—consider it a great honour; and what Captain of a collier-brig would not? So, no more about that, except to thank you. Same time, mayhap, there may be a trifle or two in the paper to which I don’t quite subscribe; and, as I seem to be towed astern of the writer as he works his way on, it seems only fair that I should overhaul his log in such matters as I don’t agree to, whether so be in respect of his remarks or reckoning.
“In the first place, the writer says the Coal Exchange is painted as bright as a coffee-garden or dancing-place on the continent. Well—belike it is. And what o’ that? Did he wish it to be painted in coal-tar? as if we didn’t see enough of this at home—whether collier-men or coal-merchants! I make no doubt he wanted to see all the inside just of the same colour as your London buildings are on th’ outside—walls, and towers, and spires, like so many great smoke-jacks. Then as to his taste in female beauty, he seems more disposed to the pale faces of novel-writers’ young ladies than such sort of brown and ruddy skins as some of us think more mettlesome. I confess I do; and so he may rig me out on this matter as he pleases. Howsomever, I must say that I believe most people will prefer both the bright ladies, and the bright adornment of the building, to any mixture of soot and blacking, which has, hitherto, characterised the taste of my old friends the Londoners. And it is my advice to the artist, Mr. Sang, just to snap his fingers at the opposite taste of your writer, which is exactly what I do myself, for his comparing my ‘hard weather-beaten face’ to the wooden figure of a ship’s head.
“I remain, respected Sir,
“Yours to command,
“Thomas Oldcastle.”
“P.S. What the writer of these coal-papers says I told him about Buddle of Wallsend, is all true enough; but why did he tell me, in return, that his name was ‘Gulliver?’”