Database: Nigel Bumble

Date of Birth: 22 February 1852.

Bumble was born to a family of modest means. His father went door to door selling buttons and bits of tin, which was apparently a job back then, while his mother made do salvaging fabric from distressed bumbershoots. That's right. Distressed bumbershoots. Nigel and his siblings (there appear to have been two brothers and a sister) formed a musical ensemble with the intent of busking at the docks. This project met with failure, however, when Nigel, surprised by a recalcitrant goose, swallowed his mouth harp.

Upon Nigel's sixteenth birthday, his parents determined to move north, where, as Nigel's father claimed, "the hogs drink beer just as you or I!" However, Nigel unaccountably became separated from his family at the train station and was left to shift for himself.