Transcribed from the 1905 Chapman and Hall edition (TheWorks of Charles Dickens, volume 28) , email
The Lazy Tour of Two IdleApprentices
By CHARLES DICKENS
With Illustrations by HarryFurniss and A. J. Goodman
LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LD.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1905
CHAPTER I
In the autumn month of September,eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, wherein these presents beardate, two idle apprentices, exhausted by the long, hot summer,and the long, hot work it had brought with it, ran away fromtheir employer. They were bound to a highly meritoriouslady (named Literature), of fair credit and repute, though, itmust be acknowledged, not quite so highly esteemed in the City asshe might be. This is the more remarkable, as there isnothing against the respectable lady in that quarter, but quitethe contrary; her family having rendered eminent service to manyfamous citizens of London. It may be sufficient to name SirWilliam Walworth, Lord Mayor under King Richard II., at the timeof Wat Tyler’s insurrection, and Sir Richard Whittington:which latter distinguished man and magistrate was doubtlessindebted to the lady’s family for the gift of hiscelebrated cat. There is also strong reason to suppose thatthey rang the Highgate bells for him with their own hands.
The misguided young men who thus shirked their duty to themistress from whom they had received many favours, were actuatedby the low idea of making a perfectly idle trip, in anydirection. They had no intention of going anywhere inparticular; they wanted to see nothing, they wanted to knownothing, they wanted to learn nothing, they wanted to donothing. They wanted only to be idle. They took tothemselves (after Hogarth), the namesof Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis Goodchild; but there was not amoral pin to choose between them, and they were both idle in thelast degree.
Between Francis and Thomas, however, there was this differenceof character: Goodchild was laboriously idle, and would take uponhimself any amount of pains and labour to assure himself that hewas idle; in short, had no better idea of idleness than that itwas useless industry. Thomas Idle, on the other hand, wasan idler of the unmixed Irish or Neapolitan type; a passiveidler, a born-and-bred idler, a consistent idler, who practisedwhat he would have preached if he had not been too idle topreach; a one entire and perfect chrysolite of idleness.
The two idle apprentices found themselves, within a few hoursof their escape, walking down into the North of England, that isto say, Thomas was lying in a meadow, looking at the railwaytrains as they passed over a distant viaduct—which washis idea of walking down into the North; while Francis waswalking a mile due South against time—which was hisidea of walking down into the North. In the meantime theday waned, and the milestones remained unconquered.
‘Tom,’ said Goodchild, ‘the sun is gettinglow. Up, and let us go forward!’
‘Nay,’ quoth Thomas Idle, ‘I have not donewith Annie Laurie yet.’ And he proceeded with thatidle but popular ballad, to the effect that for the bonnie youngperson of that name he would ‘lay him doon anddee’—equivalent, i