read at a glance,
through the most rigid and rugged lineaments, the indications of
benevolence or the want of it; and he knows what aspect and expression
to assume, in order to arouse the sympathies of a hesitating giver. He
knows every inmate of every house in his immediate neighbourhood; and
not only that, but he knows their private history and antecedents for
the last twenty years. He has watched a whole generation growing up
under his broom, and he looks upon them all as so much material
destined to enhance the value of his estate. He is the humble
pensioner of a dozen families: he wears the shoes of one, the
stockings of another, the shirts of a third, the coats of a fourth,
and so on; and he knows the taste of everybody's cookery, and the
temper of everybody's cookmaid, quite as well as those who daily
devour the one and scold the other. He is intimate with everybody's
cat and everybody's dog, and will carry them home if he finds them
straying. He is on speaking terms with everybody's servant-maid, and
does them all a thousand kind offices, which are repaid with interest
by surreptitious scraps from the larder, and jorums of hot tea in the
cold wintry afternoons. On the other hand, if he knows so much, he is
equally well known: he is as familiar to sight as the Monument on Fish
Street Hill to those who live opposite; he is part and parcel of the
street view, and must make a part of the picture whenever it is
painted, or else it wont be like. You cannot realise the idea of
meeting him elsewhere; it would be shocking to your nerves to think of
it: you would as soon think of seeing the Obelisk walking up Ludgate
Hill, for instance, as of meeting him there--it could not be. Where he
goes when he leaves his station, you have not the least notion. He is
there so soon as it is light in the morning, and till long after the
gas is burning at night. He is a married man, of course, and his wife,
a worthy helpmate, has no objection to pull in the same boat with him.
When Goggs has a carpet to beat--he beats all the carpets on his
estate--Mrs Goggs comes to console the post in his absence. She
usually signalises her advent by a desperate assault with the broom
upon the whole length of the crossing: it is plain she never thinks
that Goggs keeps the place clean enough, and so she brushes him a
hint. Goggs has a weakness for beer, and more than once we have seen
him asleep on a hot thirsty afternoon, too palpably under the
influe