Lewis rather expected a lecture from Richard Frere on account of
his aquatic exploit; but he need not have made himself uneasy on the
subject, for the only remark his friend volunteered was: “Well, you
know, if the dog could not be saved without, of course you were obliged
to go in and fetch him. I should have done the same myself, though I
hate cold water as I hate the old gentleman, and never could swim in my
life.”
When they had concluded dinner, Frere inquired suddenly: “By the way, do
you mean to come with me to-night?”
“Before I can answer that question,” returned Lewis, “you must
condescend to inform me where you are going, and what you mean to do
when you get there.”
“To be sure; I thought I had told you; but the fact is, I have been
working rather hard lately (I read for three hours after you were gone
to bed last night), and my head is not over clear to-day. The case is
this, sir: Tom Bracy, who, as I before told you, is lamentably addicted
to practical jokes, happens to be acquainted with a certain elderly lady
who devotes her life to lion-hunting.”
“To _what?_” inquired Lewis.
“To catching celebrities, otherwise termed lions,” replied Frere,
“and parading them at her parties for the benefit of her friends and
acquaintance. On the last occasion of this kind she confided to Bracy
her longing desire to obtain an introduction to a certain Persian
prince, or thereabouts, who has lately come over to this country to
avoid the somewhat troublesome attentions of his family, his younger
brother being most anxious to put out his eyes, and his grandfather only
waiting a favourable opportunity for bow-stringing him.”
“‘A little more than kin, and less than kind,’” quoted Lewis.
“I knew you would say that,” returned Frere; “in fact, I should have
felt quite surprised if you had not. But to proceed with my account.
Bracy soon found out that his hostess had never seen the aforesaid
Asiatic magnate, and knew next to nothing about him; whereupon he
determined ‘to get a little fun,’ as he calls it, out of the affair, and
accordingly informed her, very gravely, that from his acquaintance with
the Persian language, he was in the habit of accompanying the prince to
evening parties in the character of interpreter, and that if she would
entrust him with an invitation, he should be happy to convey it to his
Highness, and try to induce him to accept it. She joyfully acceded to
the proposal, and this very evening the party is to take place. And now
can you guess the purport of Bracy’s visit to me?”
“He wants you to act as interpreter in his stead, I suppose; his
knowledge of Persian being probably confined to the word ‘bosh.’”
“Wrong!” rejoined Frere, laughing. “A higher destiny awaits me. I am for
the nonce to be elevated to the proud position of one of the Blood Royal
of Persia. In plain English, Bracy knows as much of the Prince as I do
of the Pope; the whole thing is a hoax from beginning to end, and he
wants me to personate his Highness, which I have promised to do, while
you are to represent an attendant satrap, a sort of Mussulman gold
stick-in-waiting, always supposing you have no objection so to employ
yourself.”
“To tell you the truth, I am scarcely in the vein for such fooling,”
returned Lewis moodily. “I hate practical jokes to begin with, nor can I
see much fun in taking advantage of the absurdities of some weak-minded
old lady. At the same time I am tolerably indifferent about the matter,
and if you have pledged yourself to go, relying upon my accompanying
you, I will put my own tastes out of the question, and do as you wish.”
“Equally sententious and amiable,” returned Frere; “but the truth is, I
have promised Bracy (partly fancying you would like the fun), and go I
must.”
“I’ll accompany you then,” rejoined Lewis. “I’d make a greater sacrifice
than that for you any day, old fellow. And now may I ask who is the lady
to be victimised?”
“An opulent widow, one Lady Lombard, ‘the interesting relict of a
be-knighted pawnbroker,’ as Bracy calls her,” replied Frere.
“_Who_ inquired Lewis, becoming suddenly interested.
“Why, how now?” returned Frere, astonished at his friend’s impetuosity.
Then repeating the name, he continued, “Do you know the lady?”
“Yes, I do,” rejoined Lewis; “know her for a coarse-minded, purse-proud,
wretched old woman!”
“Phew!” whistled Frere. “May I ask how the good lady has been so
fortunate as thus to have excited your bitter indignation against her?”
“Never mind,” returned Lewis, rising hastily and walking to the window;
“it is enough that I know her to be the character I have described.”
“That’s odd now,” muttered Frere, soliloquising. “If I had not been
acquainted with his ‘_antécêdens_’ as the French term it, nearly as well
as I know my own, I should have fancied the late lamented Lombard had,
in bygone hours, refused to negotiate some small loan for him, on the
perishable security of personal clothing. He can’t have popped the
question to the widow at one of the German watering-places, and
encountered a negative?”
“Frere, don’t mention my dislike of Lady Lombard to your facetious
acquaintance,” observed Lewis, turning round. “I have no ambition to
become a butt for his bad puns.”
“Never fear, man, I’ll not betray your confidence,” returned Frere;
“more particularly when, as in the present instance, I don’t happen to
share it.”
“Do you care to know?” asked Lewis.
“Not by no manner of means, as the young lady said, when the parson
asked her whether she was prepared to give up all the pomps and vanities
of this wicked world,” returned Frere. “And now, as we have to be
converted into Pagans before ten o’clock, suppose we start.”
A quarter of an hour’s brisk walking brought them to Bracy’s lodgings,
where they found that gentleman deeply immersed in study, with the fez
which was to assist in changing Frere into a prince stuck rakishly on
one side of his head. On perceiving his visitors he sprang from his
seat, and making a low salaam, in the course of which performance the
fez tumbled off and knocked down a candle, he exclaimed--
“Most illustrious brothers of the Sun, and first-cousins once removed
of the Moon and all the stars, may your shadows never be less! You do me
proud by honouring my poor dwelling with your seraphic presences!”
“I see you have got the wherewithal to make Heathens of us,” returned
Frere, pointing to the couple of Persian dresses which hung against the
wall like a brace of Bluebeard’s headless wives.
“Bude Light of the Universe, yes!” replied Bracy. “Your slave has
procured the ‘_wear_ with all’ necessary to complete your transformation
from infidel Feringhees to true sons of Islam. Would I have had my
prince appear without a khelaut--a dress of honour? Be Cheshm! upon my
eyes be it;--by the way, it’s a remarkable fact that the expression ‘my
eyes’ should be Court lingo in Persia, and bordering upon Billingsgate
in English.”
“You seem particularly well up in the pseudo-oriental metaphor to-night,
Bracy,” observed Frere; “has the fez inspired you?”
“No, there’s nothing miraculous in the affair,” returned Bracy; “it
is very easily explained. I have been reading up for the
occasion--cramming, sir; a process successfully practised upon heavy
Johnians at Cambridge and corpulent turkey poults in Norfolk.”
“Indeed! I was not aware that you are a Persian scholar. May I inquire
what line of study you have adopted?”
“One that I have myself struck out,” responded Bracy, “and which has
been attended, I flatter myself, with the most successful results. I
first subjected myself to a strict course of Hajji Baba, after which I
underwent a very searching self-examination in Morie’s ‘Zohrab’, or the
‘Hostage.’ I next thoroughly confused my mind with ‘Thalaba,’ but brought
myself round again upon ‘Bayley Frazer’s Travels’; after which I made
myself master of ‘Ayesha, or the Maid of Khars.’ And by way of laying
in a fitting stock of the sentimental, finished off with Byron’s
‘Giaour’;--stop, let me give you a specimen.” And replacing the unruly
fez, he sprang upon a chair, and throwing himself into a mock-tragedy
attitude, began bombastically to recite--
“ ’Twas sweet, where cloudless stars were bright,
To view the wave of watery light,
And hear its melody by night;
And oft had Hassan’s childhood play’d
Around the verge of that cascade:
And oft upon his mother’s breast
That sound had harmonised his rest;
And oft had Hassan’s youth along
Its banks been sooth’d by Beauty’s song,
And softer seem’d each melting tone
Of music mingled with its own.’
“There now, I call that pretty well for a young beginner; a little of
that will go a great way with my Lady Lombard; it is like a penny bun,
cheap to begin with, and very filling at the price.”
“Turks and Persians are not exactly alike, though you seem to think they
are,” observed Frere dryly. “Have you laid down any plan of operations,
may I ask? You must give me very full and clear directions how to
behave, for, to tell you the truth, my acquaintance with the manners and
customs of the higher ranks of Persia is infinitesimally select.”
“Oh! it’s all plain sailing enough,” returned Bracy; “you have only
to look wise, roll your eyes about, and occasionally jabber a little
Persian, or any other unknown tongue you may prefer, which I, not
understanding, shall translate _ad libitum_ as the occasion may
require.”
“And sweetly you will do it too, or I am much mistaken,” muttered Frere,
divesting himself of his greatcoat.
“Pray inform me, as I am unfortunately ignorant of all the oriental
languages, how do you propose to supply my deficiencies?” inquired
Lewis. “Is my part, like Bottom the weaver’s, to be nothing but
roaring?”
“Why, as you are about to enact a lion, it would appear not
inappropriate,” returned Bracy. “Yes, it never struck me; there seems
a slight difficulty there--you never got up any _Memoria Technica_, did
you?”
Lewis shook his head.
“That’s unlucky,” continued Bracy; “a page or two of that would have
served the purpose beautifully. I met a man the other night who had
struck out a new system for himself, and was perfectly rabid about
it. He had bottled, according to his own account, the whole history of
England into an insinuating little word that sounded to me something
like ‘Humguffinhoggogrificicuana,’ and bagged all Hansard’s Reports,
from Pitt to Peel, in half-a-dozen lines of impossible doggerel. Oh! he
was a wonderful fellow--clearly mad, but intensely funny. I kept him
in tow two good hours, and made him explain his system twice over to
everybody, till the people were ready to cry, he bored them so. I was
nearly being punished for it though, as he was actually weak enough to
believe in me, and called the next day to fraternise.”
“And how did you escape?” asked Lewis.
“Why, I have a sort of tiger (the imp that let you in, in fact), who is
a first-rate liar--most excellent, useful boy, I do assure you, sir; I
sent him down with a message that I had an attack of Asiatic cholera,
but if he would take a glass of wine, and look at the paper till the
crisis should be over, I would come to him if it terminated favourably.
That settled the business; he did not wait the event, but was off like a
shot, thinking the Infection might disagree with his ‘system,’ perhaps.”
“Then he has not repeated his visit?” inquired Frere.
“No; and I hope he will not,” returned Bracy, “for there will be nothing
left for me to have but Elephantiasis or the Plague, and he must be very
far gone in innocence if he can swallow either of them.”
“Am I expected to put on these things?” asked Frere, holding up a most
voluminous pair of Persian trousers, made of a species of silk gauze
enriched with glittering spangles.
“Yea, verily, most emphatically and decidedly yes,” replied Bracy.
“Well, what must be must be, I suppose,” rejoined Frere, with a sigh of
resignation; “but I never thought to see myself in such a garment. ‘Sure
such a pair were never seen!’ One thing is clear, I must stand all the
evening, for there’s no man living could sit down in them.”
“Never fear,” returned Bracy encouragingly; “only do you go into my
bedroom and put on your robes, and I’ll ensure your ‘taking your seat
on your return.’ Never make mountains of molehills, man; there are
worse dresses than that in the world; for instance, it might have been a
kilt.”
“That’s true,” said Frere reflectively, and unhooking the richest Mrs.
Bluebeard, he proceeded after sundry ejaculations of disgust to carry it
into the other room, whither after a minute or two Bracy followed him,
to perform, as he said, the part of lady’s-maid. After a lapse of about
a quarter of an hour the door was again unclosed, and Bracy, exclaiming,
“Now, Mr. Arundel, allow me to have the honour of introducing you to his
Sublime Highness Ree Chard el Freer,” ushered in the person named.
Never was so complete a transformation seen. The Persian dress, rounding
off and concealing the angularities of his figure, gave a sort of
dignity to Frere, quite in keeping with the character he was about
to assume; while moustaches and a flowing beard imparted a degree
of picturesqueness to his countenance which accorded well with his
irregular but expressive features and bright animated eyes. A shawl
of rich pattern confined his waist, while a girdle, studded with
(apparently) precious stones, sustained a sword and dagger, the jewelled
hilts and brilliantly ornamented sheaths of which added not a little to
the magnificence of his appearance.
“_Voilà!_” exclaimed Bracy, patting him on the back. “What do you think
of that by way of a get-up? There’s a ready-made prince for you. Asylum
of the Universe, how do you find yourself? Do your new garments sit
easily?”
“None of your nonsense, sir,” replied Frere. “If I am a prince, behave
to me as _sich_, if you please. I tell you what, I shall be tearing
some of this drapery before the evening is over. Ah! well, it is not for
life, that is one comfort; but I never was properly thankful before for
not having been born a woman. Think of sinking into the vale of years in
a muslin skirt--what a prospect for an intellectual being!”
“Now, Mr. Arundel, your dress awaits you,” said Bracy, “and ‘time is on
the wing.’ We shall have her ladyship in hysterics if she fancies her
prince means to disappoint her.”
Lewis’s toilet was soon completed, and proved eminently successful,
the flowing robe setting off his tall, graceful figure to the utmost
advantage, and the scarlet fez, with its drooping tassel, contrasting
well with his dark curls and enhancing the effect of his delicately cut
and striking features. Bracy making his appearance at the same
moment, most elaborately got up for the occasion, with a blue satin
underwaistcoat and what he was pleased to denominate the Order of the
Holy Poker suspended by a red ribbon from his button-hole, the tiger of
lying celebrity was despatched for a vehicle, and the trio started.
“To a reflective mind,” began Bracy, when an interval of wood-pavement
allowed conversation to become audible,--“to a reflective mind, there
is no section of the zoology of the London streets more interesting
than that which treats of the habits and general economy of the genus
cabman.”
“As to their general economy,” returned Frere, “as far as I am
acquainted with it, it appears to consist in doing you out of more than
their fare, and expending the capital thus acquired at a gin-palace.”
“Sir, you misapply terms, treat an important subject with unbecoming
levity, and libel an interesting race of men,” returned Bracy, with a
countenance of the most immovable gravity.
“Interests, you mean,” rejoined Frere.
“One very striking peculiarity of the species,” continued Bracy, not
heeding the interruption, “is their talent for subtle analysis of
character, and power of discriminating it by the application of unusual
tests.”
“What’s coming now?” inquired Frere. “Keep your ears open, Lewis, my
son, and acquire wisdom from the lips of the descendant of many Bracys.”
“I am aware an assertion of this nature should not be lightly hazarded,”
resumed Bracy, “as it carries little conviction to the ill-regulated
minds of the sceptical, unless it be verified by some illustrative
example drawn from the actual.”
“You have not got such a thing as a Johnson’s Dictionary about you, I
suppose?” interrupted Frere. “I want to look out a few of those long
words.”
“With this view,” resumed Bracy, “I will relate a little anecdote, which
will at the same time prove my position and display the capacity of the
London cabman for terse and epigrammatic definition. I had been engaged
on committee business at the House of Commons a short time since, and
was returning to my lodgings when, as I emerged into Palace Yard, it
began to rain. Seeing me without an umbrella, a cabman on the stand
hailed me with a view of ascertaining whether I required his services.
While I was debating with myself whether the rain was likely to
increase or not, I was hailed by the cad of an omnibus just turning into
Parliament Street.”
“I never do make puns,” began Frere, “or else I should be inclined to
ask whether being exposed to so much _hail_ and rain at the same time
did not give you cold?”
“It happened that I had just betted a new hat with a man,” continued
Bracy, still preserving the most perfect gravity, “as to how many times
the chairman of the committee would take snuff, and had lost my wager;
this made me feel awfully stingy, and accordingly availing myself of
the lowest of the two estimates, I fraternised with the ’bus fellow, and
metaphorically threw over the cabman. As I was ascending the steps of
the vehicle I had resolved to patronise, the following remark from
the injured Jehu reached my ears; it was addressed to an amphibious
individual, ‘_en sabots et bandeaux de foin_’ (as the _Morning Post_
would have it), yclept the waterman; and if you don’t think it fully
bears out my previous assertions, I can only say that you are an
incompetent judge of evidence. He first attracted his friend’s attention
by pointing to me over his shoulder with his thumb, and winking
significantly; then added in a tone of intense disgust, ‘See that cove;
I thort he worn’t no good.’Stead o’ takin’ a cab to his self, like a
gent, he’s a goin’ to have _threepen’orth of all sorts_’” As Bracy, amid
the laughter of his companions, concluded his recital, the vehicle which
conveyed them drew up at the door of Lady Lombard’s mansion.