Dixon and his wife had the neatest little house possible (No. 16, opposite 96), and were liked and respected by the whole street. He was called Dandy Dixon when he was in the Dragoons, and was a light weight, and rather famous as a gentleman rider. On his marriage, he sold out and got fat; and was indeed a florid, contented, and jovial gentleman.
His little wife was charming--to see her in pink, with some miniature Dixons in pink too, round about her, or in that beautiful grey dress, with the deep black lace flounces, which she wore at my Lord Comandine’s on the night of the private theatricals, would have done any man good. To hear her sing any of my little ballads, “Know’st thou the Willow-tree?” for instance, or “The Rose upon my balcony,” or “The Humming of the Honey-bee” (far superior, in _my_ judgment, and in that of _some good judges_ likewise, to that humbug Clarence Bulbul’s ballads)--to hear her, I say, sing these, was to be in a sort of small Elysium. Dear, dear, little Fanny Dixon! she was like a little chirping bird of Paradise. It was a shame that storms should ever ruffle such a tender plumage.
Well, never mind about sentiment.--Danby Dixon, the owner of this little treasure, an ex-captain of dragoons, and having nothing to do, and a small income, wisely thought he would employ his spare time, and increase his revenue. He became a Director of the Cornaro Life Insurance Company, of the Tregulpho tin-mines, and of four or five railroad companies. It was amusing to see him swaggering about the City in his clinking boots, and with his high and mighty dragoon manners. For a time his talk about shares after dinner was perfectly intolerable; and I for one was always glad to leave him in the company of sundry very dubious capitalists who frequented his house, and walk up to hear Mrs. Fanny warbling at the piano, with her little children about her knees.
It was only last season that they set up a carriage--the modestest little vehicle conceivable--driven by Kirby, who had
been in Dixon’s troop in the regiment, and had followed him into private life as coachman, footman, and page.
One day lately I went into Dixon’s house, hearing that some calamities had befallen him, the particulars of which Miss Clapperclaw was desirous to know. The creditors of the Tregulpho mines had got a verdict against him as one of the directors of that company; the engineer of the Little Diddlesex Junction had sued him for two thousand three hundred pounds--the charges of that scientific man for six weeks’ labour in surveying the line. His brother directors were to be discovered nowhere; Windham, Dodgin, Mizzlington, and the rest, were all gone long ago.