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Passage Illustrated: The Ravenous Consumers of Tea are Basset's Law Clerks

“In that case,” cried the captain, “I'm your man, not that I'm anything of a performer at breakfast or dinner; supper's rather my forte, — an odour of a broiled bone at three in the morning, a herring smeared with chetna and grilled with brandy, two hundred of small oysters, a few hot ones to close with, a glass of seltzer dashed with hollands for health, and, then any number you like of glasses, of hot brandy and water afterwards for pleasure.”

While Bubbleton ran on in this fashion, he had broken about half a dozen eggs into the slop basin, and seasoning the mess with pepper and vinegar, was busily engaged in illustrating the moderation of his morning appetite.

“Try a thing like this, Tom,” cried he, not defining how it was to be effected under the circumstances; while he added in a whisper, “your affair's all right.”

These few words brought courage to my heart; and I ventured to begin the breakfast that had lain untasted before me. [Chapter XVII, "Mr. Basset's Dwelling," p. 120 in the 1844 edition; 122 in the 1865 edition]

Commentary: Basset's Downstairs "Breakfast" Parlour in Stafford-street, Dublin

A much older Tom than the mere boy in the previous frame, Peeping Tom in the same chapter, appears to be leaning on the mantlepiece as Basset's clerks ("three pale, red-eyed, emaciated men") ravenously consume their breakfast and Kit, "a small imp, a kind of embryo practitioner" (121) makes toast before the fire (right). The beautiful niece, her face turned away from us, appears to be engaged with a diminutive teapot (left), which she has fed from the black kettle beside her. Aside from the host, Basset, what appears to be missing entirely from the frame is the capacious figure of Captain Bubbleton, rambling on about broiled ham, a herring grilled with brandy, and two hundred oysters, served hot, for he ought to be stationed at Tom's elbow. We must therefore be seeing the breakfast not from Tom's perspective, but from either Bubbleton's or Basset's.

The scene is in many ways classic Phiz: a handsome, disconsolate young man in the background; a beautiful young woman in the foreground; three somewhat animalistic office clerks, eating as rapidly as possible; and an impish servant holding aloft on a toasting fork a slice of bread with a face sketched on it.

Bibliography

Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.

Lester, Valerie Browne Lester. Chapter 11: "'Give Me Back the Freshness of the Morning!'" Phiz! The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004. Pp. 108-127.

Lever, Charles. Tom Burke of "Ours." Dublin: William Curry, Jun., 1844. Illustrated by H. K. Browne. London: Chapman and Hall, 1865. Serialised February 1843 through September 1844. 2 vols.

Lever, Charles. Tom Burke of "Ours." Illustrated by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Vol. I and II. In two volumes. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 24 February 2021.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Four: "Dombey and Son: Iconography of Social and Sexual Satire." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 86-112.

Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939.

_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.

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Created 1 November 2023