INTRODUCTION TO THE GIANT CHRONICLES

Once upon a time, that is to say, in this our time, — the exact year, month, and day are of no matter, — there dwelt in the city of London a substantial citizen, who united in his single person the dignities of wholesale fruiterer, alderman, common-councilman, and member of the worshipful Company of Patten-makers; who had superadded to these extraordinary distinctions the important post and title of Sheriff, and who at length, and to crown all, stood next in rotation for the high and honourable office of Lord Mayor.

He was a very substantial citizen indeed.  His face was like the full moon in a fog, with two little holes punched out for his eyes, a very ripe pear stuck on for his nose, and a wide gash to serve for a mouth.  The girth of his waistcoat was hung up and lettered in his tailor’s shop as an extraordinary curiosity.  He breathed like a heavy snorer, and his voice in speaking came thickly forth, as if it were oppressed and stifled by feather-beds.  He trod the ground like an elephant, and eat and drank like — like nothing but an alderman, as he was.

This worthy citizen had risen to his great eminence from small beginnings.  He had once been a very lean, weazen little boy, never dreaming of carrying such a weight of flesh upon his bones or of money in his pockets, and glad enough to take his dinner at a baker’s door, and his tea at a pump.  But he had long ago forgotten all this, as it was proper that a wholesale fruiterer, alderman, common-councilman, member of the worshipful Company of Patten-makers, past sheriff, and, above all, a Lord Mayor that was to be, should; and he never forgot it more completely in all his life than on the eighth of November in the year of his election to the great golden civic chair, which was the day before his grand dinner at Guildhall.

It happened that as he sat that evening all alone in his counting-house, looking over the bill of fare for next day, and checking off the fat capons in fifties, and the turtle-soup by the hundred quarts, for his private amusement, — it happened that as he sat alone occupied in these pleasant calculations, a strange man came in and asked him how he did, adding, ‘If I am half as much changed as you, sir, you have no recollection of me, I am sure.’