It is no extravagance to state that everybody knows Tuppy. The station
inspector at Vine Street knows him; Isaac Monstein (trading as Grahame &
Ferguson, Financiers) knows him, tradesmen of every degree know him, and
there is not a debt collecting agency from Stubbs to the Tradesmen's
Protection Association that is unacquainted with his name and style.
The doorkeeper at the House of Lords knows him, and nods a greeting in
which reproof and deference are strangely intermingled.
For Tuppy is George Calander Tupping, Ninth Baron Tupping of Clarilaw in
the county of Wigsmouth.
He is a youngish man with fair hair and light blue eyes. He typifies in
his person the influence of hereditary vices, for he wears a monocle as
his father did before him. His attitude towards life is one of
perpetual surprise. It earned for him at Eton, a nickname, which he
carried to Oxford. He was "The Startled Fawn" to all and sundry, but it
was a little too cumbersome to stick, and it is as "Tuppy" that he is
best known....
The story of Tuppy is a volume in itself. He began life in the
illustrated newspapers, as "Young Heir to a Peerage: Baby Honourable in
his Perambulator." He progressed steadily to fame by way of Sandown
Park and Carey Street.
At twenty-one he filed his petition; at twenty-two he was editing a
weekly newspaper; at twenty-four he appeared in "The Whirling Globe of
Time," a comedy in four acts written by himself and (after the first
night) acted by himself; at twenty-five he went to America in search of
a wealthy bride.
One can only speculate upon the possible results of his guest, for on
the voyage over, he fell madly in love with Miss Cora Delean, that
famous strong woman and weight lifter.
He married her in New York.
Three days after the marriage the lady threw him over. This is
literally the truth, and I have too great a respect for Tuppy to
endeavour to make capital out of his misfortune. She threw him over the
balustrade of the hotel in which they were staying, and poor Tuppy was
taken to hospital.
In justice to the lady it may be said that she called at the hospital
regularly every day and left violets for the sufferer. She penned a
tearful apology in which she begged Tuppy's forgiveness, appealing to
him as a man of the world to realize that a person in drink is not
responsible for her actions. Providentially, about this time, the
lady's first husband initiated proceedings for divorce on the grounds of
incompatability of temperament, and Tuppy, reading the account with his
one unbandaged eye, was fervently grateful that the case had not been
heard before his marriage.
He returned to England a pronounced misogynist with a slight limp.
Of his other ventures the Sea Gold Extraction Syndicate is the most
notorious; his attempt to break the bank at Monte Carlo; his adventures
as correspondent in the Balkans, these events are too recent to need
particularizing.
Summing up his life, one might say that he had indeed a great future
behind him.