Dickens Caricature

Dickens Caricature



After handing my shilling to the coachman and stepping out of the stage-coach, I found myself lost between the narrow, filthy grey bricks of London. The perpetual grease that coated the crooked buildings made them glow like dull streetlights among the fog that smothered the air. So absorbed was I my awe that I hardly had time to be aware of the sharp elbow that planted itself in my side and the hard smack of leather that threw me onto the street.



“Watch where yer goin’, boy,” snapped a large, intimidating man above me. His large, red face was framed a shocking mass of tangled black wires that was only rivaled by the twitching monster below his nose. His eyes, bloodshot like a maniac, were inches away from my own shocked ones. The reek of alcohol from his leering mouth and the sight of his yellow teeth, more crooked than the street I was lying on, were enough incentive for me to jerk back from the appalling sight.



I gave him my apologies profusely, all the while trying to get up from the filthy street. The man watched, the writhing mass of hair on his face twitching all the while. A hard hand landed arm flashed past my face and I was certain that the man would throw me down on the offending pavement once more. Bracing myself for pain, I was surprised when my portmanteau was presented in front of my face.



He grinned, as bushy and wild as ever, yet I thought his monstrous facial hair had been tamed considerably. “Take care of yerself here,” he said, and disappeared into the foggy mass of London.