LI E) RARY OF THL U N IVERSITY or ILLINOIS K37s v.\ UNIVERSITY LIBRARY UHIVERsSy MLUNOISATURBANA-CHAMPAIGN -rrrr: re''niosn,e.iss.25.oo, $300.00 tor bound journals Then, mutilation, and unde^mg of ook a^^r ^^ ^^^^ ,or discipiinarv f^°'';fJ%,'sTnotes may result the University. Please note, sen in torn pages and lift some rts. 3.3400, t^/^MibrarvAmic^edu^catalo^ -A ! IIaXaL(}.aTos S'eV BpoTOis yepojv "Koyoi T€TVKTOi, jj-eyav TeXecrtJeVra (pcoTos oXfSov TeKvovadai, prj S' uTraida dfTjUKCiv, BXaaTavcLv aKopearov oi^^u. These are the words of an ancient Tragedian, ^schylus hight, not a trifling nor "reedy" one, Meaning, " Prosperity often gives birth To a dread brood of Evil, nor dies upon earth Childless ; but leaves an insatiate pack Of calamities, howling like wolves on the track Of mortals o'er pampered. — A white-bearded Sage Among savings," he tells us, e'en then, in that age. so VERY HUMAN % Mt of tlje |mmt gag. ALFRED BATE RICHARDS. 'A/x^/ d'd offers from foreign counts, one for each year of her age, I fancy, and they all declared it was for herself alone they sought her, which must be considered satisfactoiy proof." '' At any rate," observed Arthur, '^ the compliments of foreio-ners are more felicitous than ours " o " My countrymen have great admiration for de Inglees ladies," was all that the signor deigned to say in answer to these remarks. " I'll tell you what," said Stingray, " the English are the most polite people in the world. Look at a French table d'hote ! Who ever saw an Englishman help himself to the best parts of a chicken, and then push the dish containing the drum- sticks violently over to a lady sitting opposite to him ? An English- man will take off his great-coat in a shower of rain to protect a lady from the wet. We have all the practical and most valuable elements of politeness. What foreigner would have acted as Ealeigh did to. Queen Elizabeth ? A new velvet cloak was some- thing in those days. A French knight would have paid a compliment to her feet, as he handed her through the puddle, with one hand on his heart and a look of languishing adoration. You know the story, do you not, signor?" " But, yes, I know." " What would one of your countrymen have done?" " Diverted the royal attention from the puddle by some sublime nonsense on the stars, which he would have doubtless likened to her eyes, while leading her into it," was the suggestion of Luckless. < 4 SO VERY HUMAN. " Good !" said the sigiior. '•' Contrived to lead her round the obstruction with the utmost gallantly/' continued Lord Madeiraville. •' Bah !" said the signer. " Snatched a page's cloak and flung it down instead of his own ?" obsened another of the circle. " But how ?" said the signer. " Ecco ! signorine e signori. I will tell you, in the first place, a poor Italian like your most humble servitor would have had a cloak of velours in cotton unworthy of the sacrifice. I would have taken your royal mistress in my arms, and carried her over, after which I would have knelt in a clean place, and prayed to have my head cut off in punishment of a presumption so tremendous." Great laughter followed the signer's declaration. '^ I wish to Heaven !" said Stingray, '' that }ou had lived at that period to make so charming an alteration in the page of history. Xo doubt, signer, but my Lord Burleigh would have received the royal mandate to make you at least Court librarian." " Egad !" said Sir Harry, " I believe that the signer would have married our immortal Queen Bess, and they would have reigned ever after in Tilbury Fort, with the store-houses crammed with maccaroni, and the cellars full of orvieto and vino d'asti, and surrounded by articles of virtu in mosaic and bronze." *' It would have changed our whole style of archi- tecture," lisped a young disciple of Yitruvius. " We should have had opera a centuiy earlier," said Lord Madeiraville. THE EATTLE OF A FASHIONABLE DRUM. YD " Listen," said the signor, whose good humour was as imperturbable as his resentments were fierce and enduring ; ^' it might not have been worse for your poor Albion, had I been the consort of your great Elisabet. In the first place, I would have made it one great crime to teach any charming blonde English miss to sing and make music, who has not the voice and the taste to learn ever to please us. Ah ! what false compliments we should be spared ! What tor- ments we should lose I In my country no one is forced to learn to sing and play, when the Nature says not. In the painting, it is different. The bad pictures hide themselves. At least one is not forced to look or to admire. But it is terrible what one must endure in the English societv with the bad singers, w^ho have paid hundreds of pounds to excru- ciate their hearers. Ah! signer" (to Stingray), "I was sony for you last evening. It was at the great Mr. Goldborough's, w^here you were forced so politely to compliment the daughters of the house. The one sang loud as a cornet-a-piston, with no ear at all for music ; and the other had some ear for the music, with no voice. Signer Stingray has asked continually for one more little song, and I do believe he should have turned over the leaves, only for a young Tedesco, who anticipated him." " Hem !" growled Stingray, *• a man must not be a complete savage, you know." " Besides, Goldborough gives about the best dinners in London," said Sir Harry. " His chef is superb." " I see," said the Italian, in his own language ; 76 so VERY HUM AN. " then it Avas the stomach of my friend that praised the singing so ardently." Foreigners have this advantage in English society, they can say so much that is not admissible in the native tongue. " It was your conscience, signor, and your ears that I pitied," he continued ; " but I see now I need not have so done." ]VIr. Stingray smiled grimly and superciliously. He was considering his revenge. " In my country," said the signor, " one hears a fine voice somewhere, anywhere, in the streets. One is struck with the melody, the natural grace and power of the singer. The gem is picked up and polished. We do not care to teach even the daughter of a Borghese, or of a wealthy Prince Polonia to sing, if she have not the gift of Nature. Here the child of a banker must have masters to cultivate her most marked imperfections at any price. And what is the result? My dear friend Stingray dines with the papa, and, in complimenting mademoiselle, praises a different artist." " My dear signor," said Stingray, " pray spare me. I am no judge of music, in which your countrymen excel. Who can wonder that a people deprived of liberty should cultivate melody in their bondage ? I protest that I am no flatterer. There is one thing, signor, which I hope you would have done for us, had you fortunately lived a contemporary of Leicester and Burleigh, and married our virgin queen, an idea which delights me much. I hope you would have sent back all the Italian organ-grinders to their own country, and hanged their detestable padroni without THE EATTLE OF A FASHIONABLE DRUM. 77 the slightest compunction. Under those circum- stances I TN-ould willingh' have pledged you my allegiance." " I would have forced you to supply them with better organs, my friend," replied the Italian with dignified composure. " What ! it is you who cause and encourage the evil, and then you complain. As the signor minister here would say " (turning to a gentleman with a very unpleasant expression of face, who had just entered) ^' where there is no market, the supply will cease. Is it not ?" The personage just appealed to shrugged his shoulders, and replied that he was hardly prepared to admit more than a moiety of the proposition to be correct. If a thing were continuously forced upon the market when tliere was no demand, it was quite possible that a demand might be created. He then, amid breathless silence and admiration, uttered two or three sentences of such astounding length, that it became a marvel how he could possibly light on his legs, as he did, with all the finished grace of an acrobat, at the end. Certainly there was little or nothing conveyed in these rhetorical flourishes, not an idea, nor even an expression worthy of being remem- bered or recorded ; no golden apothegm, or felicitous thought. But the style was perfect, and the language correct and scholastic ; every word fell into its place as if by a conjurer's art. He was not a magician, much less an inspired prophet or lawgiver. His was truly the eloquence of national decline. He was the spokesman of expediency and compromise ; the orator of mediocrity, and the specious abandonment of all 78 so VERY HUMAN. that by whicli England achieved greatness, and which our forefathers held dear. As a nation cannot be made Avithout virtues, so it cannot be mined with- out cleverness. There is the skill to make, and the skill to mar. There are the arts that build, and the arts that usher to destruction. It requires a sage to found, a sophist to destroy. Knowledge supplies the place of wisdom ; and shallow learning, the deep and philosophic instincts of greatness. In the Right Honoui'able Felix Sowerface were combined, with curious infelicity, the policy of elegant concession to England's enemies and of sardonic antagonism to her friends. He was the polished advocate of internal corruption, and of external enmity, peril, and dis- grace. His state -craft was exactly the reverse of that of a Cromwell or a Pitt. His face was not handsome, nor intellectual in the highest sense, not even up to the mark of the ability which his bitterest denouncers could not but acknowledge. His conduct suggested the idea of a Jesuit without religion , of a Machiavelli without a prince. Such men are bom in the dotage and decay of empire, to shine with a false light, to lead astray from principle and virtue with the tawdry glitter of false sentiment, hollow sophistry, and fluent pretence. In the decline and fall of a nation, are there not appropriate ministers born naturally to the occasion, as heroes and statesmen are born to rough-hew and cement her greatness ? As the epochs in the history of an empire, so are the men. And one thing is certain as it is remarkable, viz., that the false poli- ticians, the false poets, philosophers, and orators THE EATTLE OF A FASHIO^^ABLE DRUM. 79 infinitely exceed in their transient glory and fame the contemporaneous meed awarded to the real chil- dren of genius and the true representatives of pa- triotism and grandeur of soul. What honest man, what example of real worth and sagacity, was ever lauded like the Ricrlit Honourable Felix Sowerface in his day? Why, even Nelson before his death was scarcely feted like some of our late pseudo-heroes and incapables during the Russian war. In the present age, laudation has been so vulgarised in its excessive and false application, that we have lately become ap- prehensive that when the next extraordinary humbug shall die, there will be no praise left ! Equestrian statues have lost their dignity ; even burials in West- minster Abbey are threatened with loss of distinction. When lately one of the worst incarnations of the modern spirit of the age became defunct, whose godless theories and practice, were they carried out, would reverse, in the persons of Englishmen, the theory of Lord Monboddo, and rapidly reduce the stunted operative to the condition of the ape, such spasmodic threnodies were raised by a sort of news- paper chorus, that w^e felt inclined to exclaim : " There can be nothing next !" When a good and most virtuously domestic prince w-as lately taken from amongst us, the laudation w^as so injuriously fulsome, that a living tyrant of old Rome could hardly have exacted more. In China, such things are, doubtless, estimated at their proper worth. When the " Celestial Light of the Universe" disappears, we know that an emperor is dead, and that another " Light" is ready to be set up. But in England we are not yet all 80 so YEEY HUMAN. quite accustomed to this verbal ecstasy, which marks both the softening of the brain and the corruption of the heart of a community. The Eight Honourable Felix Sowerface was an adept in laying on the adu- latory gold-leaf on the national idol for the nonce. It was wonderful to hear him keeping up this rhetorical game of shuttlecock with the leader of the Opposition in the House. You knew that neither meant an iota of what he said. And yet by this sort of art each held his place in public estimation, and their spas- modic admirers cried, " What a capital speech !" even if they had not read a line of it in the " Times," and only heard of it in the skimble- skamble conversation in a railway first-class car- riage. Nothing save the most abject confessions of the Litany can express the state of all concerned in this millennium of ^' sham." Such was the right honourable gentleman who had just entered the Aubreys' salons, the observed of all observers, the most honoured, because the most recherche guest of the night. True, neither host nor hostess exactly liked the man ; but they were no politicians, and had neither probed nor sought to probe the great social bubbles of the day. The Eight Honourable Felix con- trived somehow or other to mix up the great Italian question with the organ-boys and their monkeys. He spoke of foreign dungeons, as if England had neither workhouses nor prisons. He had much to say about the liberties of the Sicilian and Floren- tine people; but he questioned the liberties of the poorer classes in England to drink beer after a certain hour, or to indulge in a little street music and song. THE EATTLE OF A FASHIONABLE DRUM. 81 It was difficult to connect all, or anything that he said, but it was somehow blended into a harmonious utterance of verbiage that to many seemed irresis- tible in its logical force and gi'ace ; and whilst he spoke his sardonic countenance was distorted with a smile,, which ]\Iephistopheles might have envied, but wdiich was generally pronounced intellectual in the highest and most refined degree by those whose opinions bore Vreight. The sun alone refused to flatter or disguise the man. His photographs would certainly not have favourably impressed any one^ not recognising in them their distinguished and well-known original. Tlie Right Honourable Felix, finished by saying that the upper and middle classes were alike concerned, as a matter of taste and public convenience, to put down that wdiich without doubt exercised a most disturbing influence on the elegant culture of the age. "The fine ears of the ancient Greeks," he said, " in the period of their widest and broadest freedom, would not have endui'ed the cacophony of these peripatetic pests whose miseries imported them, in pursuit of the charitable obolus,. from some petty and distant state." Here Arthur broke in. " In my humble opinion, it is a great cruelty to put down that which affords so great an amusement to the poor. I have seen what perhaps no one here has witnessed, the delight of a troop of children in a court or alley, in some populous and wretched part of this great town,, dancing to the music of the poor organ-man, who. looks smilingly on the ragged little beings circling around him. It is not those who really have music VOL. I. G 82 so VERY HUMAN. ill their souls who create all this fuss about street music. It is your stock-fish, your vegetable calcu- lators, your Professor Cabbages, and your selfish, thrice selfish epicureans and kakistocrats, your phari- saical impostors, who drink wine at their clubs and mansions, but would deprive the labourer or mechanic of a draught of beer in a comfortable bar, who grudge the slender amusements of the poor." Blanche looked at her husband approvingly as he paused. " Is it possible, Mr. Aubrey, that you can seriously defend these dreadful creatures ? I thought you were a real lover of music,"^ observed Lady Madeiraville. " So I hope I am," replied Arthur ; " but I hope also that I am attuned to a higher harmony — that of the heart." Emboldened afresh by the expressive eyes of Blanche, he continued, turning towards the Italian — ^' Your great Rossini, signor, did not despise street players, when he said that it was the most flattering sign of his success to hear one of his airs ground on a barrel-organ. I repeat that it is a most touching sight to see, as I have, a crowd of children on a Christmas Eve dancing round one of these good-humoured fellows in an otherwise dismal or dreary court, or on a summer night in the suburbs, while their parents stand in their squalid door-ways gazing pleased and .approvingly on the small, humble delights of their ragged offspring. Who would not endure some in- convenience to afford this harmless recreation to thousands of poor children, who have so little to em- bellish or amuse their childish life ? I do not wish to talk politics," he continued, "but I cannot help THE EATTLE OF A FASHIONABLE DRUM. 83 thinking that our selfish over-legislation in this and other respects is storing the waters of hatred and bit- terness, which may some day burst their embank- ment, and spread ruin around. Your oligarchy, nay, your legislative assembly, such as it is, which a party oligarch holds in the hollow of his hand with the division list of the House, as he comes down to make his conventional speeches, this oligarchy, I repeat, dares to do more to annoy, irritate, and disgust the people, than any despotic ruler in the world. Parlia- ment and the police interfere with, the petty liberties of the poor in the most paltry and illiberal manner. The small fruit or fish vendor who comes to the poor man's door mvist of necessity charge a percentage as a recompense for constant liability to imprisonment and black-mail. Whilst your clubs and private mansions afford every indulgence to the rich in their week-day and Sabbath potations, the tired mechanic is exposed to the devices and machinations of a Pharisaical Sir Andrew Aguecheek, eager to balk his thirst and to baffle all his requirements. The police are encouraged to treat the lower classes with more insolence and brutalising brutality than would be used by an army of occupation in a foreign country. And lastly, forgetting what a short radius your refined musical circle can boast, and that although there is a " Beggars Opera," there is no opera for a beggar, or even a working man, or small shopkeeper, or the majority of the middle classes. Legislation, with a refinement of selfishness, led by a trader giving himself more ridiculous airs of taste and sensitive- ness, forsooth ! than were ever murdered on all the g2 84 so VERY HUMAN. barrel-organs and liurdj-gurdies in creation, stoops to interfere with the enjoyment of millions to gratify the affectation and frigid cruelty of a few pretenders to fine taste." " Bravo ! Bravissimo, Signor Arturo !" rolled forth the deep voice of the Italian. " Then you at least would not banish my poor countrymen. What says the signora?" " Nay," said Blanche, timidly, " I think always with my husband. We neither of us like the German brass-bands, chiefly of youths and boys, who, unlike their countrymen generally, are in the habit of play- ing such frightful discords at all hours. But they appear, for certain reasons, to be less persecuted than the organ-players." " You are eloquent, Mr. Aubrey," said Stingray, sarcastically. " We shall see you in Parliament soon, and then you can advocate the cause of your friends. But I fear you will only expose yourself to ridicule in these days." "Ah!" said Blanche, "that ridicule! How it numbs and destroys earnestness ! I wish we were more earnest in these days ; but it seems to me as if all were acting in the present age, and too often acting only burlesque into the bargain." " I'll tell you what, ^Irs. Aubrey," quoth the good- natured Lord Madeira ville, "there's a good deal in what your husband says, and I own it never struck me before. If ever I am called upon to consider the matter in a public point of view, I must confess that I shall think over its various bearings very carefully." And his lordship adjusted his legislative neck-tie, and THE RATTLE OF A FASHIONABLE DEUM. 85 looked towards Blanche for an approving smile. Un- fortunately for his hopes, her smiles of approval were reserved entirely for her husband. " Come I" cried the signor, ^' at least, dearest lady, there is no danger to the conscience of our dear friend Stingray, if he should applaud you. Give us, I pray you, madame, a melody of Schubert. It will be apropos of our mention of the brave Tedeschi. For my part, I am of no country. I love all good music and musicians. Or an air of Halev}', or better still that charming French chansonnette of the young Breton. Come ! I will turn over the leaves ; Mr. Stingray cannot do it very well, I know. He will banish my poor countrymen for making the discord, because he does not like any music. Come, madame I" and he began humming, " La mer m attend, je vais partir demain r Blanche sano; it with touching tenderness, and when she had finished, the signor heaved a sigh like a hot puff from Vesuvius, and Sir Harry Luckless felt a moisture in his eyes, which annoyed him greatly. Sir Harry was not heartless ; but how is it that a bit of pathetic acting on the stage will sometimes cause the most unfeeling persons in real life to cry like children? We do not think that Nero would have wept over the " Sorrows of Werter ;" but we fully believe he might have sobbed heartily, had he witnessed the late Mr. Farren's delineation of Grand- father Whitehead at the Haymarket Theatre. Speak- ing of that theatre, we remember once to have gone with a celebrated Yankee inventor to see Miss Cush- man play Meg Merrilies. That very morning our 86 so VERY HUMAN. Transatlantic acquaintance had witnessed the mutila- tion of a girl's arm by the machinery of his works, and had treated the affair with the utmost indiffe- rence, looking upon it as so much material used up, and calculating the least possible amount he might have to pay for it. That evening he fairly wept at the mimic touches of passion and sentiment which were certainly wonderfully rendered by the great actress. Again, we have known ladies with the softest and tenderest hearts in real life almost incapable of being moved either by a novel or a play. One of the few persons utterly untouched and un- delighted was the Right Honourable Felix Sowerf ace. We need scarcely say that he felt bitterly offended by Arthur Aubrey's daring speech. With an "agro- dolce" smile of the most fascinating bitterness, he took an early opportunity to bid his hostess adieu. As he returned homewards, he was probably occupied in scheming how to bribe the Irish tail in the House of Commons, without alienating the Scotch members from his faction. It was a task that might have puzzled a Mazarin, a Richelieu, or a Loyola. The two former, however, intrigued for the State, as well as for themselves ; the last for a Society and a Creed. Mr. Sowerface had no object, save to keep in office,, and indulge in his hours of leisure in the accumu- lation of rococo monstrosities and a taste for the display of useless and pedantic learning. He was> indeed. Not versed in elements of saving policy, But deeply skilled in all the arts That usher to destruction. And this, England will some day find out, with THE BATTLE OF A FASHIONABLE DRUM. 87 regard to a modern breed of statesmen, of whom Mr. Sowerface may be taken, not only as a specimen, but as a type. It was the worst period of the Crimean war, and the conversation naturally turned to the horrible and heart-rending sufferings of our army, which were then being made known by the newspapers to an indignant public. A young and talented barrister, Mr. Ernest Delolme, spoke with cutting severity on what he termed " The Tragedy of Errors," at that time being acted in the Crimea. He gave a rapid sketch of the blunders, and the inconsistencies, save in ruin and mischief, not to say the treasons, of the authorities up to that time. In using the word " treason," he said he did not mean it in the old State sense. He meant treason to our soldiers and sailors, or treason to our allies. " Look," he observed, " how the Turks are sacrificed. They were actually beating Russia at every point, when the allies intervened, just in time to save Russia from the disgrace of her reverses on the Danube." The Turkish fleet, he said, was in fight- ing trim, when British orders from Constantinople occasioned the massacre of Sinope. The Turks were fully aware of the danger of their light squadron, and were about to order the main body of their fleet into the Black Sea, when the interference of the English ambassador at Constantinople prevented their coming to the rescue. Then the Russians, after that terrible massacre, were allowed under the silent British guns to remove all their stores, arms, and garrisons from the Eastern Coast to Sebastopol, against which we hurled our armies and fleets ; when we had given 88 so VERT HUMAN. them sufficient time for preparation. A fatally un- healthy station for the British troops was fixed on, in the teeth of warning, with an obstinate deliberation, which looked like an evil purpose, even if it were only the result of inconceivable folly and self-blinded ignorance. We refused the aid of the Circassians and of the Poles. The latter he could understand as being in accordance with the traditional iniquity of our Foreign Office, which saw Poland partitioned and repartitioned, and thereby became a chronic ac- cessory to that terrible crime against humanity. But the former he could not understand, if treason to England herself were alien to our councils. AVhat price should we not hereafter pay for that unheard- of proceeding!* As for the clothing and victualling blunders, these were the mere details of imbecility, compared with the criminal shortcomings and delibe- rate sacrifices of our fearful impolicy in the East. 'WTiy give Russia time to make things snug at Sebas- topol? Why strike upon her shield at all? Why spare Odessa, especially after the affair of the Tiger ? We were actually directing the war, if it were a war, against the lives of our own gallant tars and soldiers. How singularly fatuitous was the appointment of our generals ! In this strain he ran on, and such was the feel- ing at the moment, that no one seemed disposed to challenge or contradict him. Alas I how much more was there to condemn, before the end ; and who could have dreamt that the whole affair would * This was "written some five years ago, and is given as it was written. THE RATTLE OF A FASHIOXABLE DRUM. 89 have been condoned by an apathetic nation, with the connivance of the chief im peach ers, and with the assistance of those wdio w^ere the first to denounce that monstrous misconduct which threatened to blot out a thousand years of England's glory with two short years of official incapacity and shame? What has become of the " credulity and connivance" accu- sations of the enraged tribunes of the people, seeking with burning words to arouse England to a sense of the mighty sacrifice and crime ? The history of that war and its period has not yet been written : although petit-maitre cleverness, specious verbosity, well-simu- lated earnestness, and partial spite have combined to write and print volumes of clever twaddle, anecdotes, fact and fiction, declamation and exaggeration, and call it a true record of that stupendous " sell." Alas ! the very smartness and acerbity occasionally in- dulged in only conceal the fact that such works are really penned in the apologetic interest of official misdeeds. What might not be ^^^ntten, if the truth were written ? AYhat was it that paralysed the right arm of England in attitude to strike ? What secret orders muzzled the buU-doofs of our fleets ? What saved, as it had spared, Russia at England's expense ? What was the tale of Kars, over which the heroic General Kmety mournfully smiled to the end of his days? What priggish narrative of a smooth "speciosity" might unveil the curious darkness of those deeds ? And, lastly, what has all this to do with our narrative, and the fortunes of our heroine ? Not much, it must be confessed ; but still it is some- 90 so VERY HOIAX. times allowed to novelists, good, bad, and indifferent^ especially to the narrators of true histories, to indulge their discursive faculties. !Mr. Ernest Delolme was soon voted a bore, as he deserved to be, for indulging in such political rho- domontade at such a time and place, or any time and place. Long before he had finished, he had only got one hearer, a very shy young gentleman, who was very glad to be talked to by anvbodv, and who said " Oh I** and ^' Ah !*' and " Bless me, do you think so ?" and " Really, is it possible f' in the most praiseworthy manner. Even he was glad when his tormentor was compelled to leave off during an exquisite performance on the piano, which resembled hundi'eds of mice running up and down enchanted glass stairs, accompanied by dreadful groanings and rumblings in an underground kitchen, and the occa- sional crash of plates. The enthusiastic barrister was just demonstrating the truth of some absurd charge of connivance between the British and Russian Governments in relation to hides, horns, tallows, and a South American tariff, and the proclamation of our blockade of the Northern Ports on the wrong dav accordincr to the Russian calendar. But bv the time the fantasia on the piano was ended his sole hearer had escaped, and every one was talking about his or her hobby, or whatever they could find to talk about, including the Aztecs, the Opera, the Empress of the French, the prospects of the grouse season, the Divorce Court, the new and extremely improper novel by a female writer, the latest City failnre, and the last vicious, spiteful morsel of scandal about THE RATTLE OF A FASHIONABLE DRUM. 91 every one's clear friend. It ^yas dreadful to hear what awful asj>ersions were smiHngly uttered^ what stabs were given by the finished Gladiators and Amazons of Society ; with what relish these moral cannibals de- voured the reputations of the absent with the sharpest appetite and sauce. In this business the most blase and languid of the company excelled the rest. "Yaas, lots of birds — Going to Scotland? — Not this ye-are, no — Husband knew it all the time — Hasn't twenty pounds left in the world — Serve him right, regular baw — How delightful — Every girl in the school — Heard it from little Rogers — Page-boy absconded — Nonsense — Fact, 'pon honour ! — Found letter in prayer-book — Will have thirty thousand — Better look out, old fellow — Got glass eye — Ha, ha ! diamond one you mean — Kept by Chalkstoneville — Lived with Lascelles of the Guards — Town getting empty — Switzerland to-morrow — They say he once robbed his employer — Clever fellow — Lord Chancellor some day — So her groom told Wigsbv — The old woman wouldn't stand it — Put the screw on and brought him back — Mamed German courier at Baden — Called himself a Prince — Yes, Baron Levy,, and Captain St. James — Every one knows it — Hus- band too — Gets three hundred pounds a-year from both — Capital joke ! ha, ha ! Yankee ambassador — Would have known he was your lordship's son — Turfed him at last — Off to Sweden — They say he poisoned her — Takes the chair at Exeter Hall to-night — De- bauched old wretch — Think so, indeed? — Heard about Biggleswade? — Dreadful story — Rather amusing — Safe majority — Irish members — Concession to Rome 92 so VERY HUMAN. — The O'Tool a judge — Paddy Grady in the Admiralty — Lots of new appointments — Left her six children — Old enough to be her father — Grey haii-s — Never safe — Bombarded all the villages — Insult to mis- sionary — Very proper proceeding — Says he broke his nose at school — Don't believe it — Charmino; creechure — Going to marry vulgar swell — Hegent-street shawl- shop — Thrashed him well — No, he didn't — Can't say which got the worst of it — Served them both right — City editor — A hundred shares — Wrote 'em up — Sold out — Never had a share in his life — Tell that to the marines — Paints an inch thick — Natural daughter of old Sir Peter — Married two brothers — Tin and title — Not so bad — Annexation of Futteypoor — House counted out — Knew her when she was in Dublin — Common as A Russian prince — Refused him — Marry an English duke — Couldn't write her name — Comme elle est charmante — No one knows who she was — Son of a merchant — Do give us one more song — An English ballad — Good fellow — Great ass — Gives himself airs — Horrible crowd," &c. &q. The above is an attempt to transcribe the Babel of Aubrey's rooms on the occasion of a musical enter- tainment, or " the chantant," or whatever it might please any one to call it. To say that the host and hostess did not come in for their fair share of un- pleasant criticism and rampant abuse, would be to disguise a painful truth. They did. Not even the sweet, unaffected Blanche escaped. As for her husband, Que diahleallait il fairs'? He deserved all he got. He was a kind of unconscious " snob " to give those parties ; and to allow himself to be trans- ported thus out of his proper sphere, which was not the high circle of fashion in which he moved, or which moved about him. He was spending far too much money, and what return was he likely to get for the investment ? It would be absurd to pretend that Blanche did not instinctively comprehend the attentions paid to her by her husband's distinguished friends, ghe did not appreciate all their coarse aspirations hidden under the fulsome flatteries and vapid compliments which the vanity of women too often esteems far more than dignified politeness, and the timid courtesies of true manhood. Her knowledge of the wickedness of the world, and the heartless libertinism of fashionable society was, indeed, but small. Her pure nature interpreted aright an audacious look or impertinent though veiled remark, without reflection or analysis. Gifted as she was with great firmness, still her spirit shrank like the sensitive plant, ere the contact of evil, at its near approach. When the good-natured but dissipated Madeiraville was a trifle too ardent in his sympathies, her large eyes dilated with a species of inquiring wonder which caused his stare of admiration to fade into the most ordinary glance, expressive of commonplace salutation or remark. She moved among the routs, old and young, intellectual or stupid, who crowded the salons of her small but exquisite dwelling, like an unsophisticated lady in Comus, untouched by charm or spell. She needed no brothers to rescue her from the enchanter or his impure throng; simply because her innocence and her artistic genius combined with repellent force 94 so YEKY HUM AX. to keep all harm a^Yay, and purify each moral taint in the heated atmosphere floating around her. She did not care for the praises, the homage, the adora- tion lavished upon her. She was enshrined in domestic love, and deaf and blind to all outside her own blame- less thoucrhts. Like a star she moved in her own sphere, and as a star she shone high above all debasing influences : the bad-hearted of her own sex hated her ; but, in most cases, she did not see or feel their hate. The fact was, ay, and the poetry of it, too, that she was happy. Felicity is apt to be uncon- scious of envy, and slow to apprehend wickedness. Still Blanche had her likes and dislikes, and there were many whom she would have banished from her society, only that she did not like to dictate to, or disturb Arthur, in his choice of associates. On his part, silly felloAV, he was proud of his wife's beauty and accomplishments, and proud of the ^clat of the society which he kept. He did not perceive that he moved in a sphere above his own rank, according to the social scale, solely on account of the fascinations of his charming wife. He did not consider that to her beauty, her magnificent voice and musical genius and culture, her grace and daring as a horsewoman, and her varied and splendid accomplishments, he owed his own toleration by dukes and duchesses, lords and ladies, who would otherwise never have deigned to acknowledge his existence. It is quite true that he was a gentlemanly and scholar-like man, with the reputation of being well off, and that he was distantly related to one noble family of some pro- vincial weight ; but there are hundreds of young THE EATTLE OF A FASHIOXABLE DEUM. 95 fellows, who have greater advantages than his, who do not congregate at their houses the Me of the beau-monde, with cabinet ministers, distinguished WTiters, and artists, and occasionally even royalty itself. For a certain roval highness, accompanied, or rather led. by a certain military poodle with beauti- fully combed locks, which no hairdresser's window could surpass, had been there, and had been heard to affirm with martial emphasis that the Httle Aubrey was a dashed fine creature, by dash ! Now, it is clear that Mr. Aubrey, so far as all this went, although a yery independent, fine fellow, and possess- ing the entire and devoted affections of her who thus ennobled him, was only the husband of his wife. Did he love her with equal devotion ? ^Ye shall see. It is certain that when a man is really in love and truly infatuated, his love becomes a representative of the firmer, stronger, and more consistent character of his sex. Such cases are rare, it may be ; but as the works of man are as a rule greater, weightier, and more durable than those of woman, so is his faith more lasting, and his folly or frenzy more persistent. As a rule, men are not capable of purer attachments and deeper devotion than women ; but the rarer examples are greater and more elevated in the male sex. Love in man, when blended with passion, must always touch the imagination as well as sway the senses. The highest love is, of course, refined by the domestic affections, and elevated by respect. But there are two things that, in ordinary men and cases, have a great deal to do with both the fervour and constancy of attachment. One is the fear of 9(3 so VERY HUMAN. losing the affections of the beloved object, and the other the undisguised admiration of Society. Vanity and jealousy, or jealous fear, are thus undoubted safeguards of love. There is an early love of the " John Anderson " description, and a poetic love, which are beyond the necessity or influence of these unworthy auxiliaries. But how many men are there who delight in exhibiting the fine creature whom they own, not exactly a la Gyges and Candaules, but animated by similar feelings to those of the ill- fated monarch who paid the penalty of his indiscre- tion ? And, again, how dangerous a guest of love is security ! How rarely can a woman afford to let a man know that she is wholly devoted to him, if she be so ! If possession itself be perilous, how much more so must be absolute confidence in a woman and unrivalled dominion over her heart ? There are some to whom this certainty would be the fondest tie, the last and strongest bond of union ; but they are few indeed. Arthur Aubrey knew that Blanche was utterly and entirely his own ; he knew that her exquisite and delicate nature would never suffer her, under any circumstances, to love again. At the same time he was proud of her. She appealed to his imagination, and he had, at least, plenty of distin- guished rivals in the field, if the titled and moneyed profligates who shook him by the hand and held him by the button, and partook of his hospitality and proffered to him their own, could, for one instant, be allowed to call themselves by so fair a name. Of all the men who visited the Aubreys, the one whom Blanche disliked most, apart from those whose marked attention awakened instinctive aversion, was THE EATTLE OF A FASHIONABLE DRUM. 97 Mr. Stingray, author and wit. It is not difficult to understand this. Many persons of much greater knowledge of the world and experience of life devoutly believed in Stingray's worth and candour. They saw in his morbid fierceness of attack merely the indignant denunciation of vice and folly. They did not perceive in him the baseness and meanness which constantly served his own selfish and egotistic ends. He had early discovered the cowardice of Society, and he treated it accordingly. He aimed at being feared, and succeeded. The fact was, that he hated all good and noble natm'es, and unceasingly lampooned all that was earnest and single-minded among mankind, either of the present age or the past. The greatest denouncer of tuft-hunting and toadyism, he would lay such plans to be invited to the table of any eminent personage, that they would have done credit, as I have before narrated, for obstinacy and perseverance, to the French petit Her- cuky M. Pertuiset, who is said to have lain in wait in an African forest six hundred nights to bag his twenty- sixth lion. While painting with the finish of a Dutch master, and varnishing with vitrol, if one may imagine such a process, his admirable pictures of the petty arts and contemptible aims of Brown, Jones, or Robin- son, to elevate themselves in the social scale, Mr. Stingray out-heroded the beings whom he thus exhibited, by exercising far more disgusting artifices, and practising still more disreputable tricks in the constant prosecution of his own self-advancement. Nay, he was more vulgar than the worst educated and lowest of the individuals whose eccentricities it VOL. I. H 98 so YEKY HUMAN. was his pleasure and his forte to denounce. He Tvould call one man a " snob " for hiring a couple of extra footmen on the occasion of giving a dinner- party, and another for boasting of his acquaintance with a lord, and a third for talking loudly at hi& club; whilst he himself would talk in an elevated tone of dining with Palmerston yesterday, or running over to see Devonshire at Chatsworth. Some of this had forced itself on the notice of Blanche ; but it was the unkindly spirit of the man that chiefly offended her feelings and wounded her sympathies. It was his custom invariably to deride and ridicule the Irish people ; that is, when he dared do so, either in speech or writing. Was there anything in the generous and impulsive character of the Celt that was highly antagonistic to his nature, or had he ever, as one might fairly surmise, been kicked by an Irish- man ? Blanche could not forget that her mother was the daughter of an impoverished Irish house; and, perhaps, this intensified the strong dislike which she unquestionably entertained for Mr. Stingray. He worshipped success, she reverenced virtue even in difficulties. He sneered at the errors of the head, she was a warm advocate of the heart's generous promptings. Thus, though she did not and could not entertain a notion of the intense bitterness of mind which actuated this terrible censor of Society, yet she felt and knew enough to dislike him exceed- ingly. He had forced his passage to the front rank like a huge chimney-sweep, blackening all he touched, and yet every one sought to secure him for their parties and rturiions, partly for conciliation's sake, and partly because he was the fashion in high circles. THE EATTLE OF A FASHIONABLE DRUM. 99 In this way he added to the celebrity of Arthur Aubrey's distinguished Httle circle. Blanche endured him, simply because to have objected to him would have been held as something perfectly monstrous; and on one or two occasions, when she w^ould have omitted his name from a list of invited guests, Aubrey had appeared mortified, and surprised at her forgetfulness. To her he w^as a sort of moral upas, shadowing and blighting for a time all her enjoy- ment, her very trustfulness in her own happiness and domestic bliss. She could not even sing so well when he was present. The advent of some men will exercise a chilling influence on the merriest group. Innocent pastime becomes at once ridiculous when they are nigh. Everything puts on a different aspect, as if a cloud had suddenly obscured a smiling land- scape. They bring with them heartache, headache, cynicism, and discontent. Such a man was Sting- ray. He professed to be very fond of little children ; but they ceased to play in his presence, and could not be won even by his presents to respond to his caresses. " Ah ! my little man," he would say, with a grin meant to look benignant, " we shall know each other better by-and-bye." In endeavouring to ingratiate himself with small folks, he would always insidiously appeal to their bad passions or instincts. If it were a girl, he would encourage or draw out the spirit of coquetry or curiosity, if he could. If a boy, he would tempt his pugnacity or greed. And all this he would do in so natural and pleasant a manner, that it re- quired a moral detective to discover his meaning and intent. h2 100 CHAPTEE YIL They are gone, all the vain and cold-hearted, The jewelled, the feathered, and dyed ; Now the last smiling wretch has departed, Come, hither, love ! sit by my side. Tell me, are we the happier for all, love ! This expense, this annoyance, and fuss ; Of the swell mob that came to our ball, love! Was there one cared a rushlight for us? We were blamed for profusion, pretension, We were mocked for our shabby set-out, Still you'll own, love! 'twas great condescension, In such grand folks to come to our rout. But between you and me and the " Post," love I The bedpost, not journal, I mean ; (I declare you're as white as a ghost, love! In a week grown quite careworn and lean). We will show ourselves, henceforth, much wiser. Than to pinch for such thankless display, See those Avax lights — Quick ! ring for Eliza — Burning still, as I live, in broad day. Some time or other, it might be one or two o'clock A.M., after the night when the conversation of which we have attempted to give some faint echoes in our last chapter, had taken place ; -when all the guests had withdrawn, and left the Aubreys their Paradise untenanted by serpent or by beast ; in the pleasant THANK HEAVE^I ! THEY ARE ALL GONE. 101 hour, we say, of love and confidence, before retiring to sleep, when Blanche had sung to her husband one dear song, all for himself — she said to him during the chat which ensued, as follows : "Did you notice, love, how bitterly Mr. Sting- ray spoke of the new judge, who has been attacked so vehemently in some of the newspapers for his summing-up, as they call it, I believe, in that dread- ful murder case of the religious attorney at Sluice- in-the-Wold, in Clodshire, or some such locality ? If you remember, the man of law had legally plun- dered his own mother, and left her to the tender mercies of the workhouse ; he had driven his only sister from home shoeless in a snow-storm, and caused her dishonour and suicide ; and had so overworked and baited his step-son, whom he had got in his office- as a kind of drudge, and whom he had previously robbed of everything by his legal machinations, that the poor wretch went mad and dashed out his brains vnth a stool in his own office." " Yes, yes," replied Arthur, "' it was a clear case of manslaughter, even in the strictest point of view. Morally speaking, it was justifiable homicide, and that, in my opinion, should have been the verdict. Only what attorney would be safe ?" " Oh, you wicked creature !" said Blanche, " but really, I dare say, that a good many are as bad." " Well," said Arthur, " I know one or two in this country, whom I believe capable of anything, and not unlike the man who was murdered — I mean punished — in so terrible a manner. If I recollect aright, it was found, after his death, that he had de-- 102 so VEKY HUMAN. fraudecl every one, speculated in all the moneys in- trusted to him, drawn up sliam mortgages, and I don't know what besides." Blanche nodded assent. " The fact of the lawyer being at family prayers before tea, when the assassin rushed in," she con- tinued, " excited all the sanctified world against the prisoner. Don't you remember how the ladies of Credlington subscribed for a tea and prayer service for the Reverend Jabez Howie, after he had been acquitted, tln'ough the looseness of the surgical evi- dence, for beating a sickly page-boy to death?" " All this is very true, dear," said Aubrey ; ^' but you were speaking of Stingray. He said that the judge was much to blame for talking sentiment to the jury, and directing a verdict of manslaughter. Well, I don't see that Mr. Stingray has said more than many others." " Yes, but he has," rephed Blanche. '^ He heaped the most malio-nant sarcasm on him. He said he never was a lawyer, and was only known as the author of a feeble, but laboriously polished drama ; he the great advocate, the ripe scholar, the accom- plished orator, whose genius all the world agreed to admire. And all this, because it happens that one or two journals, from some personal pique, have syste- matically written him down. Do you know that it was the judge who first made Stingray known ; that for years he has been a diner at his table, and his constant guest ; that for years he followed him and flattered him, his generous patron, and warmest friend, at a time when he most needed one ? Now, he is his THANK HEAVEN ! THEY AEE ALL GONE. 103 worst enemy, and all to please and pander to his calumniators. He pursues him in a manner quite acharne, as the French term it, and in such a tone, too. 'My poor friend,' he says, 'what a dreadful mess it is ! I always said he was unfit for the Bench. He must resio^n, and what is worse he will never regain his practice. It is very sad, poor fellow ! for he has nothing but his salary, and has been enor- mously extravagant. Those parties are not given for nothing. Open house, you know' — yes, the house always open to him, to Stingray, the false friend ! — and then he apes candour, and says, ' I tell him so myself; I said, "my dear judge, it is a frightful, a dreadful blunder." Between ourselves, his nerves are upset. He never can recover it. How could he make such a fool of himself? It is ruin, perfect, frightful, hideous ruin. You cannot think how grieved I am,' he adds ; ' but what can one say in such a case V Now," said Blanche, " the story about the judge's nerves, I can answer for it, is false ; for I saw his wife yesterday, and she said he was quite cheerful and happy, and Lord ]Madeiraville told me that the Government think nothing at all of it, and that the Prime Minister expressed himself most kindly, and the Lord Chancellor smiled and said that his learned friend had only shown a heart worthy of one of the brightest intellects and clearest heads that had ever adorned the judicial bench in England, and the newspapers are beginning to alter their tone, and Sir Harry Luckless says it is ' a sell,' and a ' mare's-nest,' you know his phraseology, dear, and " 104 so VERY HUMAN. Here Arthur stopped her in a manner that even a loving wife, in the full exercise of female oratory, could not complain of. " And," he continued, " you are his advocate, my darling little Portia, and that is worth all the world besides. So you think IVIr. Stingray very wicked, and treacherous, and cruel, and all that. But it is the way of the world, my dear, and it would be highly impolitic in us to make an enemy of him." " Oh !" said Blanche, " what is the use of making a friend of such a man ? There are friends who constantly make use of the opportunities afforded by intimacy to frame an indictment against their greatest benefactors. When the time arrives to throw off the mask, should any base and selfish motive arise^ they ai'e well posted in your weaknesses, your mis- fortunes, and your faults; and should they fail, in fact, they supply the invention, to which dates and circumstances give an air of truth, of vraisemblance, which otherwise would be wanting. Let Mr. Stingray be my enemy rather than my friend ; if the remarks which he made to-night be a specimen of the Dead Sea fruit of his friendship. If ever he should turn against us, Arthur, depend upon it we should fare no better at his hands." " I am not afraid," replied her husband, " of all he can do, when that terrible epoch shall arrive. Besides, what coiddhe say against w5?" "It is not the truth one has to fear in such cases/' said Blanche. " Well," rejoined Arthur, " let him say that we lead quite a cat-and-dog life ; let him accuse you of THAXK heaven! THEY ARE ALL GOXE. 105 extravagance, and me of inconstancy; let him say that we were never happy together ; in fact, let him do his worst, and how much the worse shall we be for it f And he pressed her affectionately to his heart as he said it. " As for the judge," continued Aubrey, " he can defend himself ; and, upon my word, I think he did go a little too far for a judge. Not but what," he added,, laughing, '• as a private individual, I more than coin- cide with his words. I am not sure that the act of vengeance on the attorney was not a praiseworthy deed — a species of martyrdom. I should not be sorry if half of the whole army of lawyers were shot or hanged to-morrow, or all of them — let me see, about sixteen thousand, I think — struck off the rolls of mor- tahty in a heap. What a crowding there would be at a certain place ; worse than the jetty at Margate about the end of a hot July. The whole system of solicitors or attorneys is a gross excrescence, and was never intended by our ancestors to exist in the monstrous shape that it does. By-the-bye, dear, remember that I have to go and see my lawyers — I mean Grinderby and Cousens — to-morrow. There is something they want to see me about, and I rather think it is of an unpleasant nature about a mortgage that should have been paid off. Do you know I have sadly neglected my business affairs since my poor father's death? First I went abroad, and then I fell in love with you, which drove everything else out of my head ; and since we were married, we have done nothing but amuse ourselves. Heigh ho ! I must see to all these things some day, or there will 106 so VERY HUMAN. be a mess. Now, don't you think Phil Cousens is a capital fellow — quite a model lawyer, so pleasant and friendly ?" Blanche shook her head. "My love/' she said, slowly and gravely, "you do not like me to interfere or even talk about your matters of business, much less to express my opinion about those whom you employ and esteem. You are far better able to judge of IVIr. Cousens than I am. You have known him a long time. But, since you ask me, I reply to you like a dutiful little wife, that I do not like Mr. Cousens at all.*' " Upon my word, Blanche, you are in a strange mood to-night for such an amiable dear creature as you are. Nothing save aversions and dislikes !" "Of Mr. Stingray," said Blanche, "I spoke thus freely, because he made me angry to-night with his abominable treachery, and I look on him as an ac- quaintance rather than as a friend. Of Mi\ Cousens, your intimate associate and lawyer, you asked my opinion and I have given it. In the first place, if I might venture to say something " " Out with it, you wicked and merciless satirist ! Out with it. Madam Timon and Cassandra in one — what dreadful things do you apprehend from poor Philf " I was going to observe," replied Blanche, '' that I have heard my father say, that no one should employ a friend as a lawyer, or make a lawyer a friend. He used to say the same thing of doctors, but in a less degree." " With all due respect," put in Ai'thur, somewhat THANK HEAVEN ! THEY AEE ALL GONE. 107 eagerly, ^' I don't agree with your father ! What ! because one knows and esteems a fellow " '• Esteems ?" interrupted Blanche, " say, rather, ^ likes ' — you don't, you cannot esteem Mr. Cousens !" " Well, ^ likes,' if you prefer it," he returned. " I was about to say, that shnply because one likes a man, according to this doctrine, one is not to put anything in his way, not to employ him, not to do him a good turn in the Avay of business. Was I not right to cut that precious old stupid firm, under whose advice my father made a will, long enough to furnish litigation for a century, or so long as the property supplied funds, if any one interested, how- ever remotely, were only fool or knave enough to commence it ? Why it was through old Brewer, the senior partner, who helped to concoct that precious document, that I was made only a life tenant with a clause of forfeiture ; that proper powers of leasing minerals were left out, contrary to my father's ex- press intention, and which has shut me out of thou- sands a-year, and that I am tied and bound as never man yet was " ^ •' Nay, dearest," said Blanche slyly, •* I have heard you say more than once, that it has probably been the means when you were younger and — and — more careless, and thoughtless, of retaining the estate in your hands at all, and saving you from utter ruin." "I say foolish things sometimes," was the re- joinder. '' I tell you, Blanche, that this will is enough to drive a man frantic, when I think of all the expense, bother, and trouble that it causes, and that I cannot do anything with the property at all." 108 so VEEY HUMAX. " Well, dear !" said his -svife, " of course, you know best; but as for Mr. Cousens, I don't think he is a man of sufficient weight and dignity of character to transact your affairs. Be assured he is a heartless sort of man, capable of flattery, and far too much of a coxcomb." " What prejudiced creatures you women are," said Aubrey ; '' I declare this is all because he wears a white hat, with crape round it, and patent-leather boots in the morning." " And a very good reason too," rejoined Blanche, laughing. " The fact is — say what you will — he is no gentleman." " Poor Phil I" said his friend and client. " I am sure he admires and esteems you sufficiently. He said only the other day, that he considered you the most beautiful, amiable, and accomplished being he had ever met with." " Which I consider a piece of great impertinence," said Blanche. " Tell me, do you invite such homage from your solicitor ?" '' Nay, he did not say it to me." " I am glad of it, Arthur," said Blanche haughtily and composedly ; '^ for to tell you the truth, I should have thought such a speech made to you greatly wanting in respect, and have augured ill of your affairs from it." " Hoity-toity," was Aubrey's reply ; " you astonish me, Blanche, I must own, mth the tone of your remarks, and the severity of your views. Stingray has made you quite misanthropical, I declare, in a single night." THANK HEAVEX I THEY ARE ALL GONE. 109 "Remember, dearest," said Blanche, "that you have never asked my opinion of Mr. Cousens before. I own that from the first I mistrusted and disliked him. His vulgar, fulsome compliments, when he congratulated us on our marria^^e, and many other things, have combined to strengthen the view I have taken. I sincerely hope that it may turn out to be a wrong, or at least an exaggerated one. Do you re- member that day at dinner, when he made a sort of boast that he never forgave an injury, nor omitted to be revenged, if offended ? Do you call to mind what he said about killing any one who had done him a wrong?" " It was only bounce and nonsense," said Arthur. ^' Phil is the best fellow alive. Didn't he cause me to forego the prosecution of the rascal Johnson ?" "Yes," replied Blanche, "but Johnson had in- jured you, not him." " AYell," said Arthur, " what do you infer from his idle fanfaronade ?" " Merely, that he is cowardly, egotistic, vain, and treacherous, even if less vindictive that he describes himself to be," was the answer. " My dear Blanche,' ' said Arthur, lighting a bougie, "I assure you that for once you are entirely mis- taken. Phil Cousens may be absurdly over-dressed, but is a sharp man of business, I can tell you ; he may talk nonsense sometimes — must we be condemned for that?" he asked in a rallying tone. "He may speak of revenge, but he is the kindest-hearted fellow in the world. Did he not nurse me as carefully and 110 so VEKY HUMAN. tenderly as a woman, when I lay sick of a fever in the Mediterranean ?" ^' And has he not had the conduct of your affairs ever since?" interrupted Blanche. "Has not your purse met his private necessities ? You should not give me your banker's book to add up, if you don't wish me to know these things. If ever you should be in adversity — which God forbid — it is not 'honest Phil" who will minister to you, depend upon that. And now I won't talk any more upon these odious topics, and I shall go to bed." Arthur would fain have convinced her that she was mistaken about Mr. Cousens's character; but she play- fully refused to listen or respond any more. He tried to elicit her opinion of Mr. Grin derby, the senior partner of the firm, but in vain. " Come," said Ai'thur, " he never wore shiny boots in the morning or the evening either, I should think ; and I don't believe that he ever praised you or any other woman in his life. There is an ascetic and eccentric being for you, Blanche ! I should think Grinderby would fairly take to his heels at the sight of a petticoat approaching his dingy chambers." It was a slight mistake. Mr. Grinderby had done more mischief, in his spider-like way, than half the young bloods who make the Haymarket hideous by night. He had an establishment at Hoxton pre- sided over by a black-browed beauty, who fought with him occasionally, when she had indulged in an extra glass of gin. At that moment he wore two slips of black plaister on his cheek, which even his clerks attributed to a scorbutic affection of the skin. THANK HEAVEN I THEY AEE ALL GONE. Ill He was a coarse and calculating, cold-blooded, but fiercely sensual old hypocrite. And he had dared to regard Blanche herself with an expression in his glassy grey eyes, tha,t would have caused her to shudder, had she met his look. For he admired and hated her at the same time. He admired her person and hated her mind. With his strong, square jaw, bull-neck, and undersized figure, his fierce appetite and pitiless temper, he resembled a human hyena, as much as a London attorney could; and when he shambled forth on a foggy night, and sought the Hoxton omnibus on his road to his pleasant retreat, few things more noxious and venomous went prowling forth from their secret hiding-place and lair in the howling deserts of Africa than this parchment-faced, dyspeptic lawyer with his evil frown, and the livid circlets of indigestion and sordid plotting round his spectacled, malevolent eyes. It need hardly be affirmed that Blanche did not re- gard the senior partner Grin derby with much esteem. True, she had seen very little of him in comparison with the elegant " Phil." Her interviews with the former were brief, and had been limited to two. Still he was not likely to prepossess her in his favour. She was reluctant, however, to offend or annoy her hus- band by any further condemnation of any one whom he was pleased to take into his confidence. As it was, he showed a little, just a little temper about her aversion to Cousens. " Well," she said, " I must say I have often heard the proverb, ' Love me, love my dog,' but I never yet heard, ' Love me, love my lawyer.' " 112 so VEEY HUMAN. Arthur could not help smiling at the oddity of the comparison. Somehow, a recollection stole over him of a noble dog of the St. Bernard breed, which he had shot for attacking Cousens when that gentlemanly young fellow was on a visit at his country-house. The circumstances were these. Some years before, Arthm- had, with thoughtless rashness, .unloosed Geant, who was kept chained in the court-yard of the mansion of a certain sporting baronet where he was staying. The animal was known to be so fierce that the servants looked on in fear and anxiety lest he should turn and rend the stranger, who, however, patted him, gave him a stick to carry, and took him out for a morning stroll. During the stroll man and dog got so friendly and familiar, that Arthur took quite a fancy to Geant. On meeting his host at breakfast, he was congratulated by him on his escape, and censured for the risk he had run. "I would have bet ten to one," said Sir Frederick, " that he would have had you down when you went up to him. If you like to have him now, he is yours ; for my servants are all afraid of him, and he does not in consequence get properly cleaned and fed." Arthm' accepted the gift, and the dog became his constant companion when in the country, and grew quite docile and good-tempered. Still it was considered dangerous for a stranger to approach him when chained up. Among the boasts of Mr. Cousens was one that he could awe a dog by the terrors of his eye, and consequently that he could walk up to the most ferocious mastiff or bull-dog and pat him with impunity. On that gentleman arriving at the hall. THANK HEAA'EX: THEY ARE ALL GONE. 113 Arthur had, notwithstanding, especially cautioned him against Geant. " No fear," said his dashing legal adviser, " Phil's awake ! Not a dog in Europe dare bite me." Now the fact was, that Mr. Cousens was by no means courageous in a canine point of view. He was rather more afraid of dogs than the ordinary run of men. But one day after lunch, having imbibed much claret, he strolled out alone and took it into his head to accost Geant, who lay outside his kennel beating the ground with his tail, and looking upw-ards, as Cousens thought, in the most good-humoured manner. " Poor fellow," said the accomplished Phil, '' lie down then." As the dog was lying down, he could hardly be said to obey the instruction. "So, that's a good dawcr^" continued young Fieri-facias, whose inflamed visage at the moment suggested the name. Geant arose and shook himself lazily with a kind of repellant air, as if he sniffed a bill of costs as the price of so much un- necessary polite attention. Upon this Phil stooped and picked up a twig, which he held menacingly over the superior animal. A low^ growl might have warned him, but it did not. He was in an exultant mood. Aubrey had just placed confidence in him, and ecstatic visions of plunder and betrayal rushed through his brain. He had just settled the fact that he should have Aubrey's business ; and he felt, to use his own language to himself, that it was four hundred pounds a-year to him for life. He was thinking whether he should and could dissolve partnership with Grinderbj-^ and set up for himself Avith such a client as Aubre}' for stock-in-trade. AVhy should Grinderby, whom he VOL. 1. I 114 so VEEY HUMAN. always hated, and whose Ufe- blood he could have spilt at that moment, in his thoughts, as freely as his patron's claret ; why should Grinderby, who sneered openly at the patent-leather boots, participate in this mighty haul due to his, Phil's, " friendship" and cleverness ? True, Grinderby was a capital lawyer, and he, Phil, knew nothing of the business, but could he not get a managing clerk ? Ha I the idea em- boldened him. At that moment Geant personified in his eyes the obedient, grey-haired, and somewhat bald leo'al menial with the blue bacr, who should fetch and carry his law for him. Yes, it should be a sine qua non, that he should be at least slightly bald, and he would keep him at arm's length, thus. '" Down, sir, down !" he said, advancing a step, and giving Geant a smart flick. " Down, I tell you !*' Now Geant, who had never carried a blue bag in his life, nor done a dirtier action than it falls to the lot of every dog to do, and who did not know what was meant, and who would have been a great deal more savage had he known, and who in all probability did not like Phil's legal odour, and still more probably w^as guided by the mysterious instincts of an honest dog, suddenly responded by leaping up and seizing Phil's arm just below the elbow in his capacious jaws. Visions of legal and accomplished robbery, conceit, vanity, and the fumes of Lafitte and Chateau Margaux fled all at once, and the dapper Mr. Cousens actually screamed with pain and affright. Here was a ca. sa. against which he had no legal remedy. Out rushed Aubrey, attracted by his friend's cries for help, and seizing a heavy implement used in brewing, which THANK HEATEN! THEY AEE ALL GONE. 115 lay near, struck the dog on the head with such force that he loosed his hold of Cousens, whom Aubrey instantly dragged back. But being still wathin the radius of the animal's chain, quick as thought he seized the now almost fainting lawyer again, this time getting even a better hold of him above the elbow. In vain did Aubrey pound the dog with his fist. Geant had served tis writ and held on like a chancery suit. Had Cousens at that moment come into a marquisate wdth thirty thousand pounds a-year, the unity of the dog's purpose would not have been disturbed. Aubrey had been shooting at a mark that morning, and had left his rifle loaded in a little room adjoining the back entrance close to w^here this scene took place. To dart into this room, seize the rifle and shoot the dog through the heart, w^as, as the foolish novelists say, " the work of a moment." Geant rolled over ; and after a few struggles, his ghost howled mournfully on the banks of the Styx, pro- voking a return from Cerberus. As he stretched out his fore-paws in a last convulsive effort, he gave Aubrey a look so fond, so piteous, and so wonderfully expressive, that it would have furnished Landseer or Ansdell with a suggestion for the delineation of the death of the ever-famous Brach Gellert himself. Mr. Cousens staggered against the wall, sick, torn, and bleeding. After drinking a glass of brandy, and being assured that the dog was dead, he gave his late adversary a kick, accompanied by a ghastly look of detestation and a curse, and went into the house to await the arrival of a surgeon from the neighbouring town of Lyborough. As for Geant, i2 116 so VERY HUMAN. he was buried about one o'clock a.m. by the light of " a lantern dimly burning." For, as Aubrey's keeper, a stalwart Highlander, observed, " there's a rough lot aboot here, that needn't know he's gone, puir fallow." In truth, long after his death his memory served as a terror to the nailers and miners, who were wont to strav over the grounds in ijancrs, ac- companied by bull-dogs and curs, and often with a pair of short gun-barrels, and the accompanying stock stuck in the capacious pockets of one or other of them. Strange to say, or rather naturally enough, on consideration, the part of Geant was universally taken in the servants' hall that evening. " I wish he had killed him outright," said Mr. Tops, the gi'oom. " A nasty fellow ! what rights had he to go teasing the dog?" said Maiy, the housemaid. " Depend upon it, the poor creetur knowed what he was a doing of," said stout Mrs. AYilkins, the cook. " I wish master mayn't repent of it," quoth Jem, the gardener. *' Dogs know pretty well who they're biting of. We shall have all the finiit stolen now. lihe arn't a thief, as the dog got hold on, may I never grow early grass again !" The gamekeeper said nothing, but he puffed the smoke from his pipe with a great air of disgust and anger. He, at least, had lost a staunch ally and supporter. " I wish I had been there," he thought. " He'd have let go for me, I'm just positeeve. It's varra odd, he wouldn't obey the maister. Puir fallow ! he had dootless a Strang reason for sic a behaviour." THANK heaven! THEY ARE ALL GONE. 117 All this did not come to Arthur's ears; but he thought of Geant and his expiring look, after his conversation with Blanche about the dashing Phil Cousens, and the question icould intrude itself, in spite of his better (?) reason : " Was the friend false, and the dog true, after all?" 118 CHAPTER VIII. A LONG ARM OUT OF THE GEAVE. To disinherit an idle or disobedient sou is a luxury of property which an Englishman alone knows how to enjoy in a thorough and systematic manner. To shut one eye and look through a glassful of ruby port or purple claret with the other, and to say, " I've cut him off with a shilling, sir, I have Let him starve with the girl whom he has chosen ; yes. sir, starve!" and then to drink your wine with a smack of the lips, and throw yourself back in self-satisfied contemplation of the rosy future you have provided for the young couple, so far as is in your power, is a delectation worthy of the haughty islander alone. A French father cannot so indulge himself by law, except on the English stage. The " I've made my money, sir, and can do what I like with it" boast, is one pre-eminently characteristic of a nation which prostrates itself before the " gilded veal" with such splendid devotion, that were the soil sufficiently clayey, the entire national features would be self- cast in mud. A slighter and weaker variety of the modern " noble Roman" pro- genitor type exists in the person of him who leaves his estates or money burdened with conditions, forfeitures, and the like. In this case a man loves his worldly substance so well, that he cannot make up his mind to part with it altogether even at his death. He thus leaves a phantom to guard his treasures, a jack-in-the-box which pops up whenever the lawyers open their tin cases, screeching out, " Aha ! you thought I was dead, did you? You're mistaken, you see!" Alas! his name still lives in the attorney's office ; it is uttered in Chancerj'--lane ; it is bandied to and fro like an invisible shuttlecock in the Law Courts ; it becomes not unfrequently a byword and a curse in the second and third generations of his posterity and kind. And sometimes the phantom outlives the substance, till there remains nothing of the property so tied up and guarded save perchance a few empty deed-boxes, whereon is painted a litigious name! — The History of a Will. By Cramer Whiftaker. Introd., vol. i. If a man be desirous of strongly perpetuating his memory, for a time at least, in this world after his departure, there is a more sure method than to leave A LONG AKM OUT OF THE GRAVE. 119 behind him a pillar or a monument, a " storied urn" or an '^animated bust." That is, provided he be possessed of a large fortune in land and houses, shares and funds. Let him only make a long and complicated will, with half a score of codicils, and thus succeed in stretching, as it has been called, " a long arm out of the grave." He will be remembered, if not with gratitude, yet Avith satisfaction, by the lawyers ; counsel, solicitors, and judges. He will be constantly thought of by his family and those directly and indirectly concerned, and his name will be kept before the public very sufficiently by the reports in the newspapers. Nay, it may even become a prece- dent and a household word, like Thellusson, or the Baron de Bode : the latter a victim in a somewhat different way to injustice and the glorious uncer- tainty of the law. There is, at least, no danger of such a one being forgotten for some time to come. The father of our hero — for so we suppose we must call him^had made a will of portentous dimensions. It had been his delight and recreation of an evening, after dinner, when a respectable, elderly, muddle- headed lawyer of the old school waited on him, time after time, and the document was concocted by the pair over sundry bottles of port wine ; the client first indulging in a nap, with a doyley over his head, while the old lawyer sipped, and blinked, and cracked his walnuts, and looked won- drous wise, awaiting the [fresh instructions of his patron. Between them they had tied up young Aubrey wonderfully tight. He was, it is true, left heir and legatee to his father s estate and fortune ; 120 so VERY HUMAN. but he could not anticipate the rents, or mortgage, or sell, or become bankrupt, without incurring the penalty of forfeiture. Among the old man's hobbies was the idea that valuable seams of lead and silver lay under the chief part of his land. Indeed, he had spent some thousands in mining operations just before his death. But, although his instructions to Arthur were peremptory not to work the mines himself, but to lease the royalties, by some singular oversight he had left no power to do so. Accordingly, after his death, Ai'thur was compelled to abandon the shafts, in spite of the flattering prospect which presented itself. Nothing could then enable him to lease, save a special Act of Parliament, which he had not a chance of getting; since the interests of powerful neighbours, including tlie lord lieutenant of the county, were arrayed against him. The old City shipping agent, his father, fond and proud as he was of his only son, justly considered him an extravagant fellow, and had the worst possible opinion of his habits of business, his knowledge of the world, and his prudence and sagacity. True, he had uninten- tionally done everything in his power to make the young man what he was. He was generous and miserly to him by turns — only that the miserly fits were the longer and more frequent. He was always 'talking economy and prudence at him. He expected him to occupy the position of a gentleman, and yet denied him the means. He would not let him ride, shoot, or cultivate any accomplishment, if he could help it. He disgusted him by endeavouring to drive him, nolens volens, to the Bar, for which A LOXG AKM OUT OF THE GRAVE. 121 Arthur had not the shghtest inclination. When a mere child, he would torment him by calling him Lord Chancellor, and making him recite before his guests. One of his earliest presents was '' Black- stone's Commentaries," and he would pester tlie boy with points of law, and legal anecdotes about the wondeful career of shop-boys and errand-lads who became judges. He rigidly forbade him all amuse- ments, tried to stop the desultory reading of which Arthur was very fond, and stripped his early life of every flower and green leaf which he thought would interfere with the solid pursuit of wig and woolsack, a silk gown and the ine\dtable lord chancellorship. Often did the young man try to persuade his father to bring him up to his own business ; since to dream of a commission in the Army or Navy was sheer re- belhon and idiocy in his father's eyes. The youth was sent at a tender age to a pubhc school, and in due time to college. At the latter he fell an easy victim to the system of credit, which has ruined so many impulsive and generous youths on the threshold of life. How else could he keep the company of the wealthy scions of aristocratic houses, which his father expected him to do, on an allowance more suited to the requirements and position of a Bible clerk ? But then, argued the father, "did not the late Lord Quirkborough educate himself on eighty pounds a year, and live to be Chief Justice of England ?" Then came the inevitable humiliating exposure of the debts — the bitterness, the reproaches, the harsh ratings, and heart-burnings ; after which young Aubrey was placed en penitence in a City lodging, and allowed 122 so VERY HUMAN. three pounds a week, paid by his father's cashier^ whilst he was supposed to study the law, being duly entered at an Inn of Court. Study the law ? He borrowed all he could — a few thousands on the abso- lute reversion of a sum of money coming to him under his mother s marriage settlement — and he studied *Mife in London,"' in a way that his father httle dreamt of : or the voluminous will would have been annulled by an extremely brief codicil, and some hospital have been so much the richer by the chief portion of the young gentleman's inheritance. Mr. Aubrey, senior, died, however, without ac- quiring this painful knowledge, and with a far higher opinion of his son's prudence and conduct than he had ever before entertained. For about a month or so before his death, the old gentleman suddenly sent his heir down into Devon and Cornwall to collect his rents, an act with him of unprecedented trust and confidence. We do not insinuate that he ever doubted the strict honoiu' of his son, but he had always treated him as a child in money matters ; and although he would talk with him, and pretend to consult him in a general way, he never suffered him to know anything about his financial position, nor to attain any practical knowledge of his affairs. When Arthur met the tenantry, they were delighted to see the young squire among them, and, by some strange chance, they paid up their rents on that occasion better than ever they had been known to do before. Arthur carried the money to his father with a com- plete and excellent account. He did not even pay A LONG AEM OUT OF THE GKAVE. 123 his expenses out of what he had received, and said nothing about them until the old gentleman ques- tioned him. The latter was greatly cheered and delighted. He inquired what his son had spent, and seemed highly pleased when he looked at the account^ in which there was not a single extravagant item. He paid it, and added, with great ceremony, a five- pound note, telling his son he had earned the money. After dinner, to Arthurs astonishment, his father sent out for a couple of cigars, and lighting one in the most awkward manner, desired his son to smoke ! If there was one thing which the elder Aubrey dis- liked it was to see a young man smoke, and Arthur had never known his father indulge in such a luxury before. Old Aubrey knew that his son had acquired the habit, and had often severely rated him about it. He now informed him that, at proper time and in moderation, such a thinrf mio-ht be tolerated. He looked upon a man who smoked in the forenoon as a scamp and a profligate ; but now his son was his guest, and he wished him to make free and enjoy himself. Arthur could scarcely believe his senses. A third glass of wine, and an in^dtation to smoke the abhorred weed, and with the paternal participation too. Was this a snare, a quaint artifice, to draw him out? No, he dismissed the thought. At length his father bade him good-night, embraced him tenderly, and uttered a few broken words of commendation, which brought the tears to the eyes of both. A fort- night passed, and the old man would not suffer Arthur to omit a day in attending upon him. One 124 so VERY HUMAN. morning a message came for him to call earlier than usual. He found his father in a somewhat excited state. " Let us take a turn in the garden," said the old man, feebly ; "I have something to say to you." They walked together for about ten minutes, during which Mr. Aubrey gathered a rose, and spoke of its delicate beauty and wonderful organisation, of the bounties of Nature and Providence, and of his own approaching dissolution. "I shall never see this garden bloom again," he said. Then suddenly he changed the conversation, and told Arthur that he desired a prompt and important service from him. " I am going to the City," he said ; " I want to discharge my cashier, Mr. ^lanvers." " Discharge Manvers ?" cried Arthur. " Yes, sir, and why not ?" answered his father, in an angry and querulous tone. " I have determined to dismiss him this very day. He is a violent man, and I want you to go with me and protect me if necessary. I am ill, sir, very ill, and I need your support." "But what has he done, sir?" inquired Arthur ; " I thought he possessed your implicit confidence. I thought that Mr. Manvers " " Listen," interrupted Mr. Aubrey. '• I am cer- tain that he has robbed me, robbed me of thousands. It was only yesterday that I suspected — made the discovery. He has robbed me for years, and to-day he must go. I have ordered the carriage, and you A LONG AEM OUT OF THE GEAVE. 125 must go with me. I am very ill." Saying this, he leaned heavily on his son, and added, " Come, sir, be ready !" Arthur was astounded. He thought his father had lost his senses. " What ! Manvers a thief ? Manvers, the trusted, confidential cashier of twelve years' standing; Manvers, who had paid him his three pounds per week stipend ; Manvers, the type of the respectable City clerk, Avho had all his father's papers, knew^ all his secrets, drew all his cheques, had the control of thousands ; Manvers, whom his father had lately presented with a hundred guineas on his recovery from a brief illness, and who wrote a hand like copper-plate ; Manvers, the portly, the clean, wdth his filbert- shaped, beautiful nails, and white waistcoats ; Man- vers, who was so patronising to him, Arthur Aubrey, in spite of their relative positions !" He looked at his father with fear and trembling. Had he taken leave of his senses ? Was this strange fancy the result of an overdose of some opiate pre- scribed for his complaint? Was that firm brain softening under the terrible influence of a mortal malady ? His doubts were soon set at rest. " Arthur," said his father, " you know, of late years, I have not myself paid much attention to the business." Arthur did not exactly know this, but he bowed in assent. " I have left my books and cash matters entirely in the hands of that man. All my deeds and papers are in his keeping. What if he should be a scoundrel ?'* 126 so VERY HUMAN. '' But he cannot be, father," cried Arthur, " Con- sider, sir, how he is respected in the City. I have known that man myself to be quite unhappy because the books did not balance by a few pence." "Yes," said Mi\ Aubrey, "'he keeps his books beautifully, by double entry, which, strange to say, I never imderstood." " About three months since," resumed Arthur, " I called at Bingley's Wharf (the name of Mr. Aubrey's place of business), "and I found Mr. Manvers quite vexed and irritable. I called," he added, mtli some hesitation, " for the arrears of my allowance. When I asked him for it, the desk was covered with bills, cheques, securities, and what not, and the cash-box was at his side. He opened it, and showed me gold and notes in profusion. 'Young gentleman,' he said, ' I am sorry to refuse you ; but I have no order to pay the money from your father, who is in Scot- land. I cannot give you anything until his return, or until I hear from him. For all that this box contains, I would not pay a sixpence without his order.' I urged him in vain. I told him that he knew it was due, but his resolution was immovable. I told him how much I wanted the money. ' Not to save you from a gaol,' he answered. ^ Look here, he said. ' Do you see these figures V And he pointed to innumerable sheets covered with them. ^I am wrong in my balance only threepence-halfpeiuiy, and I have been up all night striving to find out the error. No, sir,' he added, ^ with all due respect to his employer's only son, John Manvers cannot en- danger his character for strict commercial integrity. A LONG AEM OUT OF THE GRAVE. 127 That money is not available, not a penny of it, with- out orders ; I would not do it to save my life.' I I then asked him to lend me a portion of the amount, but he said he had not got it, as he had remitted all his own spare cash to bury his father in North Wales." "He lied, sir!" shouted the old man. ''Listen to me. For the last five or six years I have been doing twice the business I ever had, and my profits have been smaller. With all my experience, I have been a hoodwinked fool. I have placed unlimited confidence in this man, and he has robbed me, I tell you. After his illness, six months ago, I made him a present of one hundred pounds, and he protested that it was a boon of inestimable benefit. But Pro- vidence has caused him to unmask himself, and put fooHshness into his mouth to betray him. Only yes- terday he came here on business. I was a little better, and made him stay to dinner. He drank more freely than I have ever known him to do, and protested that he indulged thus, owing to his joy at seeing me so much better. At last, he suddenly said that he wished to ask my advice in a matter of great importance to himself. I replied that I was at his service. He then asked me in which railway line I thought the safest and best investment could be made. I answered that I did not care for any; for that I had never been bitten by the mania, and I judged there would be a great and sudden deprecia- tion. 'But,' I added, 'there is the London and North- Western, in which I myself have some five thousand pounds. There is not much danger there 128 so VERY HUMAN. to your friend — for I presume it is a friend for whom you are anxious to invest in that particular species of stock.' I then asked him if he would tell me who the person was, for whom he was making the inquiry. To my surprise, he replied — for himself. • Allow me/ I said, ' to congratulate you, Mr. Man- vers. May I ask how you have been so fortunate as to receive this accession of capital V ' Oh,' he replied, in some confusion, ^ it is a mere nothing ; a few hundreds left me by my father, who died lately, sir, as you are aware.' ' Oh, indeed !' I replied, ' 1 am glad to hear it. Well, I think you cannot do better than invest in the London and North- Western.' And so the matter dropped. But I knew that his father had died a bankrupt. That man, sir, has been robbing me for years." Arthur Aubrey could not bring himself to the same conclusion. He suggested that Manvers had, perhaps, been lucky in one or two small speculations, admitting fully the danger of such a proceeding on the part of a merchant's cashier. Perhaps he had acquired the money by some fair and simple means ; but did not like to tell all his secrets, and so had substituted an invention, not altogether innocent or creditable, but still far short of the elder Aubrey's grave suspicions. The old man only shook his head. " He has robbed me," he said, " and I shall dismiss him this very day. He is a violent man, and may resist or abuse me. You are strong, and a boxer. I had you taught early. You must accompany and protect your father in his old age and illness. He has often protected you." A LONG ARM OUT OF THE GEAVE. 129 Arthur sighed and acquiesced. Pie was accus- tomed to acquiesce in his father's views. Besides, he 7vas bound to support him, morally and physically, %vere he right or wrong. Accordingly, they went to the City together. On tlie way, Mr. Aubrey was silent. When they varrived he saluted Mr. ]Manvers and the other clerks, and entered his private room — that room where Arthur had received so many severe rebukes, admonitions, and scoldings. The old man read his letters, and looked at the " Times." Then he called Manvers in. " Mr. Manvers," he said, " is there not a cheque to sign ? Have you filled it up ?" " Yes, sir, it is ready," was the reply. Arthur saw^ that it was for eight hundred pounds. " You will see and pay it yourself," M]\ Man- vers," said Mr. Aubrey. " Certainly, sir," replied the cashier. " I am glad to see you so much better, sir, to-day." '' 1 shall never be better, Mr. Manvers," was the answer. " I see the Bank of England has raised its discount to seven per cent. It will be higher yet. It is a beautiful day. Will you order the carriage round for me ?" And the old man, assisted by Arthur, put on his great-coat, and left without any further observation •or comment. All the way back Mr. Aubrey was silent. Not a word did he say about Manvers. Even when Arthur said, "I am glad, father, that you seem to have changed your mind," he looked at his son, but did not reply. When Arthur took his leave, all tliat he said was, that he thought he might want VOL. I. K 130 so VERY HUMAN. him early the next day; and if he did, he would send a special messenger to the Temple. The next day the messenger came early indeed, sa early that Arthur apprehended the worst news. His father had passed a wretched night, and wished to see him immediately. On arriving, he was shown into his father's room. He found him in bed, and was greeted by him with feverish impatience. "Reach me pen, ink, and paper," he said, "and sit down there." Arthur gave them, but the invalid required his aid to prop him up. He wrote, however, boldly and firmly as ever, as follows : "To jNIe. John Swindles ^Ianveks. " Sir, — On receipt of this you will at once deliver to my son, Arthur Aubrey, possession of all my pro- perty in your hands, with the keys of my safes and drawers, and obey him as myself in everything. " Edwaed Aubeey." " Now, sir," he said to his son, " I expect you to act as a man, and carry out my instructions to the letter. If you do not, you must abide by the con- sequences ; and, hark ye, I will find those who will. You will go at once to the wharf. My carriage is waiting. You mil call JNIr. Manvers into my private room, and tell him you have my orders to take pos- session of everything, and to dismiss him instantly on the spot. You will take the keys of his drawers^ and suffer him to remove nothing, not a letter nor a paper. You will lock everything and come back. A LOXG AEM OUT OF THE GRAVE. 131 Stay, you ^Yill first go to my bankers, Messrs. Jones, Browne, and Jones, and ask them to recommend you an experienced accountant in whom tliey haye con- fidence, to commence an examination into my books to-morrow without fail. You will agree to pay what- ever they think fit to name for his services. "»My dear father,'' said Arthur, "what cause can I allege?" '• Say it is my will. Tell him to go quietly, and you wdll make an excuse for him to the other clerks. Let him say he is ill, if he likes. Add, if you please,, that you know I have left him five hundred pounds to assist in administering my -svill ; and tell him, if you like, that if all is right, as you hope and believe it will be, that he shall have that and two hundred and fifty pounds besides from yourself. You may say five liundred pounds if you please ; you will never have to pay it. Go, sir, at once. What are you stopping for? Go, I say. Be off !" "But, father," said Arthur, ''what if he should set me at defiance and refuse to go? What if he should say that — that — you are ill, and — and " " Mad, sir, I suppose you would say !*' cried his father. " What then, sir ? Obey my orders, or I shall despise you for a poor weak-spirited fool. It is not too late. I will send for my lawyers, and leave my fortune to a hospital, and give you an annuity of three hundred pounds a-year, paid quarterly, for your life." " There is not a man on the premises but will pre- fer to obey JMr. Manvers rather than me, should he, as he may and probably will do, refuse to peld to so ^ k2 132 so VERY HIIMAN. sudden and extraordinary a mandate," rejoined the young man. " Arthur," said his father, " if Manvers should dare to resist my authority vested in your person, seize him by the throat, as you are my son, and call in the aid of the police. Don't let him remove a paper. Allow no subterfuge. Accept no excuse. Not another word, sir. I order you on my death- bed to take that paper, and instantly to discharge that man. Hesitate one moment, and I will never see your face again. Nay, I will curse so faint- hearted " "Hold!" cried Arthur. "Your orders shall be xDbeyed to the letter, come what may." So saying, he turned to leave the room. As he left, the old man stretched his arms towards him. Arthur tenderly embraced his father, as tears streamed down the faces of both. " Go, my boy, and God's blessing be with you !" were the last words he heard. It was a dismal journey to the City for Arthur that day from Dulwich. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he felt that his father was labouring under a delusion. Should he call and consult his father's solicitors ? No ! that would be an act of disobedience. He would do precisely as he was bid; but deal as kindly and gently with i\Ianvers and his ■character, as he possibly could. It would be awk- ward, if the trusted cashier, the honoured servant of his father's commercial house, should resist him. How shocked would be his pride, his feelings of integrity ! How amazed, how startled, how- grieved, A LONG Ar.M OrT OF THE GRAVE. 133 how enraged he would be ! Then Arthur reflected what a cipher he himself had been in that establish- ment, where his father had caused him to be treated more like a disreputable poor relation than an only son and heir. The consciousness of newly acquired power was all damped by his father s desperate state. For, after all, Arthur dearly loved, though he feared, the old man. He began next to think what he should do if Manvers resisted the authority with which he was armed. The naturally indignant confidential clerk and cashier might even dispute the authenticity of the document he held. " I should not like to lay hands on him," thought Arthur to himself. We must do him the justice to say, that this reflection did not in the least arise from the consciousness that Manvers was not only a remarkably powerful man, but a bruiser of considerable pretensions. Like some very respectable, steady men, Manvers affected to know, or did know, every notability in " fast" life, male or female, about town. He was posted in the history of all, for the last half-century or more, from Ginger Stubbs and ^ladame Vestris to Sambo Sutton and Mrs. (not Lady) Hamilton. According to his own account, he had, when a very young man, a night- house encounter with Deaf Burke, and had knocked the " deaf un" out of time in a very few minutes. It is astonishing what respectable men will volunteer in the way of confession sometimes, as to their deeds and misdeeds of twenty or twenty-five years ago, in their hot youth. It is trne that the credibility of this achievement only rested upon the assertion of Manvers himself ; but it made a wonderful impression 134 so VERY nu:MAX. upon the youthful imagmation of Arthur. This, however, rather excited his combative propensities than otherwise. Had he not held his own in a glove- fight with Hammer Lane, concerning which there was no possible fiction, but a good deal of hard- hitting reality ? Had he not, only a few days before, challencred a whole array of draymen and brewers to CD 1/ «' fight a fist-duel, because he had been bespattered with grains from the establishment, as he passed by while the carts were loading? Unable to see the individual who had indulged in this not A'ery agree- able practical joke at his expense, Arthur had rung the counting-house bell of that eminent firm, the Messrs. Maltby and Hopkins, and having stated what had befallen him, requested that all the gang micfht be summoned tocrether that he micrht detect O O O the offender. Then, in spite of the enormous pro- portions of a son of Anak among them, nearly six feet and a half high, he abused them roundly, and dared the fellow who had thrown the grains over him to come out and meet him like a man. Finding that no one responded, he called them a set of dastardly fellows, and made them heartily ashamed of the trick that had been played by one or more of their fellows. " Supposing," shouted Arthur, " that you had spoiled the best suit of clothes of some artist, or mechanic ; some poor teacher obliged to dress well, going his daily rounds, would you have been pleased by that, you pitiful sneaks ? Come, I'll give the man who did it a sovereimi to stand out and face me. o What, you dare not ! I am ashamed of such a lot of un-Encrlish rascals." A LOXG AFt:M OUT OF THE GRAVE. 135 The men actually cheered him as he left the place, ■and I fancy they never again saluted a passer-by with a shower of hot grains. So it must not be sup- posed that Arthur would have shrunk from an en- counter with Manvers, because of the heavy weight and reputed prowess of that gentleman, had he not known him so intimately and respected him so long. But he felt that the very idea of a personal contest with Man vers was distasteful. It was like contem- plating sacrilege. He would about as much have relished a solemn obligation to trip up a bishop in St. James' s-street, or to give the Lord Chancellor his quietus with the mace on the occasion of that high functionary coming out of the House of Lords, with no more consideration for his person than a policeman has for the skull of a British costermonger, or the limbs of an " unfortunate" female who has omitted lo pay him for an unwritten license to follow her sad vocation in the streets. "There's no help for it, and it must be done," was Arthur's conclusion, as he entered the broad _gates of Bingley's Wharf about eleven a.m. 136 CHAPTER IX. HOW A PAINFUL DUTY DEVOLVED OX ARTHUR AUBREY. Mistrust white-headed clerks ! They can be hired ready dressed by the month, or the week, or the day. The modern British clerk is a- reflex of the modern British merchant. As a commercial and financial rule, mistrust all outward respectability of appearance, all that looks solid and rich ; as you would magnificent office?, gorgeous furniture^ and a board-table big enough to hold Sir John Dean Paul's religious library and the securities of and themselves. These are the shaHowest devices of the dishonest promoter, the scamp director, and the general limited-liability humbug in all his phases. — Xotes on the Nineteenth Century. By a Ruined Shareholikr. Mr. John Swindles ^Ianvers was a portly per- sonage, with an excellent judgment in steel pens, and of considerable sapiency in various small matters of London life. He generally wore a black frock-coat and trousers, and a double-breasted white waistcoat of dazzling cleanliness. His complexion was some- what pale — it might have been called pasty — his glossy hair, and, for that period, rather exuberant whiskers, were nearly black; his teeth were regular and shining; and his grey eyes were by no means forbidding in their expression. Any jury would have been impressed most favourably by his appear- ance. Altogether, he was what is called a fine man,, and in these days would have presented the beau idea.. A PAINFUL DUTY. 137 either of the promoter of a limited liabihty company^ or of a touting shopman in St. Paul's Churchyard^ with a liberal salary for his good looks and seductive and imposing manners. His age might have been thirty-six or thirty-eight. He prided himself greatly on his penmanship, and never made, or at least left, a blot in his books. Sometimes he might be seen ob- literating some such things with exquisite pains ; on which occasion his ricrht-hand full shirt-cuff would o be turned up, as lie wielded with a sort of counting- house grace the wdiite-handled office penknife, wdiich, with a square and solid piece of india-rubber, w^as always somewhat ostentatiously displayed on his desk. "Good morning, sir," he said to Arthur, laying down the " Times" as the latter entered : " how is the governor this morning? I trust his health is improved." The tone and manner of Mr. Manvers in making this natural inquiry were indescribably bland and considerate. They resembled those of the head of a mourning warehouse in the ^Yest-end. Mr. Pettingall, the second clerk, looked up sadly, and the rest eagerly awaited the reply. Arthur shook his own head and Mr. Manvers's hand simultaneously, and a tear gathered in his eye. " Will you step into your father's room, sir ?" said Mr. Man vers, persuasively. It was the touting shopman's, not the limited- liability promoter's style of address on this occasion. " Yes, Mr. Manvers," replied Arthm- ; " I have something to say to you. I wish to see you alone." 138 so TEEY HU^IAX. '• Is it all over, sir ?" said ^lanvers, ^vhen they bad •entered, in a rapid and excited manner, and with an anxious gleam in his eves that might have seemed strange to a prejudiced observer. ''■ Oh, no, ^Mr. Manvers," responded Arthur, ** my poor father is not so well : but 1 hope he has yet many years in store." Mr. Manvers shook his head in turn. '' I fear, sir," he said, '' that he will never recover. Your father, sir, will never enter this room again." '^ Nav, i^ay," said Arthur, " why do you think that?"' " He has 'been failing rapidly of late," answered the clerk ; " it is only a question of days. You are aware, sir, of the position I hold ; your father's con- fidence is largely — I may say entirely — reposed in me. I need not say that when the deplorable e^ent happens, you may depend upon everything being 16G so VERY HUMAN. evil and a desperate eye, and the wretched little rascal shivered and shook as with an ague. He felt that it was in vain to resist. "What would you have me do?"' at length he asked Manvers in a husky voice. " How can I give you five hundred pounds ?" " Easily enough," replied the other ; ^' five thou- sand pounds, if I were not the most considerate and easily satisfied fellow in the world. Look you here ! you will shortly pocket among the whole lot of swag five hundred pounds that should have been mine by the will. Just hand over the stumpy, and you can easily repay it, if you like to be so green. Have you not thousands of pounds of book-debts passing through your hands ? Why should there not be a tolerable percentage of losses on these? He will never go into it." " No,'' replied Pettingall ; '' but some one else may/' "But you need not make such an error as I did," quoth Manvers. "You have mv example to profit " By-the-bye, ' remarked Pettingall, " I expect Mr. Macgregor, the accountant, here this very night at ten o'clock, and it is already half-past nine." It was Manvers's turn now to change colour. With a tremendous oath, he cursed the officious blackguard, as he called the poor man who had discovered his villany in the simple exercise of his vocation. "Can't you square him?" he asked Pettingall. " Perhaps he has got a large family. By-the-bye, how many do you reckon — three or four is it ?" ME. PETTIXGALL IX TEE THOIBIKIXS. 167 Pettingall winced. In his vision of an honourable reputation, the future of his boys had largely mixed. He had thought of the free-schools, whose doors would open to his City influence ; and for a moment he felt as if he would brave all, and set Manvers at defiance. It was a dangerous observation for the tempter to make. Perhaps the latter saw it ; for he immediately added, " What a pity for such a jolly old buck-rabbit as you to run the risk of losing a situation like this, and of being turned out of his hutch without any chance of greens. Well, you are safe from John Manvers, if you will only play fair and stand the mopuses. After all, what risk is there in what I ask you to do ? Don't sit shaking there like an ijiliot, or I'll double the figure. Why, the money will be payable under the will, long before you are even called on to render an account, and you will have fifty opportunities of making it in the mean time besides. I wish I had not been such a flat, that is all. But it was my first shy that did the trick, before my hand got steady — and now you stand in my shoes. I remember, for a whole week after, I was just such a snivelling, trembling wretch as you. I dared not come near the place, much less open the books. That's what did me. Dash it ! I actually never put the first little affair straio;ht at all. I have had thou- sands since, ay, and spent them too. I stood to win ten thousand pounds on the Derby once, and I nearly made a fortune in railways ; and now here I am, with perhaps a cool thousand to the good, about to seek my fortune in a land, where it is easier to make money than to keep it, considerable, I calculate. Well, good- 168 so VERT HUMAN. night, my boy, and don't forget tlie wine — tlie same- as we are now drinking, mind." And Manvers swal- lowed a bumper, and deliberately resuming his dis- guise, quitted the room. The fate of Pettingall w^as sealed. When ^Ir. Macgregor came, the worthy clerk was so far beside himself, that anything like business that night became an impossibility. Amongst other things, he pondered over the document to which Manvers, in regaining it, fixed such evident impor- tance, as the means at once of revenge, and putting the screw on Mr. Arthur, as Pettingall was accus- tomed to call him. AYhat could it be ? Then came the sickening thought of the proposed embezzlement ; for it was nothing less. That night when Mrs. Pet- tingall, being greatly disturbed by the uneasy slumbers of her liege lord, laid her hand on his shoulder to awaken him, as she thought, from a paroxysm of nightmare, he leaped up in bed and prayed for mercy in such piteous and appealing tones, that the worthy- lady was nearly frightened out of her wits. Yet it was not conscience that afflicted the honest fellow — far from it ; but that which in the meanest natures- so often supplies its place and is mistaken for it, both by the subject himself and those who witness his tortures — the abject writhings and contortions of a selfish fear. For our own part, we do not believe that deliberate scoundrelism, such as that w hich plots and poisons, or robs the orphan and the widow, ever 7^epents, in the true and proper sense of the word* How can it? A murderer, whom a single act has doomed to wear the brand of Cain, may feel the- deepest repentance — seeing that his deed might be MR. PET TING ALL IN THE THUMBIKINS. 169 an aberration — whether resulting from passion, re- venge, drink, jealousy, or even the temptation of money. But does a dishonest attorney, or a perjured usurper, who has won his way to power by a thou- sand acts of deliberate villany and atrocity, ever feel thorough conscientious remorse? We think not. The latter may dread the assassin ; he may be ap- palled at the thought of the Deity, to Whom he must account after death. The former may become out- wardly religious, and delude himself and the Aveaker portion of Society by affecting good works. If a sanguinary pirate of twenty years' practice in revolt- ing deeds should incarcerate himself in La Trappe, or found a hospital for incurables, what is it but the moral cowardice of a ruffian physically decayed? Superstitious criminals there are, especially women, who may believe that they can compound for a career of subtle infamy by mere purchase. There is a religion which finds it practically convenient and remunerative to teach this. To a certain extent, such persons may be sincere in deluding themselves — from the coarsest bandit to the most accomplished intri- guante. Undoubtedly many who are called very wicked, and who have committed various crimes against the law, may really be struck witli a true sense of their misdeeds, and make all the reparation to man and Heaven in their power. But your cool, calculating^ selfish, and unscrupulous scoundrel cannot alter his nature. Truly the ^thiop may not become vrhite,. nor the leopard change his spots. Mr. Pettingall was essentially a dirty Httle knave, with a great deal of fear in his composition. He was anxious not to incur 170 so VERY HUMAN. the danger of appearing in a criminal clock ; but from the first he designed to betray his master's and patron's interests, so far as he safely could, in the furtherance of his o^yn interests ; while wealth and respectability were the idols which he had set up to worship. Alas, for the uncertainty of human wishes ! The huge form of the desperate, felonious jNIanvers compelled Pettingall to outstep his inclinations, and commit the vulgar crime of embezzlement, instead of only depreciating his employer's property by underleasing it, and finally causing it to be under- sold, and variously turning the very valuable business connexion of the late Mr. Aubrey to his own profit, instead of that of Mr. Aubrey, junior. To be brief, in a very short time Pettingall was discovered to have received moneys for which he never accounted, and flung himself abjectly on the mercy of Arthur Aubrey. Between Mr. Pettingall and Messrs. Grinderby and Cousens, there had always been the most pleasant business intercourse conceivable. It was, therefore, a sharp and cruel thing on the part of that firm to urge Aubrey in the strongest manner to prosecute Pettingall. On this occasion Mr. Grinderby went almost too far in the severity of his remarks and the strength of his advice. " You may do as you please, sir,"' he said to Arthur — who, by the way. had gone to his solicitors with the most positive determination to prosecute, and, in fact, to instruct them to get a warrant — ^' you may do just as you like, sir, in the matter ; but I conceive that you are bound, in the interests of Society, to punish this fellow. I know you may not like the publicity. MR. PETTIXGALL IX THE TIIOIBIIvINS. 171 the trouble, and the expense. You may be inclined to allow him to refund a portion of his ill-gotten gains, and to follow into exile his guilty partner and instructor, Manvers, by far the greater villain of the two, sir, in my opinion, whom 3'ou have already let loose upon Societ}', as I understand, in America. I trust, sir, if I may say so, that as a client of this firm you will not on this occasion show such mistaken lenity. Nay, looking at it as a question of morality as well as duty, 1 shall, indeed, regret, deeply regret, if you take any other course." As Mr. Aubrey declared himself perfectly firm, and that his mind was fully made up to prosecute a man who had been guilty of such base ingratitude, there did not appear to be such strict necessity or occasion for the strenuous advice and strong repre- sentations of Mr. Grinderby. The latter dwelt greatly on the evil example set by Manvers, and suggested that Aubrey himself was not entirely free from blame, for not having prosecuted him, thereby leaving Pettingall exposed to his machinations. " Example, indeed !" said Aubrey, ^' I can see no mitigation of his villany in that. Do you mean to say, that my leniency encouraged him to rob me ? That only proves him to be a blacker scoundrel." " You must make allowance for the circumstances by which you yourself surrounded him," quoth the legal Mephistopheles. These suggestions only irritated Aubrey at the time, but they dwelt and rankled in his mind after- wards. Grinderby's argument was that the example of Manvers and his impunity had corrupted Pettin- 172 so YELY HUM AX. gall, whereas Aubrey insisted upon it that these very things ought to have kept him out of mischief. Alas ! it is circumstance which impels and allm'es to crime; not example which deters men from it. We remember just after the astounding revelations which resulted from the suicide of the late Mr. Sadleir, whilom a Lord of the Treasury and M.P., being shown a quantity of handwriting and a number of his signatures by an official in the Treasmy, who held a very responsible post. He spoke of the suicide's career with a mingled expression of awe and wonder^ and especially expressed his amazement that a man in such a position, and with such opportunities, should have lost himself so entirely. " Who could have thought it of him ! Many a time," he said, " he has stood here chatting with me, and I assure you he was the last man in the world I should ever have suspected." Only a twelvemonth afterwards we called on a matter of business on our friend. " Is Mr. in f we asked cheerfully of a sub- ordinate. "No, he is not." "Will he be in to-day?" " I don't think it is very likely." Such were the brief questions and answers ; and w^e went away with an impression on our mind that the under-strapper not only answered us in a rude and abrupt tone, but eyed us in a somewhat peculiar and offensive manner. Great Heaven! the next news we had was that Mr. had absconded, and the officers of justice were in pursuit of him. The ME. I'ETTIXGALL IX THE THUMBIKIXS. 173 last, yes, positively the very last being in the world -who we should have thought was likely to commit a folly, much less become capable of a crime. A quiet, self-possessed, amiable, and thoroughly business-like man; a man of law and formulae, of facts and figures. To be sure, he was the son of a strict and severe clerg}'man ; and extra piety and morality seldom go either with the personalty, the paternal blessing, or the entail. But the surprise and the shock were stupendous. "To this day it is incomprehensible, almost inconceivable to our fancy or belief. Yet he had gone; bolted with a paltry sum of Govern- ment money ; stolen it too in notes easily traced, with a fatuity utterly inexplicable ; and was taken soon after landing in America with his trifling plunder, and actually released; so great was- the scandal, and so small the amount. He had fled with a vulgar and depraved companion, whom he had married, and who deserted him as soon as he was left without resource. And this female, who drank, and swore, and played him false under his very eyes, had tempted him into vicious expense, and in spite of his capacity, his attainments, and the post which he held, one of substantial advantage and brilliant promise for so young a man, turned him into a common felon, within one year after he had moralised, philosophised,- and pondered over Sadleir's colossal frauds and the dreadful lesson of his tragical end ; with its memorials before him, and constantly re- curring, in the exercise of his daily duties, to his sicrht. 174 CHAPTER XI. A FLEMISH EXTERIOK OF WEBB's FIELDS, WITH SOME EULOGY ON LAW AND LAWYERS. The people asked for a " Code," and their rulers gave them new- Law Courts. In order that due consistency might be observed, these were erected on a scale of Satanic grandeur in a poor and densely populated quarter ; and the inhabitants had legal, though scarcely equitable, notice of evictiou, and were left to make their own arrange- ments with the workhouse, the prison, and the grave. — Chronicles of Great Britain, 1800—1900. The advice given to Aubrey by Mr. Grinderby respecting the punishment of Mr. Pettingall, directly operated neither one way nor the other on that gen- tleman's determination or proceedings. He felt, in truth, greatly outraged and proportionately indignant. Moreover, he had reason to suspect that the loss he had sustained through Pettingall was very serious. For, unlike those of Man vers', his peculations were not merely direct, and applied to his own benefit ; but he had robbed him on commission, as it were. He had suppressed and compromised debts ; he had underlet and undervalued everything ; he had told his employer that debtors were ruined, or on the verge of insolvency, who were able to pay, and obtained from the too easy and credulous- Aubrey (who, be it ad- A FLEMISH EXTERIOE OF WEBB*S FIELDS. 175 mitted, was lazy and hated business withal) receipts in full for the payment of a mere fraction of his just claims ; he had sold off the remaining stock for a mere nothing ; he was suspected of making away with a considerable amount of property, which could not be traced at ail ; he had been party to a fraudulent sale of Bingley's Wharf and the adjacent property^ under false and lying representations of its declining value, whereas its value had really very much in- creased ; and, lastly, he had sold and transferred the whole business connexion of the late Mr. Aubrey, which his possession of the books and knowledge of the affairs enabled him to do, to the very Limited Liability Company who had bought and taken pos- session of the premises, and with whom he had secured himself the berth of secretary and managing director on a salary of eight hundred pounds a-year. As, under the old regime, he had only three hundred pounds, which Aubrey had increased to four hun- dred, with numerous presents and benefactions, it must be owned he had done well for his own benefit, in proportion as he had ruthlessly sacrificed every interest of his patron and benefactor. But he was not content with all this. He actually had the greed and impudence to bring a charge against Aubrey of nearly two thousand pounds as percentage for col- lecting the debts ! It was the resistance of Aubrey to this monstrous attempt at extortion, which first led to the detection of Pettingall's true character and nefarious proceedings. At first, Messrs. Grinderby and Cousens seemed to adopt the notion, as a matter of course, that Aubrey 176 so VERY HUMAN. must pay this money and satisfy the claim. They " did not see how their client could avoid doing so." Of course, they expressed their great disgust that such a demand should be made ; but, legally, they said that Aubrey had not a leg to stand upon. That gentleman, however, called in another accountant, and he went into a second examination of the books. It was not INIr. ^lacgregor this time ; but Mr. Play- fair, a gentleman whose acquaintance our hero had accidentally made, and wdio was a man of singular sagacity, honesty of purpose, and possessed of vast powers of investigation into any matter in which figures were concerned. Master Pettingall had no chance in such hands. In a week he was blubbering on his knees at Mr. Playfair's feet. That gentleman simply said : " It is not my business to squeeze the life out of you, or even to kick you down-stairs. I am not a man of impulse, and I have seen a great deal of rascality in this world. But I recommend you to rid me of your presence in the shortest possible time ; for fear I should be tempted to go beyond my duty, and do something which, as a man of business, I may repent." To Pettingall's attempted whinings about his wife and children, Mr. Playfair merely said : " How dare you, who have forgotten them, while planning and plotting this heartless and wholesale robbery, day by day, and night by night, ask me, who am a stranger, to be so much more merciful than yom'self ; and to commit an act of injustice and dishonesty, which it would be, to intercede for you A FLEMISH EXTEEIOR OF WEBB's FIELDS. 177; with him, whom you have plundered and wronged?. Get out of the room, sir, do you hear me ? and be quick. You abuse my patience, you scoundrel, you do. What!" Here he made a step towards Pettingall, who dis- appeared in a clammy mist of terrified tears, and with the perspiration of detected guilt exuding from. every pore. It was but a very short time after his late recorded conversation with Mr. Grinderby, that Arthur Aubrey might have been seen by any idle office lad, or stilL idler conveyancing pupil, who had nothing better to do than to watch the movements of strangers, wend- ing his way across the dingy legal barrack-yard known as Webb's Fields, which at some remote period we may presume had some title to that name, towards the particular fly-trap, whose entrance was distinguished by Messrs. Grinderby and Cousen's illustrious names. Mr. Aubrey was deeply wrapped-. in meditation, which was of an engrossing but by no means pleasant kind. Not being, therefore, at all in a philosophical or inquiring mood, he entirely omitted to notice the peculiar characteristics of the locality, which, were in great force that day. He did not remark the seedy, mildewy, whity-brown-aproned, washed- out-looking porters, who stood in twos and threes, as if they had brought a message from some grim old departed lawyer in the World of Shades which re- quired no answer, and would be thankful to any one who would send a note to the same place, and give them sixpence to pay Charon for ferrying their ema- VOL. I. N 178 so VERY HUMAX. ciated spectres over the Styx. He failed to observe the stout policeman threatening to eject a weazened old woman of eighty years and upwards, who was tending and guarding the toddling frolics of a very small and dirty female child ; the extraordinary number of flaunting females, and girls, apparently of the milliner class, who seemed to have legal appointments in the Fields, and consultations in its chambers ; the dissipated, rake-helly fellow lounging across in shooting-jacket and smoking-cap, pipe in mouth ; the dirty state of the windows ; the pert, lawyer-like air of the sparrows ; and the tameness of the pigeons, which fancy might easily have ima- gined were animated by the spirits of departed clients, and fed with a sort of mild poetic reparation at the expense of the benchers, or, rather, of the bloated funds of the Fields. All this was utterly unnoticed by the hurrying and pre-occupied Aubrey, who with rapid strides bisected transversely that dismal, old, dissipated, insolvent-looking manufactory of legal abomination and sin. Nay, he passed un- noticed even the salutations of two A^ery pretty and attractive young ladies, who must, at least, have just gained a lawsuit, or have received information of a legacy ; or otherwise have had some great stroke of good fortune connected with Themis, so irrepressibly joyous and exuberantly delighted did they seem. Yet so bent was Mr. Aubrey on the demolition of the double-dved rascal Pettincrall, that jovial and free-spoken as he ordinarily was, he did not observe the salutations and remarks lavished upon him by these lio^ht-hearted and fair-haired demoiselles. An A FLEMISH EXTEEIOE OF WEBB'S FIELDS. 179 inquiry after his maternal parent was lost in air, and a theory advanced as to his good-nature fell for eyer dead and unanswered, so far as he was concerned. Even an altered tone and style in their observations, so soon as he had passed them, entirely escaped him. The fact is, his thoughts were bent on the Old Bailey and vengeance ; and Webb's Fields, with all its past traditions and present features, its beauties and blemishes, its pebbly gravel, which might have been triturated from the stony hearts of generations of defunct attorneys long since struck off the rolls of mortality and gone home to another, and, let us hope, so far as their bedevilments are concerned, a better world — Webb's Fields, with its benchers and wenchers, its clerks and its sparks, its fogeys and its bogeys, its kn.ots of porters, if not its porters' knots, its pigeons, sparrows, nursery children, dining-halls, pump, and clock, was to him A simple square and nothing more. ^' Simple !" with its gi-avel cemented with widows' tears ; its pavements worn with the weary feet of baffled litigants, heavy with ruined hopes, but lighter for the loss of the gold which the rapacious talons of the legal harpies tlierein congregating had filched and torn away ? " Simple !" -^^th the true stories that might be told of it peopling with ghastly shapes and curdling with their dim and dreary revelations the dull and misty air ? " Simple !" with fi.fa. and ca. sa. whispering in the gusty breezes that whirled the dust of dead mens' bones, and yellow parchments, and unswept offices in your face, and echoing by n2 180 so TEKY HUM AX. night the shrill scream of oath from the slums that border the greater portion of two sides of the parallelogi'am, ^Yhose corner-stone was surely laid by a prince, the " Prince of Darkness" himself, who " was a gentleman" by Act of Parliament, be it understood ? " Simple !" with its interminable web of delay, and malice, and form, and falsehood^ and robbery, and deceit, through which the wealthy suitor may flounder, but the poor client leaves his- empty sucked-out case, and brittle shiny wings, with Avhich he flew in, either unawares, or because he- couldn't help it, or was a fool, like the poor gilded fly ? " Simple !" with all those hungry business dens, and their remorseless occupants within, writing and copying like grim and galvanised Death to feed their grimmer and grimier life of sin, ^' to eat and drink^ ari'ay themselves, and live ?" " Simple !*' with those strange supplementary haunts of eccentric penury, and cheap and vulgar debauchery which fill up the vacancies of this charming abode, and people its windows with stray lights, wdien the greater portion of the legal denizens have washed their talons towards dinner-time, and gone home to the bosom of their affectionate families in suburban squares ? This is Webb's Fields, as some view it ; but by no means all. We suppose that the young widow of a drowned sailor regards the sea with different eyes from Miss Clementina at Margate, w4th a volume of Byron, Bulwer, or Marryat in her hand. This is the jaundiced view of a man of griefs and losses — of one who has known what it is to wait weary hours in a lawyer's office, when the clerks look sneeringly at A FLEMISH EXTERIOR OF WEBB's FIELDS. 181 liim, and say audibly one to another : " Oh I it's only old Sadcase, him as lost all his property in that suit — you know — Weasel v. Sadcase, in which Serjeant Squeezer made that famous speech. It's in the last volume of Scribbler and Squitty's Eeports." This is the view of the plundered and cleaned out ; the out- at-elbows client with a sick wife and largo family, who want port wine and sea air, and possibly better food and more of it, and who had been rich, but for the common practice of Webb's Fields. Bless those lively young clerks, it is no more to them than dissecting to an enthusiastic Sawbones, when he is .appointed demonstrator of anatomy at Guy's ! This is nothing but a mere morbid view taken by broken clients and ruined men. It is not shared in, believe us, by pros])erous gentlemen, and those who can afford to chan2;e their lawvers and tax their bills. Yes, it is upon the carcass that the legal vulture principally thrives and feeds. You, my lord, and you, madam, with your ample fortune, may not appreciate, or even understand, this bitterness of re- proach, this minute description of things and of places unknown in your experience. Your sleek family solicitor is a pleasant and comfortable personage. He only now and then puts you out of temper ; because he delays your daughters marriage settle- jnent, and is so unconscionably slow in the re-invest- ment of that mortgage money of yours which has heen paid back so long. You don't suspect that he is playing with the money. Oh dear no ! He is far too trustworthy and respectable a man. We hope for your sake that his speculations may never entirely 182 so VEEY HUMAN. go wrong. Until then, you will continue to consider our delineation of human spiderdom harsh, exag- gerated, and untrue. We trust, fair sir and proud lady, that you may never have cause to alter your opinions. Whether we ourselves have suffered or not from the iniquity of the legal system and practice, we shall not tell. Suffice it to say, that we have seen enough of their workings to adopt the black and morbid view, which we have just now endeavoured to convey. But then we go much further than suffices for the condemnation of a mere portion of the attorney gang. We denounce their whole existence as a national blot, as an excrescence, and an unnecessary evil, of pernicious and fungus-like growth. We say that the Avhole standing or sedentary army of '^ solicitors," as they are called, ought to be abolished and put down, not only on account of individuals, but the State. Here in England, we have nearly twenty thousand men apprenticed from boyhood to the master and originator of all evil and wrong, creating and foster- ing enmity, malice, uncharitableness, in order to pro- duce litigation in its worst forms of injustice, absurdity^ and excess. Worse than this, the elections of the whole country are in their hands. Who practises, and shields, and encourages corruption and bribery, direct and indirect, but your solicitor? Who knows the secrets of the rich and great, arid bullies and persecutes the poor and the small ? Who goes about like a lay Jesuit spreading suspicion, disunion, hatred, and mistrust in all circles ? Who widens the breach, nay the gulf which unhappily exists between classes, A FLEMISH EXTERIOR OF WEBB's FIELDS. 183 between the higher and the middle, and the lower classes of the community? Who is the curse of town and village, of city and farm-house alike? AVho but the legal agent and inquisitor, the rich man's prompter to harshness, and the poor man's deadliest foe? Who, when a man is down in the world, counsels his creditors to lose more money, rather than give him a chance to retrieve his fortunes, or ever to get his head again above the slough of ruin and despond ? What is the answer to the agonising plea for time ? "I can do nothing in it. It is in the hands of my solicitor." It is not so in America, a new country — it is not so in France, an old one. At least there is nothing so universal and so bad. And what does the solicitor do besides, in the capacity of active curse ? He is an obstacle in the way of all rational reform ; all cheap transfer of land, or per- sonalty ; all simplification of titles, and leases, and wdlls ; and the easy and common-sense recovery of debts. He is the foe of equity and compromise, and recovery of every kind, save " fine and recovery," and concurrent monstrosities of form. All this is nothing new, and yet it is not so very old. It is not so A^ery long, since the birth and growth of the modern attorney- at-1 aw out of the old scrivener and notary. Why should not men keep their own deeds, and make their own transfers, purchases, sales, mortgages, and the like, with the aid of law-writers, and public regis- trations, and the best counsel to be had direct, depend- ing on success and character for reputation, whose fee should be paid by the client himself; ready money, or credit, just as may be settled between the 184 so VEEY HUMAN. pair ? The counsel might say at once, ^' You have no case, my man ; " or, " I advise you to make the best terms you can ;" or, " I'll fight yoiu- cause and see you through it. You shall pay me so much, if I succeed ; if not, nothing." What monstrosity it is, that an attorney can recover his bill of costs, whilst an advocate has no remedy ! What a mighty hotch- potch of iniquity the whole system is ; and how it withers and depraves many of the finest energies and qualities of tens of thousands of Englishmen. The most beneficial use made of solicitors is by rogues. They profit by all the chicaneries and worst features of the law. The best education for a swindler is a "legal one. ^Ii'. Grinderby was an excellent and enthusiastic 'lawyer. To him the law was what ii is to too many, the study of malevolence, avarice, trickery, and legalised fraud. 185 CHAPTER XII. A DIGRESSION ON ATTORNEY DOM AND ITS WORKS. Les homraes de chiquane emportant a dos de mulet les beavilx deniers prins ung a ung par le chicquanous aux veufres, orphelins, et aussy a d'aultres. — La Mye dii Roij, Balzac. " Cil qui ha prins ceste ioye est il fourny de deniers ?" deraande le iuge. "Oh! bien." "Doncques il payera chier. Qui e.st-ce?" " Monseigneur Du Fou." " Voila qui change la caus^e," dit le iuge. "Et la iustice?" feit elle. " J'ay diet la cause et non la iustice," repartit le iuge. La Belle Fille de Portillon. There is no sentiment or feeling in the adminis- tration of British Law. In civil cases, the longest purse generally wins, especially when coupled with the most unscrupulous practice. In criminal cases, it is an excellent thing to have plenty of money, n6t to bribe the judge, but to purchase the whole panoply of just or unjust defence, and, above dl, to command that consideration, commiseration, and interest which money always insures in this mercantile countiy. How much better your "alibi" looks, if you have twenty thousand pounds I How much less probable does your alleged crime appear, if you are worth one 186 so VERY HUMAN. hundred thousand pounds, more or less ! What chance has a needy suitor or defendant when pleading before a well-to-do and respectable Themis ! Truly »Tustice is blind in England, and holds the scales. You may have been victimised to any extent by a lawyer, made penniless and driven mad by chicanery and delay, and it shall avail you nothing ; since you cannot legally introduce this into the case, and place it on record in due form. Nay, the judge will instruct the jury purposely, that they must not allow them- selves to be biassed by anything which does not form part of the strict issue before them. "You must dismiss from your minds the facts incidentally brought before you that the plaintiff seduced the defendant's wife, after ruining him by the most complex con- spiracy ; that he spent moneys intrusted to him on parole, and sold him to all his enemies. The question is, does the defendant owe the plaintiff six shillings and eightpence on this transaction, or did the pri- soner knock the prosecutor down, or call him by an actionable term ?" In France, the whole history is elicited by the Court by a series of interrogatories, and circum- stances are taken into consideration. There, a man is allowed to have a heart, feelings, and passions. There, systematic scoundrelism is exposed and dealt with. Here, it is favoured by the friendly inter- vention of the Law. In France, if we are informed aright, " of lawyers and notaries there is no end" in the galleys of Toulon. They are not fenced round with impunity, as they are here. There are single A DIGRESSION ON ATTOENEYDOM. 187 lawyers in the galleys ; they ought to link ^^ firms" with a connecting chain. They are clothed in coarse canvas trousers and shirts, branded with their numbers (as they put their real or imaginary clients' initials on their tin boxes), and they wear a woollen jacket to keep them w^arm during the remainder of their earthly career. " Their faces, close shaven, bronzed by exposure to the sun, and brutalised by crime, are fearful to behold ;" and " their repulsive appearance is heightened by their hair being notched short in lines running round the head, in order to facilitate their recognition, should they escape." This is wdiat they do with dishonest lawyers in France. In England, it is different. We were about to say that there are no dishonest lawyers in England, that is, judging by the results to them- selves, not their clients. Perhaps the converse of the proposition is nearly true. The present laws of England, however, seem principally to be made for rogues. " Who," wrote, in effect, a powerful journalist, some years since, " prevents that scoundrel from being taken by the neck by the police, as in France, and dragged before the Tribunal within an hour? Who but these execrable difficulty-makers^ the law^yers ?"* " The law itself is too weak for the lawyers ; they defy it, obstruct it, ignore it, render it futile and abortive ;" that is, w^hen it suits them to do so. Even to take a wdiole department as a specimen, " Doctors' Commons threatened to be im- * See some admirable articles in the " Weekly Dispatch" some years ago. We can only quote from fragments without dates. 188 so VEEY HUMAN. mortal, until the Doctors were guaranteed compensa- tion, when they discovered that they were a super- fluous nuisance, and abated themselves." But how does England deal with her erring legal pets, the too funny "gentlemen by Act of Parlia- ment," who now and then o'erstep, in their zeal for practice, even the wide limits which they have assigned themselves ? Pentonville and Portland are not their just destination, unless they steal pocket-handker- chiefs or spoons, which would argue a want of success in their legitimate professional career. "A solicitor convicted of wilful and corrupt per- jury !" (See daily papers.) This is really distressing. We thought that such aoi'eeable latitude was allowed in the exercise of the calliiiir. This man being con- victed must be more honest than many of his fellows. He has had to do with other attorneys, and they have been too much for him. " The Liquidator of the Bogus Bank, limited, v. two Attorneys." In this case the Court evidently recog- nises fraud ; but, for some motive, through some dis- torted freak of the judicial mind, lets the afflicted beings off. "The Lord Chief Justice ^regretted''' (Did he now ?) " that attorneys should mix themselves up in schemes for concocting Companies. Such duties were not strictly professional" (Lideed !), "and said that such companies are mere delusions, by which the public are induced to invest money, which is spent in legal charges and in winding-up the under- taking," c&c. &c.* * The above was literally said. The lanvj-ers in question thus idlv A DIGEESSIOX OX ATTOEXEYDOM. 189 Such are among the notes and remarks we find in our Diary of the blank day of blank, a.d. 1867. If an ordinary person, guilty or not guilty, is accused of any crime whatsoever — if he is the mani- fest victim of threatened extortion — does the Press conceal his name i We suppose that in the last case we have quoted, either it is a special privilege of attorneydom, on its trial, not to be named or spe- cified; in which case it is a gross and monstrous anomaly and folly; or the newspapers w^ere afraid lest these interesting legal Siamese Twins should commence all manner of proceedings against them. We have seen this sort of thing before. When an attorney has to show cause wdiy he should not be " struck off the rolls," the same delightful reticence is observed. The interesting victim of rabid and vindictive clients, this boa-constrictor worried by rabbits, this hyena lugged bruised and bleeding into court by new-born babes, remains anonymous, more unknown, probably, than the author of "Junius;" because, unless you are fortunate enough to know very few solicitors indeed, you cannot even guess at his name. Why this insane forbearance, this corrupt buffoonery on behalf of '•gentlemen,"' who know so well how^ to take care of themselves as your attorneys? It is simply a part of the abuse and absurdity of the whole British system of Law, from base to apex of the pp-amidal iniquity built with the skulls and bones of thousands and ten thousands of branded by the judge, not only got their costs, but a large sum for promotion out of the Company, and escaped without even the mention of their names I 190 so VEKY HUMAN. victims to the rapacity, extortion, avarice, delays, and complex injustice which the Law prescribes, encou- rages, necessitates, defends, and practises. What is a solicitor ?* we ask. It is a word of modern date. It is meant perhaps to be more genteel than the word attorney. Or, was it devised in order to divert attention from the oiiginal ])irth and exist- ence of our " legal friend" 1 The atom'ney would have been the champion in the lists, of those who could not fight for themselves, in the days of chivalry. Fancy a real attorney in our sense existing in those times ! Such a one fought by proxy for the minor, the sick person, the aged and infirm. Thence he came to be the licensed representative and interpreter of the icrnorant : of those who towards the latter part of the Dark Ages could neither read nor Avrite. He ap- peared for Higg and Snell, the offspring of Saxon serfs. Ai'e we still so benighted and ignorant as to require such services now ? He would seem to have shown the cloven foot very early ; since we find that by the Statute 32 Hen. YI., it was enacted that there should be " but six common attorneys in Nor- folk, six in Suffolk, and two in Norwich, if that shall seem reasonable to the justices." Again, we find in ^' An exact Abrido-ement of all Statutes in force and use from Magna Carta until 1641, by E. Wingate, of Grayes Inne, Esq.," pubHshed in 1660, that " if an attorney delay his client's suit for gain, or demand bv his bill more than his due fees and disbui'sements. * It means especially the lawyer who practises in equity, but the terms are now confounded. Every attorney is " , Esquire, Solicitor.''' A DIGEESSIOX OX ATTOEXEYDOM. 191 the client sliall recoA'er against him his costs and treble damages, and he himself shall be for ever dis- abled from being an attorney or solicitor any more." This would make fine havoc were it really acted upon in the present day. You tax a solicitor's bill now, and must get a large proportion disallowed, or have to pay the costs of taxation. But whatever you get, it does not invalidate a modern attorney's j^ractice. Ao^ain, " If an attorney be found notoriouslv in fault, he shall forswear the court, and never be ad- mitted in any other court." "Notoriously in fault!" What now-a-days comes up to, or does not come up to, this phrase ? We pre- sume that it is far too severe to characterise the two attorneys whom " the Lord Chief Justice regretted should mix themselves up in schemes for concoct- ing Companies," which " are mere delusions, and by which" (he said) " the public are robbed, while no- thing is spent, save in legal charges and in winding- up the undertaking." At all events, even their names are held sacred, while that of any one not belong- ing to this privileged class is by no means thus shielded, on a prima facie charge, whether he be guilty or not guilty of anything imputed to him. When fraud and artifice are reduced to a system, in order to plunder under the mantle of respectability and the protection of authority — and this in every circle and department of a country, public and private legislative representation itself being for the most part in the lawyer's hands — what must be the issue? The evil increases, until it would seem that nothing short of revolution can shake the demon off the 192 so VERY HUMAN. nation's neck. And how much more deadly and dan- o-erous the revolution, which should arise from a web of oppression and injustice spread over all classes, than that which the iniquity of a single tyrant or succession of tyrants and their ministers might engender ? It would be like a nation rising against itself, and no one could foresee the solution or the end. Among the many facetious stories told of the ap- preciation in which attorneys have been held is the following, which, however well known, we do not scruple to give here. Peter the Great, Czar of Mus- covy, being in England in Term time, and seeing multitudes swarming about the Great Hall, wherein are held the three superior Courts of judicature, is reported to have asked some one about him "who all those busy people were, and what they were about?" Being answered, " They are lawyers, sir.'* " Lawyers !" returned he. " Why I have but two in my whole dominions, and I design to hang one of them the moment I get home." Perhaps, however, there is more amusement to be derived from the consideration of a plain English statute, when statutes were plain, taken in connexion with what has been the reality of the case nearly ever since, and what the state of things is now. By 4 Hen. lY., c. 18, it was enacted that "none should be admitted, but such as were virtuous, learned, and sworn to do their duty." The virtue of the craft — whatever they may swear to, like the Sultan at his installation as a Knight of the Garter — is, we should think, on a par with the philanthropy of a crocodile or the vegetarianism of a shark. Again, the Statute A DIGEESSION ON ATTOENEYDOM. 193 (An. 1403) recites this item : " For sundry damages and mischiefs which liave ensued before this time to divers persons of the realm by a great number of attorneys, they shall be good, virtuous, and of good fame." The subject is very tempting for a jest. Attorneys could at one time only employ two clerks {vide Mary- ham's " Complete Collection of Statutes relating to Solicitors"). We do not know if that law has been repealed ; but probably it has. If not, they break the law with impunity in this, as in many other things. The 33 Hen. VI., c. 7 (1455), recites "a practice of contentious attorneys to stir up suits for their private profits." Even in those days we learn that people " dared not complain of y® extortions and y® oppressions" of the attorneys. By the 3rd Edw. I., a penalty on any attorney was inflicted for deceit I He was imnrisoned for a year and a day. It has long since been permitted that a lunatic may appear by attorney ; and a whole nation of lunatics avail themselves of the privilege. An attorney formerly could not practise in gaol. Heaven knows what they may or may not do now ; since the fraternity have managed to wriggle out of almost every penalty and disability formerly im= posed upon them. But we cannot help thinking that a gaol would be a very proper place for many to practise in, but not on behalf of their clients. Formerly under-sheriffs were not allowed to be attorneys. This has been repealed, 1 Vic, c. 55, like everything else that stood in the way of chicanery and VOL. I. 194 so VEKY HUMAN. wrong, under pretence of " amendment and conso- lidation." Heaven save the mark I In a speech of Lord Bathurst in Parliament in 1737, he is reported to have said, speaking of the causes of riots and tumults, and referring to the in- surrection of Wat Tyler, that '^ the people complained that their domestick enemies, the lawyers, ruined them with vexatious suits and extorsive fees." This he gave as one of the chief reasons for that rebellion. This evil has been going on ever since ; it is at this moment greater than ever. Politically the lawyers are corrupting the whole State. Their fraud, oppres- sion, and corruptions, are assisting to bring about revolution now. Since these evils cannot be, or are not, amended or reformed, they will bring about a violent deliverance, if they do not destroy the nation as a first- rate power. Parliament is chiefly returned by lawyers. Lawyers draw the bungling Acts of Parliament, through which they themselves teach men to break. No man is so much afraid of the law — even such as it is — being brought to bear upon himself and his own alleged or imputed misdeeds, providing it be by a sufficiently rich man — as a lawyer. The reason of this is obvious. If by some miracle the attorney has justice on his side, he knows that he may be cast by the law ; if he has acted wrongly, he is instinctively reluctant to be exposed. Nevertheless, almost every one shrinks from attacking a solicitor. Yet we have known one, soundly thrashed and kicked before his own clerks, to put up with the inconvenience and indignity, without applying to the police, or even commencing an action. The attorney now-a-days is a most important part of the social system of Great A DIGBESSION ON ATTOENEYDOM. 195 Britain. Fifty years ago, he was still kept some- what in check. Barristers were tabooed, and struck off the bar-mess, who were found guilty of " hugging," or even associating with attorneys Judges snubbed them, and kept them in order. They were frequently ordered out of court. Lately, when Mr. Chisholm Anstey acted as judge in India, he dealt with what he considered to be fraud rather harshly, i.e., justly, and the whole legal set combined against him. Here, in England, the power of this abnormal and wholly unnecessary, unconstitutional, and illegal body, is enormous. It undermines all Society ; it is a stand- ing menace against honesty, and union, and peace among men ; it exists and flourishes by the practice of the basest acts and the lowest trickery. Woe be- tide him in temporary difficulties, he shall never lift up his head again ! The simplest business is pro- tracted and delayed in the cruellest manner. A lawyer wants all youi' deeds and papers. You send them to him. He runs you up and delivers a bill of costs. You object to it; he retains your papers — you go to another la-vv^y-er, who, ten to one, will not press him, and they both plunder you. These are the mildest cases. On the other hand, rich creditors place their debts in their lawyers hands, and then will listen to no proposal for time from a debtor who is only desirous to pay. They refer you to their lawyer ; the lawyer back to his client. The debtor is the shuttlecock, and it ends with a writ and its consequences. The client may lose his money in ruining the debtor, and does it all under his lawyer's advice. We have known enormous expenses incurred 2 196 so VEET HTJMAK. in a client's name, whose estate was in the lawyers' clutches, whilst he was starving. There is a daily correspondonce about him which costs pounds. He visits his own property on foot, and speaks to a tenant. The tenant leaves him to touch his hat to a man in a brouffham. He asks who it is. It is a solicitor's clerk. He is sent there that day to go through a farce of pretended inquiry, because the office has a clerk at leisure, and business must be made. A man has a legacy left him and is ruined by it. A case like this has been painted by Charles Dickens. And the beauty of it is, that these very lawyers do not pretend to understand law or equity. They state a case for counsel, which you must not do for yourself. The counsel's fees are not recoverable, forsooth ; and a lawyer sues his client thus for money which he has not disbursed and possibly never will pay. Counsel do not always receive the fees which solicitors have charged and received on their behalf. Why are the honour and honesty of this especial class of men to be blindly trusted to — they who give no trust ? If you take your deeds to a solicitor, he lays his legal paw on them as a matter of course, and w^hile you owe him six and eightpence, he keeps them. If you want, in the mean time, to look at one of your own leases, you are lucky to get it the first time you call, and the solicitor insists on a receipt from you ! But is the guild, the body, without stain or suspicion even of enormous criminal frauds'? By no means. Look at that case of Cheslyn Hall, a wonderfully "respect- able and eminent practitioner,'' some time ago. But why particularise one ? Attorneys, if they can manage A DIGRESSION ON ATTORNEYDOM. 197 it, always spare men of their own profession, or rather trade. It wouldn't be desirable, they say, to press matters too far. They don't advise their clients to prosecute, or go to law with an attorney. We have spoken of trade. What is attorneydom, save a trade, and that of a not very exalted character?" They don't sell you law, at least, not directly — they go to the barrister for that. They sell you forms of law over an imaginary legal counter. They are not even as apothecaries to surgeons or physicians, for the latter send you to the former, but the solicitor consults his physician for you. He poisons you with his legal drugs under the cover of superior advice. These men, who, half a century ago, hardly or seldom ranked as gentlemen, who did not presume to call themselves " esquires," who could not get into a respectable club, now affect not only gentility, but exclusiveness. Yet they are admitted into Society, as we once heard remarked, like the knaves among the court cards of the pack. We saw lately the case of a low provincial fellow of this description who, in defending a dishonest cad against a just claim, addressed a letter to a neighbouring squire, and colonel commanding a regiment, "Mr." So-and-So. This insolence is common in the trade. The solicitor, who sells forms and procedures of law^ like a cheese- monger (only that the trade is not so direct or honest), gives himself airs, keeps his clients waiting in his ante-room purposely, and acts generally in a manner which one hundred years ago would have caused him to provoke and receive a batooning or a hearty kick- ing. Things are changed, and we have made such 198 so VEET HUMAN. astonishing progress I Have we ? Yes, certainly, in some things. Railways, for example. Apropos of these, there is the tourist solicitor. You cannot leave him behind anywhere. Post equitem sedet atra cura ; you travel second-class on account of that enormous lawyer's bill wliich you have just received. Your solicitor travels first-class, for the same reason. Attorneys are always going express somewliere, and we fear that the country' is going with them. It is of no avail that the dramatist and romancist are continually holding up the mirror, and telling us what a pattern scamp the modern solicitor often is. Look at the varieties of the breed. You have the money-lending solicitor, the military and clerical solicitor, the thieves' solicitor, the gaol solicitor, and the solicitor, par excellence, of women of the town — the legal adviser of felony, and of the " Social Evil." " Social Evil," indeed ! Attorneydom is tlie '* Social Evil " of the age. And these men are not to be exposed by name ! Once more, " In re an Attorney (in the case of the Bogus Bank, limited) r. two Attorneys." These masked gentlemen have probably got a swinging bill of costs out of the plundered shareholders of the Bubble Company wliich they themselves, the said attorneys, entirely '' concocted," besides the promo- tion money. But " oh, no ! we never mention them, their names are never heard." My Lord Mortgage, or Squire Cashless, clients of a firm thus protected by the amenities of a swindling era, reads perchance a report in the papers headed as above, without the slightest consciousness that his own legal advisers and A DIGRESSION OX ATTOTiNEYDOM. 199 ■^^ eminent " solicitors, are the very identical pair of ^* concoctors " described. " Dear me !" lie says, " how fortunate I am in commanding the professional services of men beyond suspicion, like Cuttle, Cuttle, and Fyshe." Yes, beyond suspicion, when their names aie thus concealed ; but let Lord Mortgage and Squire Cash- less look out I They shall never extricate themselves from the legal embrace of Messrs. Cuttle, Cuttle, Fyshe, and Co., till there is nothing left of them save yet !" cried Arthur, -who, like many very amiable- men, was furious and impatient when his anger was aroused. "I really do wish that you would be a. little more energetic, Cousens. Most clients wouldn't stand such inattention to their wishes. I really wonder Mr. Grinderby should be so slow about a thing like this." " My dear fellow," replied Phil, ''' don't be so im- patient. I assure you no time has been lost. You know what a safe card Grinderby is, especially in. such a matter as this. I dare say all is ready, and the arrest can take place this very afternoon, if you like. Stop ! Perhaps you are in a hurry ; I'll call him in." So saying, Mr. Cousens opened a door as if to go in search of his senior partner; but, on second thought, he went out another way, leaving the door which he had opened slightly ajar, no doubt acciden- tally; if lawyers ever do anything accidentally in business hours, except make mistakes in their charges,, but never in their clients' favour. It should be stated that Mr. Cousens could communicate witli Grinderby either through the clerks' office, by which way Aubrey had entered, or through a small room which led to the den of the head of the firm. That gentleman duly made his appearance with Cousens, in the course of a very few minutes. ^'Well, Mr. Aubrey," he said, after the usual salutations, " and what are we going to do with this, fellow Pettingall ?"' VOL. I. p 210 so VERY HUMAN. " Nay/' replied Arthur, " I came to ask you what you had done. I am anxious that the matter should be delayed no lonc^er." " You know what I think, ^h\ Aubrey," rejoined the lawyer ; " but of course you will act as you please. It is not our duty, or, I may add, our desire to influence a client in such an affair. Prosecutions are expensive, and our motives mi^ht be misunder- stood. People are always ready to impute blame to the profession, whatever happens. We are your mere agents, sir — your mere agents to carry out your views, always provided that it is fitting and legal to do so." " Then," said Aubrey, good-humouredly, " I wish you would carry them out, and as speedily as possible." " I will, however, go as far as this, as I think strongly, perhaps too strongly in a professional point of view, in this matter — I will say, Mr. Aubrey, that I greatly deprecate any consideration which you may think fit to extend towards this man Pettingall. I am aware that you cannot replace the loss — for I fear he is worth little or nothing — but the base in- gratitude of the man has shocked my feelings, blunted as they ought to be, and, to a certain extent, are, by the experiences of a profession which too often brings us in contact with the worst, the vilest of mankind " " Really, M-i'. Grinderby," said Aubrey, interrupt- ing his dyspeptic Mentor's harangue, " I don't think you need say one word to prompt me to a sense of duty. My mind is made up, and I never felt more inclined to be firm." THE SPIDEE IN HIS PEN. 211 " I rejoice to hear it, sir," observed Grinderby ; ■'' but I hope you will not be offended, if I tell you that I cannot place quite so much confidence in your firmness as I could wish. Your heart is too good, sir, much too good for this world. Excuse me, I am a lawyer, and an old one ; and I have seen so much of these things. I have studied 'the amiability, the o'oodness — the — the, if I might say— the sentimental generosity of your character, and I said to Cousens this morning — did I not, Cousens? — our client, Mr. Aubrey, wall not prosecute this man. And I have my fears — I say my fears, and my doubts still." "I told him I knew you better," said Phil to Aubrey. '* Soft-hearted, I said, he may be, and has l)een, God knows, enough. Look at his noble con- duct towards that rascally Swindles Manvers, but he will never be such a fool as this would come to. I said ' fool,' didn't I, Grinderby ?" " Yes, you did, sure enough, Mi\ Cousens," replied the other, ^' and I reproved you for using such an expression. Every gentleman has a right to do as he likes in such a matter ; and if Mr. Aubrey likes to be robbed and plundered with impunity, he can. We have no right to dictate to him. Nor did you speak so confidently until this morning. Come ! come I Mr. Cousens, tell the truth. Didn't you say, only yesterday, that you felt positive Mr. Aubrey would never prosecute this man ? Ask him !" he added, addressing Aubrey, and pointing to Cousens, who sat nursing his knee and looking at the lustre of his inevitable patent-leather boots. " Didn't you tell me only yesterdav, sir," continued Grinderbv, "^ * ' p2 212 so VERY HUMAN. addressing his partner, "• that you were afraid — yes, afraid, sir — that our client, Mr. Aubrey, this gentle- man present, would not act ^yith firmness on this occasion ?" " I certainly did say I did not think he would pro- secute/' was the answer ; ''but I think better of it now." After delivering himself of this opinion, the accom- plished Phil commenced picking his teeth, although before lunch-time, and consequently in mere antici- pation of a tough chop at the Crow in Fleet-street. But the fact was Phil had just started a gold tooth- pick ; a present, as he said, from a lady client. If that assertion was true, it was really a pledge of affection, as Phil assuredly bought it at a pawn- broker's in a neighbouring lane. Perhaps the lady was his cousin. ^' I don't know, gentlemen," said Arthur, rather haughtily, " why you should be pleased to think me so weak. I came here to prosecute, and prosecute I will ; even though you make it distasteful by urging me in such a manner, and paying so bad a compliment to my good sense." " Xo offence, Mr. Aubrey — no offence, sir," said the elder partner. " Goodness of heart, although mistaken and in the extreme, even to condonation of the blackest crime, is all that Mr. Cousens has ven- tured to impute to you ; and surely this need not anger you, sir, as I hope it does not. But it is my duty — yes, my dut}^ — to advise you against a ste}> foolish in itself, and which, if frequently indulged in, would uproot the foundations of Law and Society, THE SPIDER IN HIS DEN. 213 Aiid make us a coiiununity of robbers — yes, of robbers and thieves." " Upon inj word," replied Aubrey, " this is utterly uncalled for. I have come here, I tell you, for the purpose of prosecuting this scoundrel, as he de- serves." " I'm very glad to liear it, sir," said Grinderby, rubbing his hands. " I trust, I beg, I entreat you not to relinquish your purpose." Here he rang a bell, and a clerk duly appeared. " Is that person gone ?*' he asked, ahnost fiercely. "No, sir; she said she would wait till you are disengaged." " Order her to leave the office instantly," thundered Orinderby. "Mr. Cousens, sir, will you see to this?" That gentleman, with apparent reluctance, shrugged his shoulders, and left the room via the clerks' office. In about two minutes he returned, when sobs and exclamations in a female voice were plainly heard from the adjoining apartment, the door leading to which had, as we have stated, been accidentally left ajar. "It's no use," said Phil. "Go yourself, Grin- derby. I can't stand that sort of thing. I never •could. Poor soul I poor soul !" Grinderby rose, took a pinch of snuff emphatically, and said, addressing Arthur : " Excuse me for a few moments. I have no such tender scruples; but my junior partner here is too much devoted to the ladies to be proof against a few female tears. I shall send for the police, if necessary. 214 so VERY H;MA^^ Mr. Cousens. They, at any rate, are not likely to display a sickly sentimentality." Saying this, Mr. Grinderby left the room. "The police !" observed Cousens, as the door shut on the head of the firm — " the police, indeed ! They are not likely to display any scruples in such a case, mournful as it is. A policeman would lock up his own sober old mother on a night charge, and enter her as * drunk and incapable' on the charge-sheet for five shillings, or swear that his own sister — libel or no libel — was a street* walker, in order to gratify his inspector^ and prove himself a smart officer. Isn't that your opinion, Aubrey?" The misdoings of the police were a great hobby of Arthur Aubrey's ; and he would liave expatiated on them for half an hour, only that his curiosity was piqued, and, let us add, his manhood aroused, by the idea that a woman was in tears and distress, and at the mercy of old Grinderby, whom at that moment he particularly disliked. "May I ask," he said, "is it any secret who the person is whom I hear sobbing so frightfully ?" " AYell," responded Cousens, " I don't know what Grinderby will say, but " Oh I" interrupted Arthur, " I don't wish you to reveal the secrets of the prison-house. I have no right to inquire about a thing that don't concern me." " Well, you see," said Cousens, " it does concern you. I differ from Grinderby, so far, that I can't see why you should not know all about it. I don't THE SPIDER IN HIS DEX. 215 think we have any right to hide it from you, and why should we ? Grinderby was making signs at me all the time not to tell you " " Concerns me !" exclaimed Arthur, " and not tell me? A woman's voice in grief? What does this mean, Cousens?" " Well, the fact is," said the other, " just before you came, we had a visit from PettingalFs wife, poor devil ! and her four children are with her. Grinderby ordered her out ; but the woman was faint, and so I showed her into the clerks' second room, and let her sit down. Unfortunately you came in, just as the door was about to be opened for her exit. She heard your voice, and insists upon seeing you." ^' Well, and why not, pray ?" inquired the client, rather angrily. " Why, you see," said Cousens, bringing the gold toothpick into active show, " Grinderby is of opinion that you will relent ; that you can't stand the water- works, and the babies, and all that sort of thing. Grinderby is a stickler for justice ; and in this case I must say I am with him ; and he thinks you had better not see Mrs. Pettingall and her ^ kids,' and I am decidedly of his opinion. That's about it," quoth Phil, who could not quite separate the phraseology of his unofficial life from the language of conventional attorneydom. In fact, when Grinderby was not pre- sent, Phil's style of conversation resembled that of the professional gentlemen employed at the once notorious Judge and Jury Club, presided over by the late Chief Baron Nicholson. 216 so VERY HUMAN. At this moment, hysterical screams were heard, mingled with the cries of children. Mr. Coiisens rose suddenly, saying : " Confound it, how came the door open ?" And he shut tlie side-door just as Mr. Grinderby made his reappearance by the other. " Most irregular and improper," said that gentle- man. "Pray excuse me" (to xA^rthur), "there is a woman in hysterics. I told Jenkins to empty the ■c^.ontents of the water-jug over her, and I have sent for a policeman. Now, Mr. Aubrey, I am at your service. You wish an immediate arrest, I presume ? I congratulate you on the determination, sir ; quite right, very proper indeed." And the grim and dyspeptic senior rubbed his 1 lands. " Stop," said Arthur ; " I understand that there is a person who — that woman, in fact — wishes to see me. I do not know why I should be denied to her without being consulted, Mr. Grinderby." " Have you mentioned to our client who the party is f asked Grinderby, addi-essing his partner in a very emphatic manner. " ^Yell," replied Mr. Cousens, " I don't see how I could help it exactly. We can't treat a gentleman like Mr. Aubrey as if he were a child. He asked me who it was, and I told him." "And he did quite right, Mr. Grinderby," said Arthur, indignantly. " I shall see Mrs. Pettingall. I am not one to shrink like a coward from an un- pleasant interview on this or any other occasion. Why should I not see her?" THE SPIDEK IX HIS DEN. 217 The West-end partner whistled, and Mr. Grinderby gathered up his papers. "It is contrary to my advice, my strongest ex- hortations, Mr. Aubrey." said the latter; "but I have no more to say. My belief is that you will yield to the solicitations and hypocritical whining of this woman, if you see her ; therefore, we had better defer taking instructions for a prosecution until that event has taken place. In the mean time, perhaps you will excuse me for a few minutes." And so saying, Mr. Grinderby bowed and left the room for his own particular den. Aubrey walked up and down. " Why should I not see this poor creature, victim of her husband's crime 1" he said. " I am not a Minister of State to be denied thus ; I am not Grand Lama of Thibet or Emperor of China, whose pre- sence-chamber cannot be approached save by ap- proved embassies. Why should I refuse, in the name of common courtesy and humanity, to see her ?" "You had better not," quoth Phil. "Pray why?" "Because," replied Phil, "you are such a devilish soft-hearted fellow, that if you do see her, you will never prosecute her infernal husband, that's all." "You seem to think me very weak; but when I tell you that my mind is made up, and that nothing can shake it on that head, perhaps you will cease these very unpleasant remarks. I tell you frankly that I think Mr. Grinderby went unneces- sarily a gi'eat deal too far." " With the best intentions," said the other. 218 so YEEY HUMAX. *^ As a legal adviser, probably yes," rejoined Aubrey ; " but, even professionally, beyond the mark." " It can't matter to us," said Mr. Cousens, '' in a professional point of view. Of course 1 always speak and act as a friend into the bargain. Now, just do be advised, and let me send this wretched creature away." ''" No, sir," was the reply ; " Arthur Aubrey is not one to shrink from a scene, however painful, when he thinks his duty as a man and a Christian is involved." " Then," said Phil, " I'll just tell the lady that a man and a Christian -will see her — that is, if she is not already gone, as I rather think she is." So say- ing, Mr. Cousens left the room. "■ No such luck !" he said, with a gi'imace, on returning; " she has just come to, poor thing ! They have wetted her bonnet- strings rarely, and there is a constable sittnig by the stove ready to eject her if necessary." " Upon my soul," said Arthur, " I think it per- fectly brutal to send for one at all. Here is a poor creature come to plead for her husband, and you treat her like a felon ! Let me see her at once, if she has come to see me; though I cannot let her husband escape the penalty of his ungrateful fraud, I may soften the blow to her, and perhaps do some- thing to save her from starvation and the streets. Come, let me see her at once." Mr. Cousens shrugged his shoulders, pocketed his gold toothpick, and led the way. We will not ask our readers to witness the verv THE SPIDER IN HIS DEN. 219 painful scene Avhich took place, but will now peep into Grinderby's den. He sat writing for about a quarter of an hour, as if quite indifferent to Aubrey and all his belongings, at the expiration of which period Mr. Cousens walked in. " Well?" said the senior. The gentleman addressed lauglied heartily, and sat down. " Is it all right ?" inquired Grinderby. " As houses," was the response. Had it been any one else, he would have said " as a trivet," or " as nails ; " but " houses " had a legal and substantial sound. " He won't prosecute," quoth Grinderby. " Not a bit of it," said Cousens; " neatly managed, I must say ; very neat, indeed, sir." " A prosecution in this case, IVIr. Cousens, would not suit the firm." " I don't think it would, precisely," replied the junior partner of that firm. " This woman is worth a Jew's eye," said Grin- derby. " She's none of your instructed and doctored sort. I thought she would have pulled my coat off this morning, as if I were an angel of mercv. Ha! ha!" There was something so ludicrous in the notion of old Grinderby as an angel of mercy, that Phil's eyes were almost blood-shot when he recovered from a fit of laughter. " It was exceedingly well contrived," continued Grinderby. " The thing was to get them accidentally thrown together, and to offer all the opposition we 220 so VERY HUMAN. could. I hope, Mr. Cousens, that your cUent is not offended by what I said. But do you feel certain of the eflTect? Arc we not building too surely on his weakness ?" " A dinner at the Radnor!" cried Phil, "against the balance of the widow Tomkins's estate, after our costs are deducted. Here it is, seven pounds, seven shillings, and fourpence lialfpenny, out of two hun- dred and ninety-two pounds, eleven shillings, and threepence.*' " The balance, after all payments of debts, funeral expenses, and other liabilities whatsoever !" responded Grin derby. " You are right, sir,'' rejoined Mr. Cousens, " as you generally are. Such is the amount which the firm will hand over to the widow at the latest possible date. Egad! I shouldn't wonder if she were sued for the cost of her mourning yet, before she receives it." " I trust," said Grinderby, with dignity, " that you do not mean to impute undue delay or severity to the firm?" " To the firm, yes," replied Phil, grinning ; " but riot to either of us. What a fine thing is this amalgamation of interests ! As a member of the firm I protect your interests, when, otherwise, I should neglect my own. As a member of the firm, you do the same by me." It is thus that a money-lender always knows a " party," who may be prevailed on to advance a sum at usurious interest. The '' party " is the remorseless beincT who sues when the accommodation bill is " duly " THE SPIDEE IX HIS DEX. 221 dishonoured. AVe have known " my friend/' \vlio does the needful, actually abused by one of the fraternity, for askhig more than sixty per cent., and tor issuing a double writ with more than usual promptitude. '* 'Pon honour, it's too bad," says such a one. ^' I tell my friend he^s too greedy ; but what's to be done ?" And he afterwards laments the remorselessness of his " friend " in selling up the borrower's furniture without an hour's delay, after his promissory note has become due, under a bill of sale. Nay, he will go through the form of promising to remonstrate with him — ^' upon his soul he will*' — and does it without the slightest success ! Grinderby and Cousens understood each other, both collectively and indiyidually, just as well as a money-lender estimates the ayarlce and yindictive- ness of '• his friend."' About twenty minutes more elapsed before a clerlv knocked at the door and in- formed Messrs. Grinderby and Cousens, that ^Ir. Aubrey had left the office, without expressing a wish to see either of them, after sending for a cab and ])lacing Mrs. Pettingall and her children in it. The firm exchanged looks, and when the clerk had retired, it burst into a fit of laughter, which lasted some little time, the only difference between the respective cachinnation of its members being, that the senior partner indulged in a silent, and the junior in a loud style of laughter. '- I think you would have lost your bet, i\Ir. Grinderby," at length observed the sprightly Phil. • The only reply was conveyed by the medium of an exhaustive pinch of snuff. 222 so VERY HUMAN. " It's all serene," at length quoth Phil, with vast delight. '• I wish, Mr. Cousens," said Grinderby, " that you would not indulge in slang, at least during business hours. With your style of dress I have long ceased to interfere." And he regarded, with a sliorht eleva- c5 ' C? tion of his iron-grey brows,his partner's elegant boots, which that gentleman happened at the time to be gazing at with the most triumphant complacency. ^' But," added Grinderby, ^' I wish you could make it convenient to attend divine service at least once on the Sabbath. As a member of the firm, sir, you would find it greatly to your advantage ; much more than by frequenting, as I have been pained to hear you still do, that disreputable resort of thieves and prostitutes, the Escurial, which is doing more to demoralise the middle and lower classes of this country than a dozen Haymarkets." " I really think," answered Phil, " that the firm has nothing to do with my private life and pursuits ; and as for church, I should like to know who is the spy upon my conduct on Sundays." " The firm, sir," replied Grinderby, '^ requires that you should at least preserve the common decencies of life ; and let me tell you, that attendance at church has its commercial as well as its heavenly aspects. Oh, Mr. Cousens, think of your immortal soul ! Spare a little time to put in an appearance in the Court of Common — I mean, of Divine Justice. That inesti- mable woman, Mrs. Grinderby, has long lamented 3'our heathenism to me. ^ Depend upon it, Mr. G.,' were her words this very morning, ' the young man can never prosper who neglects his pew as Mr. THE SPIDER IN HIS DEN. 223 Cousens does.' Why, sir," continued Grinderby, with animation, " I don't believe you have looked into the inside of your hat these twelve months, save to identify it in a worldly point of view^ at some <*arnal rout or party. 'Tis awful to neglect your Maker thus." So saying, Mr. Grinderby looked up at a spider s web on the ceiling above him, with an air that would have been creditable to Exeter Hall at a May meet- ing. Phil muttered something m reference to the maker's name in his hat, which it is prudent to sup- press in these pages. " It's all very well," he said, rather impatiently, ^' for you to find fault with my occasional amuse- ments, but where would be our West-end connexion without them? Look at the little accommodation business for Lord Ernest Albany in the Burlington. Why the firm will make, let me see, nine hundred and fifty pounds by that affair alone." " Yes," said Grinderby, " but it was very near losing the whole of the capital advanced." *'We stood to lose a hundred and twenty-five pounds," replied Phil, " and we clear nine hundred and fifty. It is not quite a thousand per cent., but it might have been if you would have advanced more ; and all this is owing to my visits to the Cave and the Escurial, which you are pleased to speak of so dis- paragingly. Eveiy man to his taste, and if I like a little harmless indulo-ence better than" — "cantino;" he was about to say, but checked himself and said : ^'better than reliciious restriction, I don't think the firm has much to complain of, that's all." Had Mr. Grinderby been in other company, he 224 so VERY HUMAN. would probably, so fond was he of the phrase, have indulojed in a blasphemous allusion, after the fashion of a celebrated preacher, to a " firm" above, of whom Phil took no cognisance whatsoever. There is awful blasphemy to be heard in our streets, on our rail- ways, on our steam- boats, and in our rural districts. A man bred in London may boast with a kind of pride that he lias heard the worst of everything. He is mistaken, if his sense ©f hearing has not ex- perienced the cacology of a provincial village — some '' Sweet Auburn" of the period. But all the impre- cations of the ignorant and debased are as nothing, if not flavoured with the hypocritical leaven. The coarsest swearing is meaningless, compai'ed with the tropes and figures of the falsely devout. Mr. Grinderby did not think fit to pursue the subject of relio-ion anv further that dav. Whenever very successful, he became proportionately pious on the occasion ; when he lost, his piety suffered. So great a hypocrite was Grinderby, that a sufficient amount of prosperity might have prevented his vicious nature from ever cropping up to the surface. AVe think it might have ended in his deceiving even himself. ^' So you think, then, it is all right," he resumed to his partner, after a pause, " and that this foolish profligate client of ours will not prosecute Pet- tingafir' '^ I don't think anything about it," was the reply of that jeune tUgant. " What do you imagine he has gone away for, without seeing either of us f " It would have been very awkward and detrimental to that firm, had he determined to proceed to ex- THE SPIDEE IN HIS DEN. 225 tremities ; there is such a prejudice against our pro- fession. We should have been made answerable for all our client's follies and weaknesses. Then, too, the affair of Swindles Manvers might have been told in a manner very injurious to the firm." " It might," said Phil, whistling half a bar of one of his favourite airs. "And I don't see how we could have got out of it either." " There was the sale of Bingley's Wharf, and the disposal of the business by that rascal Pettingall," rejoined Grinderby, reflectively ; " and we did not make so much out of either, as we ought to have done. That was your doing, Mr. Cousens." " I admit," said Phil, " that we were slightly done there. But, excuse me, that was owing to your scruples — timidity, I should say." " I tell you what, Mr. Cousens, it does not do to be enterprising without prudence in this world. You would soon have got the firm into a [mess. What I say is, that you did not sufficiently protect our client's interests at first, so as to secure a fitting compensa- tion for the manner in which the firm showed itself disposed to listen to sense and reason. And I must say, for my part, that my feelings were most con- scientiously enlisted on the behalf of the purchasers. When I tell you, sir, that Mr. Thompson, the manager of the new concern, and the executive purchaser of the property, is one of the most regular of our con- gregation, and a worthy member of the Peckham Branch of the Pious Pilgrims of the New Kedemption, I think you must admit that I could conscientiously make some sacrifice on his behalf of the worldly in- VOL. I. Q 226 so VERY HUMAN. terests of so prodigal and ungodly a reprobate as this Arthur Aubrey." "But he ought to have paid more for it as a Christian," suggested Cousens. "Perhaps so. Yes, I think that full justice was not done to the firm," said Grinderby. " AYhen the unrighteous are given into our hands for a spoil, there should be no sparing. It would steady your hand greatly, Mr. Cousens, were you to become a member of oiu' church, and cement the interests of the firm in a remarkable degree. But," he added, in a lower tone, " it is given to our hands to work with strange instruments, and we must not question the ways of Heaven. Is the ca. sa. out in Duplex v. Singleton?" " It is, this morning," was the reply. " We must see Pettingall after this, and get him to sign a paper, which will place him at the mercy of the firm, without apprising our client." " He is to be manager of the new Company," ob- served Cousens ; " and I shall manage so that he pays back a small sum to our client, with which we will credit him in costs, which will prevent Aubrey from ever taking advantage of his discovery. It will be a compromise of felony. Ha I ha ! I shall say that he is repentant, and has sold up everything to enable him to offer this small amount towards replacing the sums he has abstracted. When did you last hear of Swindles Manvers ?" asked Cousens, carelessly. The brow of Grinderby grew black, and for a moment abstracted. " He sailed for the United States last week. Why do you ask?" THE SPIDEE IN HIS DEN. 227 ^' Oh !" said Cousens, " I heard that he had changed his name, and been engaged in some very desperate undertakings. I was told that he liad even been sup- posed to be implicated in that dreadful murder of a jeweller in York, and that the officers are after him." "Nonsense!" said Grinderby. '^Xot a word of truth in it. Manvers is not such a fool as that comes to. He has done quite enough to make citizenship in a new and enterprising country more advantageous for him, than stopping here to annoy us. I am very glad he is gone ; and I trust, at any rate, he has done enough to make his return here a most remote con- tingency." " So do I," said Cousens. "' I never could make out precisely what you had to do with him ; seeing that the firm w^as out of all the transactions between him and our client." " Why, you see," said Grinderby, " the fellow intro- duced himself to me, and gave me considerably more insight into our client's affairs than I could have easily obtained elsewhere. But he is not likely to trouble us any more." After a pause he continued : " I wish you would go to church sometimes, if only occasionally, Mr. Cousens. You might then go to the Escurial or anywhere else, twice as often, without half so much danger to your reputation." What answer Mr. Cousens might have made to this recurrent allusion to one of his favourite haunts will never be recorded ; since a clerk knocked at the door and presented a slip of paper, on which was written the name of the firm's devoted client and victim, Mr. Arthur Aubrey. q2 228 so YEKY HUMAN. " Say that we are particularly engaged with a City client, ^Ir. Snap," said Grinderby, " and will see him in ten minutes." !Mr. Snap evinced no surprise at these instructions, and did as he was told. For about a quarter of an hour the pair were occupied, one in reading a news- paper, and the other in \NTiting letters. Mr. Grinderby then rose and slammed the side-door with some vehemence, after which he touched a hand-bell, which act was duly followed by the appearance of Mr. Snap. " Show Mr. Aubrey in," said Grinderby. " I have come to tell you," said that gentleman, somewhat abruptly, " that I have changed my mind. It is not my intention to prosecute Mr. Pettingall. I know all you would say" (to Grinderby, who smiled harshly and contemptuously, like a gleam of Novem- ber sunshine in the chambers where he practised), " but you must allow me to be the best judge of my own affairs" (a bow and a shrug from Grinderby), " Of course," he added rapidly and pleasantly, " you are acting quite rightly as my legal advisers in urging me to prosecute. I should do the same if I were in yom- place ; but it does not suit me. I don't like the trouble ; and I hate to be bored by a con- founded lot of snivelling." ^Ir. Aubrey finished his sentence, with an affectation of impatience and anger which he did not feel. The truth is, he had been deeply moved by the entreaties of !Mi's. Pettingall, upon whom the discovery of her husband's dishonesty Lad burst with overwhelming effect. " What a pity," resumed Aubrev, " that these scoundrels will marry THE SPIDEK IN HIS DEX. 229 and have children like other men. She gave him an excellent character as a father and husband." Grinderby knew that Pettingall beat his wife, and, what is still worse in a woman's eyes, neglected her ; but he said nothing, and did not even smile. How strange a thing it is that scamps and heartless pro- fligates are generally so much more faithfully served, and even passionately loved, by the women whom they have once deceived, than good men. There are women who esteem sterling qualities ; but their love is generally subservient to their reason. There is no romance in their affections. Poor Mrs. Pettingall ! although her brutal husband escaped punishment, and became a wealthy and prosperous man, she never recovered the shock and dread which his criminal conduct, and its detection by Aubrey, occasioned her. She became, as we shall have occasion to nan-ate hereafter, a confirmed lunatic. Pettingall was always veiy pathetic in alluding to his " affliction," as he called it, to his friends and acquaintances in after life ; and talked of the heavy expenses which it entailed upon him, just as if the poor lady had been confined in a private lunatic asylum regardless of cost. As his weight increased and his cheeks became fatter, the expression of his grief became gradually more difiicult to convey, until it became so completely conventional, that those who knew him treated his sad communications as they would do a mere British barometrical remark of commonplace salutation. He would roll a duly lubri- cated cigar between his commercial thumb and finger and speak of " my sad burden, you know," with an 230 so VERY HUMAN. indifFerence that bordered on satisfaction. As he set up a snufF-box about the same time that his domestic calamity befel him, the habit of recurring to the two — i.e., grief and box — became inseparable. In this there was some aptitude, as the shop-sweepings in his favourite mixture imparted a moisture to his eyes, which was extremely proper and edifying under the circumstances. "May I ask," said Mr. Grinderby after a pause, during which Phil had attempted at least three airs out of the " Sonnambula," and three times recalled himself to a sense of propriety and partnership in the firm — '• may I ask if there is any proposal on the part of this repentant family to restore any portion of the proceeds of their embezzlement? You are aware, I suppose, that Pettingall has a collection of pictures and some expensive furniture for a man in his position ?" " Really," said Aubrey, " I did not think of that ; but if I could recover something I should have no objection. My expenses have lately been somewhat heavy, I can assure you, and I fancy I have lost some thousands by this man." " You had better not appear in the matter your- self," observed Phil. " If you like to place it in our hands, and authorise us to act for you, we will see what amount can be recovered. It is a matter which will require great firmness and caution. I should think Pettingall would cut up for at least five hundred pounds, with the aid of a little adroit menace and the broker. I would not leave the scoundrel a bed to lie on, nor a table on which to write." THE SPIDER IN HIS DEN. 231 *^Nay," said Arthur, '^you must leave the poor TToman and her children their bits of things." " Ha, ha !" quoth Phil, arranging his collar as if before an invisible glass ; '^ I wonder how many babies' cribs it would take, under the appraiser, to pay for a pound of Beckington's best brand of regalias ?" " Good Heavens, what a notion !" said his client. ^^ No, no, I will not have any such barbarity." "Perhaps," observed Mr. Grinderby, with pro- voking calmness, " Mr. Aubrey considers a gallery full of paintings essential to the domestic comfort of the helpmate of a dishonest clerk " "By no means," interrupted Aubrey. "I wish only to be guided by the commonest dictates of humanity." " If," returned the elder lawyer, " Mr. Aubrey will be kind enough to favour us with his instruc- tions, I will see them carefully carried out. Suppose that we leave the houseful of furniture to the wife, and sufficient money for the purposes of emigration — say, one hundred or one hundred and fifty pounds. Of course," he said, "]Mr. Pettingall is not likely to get another berth in this country, without a recommendation for honesty ; and that at least you cannot give him?" "Not exactly," replied Aubrey. "I think," he added, " your present view of the case is alike sen- sible and humane ; and I give you full credit for your suggestion, and liberty to act in my name." The la^^yer hastily wrote a few lines on a sheet of paper, and handed it to ^Ir. Aubrey, who at once 232 so VERY HUMAN. affixed his signatnre and handed it back. It simply empowered Messrs. Grinderby and Cousens to settle all business relations between their cKent and ^Ir. Pettingall ; and to discharge the latter from his employment, on such conditions as should seem de- sirable and expedient. This done, the trio separated. Aubrey went home to dinner, and to impart to his gentle wife the merciful course he had adopted, cer- tain of an ample, reward from her beautiful eyes and lips ; and Phil Cousens betook himself to his hair- dresser, and thence to a little banquet for four in the Haymarket: after which he contemplated Tisitiug a music-hall in order to witness a daring performance on the trapeze, for which the coarse and brutal pro- prietors deserved an iadictment at the sessions, instead of a "' champagne notice" in the newspapers, and the renewal of their license to deprave and poison the British pubhc. while smaller ruffians only — ^rever^iug the physical order of things — stuck in the obstructive meshes of the magisterial net. CHAPTEE XIY. WEASEL AND STOAT. You think I was too trenchant. You know not The sort of stuff I dealt with. You may beat, Pound it with blows, yet still it is the same ; And where you dint it, doth alone bulge out In other part, and show its metal still. He will but kick his dog, or strike a girl, Some wretched creature to his humours chained, To be revenged on us. That evening saw Grinderby and Pettingall won- derfully confidential together over a bottle of the identical port wine which Manvers had recognised as a sample of the 1820, bottled by the late Mr. Aubrey, who little thought, poor man ! what throats it would moisten, or it may be imagined he would have hesi- tated before laying it down. The old man was hard, but honest. He was one of the last of the type of the old English merchant, whose word was as good as his bond. Such is often still the case ; but then it happens often that both are valueless. A brisk trade too frequently means now a successful fraud. The only period of honesty now is whilst a name is being built up ; upon which to cheat well and widely. The greater the name now, the more apprehensive we have reason to be of the extent of the impending crash. 234 so VERY HUMAN. One shoulders unconvicted felons at every turn of the commercial mart, and England (not France) has become one great gambling-table, where Credit pre- sides as croupier, and the boldest and cleverest black- legs win the largest prizes and the most frequent stakes. Mr. Grinderby was an acute and subtle angler ; but he was not displaying his piscatorial powers on the occasion of his interview with Mr. Pettingall. He was merely applying the screw ; or, to adopt a more convivial figure in honour of that tete-a-tete symposium, the lemon-squeezing process, and very sour and eloncrated did Pettino-all's visacre become o on during the operation. If our readers could imagine a successful thief falling into the clutches of a more powerful old bandit, and arguing over the appropri- ation of the plunder, he will have some idea of the transaction. His first frioht beinnr over, soon after the return of his wife, the delinquent clerk had rushed into an extreme of self-gratulation. When Grinderby called, he was positively in an exultant state. If Aubrey had foregone the prosecution, what else could lie do? Pettingall had no less a sum than three thousand pounds very advantageously invested. He was confident that his managership and secretaryship of the " New United Shippers and Barge-owners' Association Company, Limited," built on the secret and dishonest transfer of his late employer's business, would be secured to him ; for if not, he was in a position not only to upset the sale of Bingley's Wharf, but to reveal the whole conspiracy by which the business was secured to the Company. His detection by Aubrey fell on him like a thunderbolt. For eight- WEASEL AND STOAT. 235 and-forty hours he had been on the point of realising his securities, and proceeding to Sweden or the United States. But he had counted with desperate assurance in no little degree on the weakness and good nature of Arthur Aubrey, and the connivance of his lefi^al advisers : and the result showed he was not mistaken. But now here was old Grinderby, armed with plenipotential powers, which the latter took care to inform him extended from compromise to prosecution ; and the old lawyer, wdth the most friendly manner of which he was capable, while shutting one eye to look through a glassful of the ruby juice of the grape, and fixing the other with its cold spectacled glare upon the guilty wretch with a patent corkscrew power of extraction, stated that he would have no less a sum of money than twelve hundred and fifty pounds from him as the price of escape from transportation. Nor would Grinderby bate one penny of his demand. " I am sorry," he said, dryly, " if you have not got the money ; but with good conduct and your abilities you will soon get a ticket-of-leave, and smart accountants are highly prized in a country of such wonderful commercial expansion as Australia. How ever will you manage without smoking, after committal? They don't allow it in Newgate, you know. You must have robbed your employer very clumsily, not to have acquired more than double the sum I have mentioned, And I fear the new Com- pany has been sadly ungrateful. By-the-bye, what is the salary to be affixed to your new position ? I trust it is sufficient to secure your future integrity." 236 so VEKY HUMAN. In vain did Pettingall writhe and quiver under the merciless chaff of his grim interrogator. In vain did he declare that he had not the amount named, or half of it, in the world ; and that he could not raise it, if he sold off eveything, including the pictures. "The more fool you," was the only response. <^ How could you sacrifice your integrity" (dwelling on the word) " for so small a consideration f Pettingall ventured to mutter something about " unfortunate speculations." " What ! with your employer's money — how doubly rash," was the only answer. " Look you, if this were true," he resumed, "and not an infernal lie, as I know it to be, I would spend money to add five years to your term of penal servitude. I would not be disappointed by your folly, any more than I will be bilked by your rascality. Look here, business is over, and I have no objection to another bottle ; but by " (here the old hypocrite swore a dreadful oath), " if you donH shell out before I have done with you to-night, and I don't mean to lose the last omnibus to Peckham, I'll give you fifteen years, as sure as my name is Grinderby." Pettingall groaned, as he felt himself nailed to this species of mock auction, at which he so unwillingly sought to bid for freedom from the consequences of his crime and ingratitude. But he did bid, and with' every glass of wine swallowed respectively by the unequal pair over their unholy negotiation, the market rose gradually but surely. The wine, which made Grinderby the fiercer and firmer, and more sarcastic, only flustered the weaker instrument in the plunder WEASEL AXD STOAT. 237 of their respective client and employer. By the time Pettingall had risen to eleven hundred pounds, and was fairly blubbering over his pretended incapacity to give more, the second bottle was finished; and Grinderby pulled out his massive watch and held it towards the failing lamp. He then replaced it in his fob, under the capacious flaps of his long grey vest, and buttoned his coat and great-coat deliberately over it. ^' Time's up," was all he vouchsafed to say. " We shall meet next in Newgate." An eccentric fancy skipped into Pettingall's half- muddled brain, and took such firm hold there that he could not shake it off. As he stood irresolutely gazing with his red and fishy eyes at the movements of Grin- derby, he thought how he should like to be a small street boy of the predatorial class, and butt with his head full at the portly stomach of the irritating old lawyer, and tug at the seals and ribbon of that monstrous turnip of a watch. The idea possessed him so strongly that he burst into a convulsive fit of laughter, mingled with sobbing, which Grinderby took to be hysterical ; and, in consequence, very nearly relaxed his deter- mination, and was on the point of taking the eleven hundred pounds, thinking that Pettingall had really stated nearly the truth of the case, when the latter, mistaking the law;5^er's involuntary motion for the final signal of his departure, suddenly gasped out : "I'll do it, ]\Ir. Grinderby — I'll do it, though I have to sell these spoons." If Grinderby smiled, it was internally; for he evinced not the slightest surprise or emotion as he 238 so YEEY HUMAN. quietly unrolled his comforter, and stepped out of his great-coat again. "No time like the present, Mr. Pettingall," he said, in a brisk tone. " I congratulate you on your resolution. Of course," he continued," "I must have the money to-night. Got it, I dare say, up-stairs ? Oh ! I nearly forgot to say that our firm must do the business of the new Company. I dare say, how- ever, that has already occurred to you." "Indeed," muttered Pettingall, "it is impossible. Our Mr. Thompson has already got his son-in-law in. Besides, it would not be worth your while. There would not be a chance of anything but regular business." " That is precisely what our firm wishes," said Grinderby. " You need not be in the least afraid. We want a City connexion ; and, besides, we only put the screw on our poorer clients, and fools like this Aubrey. I tell you, it will pay us to do the Company's business well and cheaply — I may say on the square. Remember, I have set my mind on this business, and will have it ; or you may keep your paltry twelve hundred and fifty pounds." "I promise you to do my best," said Pettingall; "but if I can't do it, I can't." "Well, well," replied Grinderby, "I shall only pledge you to act under my instructions, and I have no fear of the result ; but as the other business must be ended here, and the money paid, and the papers signed and delivered, you must do me the favour to give me the best pledge you can." And he accordingly dictated an oath to the un- WEASEL AND STOAT. 239 resistins clerk of a nature to make the liair of an unsophisticatecl person stand on end with affright. He then produced a sort of release in blank, which he filled up with the respective names of his client and the guilty clerk, and inserted the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds as the consideration money, which caused the heart of the perplexed Pettingall to bound and palpitate wdth momentary astonish- ment and delight. He was soon, however, disen- chanted. " The thousand pounds," said Grinderby, " I will, if you please, appropriate for the firm." We need scarcely say that this partook of the nature of a species of legal fiction, as the accomplished Phil Cousens touched only a moiety of two hundred and fifty pounds, which Grinderby assured him was all that his utmost diplomacy could extract out of Pettingall. The battle had to be fought over again about the pro- duction of the consideration money — we do not mean Mr. Aubrey's share. For that, his legal adviser was perfectly content with a promissory note payable on demand. Not so with the thousand pounds. The matter was, however, finally settled by the production of nearly six hundred pounds in notes and gold, which Pettingall kept, as Grinderby had shrewdly suspected, in case of a sudden emergency, and the deposit of securities and shares representing eight hundred pounds incerta in flourishing Companies of the period, it being understood that these were to be restored the next day, on payment of the remaining amount. " Now," said Mr. Grinderby, after duly reinvesting himself in his outer garments, "I have only just one 240 so VERY HUMAN. more word to say — it is one of caution for your sake. This document will remain with me, and it will not be my interest to destroy it. As long as it remains in existence you will be safe, at any rate, from any punishment which my client can demand or exact. It will never be for my interest that this affair should see even a partial glimpse of light. I will be frank and candid. It might injui-e the firm, were it to do so. But if you know enough to breathe suspicion or scandal upon us, we, on our part, have it in our power to ruin you, position, prospects, and character. Be advised by me. Be silent and keep square. You have sufficient temptation to act honestly in future ; and the richer and more respectable you grow, the greater stake you will have in keeping things dark, and acquiring a character for trustworthiness. You have had a narrow squeak. Master Pettingall, and have been let off very cheaply, take my word for it." With this, Mr. Grinderby put his hat and gloves on with the deliberation of a family doctor at a funeral, and went out into the bright, calm moonlight shining on St. Saviour's Church, Southwark, with the air of a philosopher conscious of performing a charitable act. And in some such light no doubt he regarded it. Does any one imagine that honesty and dishonesty are always read by the same lantern, be it that of Christian faith or heathen discovery 1 That night Mr. Grinderby did not find his way to Peckham. The last 'bus had been gone nearly forty minutes. True, he might have taken a cab, and he did; but the driver must have misunderstood his WEASEL AND STOAT. 241 directions, for he drove in exactly an opposite direc- tion. When the firm was unusually busy, either in or out of term time, Mr. Grinderby often slept at the office. There was the old laundress to attest it, and a bed which the late Duke of Wellington might have approved for shape and hardness. But about three hours later some one very like the senior partner of the firm of Grinderby and Cousens might have been discovered, by the interposition of a new " Devil on Two Sticks," getting much the worst of it in a drunken scuffle with a lady of considerable personal attractions, but of haughty and resolute mien, flushed with bacchanalian indulgence, in an elegantly fur- nished cottage in the Grove of the Evangelist, N.W. The supper-cloth covered a portion of the floor in- stead of the table, and the remains of a lobster-salad ornamented the hearth-rug with an additional raised pattern. So earnest had the lady shovm herself in her desire to possess a token of the old lawyer's affec- tion, that a lock of his grey hair was twined round and among the diamond rings that sparkled on her taper fingers. " You old wretch," she said, " Til teach you to look at another woman, that I will." Was this person jealous, then, of our respectable elder of the New Branch of Deliverance at Peckham ? We must profess ourselves unwilling to doubt a lady's word. All we know is, that when she wanted any- thing which her protector was unwilKng to give, she invariably imputed to him some act of gallantry, which she proceeded to avenge on the spot. As these encounters always ended with a maudlin reconcilia- VOL. I. K 242 so VERY HUMAN. tion, tlie coveted present invariably followed as a matter of course. That verv night, at the same hour, did 'Sir. Pettin- gall, after his third glass of brandy-and-water, put the lighted end of his cigar into his fish-like mouth, just before staggering into his bedroom to seek the slumbers of which he stood in need. It was remark- able that whereas in his cups Grinderby's legs always failed him long before his head, Pettingall acquired an increased bodily vigour from dninkenness, but very soon lost his head. On this occasion, funous with rage, and boUing over with anger against his tormentor and plunderer, Grinderby, he ordered his pale and trembling wife out of bed, and — must we write it? — beat, ay, and kicked, her unmercifully. The poor creature crept away to a sofa, weeping as if her heart would break. That night a vessel broke on her overtaxed and tortured brain ; but it was not untn the second day after, so inattentive to her con- dition was Pettingall in his sullen and morose mood of baffled gi'eed and impotent vindictiveness, that he discovered the condition into wliich his combined guilt and brutality had driven the unhappy lady whom he had sworn to protect and cherish. The first half-hoar that some little domestic necessity caused him to direct his attention in a less resentful temper to his wife, he found lier a moping maniac, from which state the doctors held out not the slightest chance that she would ever recover. 243 CHAPTER XY. A TILT IX THE ESCURIAL. Dame Fortune, witch-like, oft in cruel spite Drops a chance brick on head of blameless wight ; Or hits a pensive student in the eye, "NVhose wandering feet some brawling crowd draw nigh. His " friends" for comfort in his worst despair. Look wondrous sly, and ask — How came he there ? Inelegant Extracts^ vol. vii. Serves you right for being unlucky. Ourselves. We must now return to the elegant and accom- plished ^Ir. Philip Cousens, with his patent boots and easy off-hand style. He proceeded that evening, as we have above narrated, to his favourite haunt, the Escurial, a gorgeous music-hall, consecrated also to Terpsichore, where Young England, and too often, to its shame be it said. Old England, delighted to congregate and unbend ; there the " delighted spirit" of Phil Cousens bathed itself in a congenial flood of youthful c}Tiicism and slang ; there he and his male companion in the little dinner for four, which we alluded to in our last chapter but one, mingled their empty heads with those of scores and hundreds of e2 244 so VERY HUMAN. other " pleasiire"-seekers, floating, cork-like, upon the ocean of snobbism around. It was an ocean whose deity might easily have been pictured to the imagi- nation, rising in an apotheosis of tobacco - smoke, in the likeness of a bleary, leary old " gent," with the beard of a Silenus and the hoofs and horns of a goat. The transformed genius of Britain, too, what should she resemble ? No longer the Minerva-like, the chastely and severely beautiful goddess, to whom fancy once lent a form ; not the Britannia of heroic Old England, but a Britannia Theatre impersonation in pink "tights," or a lightly-attired coryphee of the Escurial itself, an example of the studied attrac- tions of the place, with saucer-like muslin skirt, "four inches shorter, sir, than on any other. boards in England, by ," as the manager was wont to boast. Or shall we imagine a modern Britannia, in the person of the buxom lady in the striped dress with red high-heeled boots and little bells attached to them, who jumps about yelling her douhle-entendres, with her arms akimbo, to an enraptured audience ; and then hops off the stage on one leg, the in- carnation of brazen effiontery, a fish-fag in satin stays ? Look around you, curious and inquiring philo- sopher ! Consider, respectable citizen of Great Britain ! Is this scene a nightmare or a reality ? We have abolished the cock-pit and the dog-pit, we no longer bait bears and bulls, the Ring is on its last legs, and the Turf has at least three rotten legs to one sound one, if it has one sound one left ; while the legs of the noble steed threaten to become the last and A TILT IN THE ESCURIAL. 245 least requisites for success. But what is this ? What means this crapulous assemblage, this saturnalia of villanous aspect, this crush of Jew and ill-looking foreigner, of thief and "swell," of "gent" and " snob f words of modern meaning and extraction ; this seething vulgarity, these insolent looks, these depraved regards — whence comes that coarse and brutal laugh, that loud-voiced slang? Is this the reproduction of some lewd rites in vogue before the Flood, or is it suggestive, as it is provocative, of the fiery wrath to come ? Nonsense ! away with such fancies, such ab- surdities. This is only the Escurial in its glory, a popular place of entertainment, highly patronised and greatly frequented in this refined and senti- mental age. We must narrate that Mr. Cousens and his friend had quitted their two friends of the dinner, before repairing to this place of chaste and elegant recrea- tion ; for providing which the spirited proprietors actually affect to consider themselves entitled to the gratitude of their fellow-countrymen. On that very afternoon a splendid 6er\ace of plate had been pre- sented to the chief caterer and manager by his ad- mirers in recognition of what they were pleased to term his great energy, untiring enterprise, and gene- rous devotion on the public behalf. This meant the engagement of one of the largest troupes of dancers ever collected in Paris, and causing them to wear a less amount of clothing than had ever been known before, during the performance of a series of volup- tuous gymnastics called by courtesy dancing, which 246 so VERY HUMAN. had led to the deaths of half a dozen or so through cold and consumption, and nightly threatened the lives of several more. It included a more thrilHng and perilous series of feats upon certain ropes and hars affixed to the roof of the building than had ever been previously attempted, which was greatly enhanced in interest by the fact that a fall would in all probability have insured the sensational deaths of one or more of the spectators below. It included a covered refuge for a large body of French and English courtesans lately driven from their wonted open-air beat by the severity of a magisterial Lord Angelo, and by the cruelty of a police force, which enjoyed the reputation of being rather more brutal and demo- ralised than any section of the criminal population of the metropolis, whom they Avere supposed to keep in check. It included the opening of certain beer and wine cellars below, where persons of known immorality and the " nobiHty " generally — which would seem to comprise a great many ill-favoured foreigners, and a considerable portion of the lost tribes of Israel, which seemed to have turned up for the occasion — were at hberty to congregate ; and to sit, stand, smoke, drink, or converse with such ladies of the ballet as chose between the acts of the dazzling scenes on the stage to come down and sit, stand, drink, smoke, and converse with them in this engaging Pandemonium of paint, sawdust, oil, stench, beer- barrels, and seedy, squalid waiters, below. This was the cynosure of raw swells and vicious clerks and shopmen, the charming retreat of the capitalist of panics, of the '* limited liability "' promoter, the fast A TILT IN THE ESCUEIAL. 247 stockbroker, the "lord" of protested cheques and dishonoured bills, the dishonest director, and the financial M.P. Nor let us leave out of the enterprise the engagement of a lady contortionist ^vith her husband, said to be Moldo-Wallachian, and who may- have been, if there is a quarter so called in White- chapel; and of a staff of comic singers, whom the bills and posters of their astonishing qualifications could alone adequately describe. There was a stoutish lady with ample skirts, clocked silk stockings, and high-heeled shoes, who danced and sang, and did what is technically called a " break-down" with such a genial overflow of vulgarity, that the reciprocal raptures of delighted gentism were fully awakened. The yells and howls of applause nightly elicited by this lady from the seated portion of the audience, who drank in every word and gesture, and who be- longed to the respectable class of the Escurials — in so far that every female was not of necessity a woman of the town, and every youth or man not absolutely and unmistakably in search of Cythera communis — the yells and howls of delight, we say, at the songs and capers of this lady, were something at once deafening to the ear and gratifying to art. Then there was the "great" Smith, the "greater" Jones, and the " greatest" comic singer in the world, the "stunning" Robinson, whom the youth of England were there taught to venerate, to imitate, and to admire. Such were some of the claims which the illustrious manager, the patriotic and the philan- thropic Slimy Cash, Esq., put forth to receive the silver tea-service in particular, and the gratitude of 248 so VERY HUMAN. the British nation in general. This great man was that evening at the perihehon of his well-earned glory and substantial success. Had not a select party from the House of Commons visited the Escu- rial, and even inspected the sacra penetralia below ? True, these were swept and garnished for the occasion, a select party of the ballet only was formally intro- duced, and cautioned to behave with a bewitching modesty of demeanour which Might well hare fired old Saturn ; an unexceptional collation was prepared, and the wines and liqueurs were of the best. Above all, the whole rout of common rovsterers were excluded, and not one of the Hebrew fraternity to be seen — not even Isaac of York himself could have gained ad- mission by anything short of a princely introduction that night. The senatorial party pronounced, as they had a right to do, the arrangements and the conduct of the whole estabhshment to be faultless. Only an Irish member showed some little discontent at not having an opportunity of pushing his re- searches as to the morality of the ballet a little further than perhaps the occasion warranted. But the ardour of legislative inquiry was doubtless fired beyond the bounds of frigid conventionality by the severe test which, in the strict exercise of duty, he subjected the quality of the supposed Escurial cham- pagne. This little episode was, however, amply atoned for by the parting benediction bestowed on the smiling Slimy Cash by the chairman of the Committee himself, who was pleased to say that he A TILT IX THE ESCUKIAL. 249 had never passed a more agreeable evening in the exercise of his parliamentary duties during a period of thirty years. IMoreover, after the stage machinery had been examined and explained, did not the afore- said grave and reverend chairman himself, a dis- tinguished and advanced Liberal and Reformer, shake hands with the enraptured Slimy, and compliment him on being one of the pioneers of the improvement and civilisation of the age? The last attempt at re- monstrance on behalf of the legitimate drama was ver}^ shortly disposed of by the said enlightened chairman, when inflicting in the person of one of its most honoured interpreters an insult so coarse and brutal before a Committee of the House of Commons, that the excited and sensitive artist took to his bed for a whole fortnight in consequence thereof. The result of all this was that the Escurial was in full swing and riot ; the police were squared in a manner most agreeable to their feelings ; the stipendiary' magistrates lent the weight of their decisions and influence to the side of success ; and Slimy Cash, Esq., and his coadjutors were on the high road to fortune, retirement from business, the respectability which is ever the handmaid of realised wealth, an- cestral halls, and deer-parks in Surrey or elsewhere 5 and, lastly, seats in the Senate of a venal and ad- miring nation. Was it to be wondered that Slimy Cash, Esq., was in excellent trim and spirits that night ? He who did all this, and only in return charged his fellow-citizens one shilling each admission ; and nothing, as some said, to a large portion of the female 250 so VERT HUMAN. acolytes to this temple of the three most charming of the nine muses in Apollo's train ; he who had that day been feasted at a sumptuous banquet at the Crystal Palace, and presented with a splendid testi- monial, in words which would appear in all the next day's papers without the expense of payment as an advertisement ; he who had freely imbibed wines which he knew to be not his own, and, therefore, to be trusted in a sanitary point of view, as not likely to result in utter prostration the next morning, was — who can wonder at it ? — in the seventh heaven of delight smoking a presentation cigar in his own espe- cial Pandemonium. That evening his very impreca- tions were softened ; and the only Peri of the ballet whose eyes and limbs he had consigned even to a worse place than the Escurial, had remarked to a lady friend, that he had done it quite mild-like, and even good- naturedly for him. Had the wretched acrobat, hang- ing that night by his great toes from the ceiling in the immediate vicinity of the chandelier, fallen upon the managerial head, graced as it was with ambro- sial curls, and crushed the great Cash into a shapeless lump of clay, and stopped all the sordid calculations of his brain, and left him only distinguishable from any other wiped- out nonentity, by the glittering gewgaw on his dirty hand, which, somehow or other, no amount of soap and water ever seemed able to clean, and by the Californian massiveness of his well- known Albert chain, there is no doubt but that the world would have been the gainer, whilst he would have died a superlatively happy man. Alas ! the Nemesis which followed in his footsteps that night A TILT IX THE ESCUEIAL. 251 was but a small and limited expression of the wrath which the atrocious vulgarity and hollow abomination of his success had created in the bosoms of the Fates and Furies, who, for some wise reason or other, delayed to snip the vital ropes of his own particular trapeze and let the wretch down with a run ! The vengeance which the Fates meditated that eventful evening was of the smallest and the paltriest kind. A puny little wandering Nemesis, bent on mortal mischief, had, as we have recorded, drawn thither, by some invisible string, the elegant Phil Cousens and his companion at that particular time. Phil himself was, as he said, disgustingly sober, but his companion was in the first stage of Circean en- chantment. He had already drunk the blood of the monkey, and a single glass of the Escurial brandy initiated him into the lion stage. In this state he dragged Phil with him to the door leading to the underground department, which we have endeavoured to describe. Unfortunately for Phil, who, it must be owned, wanted to shake his friend off, and had no desire to make the descent which immortalised the tuneful Orpheus in such dangerous companionship — much as he coveted admission alone — unfortunately, we say, for Phil, and for an innocent and harmless personage who had entered the Escurial from mere curiosity, in total ignorance of the habits of the place, and who was altogether a cleanly and domestic gentle- man of high culture and moral worth, the guardian of the sacred retreat objected to the tipsy deportment of the elegant Mr. Cousens's friend. The fact is, that the management, inflated by success, had lately grown 252 so VERY HUMAN. very particular in their instructions to the " officers" of the estabhshment ; so an altercation took place, during which Phil and the stranger stood passively inside the forbidden door. " Come, come," said Mr. Cousens, pulling at his friend's coat-tail, " this won't do. Don't kick up a row, or we shall get into trouble." And he endeavoured to persuade his friend, whose leonine state of drunkenness was fast developing itself, to retrace his steps. But the " trouble" came sooner than Phil expected. For, behold ! the potter- ing little Nemesis we have spoken of directed thither the haughty steps of no less a person than the great Slimy Cash himself, who at that moment felt himself a potentate worthy of taking his place in a parteiTe of kings. " Here is Mr. Slimy Cash," quoth the door- keeper ; " you had better ask him." Upon which Phil's friend took the advice of Cerberus, and rather roughly addressed the monarch in his own Escurial, urging his claims to admission. '^ Just be off, will you ?" was the response ; " you have no right here. We only admit gentlemen to the ^ cellars,' and them, too, as we know." "I tell you I have been down a dozen times before," urged Mr. Cousens's friend. '^And I tell you, you're a liar," was the un- courteous rejoinder. The answer was an extension, by the action of the biceps muscle, of the right arm of Phil's friend in a longitudinal direction, and also in the direction of Mr. Slimy Cash's inflamed visage. This is the way A TILT IN THE ESCUKIAL. 253 we lately saw a blow described in the epistolary cor- respondence between two duellists in a French news- paper. Another and another similar extension suc- ceeded, followed by the extension of the great man on his own boards in an extremely bruised and bleed- ing condition. But retaliation quickly followed. Half a dozen tall fellows in a kind of police uniform, a portion of the army of th© Escurial, quickly ap- peared upon the scene. And oh! that we should relate such injustice — not only was the unoffending Phil soundly thrashed and pommelled, and ejected by a kick, as with the force of a catapult, from the premises, with a couple of black eyes added to his sum of suffering and indignity, and his watch, chain, studs, and shirt-front subtracted from his worldly goods ; but the mild and amiable stranger, who at a little distance stood quietly smoking and ruminating on this, to him, strange and incomprehensible scene, was suddenly pinioned by one hired bully, whilst an- other ruffian planted a succession of shoulder-hits on his handsome and expressive face, which was lite- rally held up to the blows of his assailant, who had been an unsuccessful, because currish and cowardly, aspirant to the decaying honours of the King. Stupe- fied and covered with blood, the unfortunate gentle- man was "rushed" along a dark and narrow back entry into the street, into which he was most igno- miniously kicked by his brutal assailants. And there he lay, stunned aud senseless, for a considerable time. Phil Cousens and his friend suffered in one sense a still more degrading and protracted infliction. For 254 so VERY HUMAN. they were pushed, dragged, and carried, neck and heels, through the dense mob of blackguards and Cyprians who stood around and behind the seated portion of the audience and filled the passages and entrances of the place. The original cause of the brawl, Phil's friend, whose intoxication had now become complete — him, the special deity who watches over drunken men, preserved at least from abrasions and contusions, and landed hatless, it is true, but comparatively uninjured, in the street. There he offered "to fight any one for a season ticket to Exeter Hall — no, dash it, I mean Spurgeon's chapel. I'll fight any gentlemen present (hiccup) for a ticket to Spurgeon's chapel and a new hat — I want a new hat." A good-natured policeman put him in a cab. " Drive to Barnes' !" he shouted, meaning a night- house in the Haymarket. And to Barnes Common he was driven, having fallen asleep the moment the cab-door was shut. Not so, as we have already recorded, with the sprightly and fascinating Phil. His own creditors would hardly have recognised him, as he was left panting and breathless by his ejectors, outside the building into which he had so lately entered on such excellent terms with himself and the world at large. A victim of assault and battery, with broken eye-glass and damaged optics, the crown of his hat knocked in, and studless as a nobleman whose entire stable has been unreservedly sold off, the first thought of Mr. Cousens was an action against the proprietors, with swinging damages ; and the second, what sort of figure he should cut in Webb's Fields in the morning. A TILT IN THE ESCURIAL. 255 The image of Grinderby, severe and ironical, rose be- fore his impaired vision, and sobered him to a correct estimate of the calamity which had overtaken him. He saw the impossibility of damages, and groaned not only in the spirit, but alond. Then thoughts of opposing the license of the Escurial flashed across him, only to be banished as hopeless from his brain. Sadly and slowly did Phil pick himself up, and rue- fully and mournfully did he hail a four-wheeled cab — he had not spirits for a Hansom, to betake him- self to his third floor in Maddox-street, Kegent-street — a sadder, but not a better man. There let us leave him to bath his face in cold water, and devise false- hoods of the most varied and ingenious description, which he dismissed successively as impotent to de- ceive Grinderby, cursing the Escurial and all con- nected with it, and vowing he would never enter such a low place again. We must now return to the stranger, whom we have left lying stunned and unconscious in a dark, narrow, and unfrequented street at the back of the Escurial. 256 CHAPTER XVI. BUT NOT FOR EVIL, Soe they twaine thoro' y^ foreste, honde in honde, Discoursing idlie both of see and londe, Of cloude and skye and rainebow, faery dreams Whiche gQde Hope's summit with delusive gleams, Of lordlie towre and fayrest chivalrie, Of tournamente and daunce and mysterie, Of Alcyonne-Star where white-robed seraphs sing Swete songes of rapture with bright folded wing — "Went heedlesse thus of dragonne fierce, and snake, Of wolfe and lyon hidde in thornie brake, "Withouten black suspycion, or intente ; Mistrustinge nought, and eche with eche contents. He deemed hyr honeste, but of straunge conceite ; Shee thought hym stuffed with courteous phansy swete, A gentle knighte who never none dydde harme. That harme deserved not, full of everie charme. Of grate empryse and deedes of peerlesse fame ; Nor in hys presence wolde shee aske hys name, Nor cared to question hym from whence hee came. Hys presence was y^ sole boone shee required. Sale, by what magicke was hyr breste soe fired, That hadde bin leman vile to men-at-armes. And only practysed in lewd trickes and charmes Misfortune's bastarde staggering thoro' y® world Like withered leafe by cruel tempeste whirled — No magicke save humanitie's softe spelle That reached the fountayne of hyr harte's depe well, And bydd teares flowe which never flowed before. Rousing her soule by slepe benumbed no more ; Soche wondrous powre hath Virtue's earnest eye Veiled with y« fringe of bewteous Modestie ; Soche charme hath Sympathie to touch the germe Of hidden goodnesse gnawed by Sorrow's worme, Cankered by worldlie care ; and bidde it bloome. And Heaven-ward tourne from marge of icy tombe. " Y^ newe Babes ofy^ Wood.'' A Metrical fragment. About twenty minutes might have elapsed, during which no one took any notice of the insensible victim A STEANGE COMPANIONSHIP. 257 of the brutality narrated in our last chapter, when a brace of thieves, very much out of luck, who were just deliberating on the inducements held out by the casual ward of that district as compared with those of Shoreditch, where they had slept the previous night, stumbled upon what they first took to be a drunken man lying in the street. Quickly did they show that they at least were no Pharisees and Levites to pass by on the other side. Without a word expressing sur- prise, or emotion of any kind, they darted rapidly to the rescue, like a brace of shadows suddenly let loose from a very dark wall to contend for the privilege of attaching themselves to the body of some prostrate Peter Schmemmil, who might be supposed to offer a vacancy for an unemployed umbra on the spot. Gently and tenderly did one of them lift his right arm and feel — not the stranger's heart, to see if any signs of life beat there, but his watch — not his pulse, but his pockets. Skilfully and dexterously did the other possess him- self of a handful of souvenirs, in the shape of his purse, card-case, and other trifles. Then, acting in admirable concert, they turned him round, as if bent on exhibiting the process recommended to resuscitate the drowned, and felt in his coat-pockets behind, whence they took a small volume with gold clasps, a pocket-handkerchief, and other trifles. Doubtless, with the excellent object of giving him a better oppor- tunity of respiration, one of them next proceeded to whip off his black silk tie. What further they might have done, we know not. All we do know is that at that moment — as if owing to their kind attentions — the injured man opened his eyes; and a Cain-like VOL. I. s 258 so TEKT HUITAX. scowl flitted over the face of one of the wiry and undersized ruffians, whilst he lifted his head, with a muttered oath, as if to dash it down again with violence on its stony pillow. But listen ! a footstep approaches. These Good Sa- maritans are unwilling to be seen in the exercise of their charity. They lay his head down softly, and listen ; as you might fancy a couple of Red Indians disturbed in the act of scalping a ^-ictim by the thud of the approaching gallop of a patrol of Texan Hangers. " Hook it !" was the brief whispered re- mark, uttered so simultaneously that we are not quite sm-e whether it really proceeded from both, or dis- engaged itself from the dirty comforter which acted as respirator to only one of the pair. The sound of the caution thus uttered might have reminded you of the hiss of a snake from out of his blanket in the serpent-house in the Zoological Gardens, where foreign reptiles are far more tenderly housed than pauper British children. A moment — and the pair of guilty shadows have gained the midnight darkness of the gloomy wall, whence in due time they emerged at a convenient distance, and added two more to the number of unholy gainers by the licentious traffic of the gorgeous Escurial that night. Dm'ino- the next few moments the stranger had groaned once or twice, opened his eyes, striven to rise, and finally crawled towards the solitarv' lamp- post at a corner of the street, which served to make darkness visible around. Meanwhile, a female figure, dressed in dusky, faded habiliments, verv^ much in unison with a pale and careworn young face, and A STEAXGE COMPANIONSHIP. 259 tielicate and small features expressing the deepest chronic anxiety and grief, approached him, and stood gazing with a sort of subdued expression of curiosity and interest on his proceedings. Then, as if com- prehending suddenly that he stood in need of aid, she stooped and helped him to rise and gain the lamp- post, where he leaned for a few moments collecting his thoughts, and gaining strength to speak. "I will reward you handsomely," he said at length, ^^ if you will kindly lend me your assistance to get away from this place. Good Heavens !" he added, ^^I have been robbed too. My watch and purse, even my gloves and handkerchief, are gone." "Take mine, sir," she said; "it is quite clean, although it is in holes. Let we wipe the blood away from your face. You must have been garotted by some wretches, who have left you here." In a few words he explained to her what had oc- curred. " Am I much disfigured ?" he inquired. " Here is a terrible lump on your forehead, and a gash under the right eye, and you seem to have had 3. cut on your nose with something sharp — possibly a ring. These wretches are in the habit of wearing large rings on purpose to inflict a greater injury. Or perhaps it was a knuckle-duster." "A knuckle-duster!" quoth the injured gentle- man, with a puzzled air. " Oh ! I see, something like the classical cestus, I suppose. Surely the bridge of my nose is not broken ?" he asked. " Xo, it has escaped, thank Heaven. And now," he said, "I cannot reward you ; for everything of value about me s2 260 so VEBY HUMAN. is gone. Stop ! Where is the main entrance to this; atrocious guet-apens f I must and will give these cowardly scoundrels in charge. Can you find me a policeman, my good friend ?" " Alas !" she replied, " I am not one to give advice to a gentleman like you ; but I know a little — too- much — of these things. Are you prepared for all that you will have to face in the morning? — the pub- licity, the police-court, and, above all, the news- papers ? Excuse me, sir," she added, " for my bold- ness ; but I thought you were hardly in a fit state to- judge of the matter calmly, sadly beaten and treated as you have been." " You are right," said the stranger. " Indeed^ when I reflect, I could not have done a more foolish and ruinous thing. It might mar every prospect I have in life. I suppose," he added, with an attempt at a smile, which we must characterise as a ridiculous failure, " that I must pay the penalty of my rashness in entering such a place. I assure you it is the first time I ever did such a thing in my life. I was im- pelled by a silly curiosity, and it will be a lesson ta me as long as I live. And now, my friend, you will add to the favour by giving me the shelter of your roof and a little soap and water, that I may refit, and make myself a little less hideous, before I return to my hotel." While saying this the pair had advanced, the gentleman in evident pain and difficulty, aided as he was by his fragile and yet, strange to say, strong companion, nearly the whole length of a dark and de- serted street. A STEANGE COMPANIONSHIP. 261 The freshness and purity, so to speak, of the gentle- man's words and tones had shot a strange sensation into some true womanly recess of that forlorn female's heart. "I dare not ask you into my place," she said; ''^ it is not a fit one for you — it is not, indeed." The young man — he was about twenty- three years of age — regarded her with evident interest. Slight, dark, and singularly graceful in his appearance; a thin moustache, and a fringe of glossy whisker alone redeemed his face from the charge of being too feminine in his appearance. But for these the young woman would have taken him for a clergyman — a class she had only come into contact with in the person of the mechanical divine who had buried her child but a fortnight before in Brompton Cemetery, and who was fast becoming imbecile from the melan- choly and monotonous nature of his daily employ- ment. We do not include a pretender whom she once met in the shape of a tract distributer, who polluted his holy calling by visiting his "lost and erring sisters," as he called them, and using the opportunity it gave liim for the most depraved purposes. But this gentle- man was what she thought in her heart a clergyman should resemble. ^' If you can take me in," he said with a smile of mingled sweetness and dignity, "you need not be afraid. I care not how humble is your abode, and I will amply reward your kindness." The girl looked, paused, and hesitated ; but an irre- sistible inclination led her to assent. Nor was this inclination by any means divested of common and 26^ so VEKY HUMAN. selfish motives ; for mingled with it was the wordly craving that he would somehow prove a valuable friend. And yet no thought of impropriety flashed across her imagination for a moment. She thought to herself that a change in her luck might be at hand — that something very good was about to happen to her — had she not just picked up a little steel horse- shoe broken from a brooch or shawl-pin ? "Well," she said, with a momentary look that might have become a vestal martyr beaming from some painted window in the glory of a summer eve^ — a look that was, strange to say, almost angelic in: its expression, in spite of her worn features and eyes^ from which the lustre, and hope, and joyousness of youth seemed to have fled and for ever departed — "well, I do not think I could easily refuse any request to you. You seem so good and noble," she added, with something which almost did duty for a blush suddenly overspreading her countenance, and as suddenly disappearing, as if it were a momentary^ reflection of flame. To speak the truth, the aspect of her face, taken in connexion with her general surroundings, would' have suggested little save low dissipation and habitual vice to the practised eye, but to Lord Egbert Montre- ville — for such was her companion's title and name — it spoke only of privation and want, a piteous tale of a poor needlewoman's distress. ' " And what is your occupation, may I ask ?" pur- sued Lord Egbert. The girl looked down and an- swered not a word. " I mean, do you work at any A STEANGE COMPAXIONSHIP. 263 business — such as a milliner's, for example? I hope you do not think me very curious," he said. A slight spasm quivered over her expressive face, followed by a shade so dark that the young man actually looked up, as if he fancied something had flitted over their heads. A sudden and violent attack of pain in his hip, where he had received a severe kick from one of the myrmidons of Mr. Slimy Cash, caused him at the moment to stagger and lean rather heavily upon his companion. To his surprise, he perceived that she was trembling from head to foot. " I hope I have not annoyed you by asking your occupation ; but judging from" — (here he involun- tarily looked at her shabby attire and hesitated) — " from the hour at which you are abroad," he said, with some confusion, " I Pardon me, it is very possible that you have known better days." His companion shook her head. " I have known but few days," she said, "but those of poverty and shame." (Defiantly.) " I don't think you will go home with me if I tell you what I am. But what would be the use of lying? I am what man, not God, has made me ! but you need not be afraid of coming home to my lodging, sir," she added, " for all that. You are different from any one to whom I ever spoke in my whole life before. I know a good man when I see one; because," she added, bitterly, " I suppose I have met so many that are bad." To say that Lord Egbert was greatly shocked and surprised would be an exaggeration in which, as 264 so VEET HUMAN. faithful historians, we shall not indulge. But he was both a little surprised and shocked. Like a true gentleman and Christian, as he was — ay, and an eccentric young nobleman to boot — one of the most delicate of that chivalry now, alas ! become so rare even in its rougher attributes and ruder shape — he replied, almost lightly, though there was deep feel- ing and pity mingled in his tones : " Nay, you have not frightened me, though I am very sorry for what I have just heard. I cannot tell you how sorry, my poor girl." And he purposely leaned a trifle more heavily on her arm, as they con- tinued to pursue their way. " And now I will tell you something of my own history," he said, almost gaily. ^^ I am engaged to be married almost imme- diately to a young lady, and we are going out to a distant colony, where I am nominated to an appoint- ment. And I am truly grateful to you for your aid, and, above all, for your good sense, which prevented me from rushing into a disgraceful notoriety, which might have required more explanation than I should have cared to give, and perhaps — who knot's? — have injured both my prospects and happiness." "I am sure," said his companion, with a voice slightly husky and unsteady, " that the lady, if she is worthy of you, would never have thought any harm. I am sure that / should not, but then I am very different from a lady like her. I sometimes wonder," she added, almost childishly, " what a virtuous young lady, who has never, known any of the wickedness of this world, is like — I mean to speak to, and all that." A STEANGE COMPANIONSHIP. 265 ^' She is an angel !" cried Lord Egbert. " YeSj" replied his companion, " but then, you see, I don't know much about angels, except that they have wings. I sometimes dream that even I have wings in my sleep." Talking in this manner, with an eccentricity of confidence on the part of the young nobleman, and in a tone and style on the part of his companion, in- teresting from its simplicity and earnestness, though mingled with a kind of latent desperation and hope- less abandon, which it was saddening to feel rather than observe on the part of one so young, and ap- parently friendless and forlorn, the pair proceeded slowly on their way through some of the poorest and dingiest streets past the Seven Dials. But we must pause for a moment to afford our readers some insight into the character, habits, and disposition of Lord Egbert Montreville. 266 CHAPTER XVII. THE LADY ELFRIDA. A gentle youth ; Yet full of strong desires — to be a man ; And fight the "World's great battle on the side Of Truth and Justice. We would call him " girl ;" But never spirit set a lance in rest More firm and dauntless. Lord Egbert Montreville was an enthusiast^ a visionary if you please, a man altogether unlike what one ordinarily meets with in this world. With a constitution far from robust, he had led a life chiefly of seclusion and study; he avoided the society of men of his own age, from utter indifference if not aversion to most of their pursuits. He was the youngest son of a noble family possessed of great in- fluence on the Tory side of politics ; but his peculiar views led him to entertain rather ultra-liberal prin- ciples in many things. He was an ardent friend of all oppressed nationalities, and possessed the confi- dence of such men as Mazzini, Garibaldi, and Kos- suth. With the cause of Poland his young name was identified, wherever the pulse of one of her hapless sons beat defiance and hatred to the op- THE LADY ELFKIDA. 267 pressor's iron rule. For the poor of his own land, he had a sympathy as painful as it was ardent or deep. This was by no means the first time he had talked familiarly with a poor creature in the street. Nay, he had ventured into many a fever den and haunt of misery and vice. Nor had he ever had reason to repent these visits ; for the lowest thieves had never sought to injure him, in return for his goodness. Their instincts taught them what he was ; and so far they showed themselves superior to the hravoes of the Escurial, who had so maltreated him that night. For the ignorant robber and necessitous thief is far nearer the footstool of Divine mercy and forgiveness, than the prosperous pander to the vices for which Society and hypocrisy compound. At Harrow his girlish face and retiring habits had won him the nickname of the Lady Elfrida. Yet, strange to say, even among boys, there was something in his earnest innocence and generous nature which won him, from the most brutal and tyrannical, both friend- ship and respect. The Lady Elfrida was petted and caressed by some of the most fiery spirits among the elder youths and leaders of the school. Thus he had long escaped the bullying persecution which most neophytes underwent. With a favourite chum, he would pass his leisure time in reading well-thumbed romances from the chief pastrycook and librarian of the village, or in strolling about the extensive plea- sure-grounds of one of the masters of Harrow, which were, under certain restrictions, not unfrequently thrown open to the boys. Here he would walk with his young companion, their arms round each other's 268 so VEEY HUMAN. necks, singing or reciting such fragments of song or ballad as struck their boyish imagination and fancy. At length an incident occurred which brought out the manly and heroic part of his character, but caused his early departure from the school. One day Lord Egbert, then about fourteen years of age, observed several of the boys engaged, with all the cruelty of which boys are capable, in teasing and torturing an old crazy creature, known to them by the name of "Mad Bess." The chief of the tormentors was a boy, a year older and half a head taller, and far stronger than Egbert. This young brute had just burnt the poor old creature with a lighted fusee, which he managed to place in her tangled grey hair, and which caused her to scream wdth mingled torture and affright. Lord Egbert ran to her assistance, and with some difficulty removed the burning fusee from her elf-locks ; but his motives being misapprehended, the old witch-wife, as they called her, severely scratched and clawed his face in requital, which caused the young mischief-makers exquisite delight. The chief bully especially taunted and reviled him for his pains, called him a "girl," and asked him where his petticoats had been left. All this and more Lord Egbert would have endured ; but when the other produced a fresh fusee, and threatened not only to set the old woman alight again, but to punish the " milk-sop" who interfered, he told him firmly that he did not care for himself, but he would not see a finger laid on the poor old crea- ture by such a cowardly sneak again. Then the boys gathered round, and the bully said, " Will you fight THE LADY ELFEIDA. 269 ■me ?" and Lord Egbert said he would ; and the party adjourned to the grassy slope beneath the school- house, which was the Campus Martins of their youthful encounters ; and Lord Egbert accepted a second, took off his jacket and waistcoat, and ap- peared in the juvenile ring. As it happened, none of the elder lads were about. For a quarter of an hour Lord Egbert seemed nearly at the mercy of his bigger opponent ; and even some of the young scape- gi'aces, who usually delighted in a good " mill," de- clared he was a plucky fellow, and should have no more of it. But Lord Egbert, bruised and bleeding as he was, and knocked down again and again, came up pale and stem to the encounter each time, and bade his friends mind their own business and see fair play, in a cool and resolute though piping tone, and so the unequal contest continued. To the sur- prise of all, the red-headed bully, who was somewhat full in flesh, began at last to breathe thickly and show symptoms of distress, and three whole rounds passed without the Lady Elfrida being floored a single time. Then the tide of battle wavered and changed, and amid the ringing cheers of those joyous young patrons of the ring, the bully at last fell before his youthful opponent, more from exhaustion and the effects of his own exertions in inflicting punishment, than from the force of the Lady Elfrida's slender arm. In a few more rounds, the boys discovered that the puny and effeminate lordling was actually fighting for points, and was gradually closing one of the ^Ndndows of his burly opponent's savage and vin- dictive soul, with as much purpose as the renowned 270 so VEEY HUMAN. Tliomas Sayers, when lie gradually blinded Heenan, and the fruits of his prowess were snatched from him by systematic trickery on the part of those in the opposite faction, when they saw it was only a matter of a few minutes, and that their champion would soon be swinging his huge arms about, helpless, in the dark. Not so the Harrow boys — they had no money on the event — they were young Englandites bent on fair-play, and their sympathies were with the " little un" and the weaker side. A second time did Master Osborne Clark, the braggart and animal torturer, embrace his mother earth ; but, unlike Antaeus, he rose weakened by each successive fall. Then the boys' enthusiasm knew no bounds. Up went caps and jackets into the air, and the cries of " Go it, little un !" " Pitch it into him, your lady- ship !" " Close his other shutter !" " Don't go in for a fall !" resounded over the field. A few minutes after, the blinded and crest-fallen bully was led igno- miniously from the field ; but the victory cost Egbert dear. Another minute, and he fainted in his second's arms. A surgeon was sent for, and the boy taken home, whence the family physician imperatively for- bade that he should be sent again. His constitution had received a severe shock, he said ; and he would not answer for the consequences, if the lad returned to school. Such was the boy, father of the man, whom we have seen assaulted and kicked out of the Escurial in so unprovoked and ignominious a manner. Such are the contrarieties, the injustice, and absurdity of human life, wherein no man who is a living actor in it can say what a day will bring forth, into what THE LADY ELFKIDA. 271 snare he may fall, what mishap may occur to him, or whether his life and character are assured to him for -an hour. Such was the man whom, with unsuspect- ing confidence, we see accompanying a frail and apparently most dangerous female to her dwelling, impelled only by an absurd and altogether insufficient want, if it really were one, which could have been far better satisfied at any coffee-house or apothecary's shop which he passed on his eccentric course. 272 CHAPTER XVIII. THE WAY TO ACHILLES'-BUILDINGS, AND WHAT HAPPENED THERE. Hast thou e'er chanced to see the sudden look That sometimes on the Wanton's painted features, Set in the stale attraction of forced smiles. Darkens so -wildly, that like one amazed She reels from the cracked mirror, to her brow Lifts her wan jewelled finger — tries to think f The reckless provocation of her glances Changed all to sickly twilight, blank dismay : And when thought comes, hast seen the poor wretch quiver, Her eyes' fire turned to water, those blue eyes Where once sweet fancies woven danced in light ? Hast seen the Present, Future, Past, appal her ; The Spectre of her grown-up life arise Ever between her childhood's innocent dawn And the lost thing, herself ? Hast seen her choke Upon her scanty food ? Hast seen Despair Clutch her polluted bosom ? Seen her teeth, Pearls that have outlived their neglected home. Shine whiter for that ruin ; and her lips, Like bruised lilies trampled in the dust, Whose wasted fragrance wakes to life no more ? He that hath seen this hath beheld a sight To palsy Rapture, make e'en Lewdness grieve, Youth grow a hermit. Age old vices leave. We left our ill-assorted couple wending their way, as best they might, somewhere in the unenticing neighbourhood of the Seven Dials. Let it not be supposed, for one instant, that our bruised knight-errant and his attendant damsel passed through the dingy quarter of the town where they THE WAY TO ACHILLES'-BUILDINGS. 273 shortly found themselves, without eliciting comment or remark. Low-browed cads and belated hucksters, and the vagabonds who hang about the corners of the streets, round " sloop"-stalls and potato-cans, were profuse in their loudly uttered remarks and criticisms. " My eyes, Bill, twig that genteel cove with liis heye in mourning and his 'ead in a sling." " Look 'ere, Jem," a shrill voice would cry, " here's a nobleman in disguise come hup to town to sell his father's hold clothes." " Vy he's been a fightin' along ^^^[th that bloomin' beauty." " I say, hold chap," another would exclaim, " hi ! you vdih the torn 'andkercher, can't yer afford better duds for yer fancy gal than them rags of hem ?" " Here's a swell as have been fightin' I" " I say, Sal, you're in luck to - night. What the air you bin arter ?" Such exclamations as these were far more frequent than amusing; except perhaps to the ignorant and depraved utterers of them. And, oh ! ye law-givers and law-makers, and ofttimes law-breakers, in power and in affluence, have you ever studied the worst features of the back slums of London ? Have you ever thought of what an execution-mob multiplied by four score, ay forty score, would be, if ever it were let loose in this wealthy England ? Have you thought what the poverty-stricken masses would do, in their brutal ignorance, and with the festering hatred of their hearts, if they were ever once unchained amongst you? The deeds of the French Revolution would VOL. I. T 274 so VEEY HUMAN. pale in insignificance before tlie cannibal revenge of the lower classes in this country. And who could w^onder at — we had well-nigh said — who could blame. them? Have you clothed and fed them, have you educated them, and brought them up with the know- ledge of God in their hearts? Your emigrants,, whom you might have made an element of strength,, had you sent them out to your own magnificent colonies, as you might have done with a blessing, in the idle ships of your proud navy, only waft back a burning curse from their rebellious hearts. And here at home you lack sailors and soldiers, to main- tain your misused power, and are burdened with a costly machinery that can scarcely keep yoiu' criminal and pauper population in check. Some such thoughts^ as these hastily flitted through Lord Egbert's brain^ as he passed through the squalid streets, where humanity had almost lost its distinctive traits in the repulsive features and expression of the hideous and unearthly-looking wretches around. How loathsome appeared their food-shops, where " luxuries" which thousands w^ould have deemed themselves too happy to have the pence to pui'chase, were repulsively dis- played ; meat- shambles, with their flaring gas-lights^ from whose diseased " cag-mag" the pampered beasts at the Zoological Gardens would turn. Then there were stalls of molluscous products unknown even by name to consumers above the lowest class j fish- counters where stale plaice showed their typhoid-like spots, alongside of heaps of bruised sprats, and Dutch herrings impregnated with more than Dead Sea salt. Decayed vegetables, and goitred apples of Cretin THE WAY TO ACHILLES'-BUILDIXGS. 275 growth ; dirty and ill-baked bread of clammy appear- ance and unwholesome hue ; clothes-marts that seem to threaten the air with contagion, and the earth with parasitical life; coal-sheds where damp and stony fuel costs the poor man ene hundred per cent, more than the rich, with long credit to be added in on their side, ever pay — these are some of the temptations which invite the working man to lay out his hard-earned wages, in order that his wife and little ones may eat the scanty dole which sometimes supports, and not unfrequently poisons, the springs of existence in their shrunken veins. Beyond this, there is a depth far lower still ; the penniless vagrant and the starving outcast, whose dying moans curdle the icy blast and infect the damp and noxious atmo- sphere of the narrow and greasy street, the blind alley and the murderous slum. And beyond this again lie the police-comt, the gaol, the hospital, the workhouse, and the grave ! What are the enjoyments of the poor ? None, literally none ; save those which are blistered by Sin and Shame, and breathed on by Death. You, legis- lators and Pharisees, who take such a morose delight in worrpng with over-legislation those who have so little to solace the toils and miseries of life, what is it that inspires your selfish aims ? You would ruin the trade of the respectable licensed victualler by robbing the poor man of the means of refreshment and ne- cessary sustenance, through the iniquitous restriction of your arbitrary laws. Y^ou make his Sunday a day of brutal impiety, a day sacred to drink and blasphemy ; drink within legal and stated houi's for T 2 276 so VEEY HUMAN. drunkenness, and blasphemy throughout all, from haggard morn to ghastly night. You carefully and piously close every institution that could possibly instruct and divert his mind, while you loll in your clubs and carriages, quaff your claret at any hour of the Lord's Day, indulge in swinish gluttony, and finish with cards, or a " little music," which the most decent or hypocritical sinners among you call ^' sacred," with an effrontery which makes your servants grin, and your sons and daughters smile over the hoUowness of your hearts. The very waste in your kitchens would pro^ade all the hungry wretches in your cities with a meal ; yet you deny it, and give it not. Lo ! on your palace-roofs and housetops brood vast phantoms of vengeance, sitting darkly ^-ith closed wings, until the hour arrives, as vultures await a feast, after the encounter of armed hosts. The singular and unequal pair, whose proceedings we have endeavoured so far to commemorate, at length reached a row of somewhat tall but unwhole- some-looking houses situated in the debatable land between St. Giles's and Holborn. Achilles'-build- ings, as we will call them, had formerly been the abode of respectability, and even distinction, about the period when Addison's "Spectator" astonished the public with its fine writing. Somehow or other, they had degenerated, as human beings sometimes do, till they became the habitation of thieves, forgers, magsmen, and felons of every degree. A corner house, rather larger than the others, was con- verted into a den of notorious infamy in its day, and 277 received the nickname of " The Greenhouse," it might be difficult to say how or why. Perhaps it was kept by a matron of the name of Green ; perhaps it was owing to the fittings of some one of its numerous apartments ; perhaps it was originated in an allusion to the verdant nature of the fools and profligates allowed within its precincts; perhaps, and more probably, it had at some period boasted green blinds and curtains, or a green door. We leave this to be determined by the curious in such matters, who are always poking their noses into the rubbish of some ignominious dust-hole of antiquity. Certain it is, that over that house, for nearly a century, there had hung the gloom of crime and mystery. Dark and terrible deeds were said to have taken place in it ; and un- questionably one horrid murder had been committed there in the present century, the perpetrator of which never paid the penalty of his crime. Some forty years before, an attempt had been made to cleanse and purge these polluted dwellings. For a time, two or three decent families made an effort to reside there, while the rest remained tenantless ; until decay set in and all the remaininop windows were brokeu. Then they relapsed into something approaching their former state. A clan of low Irish, and some poor families of workmen, settled there. Graduallv it became a crowded rookery of poverty, squalor, and disease. The houses in their interior economy resembled some of the worst flats in the Old Town of Edinbm'gh. There was a fetid smell common to all, blotched and yellow walls, broken staircases, and general dirt, decay, and wretchedness. In most cases the grey 278 so TEKY HUMAN. old gi'imy doors, whose strength had outlived the violence of drunken inmates and visitors, as well as the frequent attacks of constables, were never latched, or effectually closed, either by day or night. A low beer-shop flanked the other end of these gloomy habi- tations, whence shriek, and oath, and brawl often startled the hurrj^ing passer-by, from dusk to mid- night. Two or three cellars were open by day for the sale of second-hand shoes and boots, and slop- clothings ; whence might be seen poking and pro- truding various hooked-noses of the sausage type appertaining to the chosen people, from paroquet to macaw size, from the promising proboscis of snivel- ling infancy and dirt-pie beatitude, to the mighty shadow-stretching " Wellingtonius giganteus" of the patriarch of the slums. Into by no means the least forbidding of these houses did Lord Egbert follow his companion, who pushed its door open, without the slightest appearance of hesitation or fear. To say that he felt quite at his ease would be a statement in which we should be sony to indulge. For throughout this narrative to state truthful facts is our chief endeavour and pride, even at the risk of offending those to whom the trite aphorism, that "truth is stranger than fiction," is not present to act as sponsor and defender of our relation. To narrate common and every-day events is an easier task than to unravel the dark web of mystery and improbability in human events. The human heart itself is always sufficiently strange and subtle in its promptings and windings, its desires and conceal- ments, to afford ample scope even for the chronicler THE WAY TO ACHILLES'-BUILDINGS. 279 of the ordinary occurrences of life in a parsonage or a village to amuse, and even astonish, if he or she Jiave the genius to do so. We have taken rougher and bolder work in hand. We might skim more pleasantly over the surface of life, and yet suggest many things to the credit side of the devil, with a laxity of purpose, or a design not to be found in this work. Nor are the reflections scattered through- out these pages of a character either to flatter or please the respectable hypocrites of Society, or of that most pernicious deluder, both of himself and of others, the British optimist of the nineteenth century ; the man of gas and steam, of Crystal Palace (closed •on Sundays) and high art, the babbler about "geist," ivhatever that may be, the philanthropic blower of starving rebels from great guns in the red mist of blood and shamble-stench of smoke, the remedial patchwork agitator of plans to repair the tattered, shattered, hopeless humanity of the lower classes, as you would stop an inundation with a spadeful of sand, or stanch the bleeding wounds of a nation with a pinch of the nap from the sterile brim of a Quaker's pretentious hat. Our diatribes will only meet with a healthy response in youthful or earnest hearts ; in the breasts of the old who have stood aside and apart during the riot of a godless age ; in the feelings of men who have still something of the old Cromwellian spirit surging in their veins ; or in the Falklands who ^ieve over England amid the rage of party strife, and the conflict of mediocrities in the emulous struggle for place and power which destroys our greatness and barters away our rights. To those whose minds 280 so VERY HUMAN. embrace any grand and generous sclieme of regene- ration, we alone address the moral of these pages. Alas ! could our existing laws put down all rampant and external ^-ice, there would be none save hypo- crites left. As it is, they only foster and increase it. Lord Egbert's refined senses and culture caused Mm to sicken and shudder at the objects by which he found himself suiTounded. Yet not less patientlj^ did he wait in the reeking passage whilst his improper acquaintance sought and lighted a guttering dip, with which, shading it in a somewhat downcast and timid manner with a hand which might have been almost transparent, but for its manifest dingy hue, she lighted her aristocratic companion up the rickety stairs. There was some trace of the ancient uses and substantial prosperity of the house still discernible in fragments of scrollwork in the ceilings of the landing-places, and in the oak ba- nisters, in which deep cuts and dilapidations had become rounded by use, and greased by the contact of many a dirty hand. The ground-floor passage might be characterised as tomb-like and frowzy ; one might have fancied oneself in the sepulchre of all the modem tribe of Nathan — it was like coming on the remains of a full-flavoured family of Eoman money- lenders in Pompeii or Herculaneum, or perhaps it mis-ht be better described as resembling a sniff of the pit of an East-end theatre on a Saturday night under a plentiful dispensation of "paper" from a Hebrew lessee. From a room on the first floor came sounds of oaths and revelry ; from the second, a noise of oaths and wife-beating ; from the third, oaths alone. THE WAY TO ACHILLES'-BUILDIXGS. 281 From one of the garrets on the fourth floor they heard the voice of a child crying and moaning as if from hunger — a wail of the great London wilderness, that, often heard, causes some to disbelieve in the existence of a God at all ; and some to believe that there is, and must be, a Supreme Being to rectify the injustice visited even on babes and sucklings here, in another and a far different world. The opposite and remaining door was ajar, and Lord Egbert and his conductress silently entered. The room was poorer but certainly cleaner than he ex- pected. All the furniture consisted of a wretched wooden bedstead, with apparently but scanty clothing ; a deal table ; a single visible chair, on which from sheer pain and exhaustion he sank down ; a box which apparently served occasionally as a second seat; a washmg-stand, and an empty bird-cage. Yes, there was something else. A child's cot, carefully covered up, stood on a second chair, which it partially concealed, in a corner of the room parallel with the bed. '' Good Heavens !" thought Lord Egbert, as he glanced from his companion, who was busy doing her best to light a fire in the narrow grate, ^' is it possible that a young mother can leave her child and rove abroad in the streets in this manner?" He shuddered as he thought that perhaps maternal instinct drove her wolf-like to prowl forth in search of sustenance by night. Thinking thus, he rose softly, and approached the cradle to look at the sleeping babe. Very gently and slowly he lifted the humble coverlet, and peeped within, expecting to see a pale and sickly Httle face of slumbering innocence, for it was evident in his 282 so TEEY HUilAX. thouglit that the little occupant slept. Perhaps the mother, impelled by dire necessity, had given it a dose of one of those terrible sedatives which the poor are forced to use, and which sometimes turn a fretful doze into everlasting sleep — an "elixir," or " cordial," prepared and sold by the skeleton apothecary. Death. Had he thought more curiously, he might have wondered that the young mother did not rush to her child's cradle to see how it had fared during her absence, and perhaps imprint a passionate kiss on its little brow or lips. But then he was not much experienced in maternal ways. So he peered into the cradle in a very benevolent manner, considering his age and sex, somewhat curious to see what sort of an atomic image of humanity was reposing therein. But there was nothing there. Yes, there was a little withered bundle of violets, which, sooth to say, had been bought in the streets, and which, could tears have revived them, would have looked as fresh as when they were gathered in a nurseryman's grounds somewhere between Wandsworth and New Bromp- ton. Could the red core of the mother's anguished heart have revivified their cut stalks, as we read in the recipes of the " Family Herald" that sealing-wax properly applied will do, they would have bloomed in that cradle for many a day. Why are some children born but to die ; nay, why are others bom to live, we would say ? To one a gilded fuss, and the pomp of servile over-care that may kill equally with neglect ; to another a very brief and uncomfortable inheritance of " Tnsmus neonatorum" — nothincr save workhouse convulsions to notify that a soul has hved THE VrXY TO ACHILLES'-BCILDIXGS. 283 to hear a few groans in this world, and gone back thither whence it came, to furnish a blank little page in the Divine Judgment Book above. To this last, a mere shiver of the knocker on the door of human existence, promptly answered by the voice of Fate, ^^ There is no room here I" Better this than to be swaddled in a palace, and buried ^vrinkled and grey-headed in a cathedral, leaving none to shed a tear, after having caused a sea of tears and blood to flow during a weary lifetime of unhallowed deeds. Yery quickly, but still gently, did Lord Egbert suffer the covering of the cradle to shroud its silent emptiness again. He saw with pain that the mother had observed his action, by the added rapidity and confusion of her fingers, as she sought to thrust the falling sticks of wood through the bars of the grate ; nay, he heard it in the agitated rustle of the paper with' which she renewed the failing experiment to create a blaze. He saw her lithe frame sway to and fro, as, still on her knees, she reached the candle from the ground by her side to set a light to her handi- work again. As the fire suddenly flared up, he noticed what he had not seen before, that she was in a sort of shabby apology for mourning. Why should he have noticed that? So many women wear black, who are not in mourning, and so many wear mournincp who are not in black. One may dress in sombre clothes for a sick hope, or a guilty life, or because it is becoming, or because the wearer has no other garments to put on. Lord Egbert was in a dilemma — he did not know exactly what to do. 284 so VERY HUMAN. When they meet as perfect strangers for the first time^ under odd ch'cumstances, and without introduction, people are very apt to be extremely confidential and tell each other all their secrets, especially if they are sorrows and complaints. On the other hand, the ice being once broken, one naturally wants to know everything, just because one knows nothing at all. So Loi'd Egbert spoke out accordingly, and said : " I fear you have had a sad loss very lately — have you not ?" Then she uprose and told him all about it, with clasped hands and streaming eyes, and frequent adju- rations to Heaven. She asked God to witness how she loved her child — all that she had ever had to love in this world. And she said that He also knew that she wished to die, and follow her boy to his grave, as soon as it pleased Him to release her from a life of utter misery^ and woe. She had first thought of starving herself to death, "■ and that" (with a bitter laugh) " would not be very difficult, you know. I should not have to buy anything for that." But a kind friend — a poor creature little better off than herself — had come in and forced her to eat. It was she who helped to bury the child — it was done very respectably, she said, and they had a mourning- coach — " and I could not refuse her well — could I ?" she said, *' when she knelt by me and entreated me to live ?" The last few days she had felt quite care- less and numb-like, and didn't care how things went. But the few words he had spoken to her had somehow put quite a new feeling into her heart. The story was nearly all true; except that she had not con- THE WAY TO ACHILLES'-BUILDINGS. 285 f essed that after the first shock was over, she had felt more anxiety to live and do something better for her- self, than ever she had experienced before, and that when she first saw Lord Egbert, she somehow fancied that he would bring her luck. Perhaps she had not very carefully analysed her own feelings, and was scarcely conscious of her exact mental state herself. Then, with all the volubility of grief, when it finds a sympathising listener, or indeed any listener at all, she went on to tell him, that she had been very, very bad, and that her evil habits had indirectly caused her poor child's death. She told him that she had been a confirmed gin-drinker, and a beggar in the streets, sunk in the lowest depths of penury and vice. But there was one thing, she had always avoided when she could. Just before the child's illness, she had twice met a kind and disinterested gentleman who had bestowed on her a bountiful alms. " Not a gentleman like you," she said, " but quite a gay and careless sort of man ; yet, oh ! very kind and good. The first time he gave me money, it did me more harm than good. I deceived him, and I think there was a curse with it. For I left my poor dear angel that is gone to the care of strangers, and went out and treated a parcel of wretches, and lost all recollection for days. It was like a hideous dream of leering faces and gay dresses, and jingling glasses and flaring lights," she said; and the poor creature passed her hand over her brow. " But I beg pardon, sir, I am detaining you. Will you not wash the dirt and blood away ?" Lord Egbert requested her to go on. He wanted 2SQ so VERY HUMAN. to know, how the change, which must have taken place in her since this awful period of depravity and dissipation, had set in. " Well, sir," she said, " the money all went ; and I was beaten, just as you have been, by some women whom I could afford to treat no more, and my poor child showed symptoms of sickening, an4 1 went out one dreadful pouring night in sheer desperation and horror — I don't know for what or wherefore. If I could have got a little drink, I think I should have drowned myself off' Waterloo Bridge. I knew a girl who had done it; and tliere was another who had sworn a solemn oath she would do it any time with me. I went to her lodgings ; but she was in bed quite stupefied with drink, and I could not get even the price of a glass from her. Well, sir, I was wan- dering along, thinking if I should be able to pick up a few pence, before the public-houses were closed, when I met the gentleman who had assisted me so generously, again, face to face, in the Strand." "Will you tell me," interrupted Lord Egbert, " how it was that you first met him, and how he came to assist you so amply and generously as you say ? For it seems, however charitable, an unwonted and eccentric act." " I can only tell you, sir," she answered, " that he seemed a very rich and thoughtless gentleman, though I ought not to say so, for Heaven knows he had thought enough for me ; and he met me one after- noon about the same place in the Strand, and I noticed that he looked verv hard at me indeed as he THE WAY TO ACHILLES'-BUILDINGS. 287 passed by. I must tell you that I was very different then to what you see me now." Lord Egbert frowned and bit his lip, but said nothing. To his surprise she resumed : ^^I was then literally a heap of rags, swarming with vermin, and with scarcely a shoe to my foot. I don't think such a figure was to be seen any- where, unless, perhaps, in the worst part of Bethnal Green. Some of the people who were used to see me called me the ' Phantom !' and ' Kags !' and others nicknamed me ' Blue Ruin !' and I don't know what besides." Lord Egbert's face brightened. He had feared that she was about to tell him that she was far more attractive then. And attractive he could easily imagine that she had been, and might be again. Indeed, there was an indefinable charm of natural grace about her even then — a sort of naivete and vivacity, combined with pathos, which interested him in a wonderful degree. "Well, sir," she continued, "the gentleman turned and passed me again, and then turned back quite suddenly. ' My good creature,' he said, ' do pray tell me, are you obliged to come out like this V and then he asked me all about myself. I don't know what put it into my head," she continued, sadly, " but I answered him with a whole string of lies, and said I had a home in the country, not far from Birmincrham ; and that if I could get there I should be all right, only that I had not money to pay the fare, or any clothes to show myself in among 288 so VEKY HU^klAX. respectable people sucli as my relations were. I assure you this was a sudden thought ; for I never used to tell any lies, or, in fact, to say anything about myself. People would often drop money in my hands, and go away without uttering a word. So that I had very little occasion to lie to them. But I was possessed by some wickedness that day which I have never been able to account for. Well, he gave me five pounds, and a handful of silver besides, and a lady's address, who he said was to give me some clothes ; and if she gave me one, she gave me tv/enty pounds' worth of things — silk dresses and linen, all marked wdth her own initials ; and if I did not go to my relations, the things very soon went to the only relative I ever knew — I mean the pawnshop — and in a fortnight I was worse off than before, with the ad- dition of the bruises I received, and my poor dear baby sickening to die." " And tell me what you did when you met the gentleman a second time f said Lord Egbert. " Indeed," she replied, " I felt so ashamed — miserable and degraded as I was — that I turned and ran away as fast as my legs would carry me. To my utter surprise and astonishment, the gentle- man followed me. He would never have caught me, if I hadn't turned up a sort of street with no outlet, you know^, where he ran me into a corner." " And what did he say then I" pursued her inter- rogator. '' Do you know, if your story were a little less strange, I should find a difficulty in believing in it!" " I don't think it is a bit more strange than that THE WAY TO ACHILLES'-BUILDINGS. 289 you should be here now," was the quick answer ; a proposition in which Lord Egbert could not but tacitly acquiesce. '^ He only asked me," she resumed, " why I ran away in that manner, and gave me a lot of loose silver, with a sovereign amongst it." " And you have never seen him since ?" said Lord Egbert. " Never !" was the answer. ^^ That night I went home quite sober — and did all I could, but too late, too late, to save] my poor murdered innocent. But he never looked up any more. He had caught a cold and fever through my drunken neglect of him. Do you know, sir, that if I had done my duty by him, I think I should be almost glad that he was removed out of this wicked, wretched world -?" " The world," said Lord Egbert, " is often what wicked and wretched people make it." " It may be so," she exclaimed, '' with many ; but not with me. I never had a chance to be either good or happy." " Then you shall have one now," was the grave and quiet answer, in a tone which admitted no doubt both of the speaker's power and intentions to carry out what he said ; " that is," he added, after a pause, "if you have the determination and resolution to will it yourself ; for the chance is all that I can give you." All the answer that the bereaved mother made was to kneel down by the side of the empty cradle, and with streaming hair and eyes to utter a few inco- herent expressions of pain and sorrow, mingled with VOL. I. U 290 so VEET HUMAN. gratitnde and hope. As she knelt, tlie solitary^ candle flickered in its socket, and the cold and bright moon shed an unearthly radiance over her features, while the tall dark figure of Lord Egbert stood erect like a father confessor listening to the recital of a dying Magdalen's sins, and the avowal of her repentance. And the young man of birth and fashion silently put up a prayer for all human creatures of sin and misery, and for her whose strange story had filled his heart with gentle pit}" and interest. The greatest patriot and philosopher would not have despised that scene. Either a Garibaldi, or a Victor Jjuo-o — we grieve not to be able to name a great Englishman of equal breadth of dignity, and catholic nobility of soul ; but there doubtless exist many who are unknown to fame — might have acted like Lord Ecrbert under similar circumstances, w^ere their sympa- thies withdrawn from a wider circle, and their charity from a grander and more comprehensive range. Many professors of philanthropy and world-graduates, and hollow success-vaunters of the day will authoritatively put down Lord Egbert as a sentimental fool, and declare with a sneer they consider him little better than a lunatic for his pains. Perhaps so ; but it is certain that he was unconsciously imitating, at a humble distance, a great example set nearly two thousand years ago, which a large portion of man- kind have been constantly preaching, and not prac- tising, nearly ever since, in the most remarkable man- ner. We cannot help thinking that, if the Saviour Himself were to appear now in London, and conduct Himself, as He once did in Gahlee, by the banks of THE WA.Y TO ACHILLES'-BUILDIKGS. 291 the Thames, He would be committed as a rogue and a vagrant by a metropolitan magistrate or a city Lord Mayor, if His poverty secured Him from the con- siderate attentions of a mad-doctor. The cry would not be " Crucify him !" but " Lock him up ! Lock him up !" What should we think of the eccentricity of a bishop, who despoiled himself of even one-half of his worldly goods, who acted up to any part of his hebdomadal profession of faith ? The Ephesian shrine-makers of old were true to Diana, whose creed was probably not a difficult one to follow ; but we continue with avidity to make the slirines, and yet practically to deny that God in AYhose name they are manufactured, with the most perfect and com- plete contrariety that human ingenuity ever fur* nished. There is earnestness in the customs of Dahomey, and devotion in the ministration of a Thug; these mean what they profess, and act it. Not so the modern Christian doctrinaire, whose prin- ciples and practice are antagonistic, in proportion to the fervency of his teaching and the ardour of his zeal. The great bell of Westminster sounded the hour of midnight funereally through the air, as if it were tollincj for a nation's death. '' Well, my poor girl," said Lord Egbert, " I will just avail myself of your kindness to improve my ap- pearance a little ; and then I will ask you to hght me down-stairs. But what is your name and address ?" " Kate Darrell," was the reply, " seven, Achilles'- buildings." " Will a note find you ?" asked Lord Egbert. ' u 2 292 so VERY HUMAN. The reply was in the affirmative. " Then I will write," he said, " and make an appointment ; and in the mean time we will both consider what is best to be done for you. Your edu- cation does not appear to have been entirely neg- lected." " Alas !" she replied, ^' I can scarcely write at all." "I should not have thought so," observed Lord Egbert, " from the manner in which you speak." " I am very quick at learning, I believe," said Kate, as we will now call her. " I am told I should make my fortune on the stage." Lord Egbert shook his head. Inexperienced as he was, he knew how utterly meaningless, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, is such a remark. " I think," he said, " you would find dress-making, or a little shop, more profitable ; but you shall do as you like. But which is it to be, tragedy or comedy V he asked, smilincp. o "You must not judge of me as I am now," she answered. " I used to be the merriest, and, some said, the funniest girl alive. It seems a long time ago, although I am barely eighteen now. Though I have never known any real happiness or comfort, but been nurtured amid scenes of misery, that you cannot even imagine, I am sure ; yet when I have had the slightest opportunity, I was always the leader in mis- chief and fun. It was that which got me at last into the frightful habits I have told you of, and from which I was saved alone by that gentleman's act of kindness, and, oh I that I should say it, the loss of THE WAY TO ACHILLES'-BUILDINGS. 293 my child. I have never touched a drop of anything stronger than tea since ; not even on the day when I buried him, though they pressed me very hard to drink then, and drown my sorrow, as they said. If I had not had the strength to refuse, my sorrows would have been drowned by this time, and myself with them, I'm thinking." During all their conversation, Lord Egbert never once alluded to the father of the child, nor asked her any leading question as to the particular events of her life. He rightly guessed that there was nothing in it that could be remedied or improved by meddling with griefs that might or might not be healed and cicatrised by necessity or time. The truth is, that the father of the child was dead too — lay peacefully slumbering in the vicinity of Sebastopol, wrapped in a gorgeously tasselled dressing-gown, which he was wont to wear in life ; and which one of his brother officers, the self-appointed sexton of his brigade, him- self formerly one of the gayest men on town, had chosen for his winding-sheet of glory in such humed obsequies as he could afford. Nor was the gallant and ta\^Tiy Captain Durant very guilty, so far as Kate had been concerned. In truth, he had been very kind to her, and fully meant to be more so ; but the shell which killed him, one of the veiy first after landing, also exploded in a certain genteel lodging in Albany- street, Regent's Park, and very direful were the con- sequences thereof. There were many fond and dear ties severed besides those of matrimony and relation- ship by that Russian war. Many a slender, lily-like being, whose wedding-ring was not placed on her 294 so VERY HUMAN. finger at the altar, or by a license, that we can properly term " special," bowed her head and died, when one name had met her burning gaze, and the newspaper had fallen from her opening fingers convulsed with grief ; ay, perhaps, more than out of a like number of wedded wives ; for these had not lost every tie in this world, and the former had. Nay, there were flaunting widowhoods, even in the Casino, and the " Rooms," which were not altogether devoid of deep feeling and regret, as some more real widowhoods are. Thus it appears that Kate had known some few months of comfort in her life ; before sinking into even worse depths of ^vretc]ledness than had signalised her early career. That night, or rather morning, as she crept beneath her narrow coverlet, after Lord Egbert had departed to his luxurious hotel, she felt the strongest presenti- ment that she was on the threshold of a new phase of existence ; that, in her OAvn phraseology, her luck had changed, and that she was about to enter on a new and promising career. We will leave her to her dreams, strange and mingled as they were, half of heaven and half of earth, now bright with innocence, and now with worldly pomp. We will leave her to wander, dressed in a spotless robe of white, through summer meadows, leading her prattling boy, picking celestial daisies and buttercups at her side. We will leave her to curtsy among a bevy of duchesses at a Court ball, while Lord Egbert, in a magnificent uniform, with a beautiful fairy on his arm, smiled approval on so distinguished and fashionable a debut. THE WAY TO ACHILLES'-BUILDIXGS. 295 We will let her rustle among the gorgeous personages of a theatrical scene, ^vhile poor Captain Durant bo^yed approval from a side-box. Gradually his features change and stiffen ; and the bouquet he was about to throw to her feet turns into a bunch of decayed and contorted weeds, as if in mockery, at her feet. She would kick tliem away, but they change to serpents, and crawl up her limbs. Horror ! she is in rags again; and 'tis a grinning skeleton that is mopping and mowing at her, yet somehow in the likeness of the cross young man, assistant at the pawnbroker's shop. Stay! he throws a bundle at her. He rejects her pledge. What is it ? She tears it hurriedly open. It is her lost child's little frock and under-clothes, and tiny ragged shoes. Next a Shape rises, and mocks her with hoarse screams. 'Tis the gin-fiend I Avaunt ! avaunt ! With a choked cry she is about to awake; but we will not wake her. With the pale flock of trooping dreams we will glide softly away from her bedside. We send poor Durant back to the bloody trench, and the child to his little grave, so small that it looks hardly like a real thing, but a mound which children themselves might have heaped up in their innocent play. We follow Lord Egbert's noble semblance away, till it glides at cock-crow through the closed door of the Colonnade Hotel. And then with a wave of the enchanter s pen we transport our readers elsewhere. We return this puppet to its chest, and take out another and another for brief use, to be put back in its turn. For on this very morning, ere early London has rubbed its eyes, 296 so VERY HUMAN. and finally settled that it is awake ; and while the representatives of the night-bird section of the public are severally seeking their matutinal roost — printers, policemen, newspaper writers, and the like — ^we intend to lay aside our puppets for a triennial rest, and not to open our galanty show for at least three years, and in the second volume of our tale. 297 CHAPTER XIX. BACK TO queen' S-SQUAKE. The silver orb of Diana shone in the solvent sky like a new florin just issued from the Mint of Space ; the golden stars and constellations seemed like sovereigns and half-sovereigns hoarded by grandam Nature until that very date ; the Milky-Way showed far oflf and filmy, like a distant bill of exchange drawn by Time on Eternity, and indorsed by an Almighty hand, when Sir Mammon, standing under his Belgravian portico, suddenly bethought him of that universal panic when the Bank of the Universe (limited) itself shall break ; and thence began to con- sider the nature of the account to be demanded of him hereafter — his smooth-written diary of selfishness ; his cash-book of avarice and greed ; his small credit column of good deeds and his heavy debit of evil in the great balance-sheet of life. And this giant of Cunning, this Colossus of worldy success, cowered like the ragged school-child he had once himself been ; as he sought in vain to cast up the accusing figures of Doom on the greasy slate of Memory, smeared over by whining Repentance, ere blotted out for ever by Death. ' Under the blue vault of the silent midnight heavens, his sovd stood stripped and shivering; and he felt like the ghost of a rich man buried yesterday among the forgotten dead, whose earthly pomp and mansion had passed away from him, as fleeting clouds from the pale clutch of a spectre, or shadows from the voiceless whisper of a shade, and whose treasures were already delivered up for a spoil to those who had amassed them not. — The Lucubrations of Arthur Aubrey, Esq. From his Commonplace Booh in 185-. That very night Arthur Aubrey and his beautiful wife had sat up somewhat late, as they were often wont to do, interchanging their views of life and manners, discussing their friends and acquaintances, 298 so VERY HUMAN. their past, present, and future, and things general and particular. The subject they had started, apropos of some topic of the day, was the action of circumstance upon human actions, and whether a great deal of soi-disant merit was. not born of circum- stance, and a great deal of crime and wickedness of misery and want. In this argument Aubrey showed himself a severe censor of all shortcomings and backslidings. He said that a thief must be a thief at heart, in order to become one at all, and that even necessity was no excuse. "When you hear," he said, "of a man being driven to drink by misfortune, it is only because an excuse is wanted for that which must sooner or later come out." Prosperity would have developed, ac- cording to him, the very same latent propensity in the same man. " Ah !" said Blanche, " you have had no trials — you have known nothing save luxury. You do not know the temptations of the poor." " Now," rejoined Arthur, " there are bad hus- bands, you know. I suppose, if I were to turn out a wretch, under temptations, you would make excuses forme?" "Would If said Blanche, archly; "but could you be tempted, sir ?" "Well," replied Arthur, " not easily, perhaps, my love ; but circumstances, you know, may be so very strong, according to your theory. I am sure you would become my advocate in such a case." "' The crimes of the heart," returned Blanche, " are precisely those which would plead no ' extenuating BACK TO QUEE^''S-SQUAEE. 299 circumstances' successfully to me. But regarding the temptations, for example, of the poor and destitute — if I were starving, would you not break the law forme?" "I see," answered Arthur, "that you are bent on my conviction as a thief. Who can say ^ no,' under such circumstances V " If we had a child, and it lacked sustenance," cried Blanche, " do you think I would not snatch a loaf from a baker's shop for if? What mother could restrain her desperation ?" " Yet," said Arthur, " but a few years since, under the sanguinary laws of England, women w^ere hanged for such deeds. The starving mother of a starving child has been executed at Tyburn for stealing a penny loaf." Blanche shuddered. *^I cannot," she said, "trust myself to think, much less speak, of such a deed." " And even now," rejoined Arthui', " the mother thus acting under the holiest impulse of nature, would be torn from her offspring and flung into a gaol, thence to undergo penalties almost w^orse than death. But what can Society do ? This very night, there are hundreds perishing in London from want of common necessaries. The muster-roll of Death, during a sharp frost in England, is not less numerous than wdien cholera stalks lurid through the land. But you w^ould not suspend the action of the law to let the suffering poor help themselves? I repeat, what can Society do ?" " Nay," said Blanche, " you can't expect political economy from me. But I cannot help thinking that 300 so VERY HUMAN. in this rich and prosperous country, the governing powers are criminally to blame to permit such a state of things." " Yes, and the poorer classes too," said Arthur ; ^' are they not improvident in the extreme ? Do they make the best even of what they have ? Can they cook the food they get? Why, not one working man's wife out of twenty is capable of the commonest duties of a housewife. Soup, for instance, is almost unknown to them ; and you see the bricklayer dining on bread and cheese, when for the same money he might enjoy a nourishing meal. Nor do the men cultivate their gardens properly, when they have them. I tell you there are faults on all sides, Blanche." " They are ignorant, because they are not taught," retorted Blanche ; " there is no sympathy between class and class. I really believe that the middle classes are the most selfish and repellent of all. Now," she said, "just look what I do! Look •at my poor people. I actually teach them cottage economy, and I help to maintain more than a score. And I'll answer for it, it does not cost you twenty pounds a-year." " Not if you take it out of your dress money, my love," was the answer, accompanied by a smile of approval. " And do I not dress well enough to please you ?" said Blanche, demurely. "'If not, you are harder to please than Lady Madeiraville, who is constantly coming for patterns to your little wife, and who de- clares that somehow she can never get anything so BACK TO QUEEN'S-SQUAKE. 301 well made as my dresses, though I positively cut out the last six for her with my own hands." " Hem !" observed Aubrey, " I suspect that you must lend her something more than patterns, before she can rival you in dress." " What is that ?" demanded Blanche, who knew perfectly well the reply that w^ould follow. " The most enchanting figure in Christendom,'' replied her husband, passing his hand round the waist of his beautiful wife, who looked radiant with innocent delio;ht. " Oh ! if you always love me thus !*' murmured Blanche. We will not follow Aubrey in his impassioned de- clarations that he must, should, and would ; and never possibly could, help loving her with a love so great that it was beyond increase, and yet which time would augment with a cube-rate multiplying power. After this blazing bouquet of protestations had irra- diated the serene fancy of Blanche, as some gorgeous display of divine pyrotechny the calm quietude of a summer evening sky, it gradually died away, leaving her mental atmosphere from zenith to horizon flooded with roseate effulgence, and suffusing her cheeks with the warmest blushes of delight. These insensibly paled down to the wonted delicacy of the shell-like hue of her complexion, as the pair resumed their every-day and wordly conversation, with the grati- fying, but by no means original remark on the part of Aubrey, that he did not think there was a hap- pier fellow in the world than himself. "And yet," he said, "things don't go very well 302 so VERY HUMAN. with me in the way of fortune, and that sort of thing. Somehow/' he said, " I seem to pay more for every- thing than anybody else. If I get into a lawsuit, it don't matter what the case is, I am sure to lose ; I am constantly being robbed and done by everybody ; and as to economising, I find whenever I do try it, that I am always let into some greater and unex- pected expense." At this last remark Blanche smiled. " And pray, my dear," she said, " when did you ever try to economise?" " Why, I rode home on an omnibus from Ken- sington the otlier day," replied Arthur, gravely, "and gave the conductor a sovereign instead of a shilling. I came from Oxford last Tuesday, second- class, and lost my purse, and what is more, it always happens so, somehow." " Then pray," said Blanche, " avoid such absurd economies in future. I really think it serves you right. It is all very well for a millionaire, or a miser ; but why should a gentleman do such things ?" "Then you don't think a millionaire can be a gentleman?" inquired Aubrey. "Not easily," was the reply. "Only think of that horrid Mr. Moneysworth. Such persons are always as offensive as the gnome king in a panto- mime. I think Midas must have been an extremely vulgar and fussy fellow. How odious he made him- self to Apollo ; and that other rich example, Croesus, must have been a very offensive personage with his treasures and his wealth. ]\Ien with such enormous means are scarcely ever gentlemen, and you know BACK TO queen's-square. 303 what the Bible sajs of a rich man's chance of re- demption." " Then," interrupted Arthur, " you would only admit gentlemen into heaven ?" " Something like it, I confess," answered Blanche ; " gentlemen in spirit. They may be coal-heavers, for all I know or care, not ^ gentlemen' like George IV. ; but those of nature's t}^e. What does some old wiiter beautifully say about the Saviour Himself? ^ That He was the first and truest gentleman that ever lived,' or to that effect." " Well," resumed Aubrey, " I suppose I must pay a tribute to Fortune in something. Did you ever hear the story told by Herodotus, about Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos ? His good fortune was so ex- traordinary that he got frightened — I think he must have had some such a darling beauty of a wife as you — no, that he couldn't, but something approach- ing it, I mean — and eveiything succeeded with him, so he threw a most costly ring into the sea, and a fish swallowed it, and was caught and cooked for his dinner, and thus he got it back again, and then he despaired, for he knew the gods must be meditating some great coup against him, and at length his luck turned all at once, and he went to the ' demnition bow-wows,' as Mr. Mantalini says. At any rate, I hope I need not fear that. Look at that trial the other day, Aubrey versus Learyclod. There was an old vagabond who ruined his farm and shamefully despoiled the place. I had got a verdict for eight hundred pounds, when the defendant's counsel, my own friend Salfort — cleverly retained against me, although I instructed 304 so VEBY HUMAN. those precious country solicitors, Messrs. Adderfang- and Badderogue, especially to make sure of him — dis- covered a flaw in the pleadings drawn by Browning, the first pleader in England. Consequently, he moved for a new trial, and then I was advised by my soli- citors, that the fellow was not only dying, but on the verge of bankruptcy. Adderfang said, that under the circumstances, they would forego their own costs, and so I consented to stop proceedings. And what is the result? Learyclod has taken another and much larger farm, and looks as hearty as one of his own prize-bullocks, and Adderfang shot his own toe off when rabbit-shooting; and died of mortification, I suppose, because he couldn't bring an action for damages against himself ; and his partner now repu- diates his agreement, and I have to pay three hundred and fifty pounds odd, besides losing my damages. Now I must say that Phil Cousens would have man- aged matters better than that." "I don't know," said Blanche. "Look at the recovery of your father's debts. I mean all that Pettingall has left you to recover; and the horse case with that dreadful dealer, whom you put as you said on his mettle and conscience, to furnish you with a horse for me, telling him that you would give him his own price ; but that you wanted it in a hurry, and to have no trouble. You said he would not cheat you^ because you had dealt with him at Camford, and taken his son out hunting with you, his first season, when he was a little boy in a round jacket. I do believe that horse represented all the known maladies in farriery, and all the vices of the manege. It was BACK TO queen's-squaee. 305 like one of those demon ponies in Irish fairy-tales — a veritable Phooka. Master Cousens did not bring that to a rery happy conclusion ; any more than he paid you for smashing your mail-phaeton and laming poor Dinah, when you lent them to him so very much against your will and better judgment." " Why, you little rogue," said Aubrey, " you are impeaching my wisdom and superiority of judgment, by narrating all these disasters." Blanche sighed, in spite of herself. She feared sensibly that her husband's generous and confiding nature would some day or other se.'iously impair, if it did not ruin his fortune. She only felt for him, not herself, should such sad results accrue from his easy nature, and, it must be said, uncalculating and reckless improvidence. How little was he capable of enduring poverty and its concomitants ! '' Ah !" she uttered aloud, concealing these dismal forebodings, '4t matters little to me about these things. I care only on your account if they vex and annoy you, and darken your opinion of the world and its denizens. There is but one thing I value, one jewel that I shrine in my heart of hearts — your love. Were I deprived of that, I would not wish to live : nay, I would not survive it." " You do not mean to say you would kill yourself?" inquired Arthur, smiling. " There would be no need of that," replied Blanche. " Come ! come !" said her husband, " don't let us talk so dismally. I shall have you maintaining the theory that suicide is permissible next, under certain circumstances." VOL. I. X 306 so VEKY HUMAN. "And is it not?" inquired Blanche, "if one has nothing left in this world to live for ? — I dare say it is very wicked to say and feel so ; but according to my ideas, there are circumstances against which it is im- possible to struggle and to live." " My dear love," said Aubrey, gravely, " no pos- sible earthly contingency can justify any one in laying violent hands upon the life given by Providence. Tell me one if you can." " I could give you a dozen," answered Blanche. " The first, if you ceased to love me." " That is impossible," replied Arthur. " Continue with the remaining eleven." " Imagine," said Blanche, " a patriotic victim to despotic tyranny, such as exists now in Naples ; a man who had conspired against the government under cruelties and enormities, when, as Schiller says, an appeal alone remains to the justice of Heaven, and the sword becomes lawful — imagine such a man, devoted to his country, cast into a dungeon on sus- picion, and tortured to induce him to reveal the names of his friends and relatives implicated in the plot — if plot you can call that, which is the vindication of outraged manhood, and the sacred rights of citizen- ship and domestic life. Think, if after the first day's horrible sufferings on the rack inflicted by some fiendish tribunal of priestly assassins, he felt that his powers were failing, and that the secret which he prized far more than life would be v^Tenched from his agonising lips, and that on the morrow he might, as it were, involuntarily and unconsciously betray his beloved associates and dearest friends — his father, BACK TO queen' S-SQUAEE. 307 brothers, sons, and the wife of his bosom. Would not that man be justified in restoring his soul, un- spotted by the calamity of so hideous a revelation, to the Maker on whom he cried in vain to finish his sufferings, and spare him that dread ordeal again ? You are silent. Do you remember the story of the father and his son suspended by a single rope over the side of a precipice, when the former felt that the rope must break with their combined weight, and so, with a parting admonition to his child to hold on, threw up his arms, and fell, rather than risk a dearer life ? What ! silent again 1 Would not a prisoner in the hands of the Red Indians, who knew that torture was his certain doom, be justified in an- ticipating his death ? Was not the deed of Guyon, the physician of Marseilles, who dissected the body of a \4ctim of the plague, an act of suicide ? Was not " " Stop ! stop !" interrupted Arthur. " These are noble acts of heroism and self-sacrifice, with the exception of your third instance. If one were about to be tortured by Indians, there would still be hope of aid. You have read your ^ Last of the Mohicans' to very little purpose, I fear. Besides, there is Captain Mapie Reid, in whose delightful romances a rescue always intervenes at the critical moment. Come ! come ! you have delighted, but not convinced me, with your eloquence. Again, what comparison is there between the desperation of slighted love, and any one of your examples, I should like to know ?" " And do you think," returned Blanche, " that any torture which inhuman ingenuity could de^dse, could X 2 308 so VERY HUMAN. excel or equal the pangs I should endure were you to slight or deceive my love ?" " Upon my word," said her husband, " you frighten me. Suppose you were to take it in your head to be- come jealous on mistaken grounds ? You might rush headlong at a conclusion and take poison, you know, and find out your error too late." " I should at least die comparatively happy if I discovered myself mistaken," rejoined Blanche. " You really alarm me with these ideas of yours," said Aubrey ; but, in truth, he did not look half so much alarmed as flattered by these expressions of his wife's love. Alas ! what a dangerous thing it is to entertain or to inspire such love, i.e., if there is a chance of the beloved object proving unworthy, or of becoming un- worthy of it oneself. And who can say what changes may occur in human life, whose very essence is change ? Of one thing we are certain, which is this, that it is better for both man and woman to conceal rather than display the full extent of passionate attachment, the hidden fountain in the inner court of the temple of their love. And this especially holds good with the latter. The two greatest safeguards to a man's love — next to his children, if he have any— are vanity and the excitement of doubt. A man is vain of the possession of a beautiful woman, to whom others pay court. We are also apt to cherish most enduringly that, of the possession of which we do not feel quite assured, and which we feel that there is a possibility we may some day lose, if we cease to bestow on it the utmost care and attention. It is BACK TO queen's-square. 309 actually true that, in cases of early disappointed love, there have been instances of greater and more con- tinuous devotion to the shadow, than the substance ; to the joyless memory, than the fruition of love. There are exceptions, of course, to this worldly theory ; and as some, we fear, will term it, this libertine rule. But how rare is the union of two matched together in equal wealth of love, lasting and perennial; how seldom is it, either where fortunes are suitable or not, that a pair are joined together in that which is, then indeed, " holy" matrimony, whose hearts are set. Like watches timed for some long perilous trip ; Their voyage, life. When such matches are made on earth and in heaven, one might well let loose the reins of poetic imagina- tion, and believe that the angel celibataires applaud, if they do not envy, such mortal bliss. Our friends, Arthur and Blanche Aubrey, have made a fair start together. Let us wish them well ; for they seem to merit and to enjoy the fairest prospect of lasting happiness. Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey carried on their philoso- phical and domestic conversation for some time, as on a former occasion, which we have commemorated. It was nearly three o'clock when they retired to their sleeping apartment. The same moon shone through the window of their luxurious apartment, which irra- diated the sleeping face of Kate Darrell, streaming through the casement of her dreary little garret, and lighting with unearthly gleam the mobile workings of her expressive features, as she lay smiling or frowning through her phantasmagoria of changing 310 so VEEY HUMAN. and contradlctoiy dreams. Strange, that Aubrey should on that very occasion have narrated to Blanche his rencontres with that " lost and wretched being," as he termed her, as an example of the impossibility^ according to his theory, of arresting depravity in its downward career. Strange, that Blanche — gazing with her great liquid eyes at the moon, forming, at that moment, as it were, the apex of a triangle of mysterious s}Tnpathy between beings whose lives and histories were so dissimilar, that it seems an insult to connect them even in the melancholy com- parison of thought — should have shivered as she did, and turned cold. " I feel," she said to her husband, " at the mention of that frail wreck of humanity, a sort of mingled dread and horror mingled with compassion which I can scarcely express. Do not laugh at so odd a fancy ; but I seem to have a dim and indistinct sort of dream-like notion, as if I myself had once wandered in the wet and dreaiy streets without hope in heaven or home on earth." " Pooh ! pooh !" said Arthur, " you have sat up too late, and the fire is getting low. Let me mix you a glass of negus. You are trembling all over, I declare." "Did you ever hear that superstition," inquired Blanche, in a half-dreamy, absent manner, ''about some one walking over our gi-aves, when a sudden cold shiver, hke this, has seized us, we know not why?" " You little goose," was Aubrey's answer, as he tenderly folded her in his arms, and imprinted a kiss BACK TO QUEEN'S-SQUARE. 311 on her spotless brow, " one would think you had been gossiping with a monthly nurse," and he laughed, but not merrily, at the conceit. '^Here, dip your rosy beak in this, little love-bird !" and he playfully extended to her the not unwelcome glass of negus, in which he had been dissolving the sugar with a most determined air. " And now ^ To bed, to bed, cries sleepy head !' " Let us attend them to the door, and lock up this pair of puppets also in our chest, not to be draTVTi forth again for three years of human hap- piness and woe. 312 CHAPTEE XX. SWELLS ON THE PROWL. And silly, soulless, but patrician faces Of libertines. Ah ! maddened, curst career — Mistaking ever for the frolic Graces The tawdry Thyads round slain Reason's bier. The moon shone on, undimmed even by a passing cloud : she went through no ceremony, however brief, of taking the veil that night in the blue and frosty sky, while the stars glittered in their courses, bright witnesses in the memory of Time. On sin and sorrow, on joy and revelry, on the unconscious sleeper and the prowling thief, on deeds of murder and rapine, on the watcher in the fold, the student in his lonely room, on the agonising face of the swimmer sinking beneath the waves, on forests of chimneys, on masts and trees, on the countless ripple of the heaving deep, on the dead and dying in the battle-field, whose bristling limbs and contorted agonies looked like a rehearsal of the day of resur- rection, when fire and dust, and the pulverised worms of buried ages are to render up and disgorge their SWELLS ON THE PEOWL. 313 prey, and life is to take form again ; on breathing thouglit and on slumber, on rock and fountain, on mountain-top and gorge, on valley and spire, island and desert, graveyard and hamlet, on monumental effigies and painted semblances of mankind, that pale moon shone alike, sometimes adding horror, and some- times beauty to the scene. Look where she silvers the old lawyer's hoary head, and touches with tender grace the powdered features of the courtesan, till the pallor of dissipation melts into the expression of a saint. See how she floods yonder ruins with glory^ and fringes with soft radiance the outlines of that desolate wreck. She is not treacherous and deceitful — accuse her not; for the tides of human passion ebb and flow with wilder and more uncertain motion than the tides of ocean charging along the shifting sands, and rolling along the rocky channels of the impetuous firth. She illumines with mocking ray the desecrated memorial over the fallen soldier's grave ; but what sent him thither to die ? The cruel instincts and tyrannous ambition of his fellow-man I She gilds the dark cypress of yon cemetery chequered with white tombstones ; but she lends no coldness to the hearts which help to people it with the victims of desertion and neglect. She rather fills the soul of the stranger with tenderness and silent ruth, as he lingers to gaze around him in the mysterious beauty of her hallowing light. Behold, where from a choice reunion of jovial wits and litterateurs of the period rolls the portly form of the great Mr. Stingray towards his chambers in Waterloo-place ! He chuckles over the recoUec- 314 so VERY HUMAN. tion of the last spiteful thing he had said, to damp the ardour of a young artist painfully struggling with difficulties and ill-health. He nods familiarly to the chaste planet, as if she were a familiar ac- quaintance of his ; some duchess, or courtesan of distinction, guiding her equipage in the Hyde Park of the skies. " Ah ! old girl," he mutters, kissing the tips of his fingers, " you are shining in full force to-night." Had the moon looked seedy and out of luck, we yerily believe that Mr. Stingray would have cut her in his semi-drunken snobbishness, so com- plete a worshipper of prosperity and success was our estimable friend. " I wonder," quoth he to himself, " how the deuce that ass Aubrey contrives to spend so much coin. One thing is certain, it can't last. Confound the beast, I should like to see him come down in the world, with his select parties, and that precious sentimental piece of goods he has picked up and married. I must find out who she was. She had no money, that I know ; for Cousens, the flashy one of those two queer customers of solicitors of his, told me as much. Let's see, I've dined there three times this month. Every dinner must have cost him thirty pounds, if it cost a penny. And he thinks he does it very fine, a la Russe^ forsooth. He must load his confounded table with epergnes full of flowers and fruit, and sport a French chef, must he ? I could hardly see my vis-a-vis for the absurd display ; and the best thing I said all the evening was lost in consequence, after I had led up to it so beautifully. As for her, I should like to meet her begging in the SWELLS ON THE PROWL. 315 streets," This was said apropos of a poor creature asking him for a trifle. " If you are not off/' he said, fiercely, " I'll call a policeman. Go to ! I am glad they invited me for Thursday," he con- tinued ; " because the Duke of Chalkstoneville will be there. I like to talk to him. He's so deaf ; it's an excuse for speaking loud. Every one listens, and some tyro says, ^ That's the witty Stingi'ay, who writes those clever things in the " Scorpion." ' Ha ! ha ! I declare I never saw a brighter moon in Italy, Aubrey's wife looks like an Italian. Quite a classic face, as that odious Sir Bullfrog Leapfrog said. I wonder whether anything will com.e of Madeiraville's admiration ? I suppose he is not attracted much by the husband's society. Not exactly ! I should like to know who is. ^ Aubrey versus Madeiraville !' what a leading article I would write for the ' Ful- minator' ! Shouldn't like the fellow to pocket the damages though, unless he really is spoony on her, and then it would only help him on his road to ruin. Then there's that blackguard Luckless, he would do better; because he couldn't pay, and both sides would be sold." At that moment a jovial voice cry- ing, " Holloa, Stingray !" caused him to turn round and perceive the veiy man who furnished the im- mediate subject of his thoughts by his side. " Bless me, Sir Harry ! ' I am delighted to see you — the veiy last person in my thoughts, 'pon honour ! and Hedger Boshleigh, too, I declare ! My dear boys ! this is fortunate. What say you to a brandy-and- seltzer at the ^ken?'" 316 so VERY HUMAN. " All right, old boy !" was the response. " Here's Boshleigh was just saying he should like to look in somewhere." Mr. Boshleigh was an artist in water-colours, whose affectation was only equalled by the utter hollowness and selfishness of his character. Under the guise of extreme frankness, he did not trouble himself to conceal this. He declared himself to be what he really was ; perhaps in the hope that such astonishing candour would not be credited. He would help himself in the most jocose manner to the larger poilion of a delicacy, or drink two glasses to his neighbour's one, at dinner, and boast of it in the most open and cordial manner. If you asked him to dinner, and he did not come, he would own that he had met some one in the interim, who had tempted him with better fare. "Like you, very much!" he would say, with a coarse laugh ; " but couldn't resist turtle, you know» Don't get turtle every day — dine with you to-morrow, old fellow !" He would tell you how he cut an old friend, be- cause he was going do^vn in the world. " Can't afford to know a man who might want to borrow a ^ fiver' — shouldn't like to refuse a friend a ^ fiver,' and you see, I never have one to spare. Wish I had — wouldn't be such a fool as to lend 'em, though. What do you think happened to me last Christmas Day ?" he was once heard to say, " Dined with family, and all that — carved the turkey — lots of nephews and nieces — ^helped them all, and slipped a nice lot of tit-bits on one side of dish under the lee of turkey. Saw SWELLS ON THE PROWL. 317 youngest nephew eating as if he would choke him- self. The confounded young rascal timed it exactly to the moment when I had finished helping all round, and then shoved in his plate for more — was going to cut him a drumstick. ' Thank ye, uncle/ said the young viper ; ' I'll just take those brown bits on the other side !' Should lil^ to have carved him for a select party of New Zealanders. Never wished so much to be rich, that I might have cut him out of my will, and let his parents know it." Amongst other things, Boshleigh had been studying "art" at Florence, where he made Stingray's acquaintance. They knew, hated, and respected each other. Boshleigh spoke of Stingray in a gushing manner, and called him " that dear creature, all heart, sir !" " Qual cuore !" he would say ; for, amongst other things, Boshleigh would bore you with his execrable Italian, spoken in the loudest tone. Stingray was generally said to talk a great deal from his heart. But then, what a heart it was to talk from. Boshleigh was always speaking of " La bella Firenze," and " Koba di Roma," and '^ Albano," and " Trasteverini," and "^una bellissima ragazza," or " una donna graziosa, bell' assai !" he would drawl out. And this sort of thing imposed upon some persons, as every piece of pachydermatous impertinence of self-assertion does, more or less. Stingray knew and appreciated his man, but never said anything spiteful of Boshleigh, whose good word, perhaps, he valued ; for the fellow had a dry, caustic touch of ironical humour about him, that sometimes told, especially when he was backbiting any one to whom he owed an obligation, and these were not few. 318 so VEKY HUMAN. "I never did him any kindness," said an eminent judge once in our hearing, of some one who had said an ill-natured thing of him; ^^why should he hate me ?" The trio went on conversing towards the Hay- market. On the way Stingray tried to draw out Sh' Harry Luckless about Mrs. Aubrey ; but to the surprise of that sapient man of the world, with very little success, or, rather, with marked failure. In fact. Luckless talked much more like a gentleman than is common among the well-dressed libertines of the present cynical and unchivalrous period. " I'll tell you what it is. Stingray," said the fast young baronet, who was by no means usually fasti- dious in his conversation, " she's an angel, by , and I don't care to hear you talk of her in that sort of way ; and what's more, I won't stand it from any man, and now you know." So saying, he withdrew his arm from that of the wit, who had some difficulty in pacifying him. " Why, Luckless, what on earth has come over you?^' inquired Stingray, somewhat disconcerted. " You're not the sort of fellow to take these things in earnest. I only said " " I don't care what you said," retorted Sir Harry ; " I don't care to hear even her name mentioned in this atmosphere. She's too good for any of us to know or talk about." "E superb' assai !" drawled out Boshleigh, "non ho mai veduto una — una " Here he stuck, his Italian vocabulary being at fault. *' Come, come," quoth Stingray ; " since it is such SWELLS ON THE PEOWL. 319 an earnest case with Luckless, we had better take care, and so had Aubrey " " Ha ! ha !" interrupted the incorrigible Bosh- leigh ; " il marito, hay ? yaas, he had better look out, and study the horn-book of matrimony. Luck- less is a dangerous admirer. But you've no chance against Chalkstoneville. A duke, you know, caro mio ! even with the gout, and deaf as a post — he don't find others deaf — it is long odds, even against Sir Harry Luckless. Fancy the old sinner making love, saying something very insinuating, and putting up his ear-trumpet for the blushing response. How I should like to ch*op the tea-caddy on his toes, or a marble paper-weight, or any other little trifle of the kind." " His gi'ace," said Stingray, " always reminds me of the beadle of Burlington Arcade, especially on a drawing-room day, except at one particular time." "\Yhen may that be?" asked Bosleigh. " When I pass by the Arcade," returned Stingray, " and then the beadle reminds me of him." " Arcades ambo," said Boshleigh ; " but the beadle has the advantage in one thing. He is not deaf like the other shepherd." " No," replied Stingray, " or else he would lose his situation, whereas the duke would continue to hold his, were he blind and dumb into the bargain. The beadle, too, holds himself more erect; and is altogether a superior specimen of humanity, and his moral character is unimpeachable, or how could he be respected as a beadle ? Besides which, he is the 320 so VERY HUMAN. son of his parents, or at least reputed so to be. But the duke is the duke with fifty thousand pounds a-yepTj after all, and therefore is fifty thousand times a better man, without counting the title." The speaker would have fawned, lied, wriggled like a worm or an adder, and sacrificed his greatest benefactor without remorse, to have gained the entree of Chalkstoneville House, and to have been invited to join the duke's country circle ; but, never- theless, he was truly animated by the contempt wdiich he expressed. Sir Harry, when the talk about the duke had dropped, took the opportunity of informing both of his companions that the conversation was very displeasing to him, involving, as it did, the name of a lady for whom he cherished the most profound admiration. " I'm with you for the ^ ken,' " he said, " or any- where else you like ; but if I hear the name of ^Irs. Aubrey even alluded to again, I shall go that instant. Nay more, I shall consider it a personal offence. It is very seldom that I am in earnest about anything ; but I am this time, and I must say I think it will be deuced uncivil of you to annoy me, when you see I don't like it. There are plenty of women to talk about I am sure, without dragging in her name." By this time they had arrived at the door of the " ken," where Sir Harry knocked with his stick ; and the porter, after honouring the trio with a stare, the result of which seemed to be satisfactory to his mind, said, ^' I hope I see you well, gents," and opened the door with a degree of promptitude and decision, SWELLS OX THE PEOWL. 321 not to say violence, which was highly complimentary to the party. ^' Full to-night ?" inquired Stingray. " Stunning !" was the emphatic answer, with which agreeable announcement we will, if our readers allow us, leave these three ornaments of polite and moral life to enjoy, as they may, the intellectual pleasures of the "ken." VOL. I. 322 CHAPTER XXI. THE GREAT BINSBY. So great, so soft, so corpulent, so good, A very prince of butlers, Spoongrand stood ; Most butler-like of princes had he been, Should yve in truth a nobler man have seen ; Though on our knees we had adored his "place," Ilis "stars," his " garter," and his full fat face? No ! had our Spoongrand grandest spoon been born, Arch table-spoon of gold, not servile horn, He still had been himself — the good and great — His own bland wisdom murmurs — " Sich is fate !" Mr. Bixsby, p. G. M. of the United Butlers' Brancli of the Grand MetropoHtan Aid Society for the benefit of the retired veterans of the three " Ser^dces," whose seal of office bore a Tir-bouchon ^' argent," and three folded Doyleys '' or" upon a sable Hammercloth, with the motto, "Pro bono publico servimus," which some low and evil-minded persons declared meant that the chief aim and am- bition of the members of the confraternity was to obtain some time or other the goodwill of a public- house — Mr. Binsby, the great, bland, and dignified ruler of the house of Aubrey, which he honoured by his (ad) ministration, sat in state in his well-worn THE GEEAT BINSBY. 323 . arm-chaii', at the head of the supper-table of the male and female functionaries of the various depart- ments of domestic, economy in that establishment. It was the same night on which we have introduced our readers to the parloui* of the worthy Mr. Pettin- gall in Thames-street, the villa of the benevolent Grinderby in the Grove of the Evangelist, the Circean orgies of the Escurial, the dingy attic of Kate Darrell in Achilles' -buildings, the drawing-room tete-a-tete of Arthur Aubrey and his enchanting wife, and lastly the Corinthian promenade of Mr. Stingray and liis friends in the vicinity of the Haymarket. Mr. Binsby may be described as of genus homo, species cork-drawer, ordo magnificent. He was a wonderful specimen of his class. His statui'e was lofty, his chin double, his whiskers cotelettes de mouton in style and cut, his chest expansive, a la pouter pigeon, his flesh soft, his voice sonorous, and his manner calm and impressive. His appearance, en taking the air when the hall-door was open, was so extremely awe-inspiring, that his very look has been known to scare away mischievous urchins, and to cause a showman who had commenced the usual preliminaries of that popular entertainment " Punch," suddenly to shoulder his peripatetic theatre, and like Longfellow's Arabs, with their folded tents, to As silently steal away. He once fricrhtened a sensitive little washerwoman's girl, who mistook the house, and whose evil fate prompted her to ring the visitors' bell, to such an extent, that she went home and was subject to epileptic y2 324 so VEEY HUMAN. fits, until she attained the age of sixteen. Not that there was anything savage or ogre-like about Mr. Binsby — far from it ; but there was something awful in the concentration of so much conscious importance in so fine a man. Imagine a whole civic Corporation looking out of one pair of eyes from an aristocratic doorstep, and you have some notion of the mesmeric influence exercised by such a personage over the poor and timid. But Mr. Binsby would have been imposing in any sphere of life ! What a pity, for the honour of England, that he was not Lord Mayor of London, in some year of particular fraternisation with our Gallic neighbours. What an effect he would have created in Belgium ! As it is, we are constrained to send over some little civic Mouldy, Wart, or Feeble, some absolutely thin and absurdly insignificant being, as the representative of that Gogmagogic Majesty, which is supposed to lock the gates of Temple Bar, and which once struck Wat Tyler to the ground. This had led to awkward and perplexing mistakes. On one occasion the quaint, old, gilded Mansion House post-boy, or Guildhall jockey, was seized, nolens voletis, just as he was about to seek refreshment amongst his compeers, and borne in triumph by a gesticulating crowd of Mossoos to the chair of honour at the royal fete. Could this have happened, Binsbio duce — had Binsby been mayor? Never! we say emphatically. It could not have been ! True, there are beings in England, so roughly nurtured, and so coarsely constituted, that they re- verence nothing truly great, and worship no divinity at all. There are boys who have no respect for THE GREAT BIXSBY. 325 beadles ; there are youths who chaff the Life Guards in their own sentry-boxes; there are persons who laugh aloud at the apron of a bishop, and would pick the pocket of a Commissioner of Lieutenancy for the City of London in full uniform, or of a peer in his robes, if they could only get at it. And to crown all, there are godless and profane wretches who would remain unawed even by the Binsbian aspect in its severest phase. There was a Hansom cabman, who on departing from the door, after depositing a guest, facetiously asked that great man, if he didn't feel weak about the knees with supporting so much dignity. There was a newspaper boy, who having been reading in the '^ Family Herald" an account of the habits of the cetaceous tribe, stood grinning at a safe distance, and propounded the inquiry to Binsby himself, whether he often came up to the surface to blow off his steam ! There was a young vagabond, who belonged to a neighbouring dispensary, who asked him in allusion to his complexion, and a certain puffiness of flesh which certainly did characterise him (as it latterly did the great Napoleon), if he wasn't weaned upon muffins ; and finished by a posi- tive assertion that he was the original fat boy in " Pickwick," grown to manhood since that inimitable publication first came out. On these — as we are glad to record they were — rare and exceptional occasions, Binsby would slam the door with a solemn severity which never degenerated into yiolence, and simply withdraw himself from the vulgar gaze. It was like the august retirement of the hippopotamus in the Zoological Gardens to his 326 so TET.Y HrMAN. inner apartment, when a bushel of shelled marrowfats wouldn't tempt him forth to take a plunge for the gratification of the plebeian throng. Plebeian, did we say? The Duke of Cambridge, Commander-in- Chief of the British Army, might pine for that sullen and ponderous presence, in vain. On the occasion to which we have just ventured an allusion, Binsby felt that had he been a mere Piccadilly beadle, he might have sought vengeance; but that as a Belgravian butler, he could only pity and despise such ignorance. Mr. Binsby, as a rule, never hun-ied himself. Scurry- in"" and bustlinf]^ were the chief of all thinc^s in the world which he disliked. Only once was he kno\vn to manifest some symptoms of haste, and that was to escape from a house where the people had evinced decidedly low habits ; in fact, where the mistress had actually upon one occasion entered the kitchen un- announced, and the master forgot himself so far as to keep duplicate keys of the cellar. ^^ I felt myself quite out of my spear," he remarked — a favourite mode of expression of his — " and I acted according to the emergency of the situation." 2\Ir. Binsby's favourite study was heraldiy. Not that he read much, con- sidering as he did such an occupation, with the ex- ception of glancing over the " Morning Post" everv^ morninrr rather derogatory to his dicrnitv than other- wise. He had no respect for literature, as a pro- fession. "It isn't that authors don't make much money," he said; "officers in the anny is seldom rich, unless they turn their uniform to a good account in the way of marriage, which I have known some in another branch of the Service do, especially when THE GREAT BINSBY. 327 their understandings was good" (and here the great man -would scan his own legs with complacency) ; ^^ but the truth is, that literaiy liabits is so doosidly low. I loiew an unfortunate party as once moved in a very high spear, in fact he was attached to royalty, until he took to dissipation and lost himself, pore fellow ! He came at last to our society for aid, after a parrylitic attack, and he told me confidentially, that he had on one occasion actually come down so low as to do duty at an authors' club. Reduced as his circumstances were, even he couldn't stand that lonar. ♦They smoked clay pipes all day long, which is no- thing," added Mr. Binsby, reflectively, ''when the tobakker's tolerable and -at prepper times. I some- times do such a thing myself. Even the clerg}' don't always object to their churchwardens" (and at this feeble joke he indulged in a genteel laugh). " But these literary fellers were by no means pertickler as to what they smoked, according to my friend ; and was fond of rattling coppers in their pockets, and there was not one of them that put on a clean shirt a day, and didn't ink the table-cloth, which no gentle- man could endure. They were mostly all of them Eadicals, too, he said, and their conversation was blaspheymious in the heggstream. Now, if I have a weakness" (and here Mr. Binsby would smile, as if the notion of Jiis hnying a weakness were something which the world would hardly admit, even at his own suggestion) " it is for clean linen, and if Tve a re- spect, it's for the distinctiuns of Society." These were doubtless some of the reasons for which he did not immerse himself deeply and devotedly in the study 328 so VERY HUMAN. and science of the " belles lettres." Possibly, too, in early life^ his continual attendance on the bell had interfered with his application to letters. His know- ledge of heraldry was therefore somewhat confined and pecuhar. Still he had an extensive knowledge of the crests and devices of various families. Panels of carriages, and the hatchments of deceased noble- men, furnished him with constant objects of contem- plation and means of enjoyable acquirement. And considering that the family of Binsby was not ancient in a genealogical point of view, whatever might be said to the contrary, and although it was true in the vulgar and facetious view of a Tennyson, that he might be descended from the " grand old gardener," like the rest of mankind ; yet, as he actually was the eldest son of a market-gardener at Peckham, i.e., if his mother did not also deal in "slips," he could scarcely lay claim to an illustrious genealogical tree, or date back his own origin further at least than the first syllable of the Plantagenets. Probably, had Mr. Binsby's feelings been consulted in relation to science, he would have declared in favour of the congenital theory of species, which is so destructive of the poetical climax of the bard, to which we have referred above. No doubt maternal Binsbian ancestors existed at a very early period, which we are inclined to believe, from a very antique coprolite jaw-bone of an old woman having been found on the family estate of an Irish branch of the '* butlers," supposed to have been of cannibal propen- sities, whose head had evidently been snapped off, and swallowed by one of the antediluvian monsters T\dth THE GREAT BINSBY. 329 which we are so familiar in the pleasure-grounds of the Crystal Palace, as there was no other portion of the skeleton found near. The deinotherium had evi- dently made no bones of dining on that progenitress of the Binsby race. Was there not also a portion of the skull of a female found in a Roman kitchen- midden in London Wall, which was palpably that of a cook of the period, whenever that might be, from the culinary fragments which surrounded it, together with an immense quantity of the reliquiae of the exact varieties of shell-fish to which all the members of the Binsby family are so partial at the present day? Much, it is true, might be advanced by the exponents of an antagonistic theory. But as anthropology is more capable of elucidation, or an opposite process^ by separate and successive controversial essays, than by debate or discussion, admitting of answer or refutation on the spot, we invite Professors Huxley and Busk to answer us through the medium, if they please, either of a volume published at their own ex- pense, or of the " Anthropological Peview." Only we do not pledge ourselves to read their speculations, as we consider that the jaw-bones of old women might be allowed to remain silent, when they have got below, say, a tertiary crust of that crustiest of old ladies, mother Earth. To recur to our modern Binsby, his parents' real name, it should be mentioned in the course of truth and antiquarian research, was Bugsby, but in whatever respect that might have been held in a mariner's or bargeman's eyes, he felt with reason that such a patronymic was hardly admissible in the " Service" to which he had the honour to belong. 330 so VERY HUMAN. There was great merit, therefore, because great unselfishness in Binsby's administration and study of heraldic lore. It was curious how he quartered him- self, as it were, on the shields of the great families with whom he happened to be successively identified in pursuing the 'duties of his profession. On these occasions, when speaking of their heraldic preten- sions, he would say : " We bear a cock rampant on a chevron gules," or "Our motter is 'Nomen et numen,' though what new men has to do with it I must con- fess I don't exactly see." Or " Our fammerly came in with the Conqueror." Or '^ This house is of Scotch extraction. We are lineally descended from the Haggis of Haggis, twice hintermarried with the well- known baiTownites of Brose." There was something sublime in this elevation to heraldic blazonry and genealogical lore on the part of Binsby, when we consider that lie was liable at any time to be com- pelled to provide himself with a new coat-of-arms at a month's warning. It was touching, when one considered it in all its full-flavoured simplicity and earnest single-mindedness of credulous infatuation. Was it altogether an infatuation ? We will not speak of the peculiar genealogical influence occasionally exercised by servitors of the Binsbian mould and stamp in ancient families, in preserving them from ex- tinction, or, what is worse, utter degeneration of body and mind. The stalwart heir of more than one noble house has resembled a stout footman, rather than his noble but effeminate papa. The contemplation and company of robust personages has a physiological as well as moral bearing, highly suggestive it may THE GEEAT BINSEY. 331 he, but no less practical in its consequences and effect. But this is a matter for metaphysical speculation, rather than tlie pages of a work like this. To pursue, however, another train of thought, must we not admit that the whole science and detail of heraldry depends very much upon faith — upon the belief that you had a gi'eat-grandfather, that your great-great-grand- mother was chaste, or that she wasn't somebody else ? AYould there ever have been a pedigree sought out and published of the Empress of the French, which pedigree includes in her ancestry Bruce and Wallace, if we mistake not, and nearly every Scottish notability, save Macbeth and the Laird of Cockpen — would, we say, this pedigree ever have existed — if the ancestors did — had not Xapoleon III. fallen in love with a certain charming young lady of mingled Spanish and Scottish descent ? Of course we do not include the utter and acknowledged fictitious absur- dity, so much fostered by the modern system of crested envelopes and stamps, and emblazoned note- paper. The way in which some persons who cannot even boast of a father, but are ashamed to own the honest man, i.e., if he were lionest, which they are not, go into this sort of thing, only stationers and engravers, and that erudite body, the Herald's College, can tell. These are tlie folks who connect their own two names, or two last names, if they have more, or their own and wife's surname, ^vith a hyphen, as Smyth-Wilkins, or Clark-Rogers. If you look for Wilkins in the " Court Guide" — he was only promoted to the Commercial Directory a few years ago — you either don't find him, or it says, " See Smyth-Wil- 332 so VERY HUMAK. kins." His daughter Sarah, formerly '' our Sally," drops her final h, and comes out as Sara. " Chi Sarahy Sara !" This is only fair, as her father always supplies an unnecessary h at the beginnino; of a great many words. It is a habit he acquired at Court — a court in Whitechapel ; and no court in Europe can guide him out of it. He may be more fortunate in the next world, for he does already drop it both in heaven and elsewhere. To revert to the real humbug, the true genuine absurdity. Was not Binsby — if we could imagine him in cuerpo, with his mutton-chop whiskers de- veloped into the full bushy luxuriance of a beard — as proper a man as was ever depicted in the form of a supporter of the most gorgeous emblazonment ? Was there not lately a picture in the South Kensington Portrait Galleiy, representing a worthy of the Eliza- bethan era, the exact similitude of the Binsby, at present connected with the Aubrey family ? There was, to the very trick of the judicial beetling eye- brows, and the exact over-lapping droop of his majestic jowl. We ourselves believe that the world has never been without a Binsby, since the time of ancient Babylon the Great, and probably for ages before that comparatively recent period in the history of mankind. We can imagine a Binsby, chief-butler to Pharaoh, telling his dream to Joseph, the boy in buttons of that Semitic establishment, surrounded by the culinary hieroglyphics of an Egyptian servants' hall. The only inconsistency of our friend lay in the transfer of the Binsbian interest from one family to another, together with his mercenary allegiance. THE GBEAT BINSBY. 333 But in this he only followed the example of the great families from whom he, or any one else, might hap- pen to claim descent. After all, it was but a sort of new quartering on his shield ; his pantry displayed a collection of all the coats-of-arms he had ever borne, or helped to bear, in the \dcissitudes of the noble families he had known. Such a man, sober, unmarried, Protestant, and chaste — severe, yet bland ; proud, but courted ; stately, and affable ; weighing sixteen stone seven, yet treading softly in his well-polished pumps — was the august autocrat, reminding one of Vespasian rather than Nero, of Trajan rather than Caligula, of Alexander Comnenus rather than Commodus, who ruled over the destinies of the Lower Empire of No. — , Queen's-square, at the exact period of which we speak. This great man, then, was sitting in his arm-chair awaiting supper on the evening which we have sought to immortahse, when the following conversation took place. But as Binsby deserves a whole chapter, ay, though it were of the most high and puissant Order of the Garter, to himself, we will leave him thus photographed in the memory of our readers, a "" thing of beauty," and " a joy for ever," and proceed in our next chapter to display him mingled and confused with the lesser personages who derived second-hand lustre and dignity from his magnificent presence. 334 CHAPTER XXII. THE SECOND SALLE-A-MAXGER OF THE FAMILLB AUBREY. When I thinks of the traps as I've driven, the bar-parlours as I've set in, the wager-dinners as I've eat, and the glasses round as I've had a share in, I says — "What is life?" — After- midnight Soliloquy of a Commercial Traveller. " I WONDER," quotli Mrs. Susan, Blanche Aubrey's maid, to Mr. Tops, Arthur Aubrey's groom, as they sat conversing in 'the servants' hall, on the memorable night when the events took place which Ave have narrated in the preceding chapters — " I wonder that missus and master don't leave this racketing London to the fine folks that is fit to live in it, and take some delightful place in the country. I am sure if I was them, I wouldn't stay in town a day longer, and missus is so fond of flowers." "Did you hever 'appen to know a swell as did hexackly what he liked, or what he was cut out special for by Natur, Susan ?" observed !Mi'. Tops. After saying this much he paused for a reply ; and then quaffed a draught of his supper beer in a manner that would have created envy in a blase aristocrat hesitating between champagne-cup, or any other ex- THE SECOND SALLE-A-MANGEB. 335 pensive compound, languidly unable to excite his too' frequently indulged and consequently vitiated taste. Mr. Tops paused for a reply, but getting none, continued his observations. " Cos if you did, I never did, and that's hall about it." " Really, Mr. Tops," said the lady's lady at last, " I can't say that such an idea did ever strike me. I should think that ^ swells,' as you call them, are just the people who did follow their own fancies." " It's the loikes of we," observed Jane, the house- maid, a fine buxom Staffordshire girl, with hair of the hue which has since become so fashionable, " as is obligated, in a manner of speaking, to do as w^e ouMitner to be obligated no how. Look how sar- vints is w^orrited. If I w^anted to go furren now, do you suppose I'd get a chance? In course I don't want to do no such a thing. It don't seem much like England, as it is, in a place where a French man- cook is kep." "Well, I must say," remarked Susan, "that Monseer Isidore keeps himself very much to himself, and I don't see that we have any call to complain of his company." Miss Jane tossed her head, and made a remark to the effect that, for her part, she thought the mounseer rather resembled a murderer at Madame Tussaud's Ex- hibition than a person who ought to cook victuals for an English family. The fact is, that poor M. Isidore had been rather captivated by the rustic fair one, who expressed her scorn of her admirer, like a true coquette of her class and condition. 336 so VERY HUMAN. The great Binsby had been revolving the propo- sition of Tops, and was so absorbed by it as to pay no attention to the remarks of the women. At length the oracle spoke; and the whole kitchen, animate and inanimate, from the dish-cover laid down by Betty, the scullery-maid, to the cat which ceased to pass her paw over her ears, and sat solemnly blinking round, from page to spectacled housekeeper, from the elegant Susan to the flippant Tops, seemed suddenly impressed with awe, and to come as it were to at- tention. " There's a deal in what Mr. Tops has observed," said the great man, at length. " I've been a many years in the ^ Service,' and I've seen, I may say, a sight of tip-top company in my time, and what's the conclusion I've arrived at?" (Pause.) "The conclu- sion is, that masters is masters of everything, except their own wishes, and their own affairs, generally, including in a meejority of cases their missuses ; and that servants is servants, and a.9 such is called upon to act according. Now I never did hardly know a gentleman as did act according. If he's rich, he w^ants to be richer; if he's in society he wants to better that society ; he's always trying to do some- thing beyond himself like, and a imitating his neigh- bours in a manner that is very unbecoming. If he don't think it, his wife says, * My dear, the Smythes gave clear turtle as well as thick, last week at that dinner of theirs, and we only had thick ; or they had four extra waiters, and we only had three,' and so she puts him on to outdo the Smythes. Of course, I'm talking of them as spend their fortunes, and not of THE SECOND salle-a-:maxgee. 337 tlie mean-sperritted creatures as spend no fortune at all, and saves all their money for somebody who Avishes 'em dead, and don't thank 'em even for dying, when they've got it. That's not according to any sort of living. They are to be pitied, they are. But as for saying that any gentlefolks live as they like, or where they like, or how they like, of course I know better." " O cri ! Muster Binsby," interrupted the boy in buttons, " wouldn't I like to be a gentleman, and wouldn't I jest 'ave a rare blow out whenever I felt peckish, and go reg'lar to the theayter." " Hold your tongue, you young himp of hevil," was the majestic man's reply. It must be reluctantly admitted that even Binsby himself, when exasperated, aspirated his h's, and was apt to forget his Lindley MuiTay. " A gentleman," resumed Mr. Binsby, " may say, ' next year I'll do so and so,' but does he do it ? Of course he don't, and if he tried ever so, his friends and relations wouldn't let him. Some has daughters to be married, and some has sons to start in life, and all is slaves to Society, and fashion, and circumstances, and what they call their circle of acquaintance and the world. I tell you their lives is all a imposition, from family prayers before break- fast, to counting the bottles of wine that's been drunk after the last guest has gone, and a blessing with him, which is sure to be some veiy shy gent who's been standing in doorways and corners all the evening, and has warmed up unpleasantly by drinking half tumblers of wine after supper." "Well, Mr. Binsby," cut in Tops, '^'m sure VOL. I. z 338 so YEKY huma:n-. you can't accuse our guY'nor of that kind of game. He don't count his bottles. He's the wrong sort to go for to do such a thing." "Nor I didn't want to, young man," replied the butler, whose words gurgled with solemnity and slowness, like the contents of a thick bottle of port. '' I was illustrating life in its various faces, and I was jest a going to observe, when you whipt up my plate> as I may say, before I'd done, which is not the prac- tice in the spear I'm accustomed to, that our young people behave themselves, according, as much as any that ever I served with, and I would give them an excellent character to any gentleman of my acquaint- ance. Not wishing to detract from their merits, I must say that Arthur Aubrey, Esquire, is not rich enough, in my opinion, to venture on mean and dis- honourable actions. It's only a nobleman or a banker who can afford to count the wax candle-ends after an out-and-out fashionable cram. I've known a bishop do it ; but then they can do anything short of cold meat on Sundays. But if you mean to say, any of you, that our young folks up-stairs follow their own inclinations, and do what they feel inclined to do, I dissent entirely from your preposition, and consider your views unphilosophic and shaller." "It's as true as gospel," eagerly remarked the housemaid Jane ; " I believe, if it wasn't for what other folks say, missus would be as nateral as one of we. As it is, she can't go outside the door without a lot of preparation and rubbish, and Mr. William here to follow after her, as stately as a funeral, or else the carridge. She isn't half so gay and light- THE SECOND SALLE-A-MANGEK. 339 some, I've heerd Susan here say, as she was before marriage ; for all she was a governess, and loves our young master." The butler fro\\Tied at this allusion. It was clear that he didn't like any allusion to a fact so detri- mental to the dignity of one of the " young people's" antecedents. "When I was used to take the cheer in the hall of the Reform Club," he said, " I'd a deal of time for reflec- tion on the life of the harristocrisy and upper classes. And the conclusion I arrived at is, that they've a deal more care and a good deal less pleasure, than some that occupies a different spear altogether. I allude particularly to gentlemen of my own perfession. We have, I may say, a wider choice of life and observa- tion. Of course, I speak of gents only that is settled and married. There isn't a worse set of slaves in Europe, or Ameriky, for that matter, than people moving in Society. From morning to night, and abed for all I know, they're always thinking what some one else will say about them. If a man daren't eat peas with a knife, or drink beer with his dinner, or enjoy an apple on his own doorstep, that is, if he is minded to, is that liberty ? If he's got a dozen horses in the stable, can he ride any one of them he likes ?" A shake of the head from Tops. " Isn't he obliged to be sweltering in London in the hottest month of the year, or to close his windows and his shutters if he don't leave town? Mustn't he dress for dinner, whether he likes it or not, and does he get the best of what's to eat and drink in his own house?" Approval all round. " And mustn't both he and his z2 340 so VERY HUMAN. wife receive visitors, and be civil to them, when they'd as leave take as much physic, or poison, for the matter of that ? What folks don't like — if they're ever so fashionable — they're always ruining them- selves to purchase, and what they'd like to have, they never can somehow by any means afford. All they can afford is show and pretence, and such like. But if they'd the heart to do good, and I believe a many has, only it's invisible, and "sve can't see it, are they ever in a position to do it ? They've got to give lots of money in charities, as isn't charity at all, to my mind; but if the wife says to the husband, ' My dear, there's our poor cousin Robert starving for want of bread,' what's the answer? ^ We must look at home, my dear. I can assure you, we're living above our means.' And so they all are ; except, as I said, the poor pitiful creatures that don't live at all. And that's the chief secret of the unhappiness which I feel myself called upon to testimonialise to as a veteran in the Service." Havingdeliveredhimself of this speech, Mr. Binsby looked around for approval, and applied himself as- siduously to the leg of a pheasant. " It's all very true, sir, doubtless, what you say," said the footman, a nice quiet young man, who had just joined, as Mr. Binsby would have called it, and who had a profound respect for his senior officer and commandant, " and I don't mean for a moment to contradict it ; but I should like to try a little of their unhappiness up-stairs, that's what I should. If I was a gentleman, missus is just the sort I should like to be unhappy with." THE SECOND SALLE-A-MANGEE. 341 «If you was one of them," replied Mr. Binsby, with patronising grandeur, "perhaps you'd do as they does. As it is, young man, you only expose your ignorance." Saying which he relapsed into the requisite amount of abstraction required by his agree- able occupation. " Well," said Tops, " I'm free to confess that it hoften licks me to know what the nobs is a drivin' at. As for master, he don't take 'arf so kind to the stables, since he's been mixed hup with all these swells. Now and agen he do come to smoke his weed of a morning, but what is it ? Yesterday he says, ' Tops,' says he, ' the dook says that the little bay 'oss ain't a good match for the t'other. I think I must get a customer for him. Tops.' ' Well,' says I, ' sir, there ain't no dook in Hingland as can find a better-matched pair than them two 'osses. Pr'aps he's arter him his- self.' And that's what, in my opinion, he was arter " And that's not all he's after in this establish- ment," observed Mr. Binsby. "He ought to be ashamed of himself, that's what he ought to be. ^ I should like to tell him a little of my opinion of him. I'll warrant he should hear it for all his deafness." " Then, there's Sir 'Arry Luckless, he didn't like the colour of om' pheayton," continued Tops, "and master's a goin' to have it new painted. I'd see him blowed first, that's what I would. It's hall for want o' summit to say, for I heerd him hadmii'ing of it to missus like winking. I'd paint him." "I am sure," said Susan, "that Sh: Harry is a very nice, civil-spoken gentleman. It was only last 342 so VERY HUMAN. Tuesday he gave me half a sovereign, and such a nice " Here she paused and looked down. " Nice lohat ?" cried Tops. " I thought you was a different sorted one." " Such a nice smile, to be sure," continued Susan ; " and I'll just trouble you, Mr. Tops, not to insult me with any of your imperence, if you please. What were you pleased to think he should give me ? I'd advise you to keep your insinuations to the stable^ and not to trouble me with them. I wish you good evening. I'm going up to missus. I don't allow no one to insult me, groom nor barrynet." And, so saying, she swept out of the room. " There now, you've been and done it," said the housemaid. '^ I've known a man's head punched for insulting a respectable young woman like that," quoth the new footman, between whom and the illiterate Tops a tacit rivalry had already commenced as to which should keep company w^ith pretty Mrs. Susan. " You'd better come and do it," said Tops ; rising and falling into an attitude that would have done credit to the late Sir Thomas de Sayers of that ilk. In justice to his rival, we must record that he by no means displayed the white feather. " Oh ! if that's your game, come outside," he said, *' and I'm your man." And now the Muses of History and of Song might have to record deeds of desperate valour inspired by Cupid and Bacchus. But a deity appeared " from the machine" worthy of the occasion, and interfered, in the majestic person of the portly Binsby. THE SECOND salle-a-:maxgee. 343 " Forbear, rash knights," he said, or rather didn't say ; but what he said was, " None of this 'ere here, if jou please. Mr. Tops, I thought you knew better. As for you, young man, I make every allowance; but just drop it, drop it, I say ! Don't be alarmed, ladies." We are bound to observe that this last remark was not uncalled for. The housemaid, in tears, had thrown herself unreservedly into the arms of Tops, and the sculler}'-maid was alternately blubber- ing and calling, " Perlice !" while the housekeeper, a staid and silent dame, showed unmistakable symp- toms of going into a fit. " Hold your tongue, you owdacious young varmint, or I'll kick you out of tliis establishment !" The boy in buttons, to whom this was addressed, had actually ventured to utter the astounding words of " Go it, Tops !" but shrunk away abashed from the imposing Binsbian rebuke. " Allow me to remind you, gentlemen," continued the mighty pacificator, with a wave of his hand wdiich approached sublimity, without wholly aban- doning the ridiculous, " that duels is hobsolete, and cannot by any manner of means be permitted in the Service. And in an establishment which I've the honour to preside over, it can't even be heard or thought on. Why, the only thing the people up-stairs show sense in is in their quarrels. In the present state of Society, there's such a sight of lying and backbiting they couldn't afford time for duelling, even if the newspapers would let 'em. Even the officers in the otlier Services — I mean the Army and ;Na^7 — have left it off. And what do they do ? They 344 so VERY HUMAN. apologise, or bring their actions, or refer it to a Court of Honour, which I'm willing to be on the present occasion. Mr. Tops, you'll apologise to the lady; Mr. , I forget your surname, young man, but it don't matter, you'll oblige me by offering your hand to Mr. Tops." " I've no objexion to do anythink to oblige you, Mr. Binsby," said the good-humoured Tops; "but you'll own when it come to talkin' of punching of 'eads, that it's about time to strip the clothing off, and as for Maamselle Susan, I'd as leave starve my 'osses as hoffend her, if I knowed it." "I am sure I'm quite agreeable," said his oppo- nent ; " if the right thing is done by the lady. Here's my hand, mate, and I'll stand glasses round with pleasure." " We don't stand glasses in this establishment, sir," observed Mr. Binsby; "but you can do what you like in regard to that preposition, wdien you're next out on duty with tlie family equipage, or at any house you think proper to patronise on the first con- venient occasion." In this manner was the Temple of Janus closed by the janitor of Aubrey's household, whose next proceeding was to produce a bottle of cordial brandy, and administer a restorative to the fluttered house- keeper; after which, with many pleasant little speeches, and on the part of the females little amiable pretences that they never did take anything so potent, the " petty ver" offered, in the language of the eupho- nious Mr. Binsby, was passed round. " Consider," said that dignitary, " what an ex- THE SECOND SALLE-A-MANGER. 345 ample we should set the up-stairs harristocrlsy, if we were to demean ourselves by low-lived fights and quarrels. The weapon of the nineteenth century is tongues ; and if a adversary gets the better of you at that, you've only got to say that you treat him with contempt, or that he is beneath your notice." " But suppose he should say the same ?" inquired Tops. "Then," returned Mr. Binsby, "you may eg^- spress your regret that you live in an age which prevents you from inflicting personal chastisement, or you publish the correspondence, when in all probability you're bound over. All you don't do is to fight ; for if both the principels was mad enough, the seconds wouldn't let 'em for their own sakes. Who'd run the chance of being hanged for another man's quarrel, and with all them penny papers calling him a murderer in their leading articles f "I am sure," said Jane, "from all I've heard, there's that old Stingray Avould have a fine time of if, if duelling wasn't put down." " And serve him right," cried Tops. " He's as vicious as the devil's favourite saddle-'oss, and as mischeevyous as a monkey. Now, from what I've heerd, not only master and missus say, but a sight of gents' grooms as knows him, he ain't fit to live within ten miles of any racing-stable in Hingland. He sets more folks by the ears than enough, and he ain't got a good word to say for nobody. And look at the tricks of all them cures of lawyers that get mixed hup with hevery one's bisness ! D'ye mean to tell me it wouldn't be better for So-ci-ety, or whatever 346 so VEBY HUMAN. yer call it, if a few of tiiem was shot now and then ? As for the law, if a cove prigs a hankercher off a hedge, or out of a pocket, he's precious soon pulled hup w ith a round turn ; hut there's no law for all them vagahones as goes about doing nothink but lying and doing mischief. I wish the good old times was back agen, and I don't care who knows it." "Eight you air, Mr. Tops," said lSh\ Binsby, " provided they was back again, you see ; but we must act all according, that's where it is. Act ac- cording, and you'll be righter than ever." "And this here Stingray, and the lawyers, is to go on lying and blackguarding every one according," responded Tops. " Is that right ? Becos if it is, I don't know nothink, and what's more I don't want to." " As for Mr. Stingray," replied the magniloquent butler, "it would afford me for one the sincerest gratification, if he was never to set foot in this house again. I know he's a low bleyguard, as you were pleased to intimate, though Society tolerates him and calls him a great wTiter. I am quite aw^are of what he has been pleased to write against the Service." Here !Mr. Binsby paused, as if the subject were too painful and disgusting. " But I can only say that I regard him, and all hke him, with the contempt he merits, and I never pour him out a glass of sham, but I wish it was poison. 1 couldn't afford to do it myself, as it would be anything but according ; but I did say to one of the hextra waiters at our last dinner, as had taken a drop reyther early, as those sort of persons are reyther apt to do, that if he spilt THE SECOND SALLE-A-ilAXGEK. 347 the gravy over him, I should consider it in the light of an accidental occurrence. And he did spill it," added Mr. Binsby, slowly and reflectively, " and per- haps overdid it a little — I might say a great deal, and not be far out neither. But I was as good as my word ; and that very individual waited yesterday at his Grace the Duke of Chalkstoneville's deyjeunay, and that individual is likewise engaged here for our dinner to-morrow. Mr. Stingray may look car^^ng- knives at him if he likes ; but he can't say but what it was an accident, after all." " I honly wish I'd got the job to drive him home of a dark night in our boldest dog-cart — the one as goes errands and sich-like," quoth Tops. '' I know where he'd find hisself, afore we'd got 'arf way to his lodging." " I should like to damp the old wretch's bed for him," was the housemaid's contribution. "Et moi aussi," quoth M. Isidore, "who had come in towards the close of the conversation with the whitest of w^hite caps on his head, and a silver bed-candlestick in his hand, upon which sparkled a brilliant of the first water. " I would like ver' veil to make him von leetle vol-au-vent to heemself, and I vould give to heem vot you call f eece, poisson — ha ! ha ! he should say yesterday, ' I do not carry myself too veil — I 'ave de evil at de stomach' — de peeg, de blagueur dat he are. I should say, * Ah ! Monsieur Steengrai, you not carry yourself veil to-morrow. Eh bien ! den you come no more to dine veet us, dere is all.' Ah ! ^leess Jenny, vat vicked eyes, you make me fear. Bon soir, mesdames ! Bon repos. Monsieur 848 so VERY HUMAN. Beensby ; to-morrow we shall be ver occupes — diner de seize couverts — sixteen is it not? This good Monsieur Aubrey he likes mosh to give de diners recherches. He sail vot you call dam de expense — is it not? Monsieur Steengrai, he vill come — oh, yes ! Adieu !" And the good-humoured Frenchman went chattering out of the room, singing a vaudeville air to himself up-stairs. " Good-night, mounseer !" was the ascending chorus; for it was impossible for the most bigoted household to dislike Frenchy, for all the fun they made of him behind his back. Besides, there is a great masonry in hatred of the same object ; and it was quite evident that Mr. Stingray was by no means popular among the Di Minores, in what Mr. Binsby was wont to call, with a degree of phonetic propriety which was not unappreciable, the second "sally- mangy" in the '' petty maisong" of our young people up-stairs. " She ain't one o' my sort, nor yet no beauty, and though I don't like a 'oss to be a white-stocking'd one, I likes it in a gal, and this 'ere one isn't over clean in the fetlocks one way or hanother," re- marked Mr. Tops to himself the first time he heard Mr. Binsby dignify the servants' hall by the above- mentioned name ; " but I don't think a gal ought to be called no sich a name, even if she do happen to be a Sarah, and nothink better nor a kitchen-maid, as cleans the pots and kettles. Somebody must do it, that's sartain; and agen, if she's second mangy Sally, who's the first, that's what T wants to know. If I thought hold Binsby meant But no ! I never THE SECOND SALLE-A-MANGER. 349 heard liim say a word agen her^ and he'd better not. It wouldn't be good for him, vile I'm in ' the Sarvice,' as the old himage calls it. Let's see, which on 'em is called Sairy hup-stairs ? I've got it. It's Mother Pushfort's red-nosed filly, as married that old bald general; she's a Sally, and an uncommon mangy lot they are and no mistake. Master's got into a bad stable haltogether. It don't take much of a prophet to reckon them up. And them Pushforts is about the worst of the whole biling. Why that hold woman would do any dirty action to get squeeged into one of the dook's parties, and see her name in the papers. And the darter, oh, scissors! how she do lay it on to Lady Madherewill. I'd turn 'em hup pretty quick, if I was master. Would I leave that hangelic creetur, as he's owner of, among sich a lot ? Not if I knowed it. I'd as leave turn the winner of this year's Hoaks into a knacker's yard, or a hospittle for cab-'osses, if so be as sich a hinstitooshun existed hanywheres in this here charrytible metrolopus." So saying, Mr. Tops executed half a score of winks directed at vacancy, apparently intended to convey the impression to inanimate nature that he was " all there ;" whistled a few bars of a popular melody ; felt in his pockets for a halfpenny, tossed it up, ap- parently speculating mentally on woman ; caught it ; cried " tails it is," and proceeded to look " arter the 'osses" with a serenity which many a Serene High- ness might well have envied. 350 CHAPTEE XXm. GONE TO THE AMERICAN BAR. TVhar do you hail from, stranger ? "Wbar ar you bound to ? What's your bis'niss? Let's liquor up. — States' Inquisition, passim. At that very time, but not exactly at the same hour, Mr. Manvers, after visiting various bars in New York of the most refined and elegant pretensions, as far as gas, liquor, language, and manners generally were concerned, and after partaking of a diversified series of "smiles," '^cocktails," "mint-juleps," "eye- openers," " corpse-revivers," and other drinks re- markable for the ingenuity both of their concoction and nomenclature, considered himself in a fit and proper condition to be initiated into the mysteries of the " United Association or Neck-or-nothing Blood- waders," whose threefold objects were to chaw up the rotten English aristocracy, to annex the British Isles, and to make Queen Victoria squirm. ^' Yes, sirree," said an enthusiastic young lady lecturer, who had just delivered an address at the Apollo Rooms in favour of the association, and who looked in her bloomer costume something like Robin GOXE TO THE AMERICAN BAR. 351 Hood as performed, say, at the Theatre Gravesend — ^*yes, sirree, and the b'hoys will do it, as sartain as Cain whipped Abel." " I calculate," remarked a tall Yankee, spitting with admirable dexterity between Manvers and the lady, "our General Winfield Scott would have made your Duke of Wellington smell sulphur in jest about the time he could draw one boot on. Co7zsiderin' he was some pumpkins in Europyan scrimmages, it's perhaps fortunate that he served his time out and got safely buried, before we had finally concluded to annex your country." The following is a portion of the speech delivered on the occasion by Hon. Cincinnatus Chopper Hogg, senator, from Applesarseville, Ohio : '• We see, gentlemen, a fellow-citizen hyar to- *' night, who has defied tyranny in its incestuous *' cradle, and taken a sight at monarchy in its spirit- *' squelching home. The bloodthirsty catamounts of " despotism are howling on his footsteps over the ** tremen jus whale - pond of the stormy Atlantic, *' but I tell them in the name of this enlightened as- *' semblao-e, in the name of Ada Camilla Ancrelina *' Lexington Pants, whose soul-dazzhng sentiments " have jest gone slick down into the deepest spring '^ in your hearts and struck ile, I reckon" — (immense applause) — " I tell these stumped-out skunks of ante- " diluvian despotism, that the sooner they slide and *' make tracks home, and tell Madame Victoria to ^' shut up that old curiosity-store and rag-shop of " hers, the British Constitooshun, the better it will *' be for their constitooshuns, unless they prefer 352 so VERY HUMAN. " being accommodated for glory in a coat of tar and " feathers. You see liyar, I say, in this stranger, " whom we welcome tew-night, a forest plant of " freedom which has busted out of that darned old " mouldy hothouse of the Britishers to spread his " eagle wings in a dazzling atmosphere of action. He " has come, as it were, like a critter out of an ex- " hausted receiver to breathe the free air, and to suck " the free drinks of an enlightened republic through " the straw of equality" (cheers) " tendered to him ^' by the Goddess of Liberty herself, attired in the " pantilettes of our beautiful female costume — a " straw, gentlemen, cut by the sickle of emancipated " labour from the illimitable expanse of those waving " corn-fields, where the setting sun gilds with gor- " geous splendour a wilderness of ungarnered grain,. " and laughs to scorn with the happy opossum in " the gum-tree and full-fed fetterless 'coon — as they " grin over the ten-foot loam of the inexhaustible sile " of our glorious river valleys — the petty rotation- ^* system and agricultural insolvency of that top- " booted, busted-up, old fossil blow-hard, John Bull." (Tumultuous expression of rapture.) ''I tell yew, ^' fellow-citizens and Blood-waders," continued the inspired orator, "that when the Pilgrim Fathers " quitted that darned little island thyar — that is, if " they ever did quit it ; for I du myself believe that " if this glorious country war ever discovered at all, it ^' was done by a natyve American — the only f ammily *' of trew grit they left behind them w^as that of the " illustrious stranger whom we welcome in this hall *' to-night. If, gentlemen, you doubted the fact, his GONE TO THE AMERICAN BAR. 353 *' name alone would prove it to you. I pronounce '^ that name aloud, and call on yew for a cheeyr to " shake the dust out of the trestles of the rotten " coffin-throne of monarchy to St. James's, London, " with a forty Niagara power of American acclama- " tion — three chee3rrs and a tiger for Washington Otis " Lafayette Shofel Winch. He can hit straight out " from the shoulder, and weighs over two hundred " and twenty pound." We need not add that the cheers were deafening and unanimous. It will be seen that Mr. Manvers had paid a handsome tribute to his adopted country in his change of name. We will not trouble our- selves to republish his speech in answer, which was hearty and so much to the purpose, that it formed two or three splendid headings for the next issue of the " New York Renegade," in the following style : IMMENSE SENSATION ! EDITOR COW-HIDED AGAIN ! ! SPEECH OF A DEMOCRATIC BRITISHER. THREATENED ANNEXATION OF THE BRITISH ISLES. THE BLOOD-WADERS CONCLUDE FOR INSTANT INVASION. BARNUM IN THE ASCENDANT. A ROYAL " HAPPY family" bespoken FOR HIS MUSEUM, &C. &C. An escaped criminal makes a first-rate indignation rebel and patriot in a foreign clime, and Manvers lost no opportunity of painting his country in the blackest colours. Unfortunately he was furnished too readily with texts, which only required to be handled with a VOL. I. 2 a 354 so VERY HUMAN. little dexterity to still further inflame the virulence of Transatlantic resentment against the Old Country. The Sutherland evictions, the wrongs of Ireland, and the starving poor of England, lost nothing in liis hands; and when he proceeded to declare that the rotten-hearted oligarchs of Great Britain hated and feared the free institutions of the States, and that the ladies of the Court were instructed not even to dance with a Yankee Attache at that old rabbit-hutch of a palace at St. James's, the speaker made a hit beyond his most sanguine expectations. He was the lion — we beg pardon, the " old boss," the live alligator, the real grit, the striped and spotted ring-tailed painter of the evening, and if the *' drunk" had lasted long enough, and no fresh excitement had occurred to wipe him out, his admirers would have been ready to run him for President, had there been no legal im- pediment to such a proceeding. Unfortunately for ^Ir. Man vers and his political prospects, his money was soon spent, and the sym- pathy of his admirers and adherents vanished Avith it. We must do them the justice to say that, had his pocket been much better stored than it was, they would nearly, if not quite as soon, have got tired of him, and pronounced the fatal verdict of his extinction, in the craving after some fresh excitement. The sentence of " Let him slide !" is nowhere so easily and certainly pronounced of a new favourite as in that wonderful country, where Society is represented by a series of dissolving views, and where whole strata of men and measures vanish, and give place to new, not less completely, but somewhat more rapidly than GONE TO THE AMEEICAN BAE. 355 the geological periods of the earth's formation. Wash- ington Otis Lafayette was soon prononnced a fossil, and shelved accordingly.* On the occasion of his last stump speech against England, his happiest efforts fell utterly dead on the ears of the assembly; and •when he showed symptoms of disgust and indignation, he narrowly escaped gouging and even lynching, and was forced to make an ignominious exit. In vain did he make — it must be owned in an intellectual point of view — a most successful effort to adopt the style and sentiment of the great Cincinnatus Chopper Hogg, and tell his hearers that he could run a better and bigger island than Britain from a spoonful of melted metal into a wash-hand basin of dirty water. In vain did he facetiously remark that the country was so small, that a man could not safely get out of bed in the morning without danger of stepping over the side of the island. In vain did he denounce Queen, Commons, and institutions. The temper of the mob was different ; and he was denounced for his pains in libelling our beloved and respected Sovereign as a mean-spirited skunk and scoundrel. True it is that he had attempted an *' operation " in American notions, especially in revolvers and torpedoes, for the purposes of invasion ; and another in Catawba wine and peach- brandy, with the avowed determination of forcing on the haughty islander the products of the Western hemisphere, so soon as a Republican Proclamation should be dated from St. James's. True it is, that he had contracted for ten thousand hickory handles to furnish bill-hooks for cutting down the hedges of Kent and Surrey, and dislodging the defenders of those 2 a'2 356 so VERT HUMAN. petty counties ; but the game was soon up, and his hotel bill had become unpleasantly proportionate to the colossal characteristics of the favoured abiding- place of the bird of freedom. So Man vers " sloped," and tried billiards down South ; but it didn't answer. He migrated to California; but was unsuccessful at the diggings. He then returned northward, and actually for some time existed as touter in an esta- blishment for the plunder of poor emigi'ants on their landing. At last, however, he joined a spirit-rapping confraternity in the capacity of bully, and picked up a tolerable livelihood. Here let us leave him at present, having already somewhat anticipated the present date of our nar- rative. Throughout all his vicissitudes there was somethincr which he cluno; to and cherished — some- thing in the shape of a soiled deed or lease, which he would occasionally unfold from its resting-place near his gorilla-like bosom, and look at with mingled passion and exultation. Then, after a coarse onion- flavoured supper, he would breathe curses in the sup- posed direction of England, and shake his clenched fist with malignant spite and triumph. For whatever it was, he seemed under the impression that it could only be made use of to his own benefit, were he to return to the Old Country, which did not exactly lie within the sphere of his calculations. As it was, it sufficed to feed revenge, and soothe his tortured spirit with the feeling that some one whom he hated suffered through his possession of that mysterious document. Clever as Manvers was in a certain line, he found Yankee smai'tness on its own ground more than a GONE TO THE AMERICAN BAR. 357 match for him ; and he longed to get back to England ta make use of his new observation and acquirements. Had the epoch of his expatriation been a few years later, he might have shone as a Fenian leader with brilliant succes?. But in that respect he lived before his time, like other heroes who have not made their mark in their generation. If, however, Fortune was so far cruel to John Swindles Manvers, alias Washington Otis Lafayette Shofel Winch, alias Dr. Mordred Orfila Grinder, she has not been niggardly in her after-supply of a sufficient crop of rascaldom to meet the exigencies of the demand and the occasion. 358 CHAPTER XXIV. A DIGEESSION AND A DEFENCE. The earliest story-telling vre are acquainted with is undoubtedly of Eastern origin. Of this, the Arabian Nights' Entertainments may be taken as the best known popular and meritorious example. These may be considered in one respect as essentially digressive ; since story is included within story, like the ivory balls in a Chinese puzzle. This example has been followed by some of the best modern writers ; not only so far as story-telling is concerned, but in actual digressions of the author. Whether this be regarded as an insidious attempt on a writer's part to introduce his own sentiments and opinions, tacked on to his legitimate narrative like a parcel of superabundant trimmings or embroider}', or as the mere exhibition of a rambling and loquacious pro- pensity, it is not our intention even to attempt to determine. But if a romance may aspire sometimes to accomplish a higher mission, than merely to impair the memory and weaken the understanding by peopling the brain with characters without reflection — mere clothed lay figures and painted puppets set in motion through an ingenious tourbillon of events — to end most commonly in the commonest catastrophe of marriage, then the author may justly be allowed occasionally to ride his own hobbies as best he may. And this even at the peril of bringing down upon his head the stern censure of the Genius of criticism, Avho either condemns his style, or has been hit in the eye by some chance date-stone flung at random from the speculative attic-window among the crowd of passers-by. — Arbellixus. Philosophic Inquiries^ vol. ii. chap. viii. pp. 93-4. Our fantoccini are put to bed for a time, and con- sequently we, in the capacity of showman, having our hands temporarily disengaged, feel inclined to embrace the opportunity, and make a speech on A DI&KESSIOX. 359 behalf of our story and ourselves. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, be kind enough not to walk down and refresh yourself just at present, although the drop-scene has just fallen on Act I., and the entr acte has in reahty commenced. We shall not plead profit and expediency as our excuse for anything that we may have uttered, or made our characters utter, to offend the delicate susceptibilities of the "world." This we leave to the fast authors and authoresses of the period, who write up or down to the depravity and false taste which they recognise as their market, and increase the craving by pandering to its demands. We could, had we been so minded, have far more easily have shunted ourselves into the recognised grooves of fiction. Nay, as the critics cannot put us either into the confessional or the witness-box, we are not disposed to confess what we may have already done in this line. A "great thing" was open in dashing ritualistic romance, seasoned with bigamy, and husband-poisoning quan, suff. A slashing finan- cial bubble story of the day has, we admit, sug- gested itself to our humble capacities, illustrated by some well-known characters. But we felt that we should have been treading on too dangerous ground. We could not easily have steered clear of personality ; for in depicting this style of roguery, who could have escaped — we mean, of course, in the great com- mercial world? Of the resentment of the mere minority of detected rogues, we, of course,- should have not felt so much apprehension, at least for periods var^dng from five to fifteen years to come. 360 so VERT HUMAN. But of the vast and powerful body of the unconvicted rich and unscrupulous, united in the common in- stincts and interests of self-protection, we must own we stand in wholesome apprehension and fear. What deadly enmity might we not have incurred at the hands of the righteous who are not yet forsaken ! No, we are not distinguished for prudence ; but we cannot afford to excite the ancrer of the larger half of this prosperous commercial community. Look at all the clever schemers and swindlers who have sold out in time, or settled money on their wives, or whom the law can't catch, or refuses to tackle. The other day we inquired after the health of a financier of some celebrity, whose utter smash and exposure we looked for every morning in our daily paper. " Just done the neatest thing I've heard for many a day," was the answer from a friend of an appre- ciative turn and faculty. " Don't you remember hearing of his return for Sneaksborough ?" We answered that we did perfectly well, but that he would never take his seat ; as there was a valid and powerful petition for corruption and bribery cut and dried." "Ho! ho!" laughed our informant, ^^is there? That's all you know about it. The petition is quashed, that you may rest assured of ; and what is more Jobkins has pocketed a thousand pounds clear gain by his election, after paying all his expenses." We looked om' astonishment. " What do you mean ?" we said. ^' Most people pay something to get into Parlia- ment, don't they ?" asked our friend ; ^' more or less A DIGRESSION. 361 one way or the other, especially for such a cursed rotten place as Sneaksborough, where every vote is counted and valued. Let me see, it was done last time for just treble the money he made ; but it turned out a good mvestment for the scamp who got in then. Well, you see, our friend Jobkins cast a wolfs eye upon Sneaksborough, where there was a great depreciation in the staple trade of the town just then — and is now, for that matter — and he accord- ingly went in for a large foreign contract in coloured shirtings — twenty-eight thousand pounds was the figure. He managed to get rid of this for thirty-three thousand pounds, thereby clearing five thousand pounds. It cost him two thousand pounds to get in, and another neat two thousand pounds to bribe the petitioners to squash their vir- tuous endeavour. So that you see, as I said, he got his seat clear, and a thousand pounds in the bargain. Decidedly the cleverest thing of the day, and I've known a few smart ones, and no mis cake, old fellow." Now, the fact is, there is another great difiiculty in holding up the mirror to the financial world. When almost every one is, and must necessarily be, a rogue, in order to succeed in acquiring position and fortune, how is the novelist to distinguish and select his materials ? It is a perfect emharras de ricJiesses, or, more properly, des riches. One wants lights as well as shadows in painting every view of life. There are honest men still with money, made or inherited by their fathers, and there are many more honest without it. There are honourable professional men, even of eminence, 7'ari nantes in gurgite vasio. There 362 so VEET HUMAN. are poor rogues with feelings and a conscience. There are noblemen like Lord Egbert, and noble women hke Blanche. There are good-natured, well-meaning personages like Madeiraville. and worthy and zealous crotchet-mongers like Mr. De Lolme. There are mixed characters like Arthur Aubrey, whose follies and vices do not originate from the heart. Then there is a large and safe choice of model villains in every profession and walk of life, whence one may pick out examples without personality, or peril of incurring the pleasant penalties of libel, true or false. One does not impeach all the profession, in brand- ing the professional villanies of Grinderby and CouSens; nor render oneself liable for a breach of pri\dlege in sketching the portraiture of the Right Honourable Felix Sowerface, M.P. In painting a brace of lawyer's clerks, we have not injured a large and deserving body of our fellow-citizens ; and in our picture of the Escurial and its frequenters, although we are thereby conscious of running a tilt against a huge demoralising institution of the age, we are certain that no one can pretend to recognise the exact specimen or locality which has furnished our materials. As for the general and particular re- flections on men and manners, on fashions and frivolties, the freaks of our puppets, and the show- man's running commentary on them and their sur- roundings ; as to our political and social diatribes, and the evils that we see, or seem to see, spreading and festering like a gangrene around, we beg to apologise most particularly to every one who feels hurt by anything that we have said. It shows, at A DIGKESSION. 365 least, that there is some conscience and self-apprecia- tion extant. And depend upon it that those who affect to be offended on behalf of others are tarred by the same brush which we have flourished so sacrilegiously — at least, in their imagination. If that be sound, which our sense and feeling, rightly or wrongly, teach us to denounce as rotten ; if we are deluded in our conclusion that her commercial prosperity, and the former proud success of her arms, have led to the waste of England's elements of strength, the selfish neglect of her industrious poor, the insecurity of her shores, the diminution of her power and prestige, and the insincerity of her statesmen and public men, then we are also willing to apologise for a delusion, as impotent and harmless, as it is complete. If we have endeavoured to sift the country's social relations, and found that they are all based on hollowness and wrong ; that there is no sympathy between class and class ; and" that never in the history of the world was there an age of base metal, such as exists in Great Britain in the present era ; and if our facts and theories, our deductions and conclusions, are alike false and un- called for, then we must plead our want of penetra- tion and our ignorance of right living. If human flesh and blood are not held cheaper here than the hunter's game in a boundless wilderness teeming with life ; more worthless than the carcasses of wolf or rat,' while the luxury of the few boils do\^•n the essence of millions of their fellow-creatures' bones, with a cynicism more atrocious than that of the Eoman o-luttons who cast their slaves into their eel- 364 so VERY HUMAN. stews to fatten and flavour ;the slimy luxury to the correct patrician taste, then our fancy is mistaken ; unless, indeed, it should be conceded that such things do exist, and that it is essential they should be as they are. Possibly Moloch and the Minotaur of Crete do not demand their yearly tribute of maidens sacrificed in street and in mill to lust of man and greed of gold ! And the ladies of England, they combine their forces, do they not, in virgin cohort and matronly phalanx, to rescue and defend their doomed or erring sisters ? — '' sisters," did we say ? we ask pardon for the mistake. These ladies of wealth, and beauty, and rank, they do not rather excuse Moloch for his fantasy, and pat ]\Iinotaur on the back. " Naughty demon," and " funny monster," they do not say. Of course, the poor foreigner, or the denationalised Englishman wdio suggests such a libel, is worthy of the pillory, and of the stones which f ui'nished St. Stephen's cairn. Out, blasphemous rascal ! Hit him on the mouth, young hero of the Escurial and the Lady's Eide, " darling fellow" of your sister, and '' dear boy" of the night-house keeper, and your other '' friends." Hitherto, ingenuus jnier of the double face, and habitation, and language — no, not quite language ; since the drawing-room rather patronises the aro-ot of the casino and the slum — hither I and pronounce our condemnation in your '* awfullest" style. We are not " awfully jolly ;" do not, there- fore, commend us to your present Hetaira, or your destined bride. Here is a gentleman of fortune, who A DIGEESSIOX. 365 shall assist you in denouncing us. Non olet. His money does not smell. True, he is a felon ; but an un- convicted one — what is that to you or us ? He gives first-rate spreads, and has a vote in Parliament, interest without principle, dear hoy ! He might get you appointed to a commissionership to examine into the crowded state of the charnel-houses of the poor. Think of that, and honour his success ! He has built his domestic edifice of respectability on the ruin of a thousand shareholders, and got clear of the meshes of the financial snare in time. We are only supposed to be writing on a second floor for bread and fame. You had better take a lesson from his book than ours. Here is a clergyman. What was his text on Sunday ? '•Go, and sin no more." He preached from it an excellent sermon, written by a needy contributor to a sporting paper, who is secretaiy to a casino, and has a large family to bring up in sin, prosperously if he can. He paid for it, and preached it too. What more do you expect from him ? He left his sermon in the vestry-room ; its precepts and practice at the church door. He will condemn us to his lady ad- mirers in terms of the strongest reprobation. What is that book of poems, reverend sir, that you hold in your hand ? " Hermaphroditus, a Classical Drama," and " Lays of Sapphic Love." These are only semi- imaginative pruriencies, the lacquered filth of Greece and Rome, the '' nude and the antique," and the sen- sually " sublime." That which the age should reject and condemn is Truth, in modern garb of broad- cloth, in crinoline or in rags. This is what it likes 366 so VEKY HOI AX. not ; (lares not listen to. Conceal your moral ulcers, Eespectability ! Beggar! hide your sores in the street. And now, ere the curtain rises on other and dif- ferent scenes, we once more bid you, dear reader, pause, ere you question the reality and vraisemblance of our personages, or the conduct of our tale. Our moral you will not — cannot — condemn. You, sir, are a father and a husband ; you, madam, a sister, a mother, or a wife. Be you what you may, you are human in your sympathies. You love virtue — at least, in the abstract — do you not ? You would roll back the tide of reproach that threatens to over- whelm England ; if you could do it by a wish, by a thought, apart from your own passions and pre- judices, and the circumstances which benefit you, or hem you in ? And you, young lady or gentleman, if you are not too pure and innocent to enter a theatre, or read a newspaper, or walk by dayhght in our public streets, neither parent nor guardian, neither lover nor brother, need fear that you will suffer any dimi- nution of your innocence and purity by the perusal of these pages. Would that the pages of real life, the panorama of breathing forms and beings around you, were better and purer for your sakes ! END OF VOL. I. LONDOX : C. WHITING, EEAtTORT HOUSE, DUKE STEEET, LIKCOLX',