"Hullo, Dad!" I cried out, stopping abruptly in front of the red
granite coloured Reform Club, down the marble steps of which a
queer-looking old gentleman was slowly descending. "Who is that funny
old fellow there? He's just like that `old clo'' man we saw at the
corner of the street this morning, only that he hasn't got three hats
on, one on top of another, the same as the other chap had!"
We were walking along Pall Mall on our way from Piccadilly to Whitehall,
where my father intended calling in at the Admiralty to put in a sort of
official appearance on his return to England after a long period of
foreign service; and Dad was taking advantage of the opportunity to show
me a few of the sights of London that came within our ken, everything
being strange to me, for I had never set foot in the metropolis before
the previous evening, when mother and I had come up by a late train from
the little Hampshire village where we lived, to meet father on his
arrival and welcome him home.
Under these circumstances, therefore, as might reasonably have been
expected, our halts had been already frequent and oft to satisfy the
cravings of my wondering fancy; and Dad must have been tired of
answering my innumerable questions and inquiries ere half our journey
had been accomplished.
He was very good-tempered and obliging, however, and bore with me
patiently, giving me all the information in his power concerning the
various persons and objects that attracted my attention, and never
"turning nasty" at my insatiable curiosity.
So now, as heretofore, obedient to my bidding, he turned to look in the
direction to which I pointed.
"Where's your friend, the funny old fellow you spoke of, my boy?" he
said kindly, though half-quizzingly. "I don't see him, Jack."
"Why, there he is, right opposite to us, Dad!" I exclaimed. "He's
coming down the steps from that doorway there, and is quite close to us
now!"
"Oh! that's your friend, Jack, eh?" said father, glancing in his turn at
the old gentleman who had caught my eye. "Let me see if I can make him
out for you."
The old fellow was not one whom an ordinary observer would style a grand
personage, or think worthy of notice in any way, very probably; and yet,
there was something about him which irresistibly attracted my attention
making me wonder who he was and want to know all about him. Boy though
I was, and new to London and London life, I was certain, I'm sure I
can't tell why, that he must be "somebody."
A short broad-shouldered man was he, with iron-grey hair, and a very
prominent nose that was too strongly curved to be called aquiline, and
which, with his angular face, equally tanned to a brick-dust hue from
exposure to wind and weather, gave him a sort of eagle-like look, an
impression that was supported by his erect bearing and air of command;
albeit, sixty odd years or more must have rolled over his head, and his
great width of chest, as he moved downwards throwing out his long arms,
made his thick-set figure seem stumpier than it actually was, though,
like most sailors of the old school, there was no denying the fact, as
Dad said subsequently, that he was "broad in the beam and Dutch built
over all!"
Nature had, undoubtedly, done much for the old gentleman, but art
little, so far as his personal appearance was concerned; for nothing
could have been more quaint and out of keeping with Pall Mall and its
fashionable surroundings than his eccentric costume.
The upper part of his person was habited in a rough shooting-jacket,
considerably the worse for wear, such as a farmer or gamekeeper might
have donned in the country, away from the busy haunts of men, when out
in the coverts or engaged thinning the preserves; while his lower
extremities rejoiced in a yet shabbier pair of trousers, whose shortness
for their wearer did not tend to enhance their artistic effect.
To complete the picture, his bushy head of iron-grey hair was surmounted
by an old beaver hat that had once been white, but which inexorable Time
had mellowed in tone, and whose nap, having been brushed up the wrong
way, against the grain, frizzed out around its circumference like a
furze bush, making it resemble the "fretful porcupine" spoken of by the
immortal Shakespeare.
His whole appearance was altogether unique for a West-end thoroughfare
in the height of the season; and, the more especially, too, at that time
of day, when dandies of the first water were sauntering listlessly along
the shady side of the pavement ogling the gorgeously-attired ladies who
rolled by in their stately barouches drawn by prancing horses that must
have cost fortunes, and on whose boxes sat stately coachmen and
immaculate footmen clad in liveries beyond price, "Solomon in all his
glory" not approaching their radiant magnificence!
Emerging as he did, however, from the Reform Club, the old gentleman's
unconventional "rig-out" bore testimony to the incontrovertible fact
that, no matter how "advanced" his principles may have become from the
teachings of Cobden, and the example of Peel, he had not allowed his
political convictions to revolutionise his original ideas on the subject
of dress.
Nor was this the only peculiarity noticeable about the queer-looking old
fellow.
He was coming down the steps of the club-house, while Dad and I looked
at him, so slowly that his dilatory rate of progression conveyed the
impression that he was either a martyr to corns or suffering from a
recent attack of the gout; feeling his way carefully with one foot first
before bringing along its fellow, prior to adventuring the next step,
just as my baby sister, a little toddlekin of six, used to go up and
downstairs.
This, of course, was not so remarkable in itself, but as he descended
thus, crab-fashion, to the level of the pavement where Dad and I stood
observing him, my eyes grew wide with wonder at the enormous handfuls of
snuff he took--not pinches, such as I had seen snuff-takers sniff up
from the backs of their hands many a time before, without bestowing a
thought on the action.
Oh, no, nothing of the sort!
They were actual handfuls that he extracted from his waistcoat pocket,
as I could not help noticing, on account of his roomy shooting-jacket
being wide open and thrown back; the old prodigal scooping up the
fragrant dust in his palm, and then doubling his fist and shoving it up
his nostrils with a violent snort of inhalement, after which he
proceeded to blow his red nose with another loud report, like that of a
blunderbuss going off. This was accompanied by the flourish of a
brightly coloured pocket-handkerchief, whose vivid hue approximated
closely to the general tint of his cheeks and eagle-like beak, and which
he held loosely, ready for action, in his disengaged left hand; for, his
right was ever at work oscillating between the magazine of snuff in his
deep waistcoat pocket and the nasal promontory that consumed it with
almost rhythmical regularity, sniff and snort and resonant trumpet blast
of satisfaction succeeding each other in systematic sequence, as the
veteran came down the stairway leisurely, step by step.
It all appeared to me very comical; but, I did not laugh at the old man
as another youngster might very pardonably have done, without any
thought of mocking or making fun of him.
To tell the truth, he seemed to me to be so out of place there that I
was actually pained on his account, believing, in my innocent ignorance,
that he had unhappily made a mistake in going up to the members'
entrance of the grand-looking club-house; and that the fat hall-porter
in scarlet, who now stood without the swinging glass doors of the
portal, had warned him thence, ordering him, so it struck my fancy, to
go down below by way of the area steps, to the basement of the
establishment, where his business would probably rather lie with the
lower menials of the mansion than with such an august personage as he,
one who acted solely as the janitor to the great ones of the earth
possessing the password of the club!
Yes, this was the thought uppermost in my mind; and, as the
queer-looking old gentleman continued to hobble downwards I began to
wonder whether the scullions in the kitchen, whom I could dimly discern
beneath the street level and behind a screen of iron railings, would
not, likewise, turn up their noses at the sight of such a seedy
individual, telling him they had no rags or bones or bottles for him
to-day.
"Poor old fellow!" I said to Dad, uttering my reflections aloud. "What
could have made him act so foolishly as to go up there only to be turned
away by that bumptious porter? How very shabby he is, Dad; and with
such a noble face, too! May I give him that shilling you made me a
present of this morning to buy himself some more snuff? He must have
exhausted all he had in his waistcoat pocket by now; he does use it so
extravagantly!"
"Hush, Jack, he may hear you!" whispered my father, dropping his voice
to a lower key than mine, while the amused expression on his face
changed to one of pleased recognition. "Why, it's the old Admiral! I
see he's as great a snuff-taker as ever, and he seems to be even less
careful than he used to be about his clothes; though, I must say, he
never was a dandy at the best of times!"
At the moment Dad spoke, the old gentleman set his right foot gingerly
on the pavement in front of us, his left following a second later, when
the veteran signalised his reaching a sound anchorage with a final blast
from his nasal trumpet and a fine flourish of his bandana, which nearly
knocked out my nearest eye and set me sneezing from the loose particles
of snuff disseminated into the surrounding air.
This gave my father the opportunity he wanted.
"How do you do, Admiral?" said he, drawing himself up and raising his
hat in salute, while still holding me by the hand. "I don't know if you
remember me, sir, but I cannot forget you and your kindness to me of
old, especially in getting me my last appointment. I'm glad to see you
looking so well, sir!"
The old fellow stared at Dad with his gimlet grey eyes, looking him
through and through, knitting his brows, and sniffing and snorting at a
fine rate.
"Eh--what, who the deuce are you?" he ejaculated in short, jerky accents
after a pause, evidently puzzled for the nonce, and, in his agitation,
another fistful of snuff got arrested half-way between his waistcoat
pocket and expectant nose, the consequence of which was that more than
half was spilt on the front of his shirt, and already snuff-stained coat
collar. "Eh, what? I think I know your face, but I'm hanged if I can
recollect your name, sir!"
Dad smiled, and, whether this supplied a missing link to memory's aid or
no, the next instant a gleam of intelligence flashed across the
veteran's weatherbeaten face making him look so animated that he seemed
a different person.
Shoving out his horny fist, forgetful of the balance of snuff contained
therein, and thus causing me to sneeze again, as well as nearly blinding
me for a second time, the rough old sailor caught hold of my father's
disengaged hand with a grip of iron, shouting a welcome in his hearty,
loud voice which could have been heard across Pall Mall; for it was as
breezy as the sea, echoing in ringing accents whose cordial tones I can
almost fancy I now hear, like the surf of breakers breaking in the
distance on some rock-bound shore.
"Bless my soul, Vernon! Is that you, my lad, hey?" he roared out,
making a dandified exquisite, who was just then lounging past us, jump
into the gutter and soil his polished patent leathers in nervous alarm.
"Glad to see me, you said? Stuff and nonsense, you rascal--you're not
half so pleased as I am to clap my eyes on you again! Gad, you young
scamp, why, it seems only the other day when I sent you to the
mast-head, you remember, when you were a middy with me in the _Neptune_?
It was for cutting off the tail of my dog Ponto, and you said--though
that was all moonshine, of course--you did it to cure him of fits! By
George! what a terrible young scapegrace you were, to be sure, Vernon,
always in mischief from sunrise to gunfire, and always at loggerheads
with my first lieutenant and the master, poor old Cosine!"