DUBLIN--THE BOARDING-HOUSE--SELECT SOCIETY.
Punctual to my appointment with O'Flaherty, I found myself a very few
minutes after six o'clock at Mrs. Clanfrizzle's door. My very
authoritative summons at the bell was answered by the appearance of a
young, pale-faced invalid, in a suit of livery the taste of which bore a
very unpleasant resemblance to the one I so lately figured in. It was
with considerable difficulty I persuaded this functionary to permit my
carrying my hat with me to the drawing-room, a species of caution on my
part--as he esteemed it--savouring much of distrust. This point however,
I carried, and followed him up a very ill-lighted stair to the
drawing-room; here I was announced by some faint resemblance to my real
name, but sufficiently near to bring my friend Tom at once to meet me,
who immediately congratulated me on my fortune in coming off so well,
for that the person who preceded me, Mr. Jones Blennerhasset, had been
just announced as Mr. Blatherhasit--a change the gentleman himself was
not disposed to adopt--"But come along, Harry, while we are waiting for
Daly, let me make you known to some of our party; this, you must know,
is a boarding-house, and always has some capital fun--queerest people
you ever met--I have only one hint--cut every man, woman, and child of
them, if you meet them hereafter--I do it myself, though I have lived
here these six months." Pleasant people, thought I, these must be, with
whom such a line is advisable, much less practicable.
"Mrs. Clanfrizzle, my friend Mr. Lorrequer; thinks he'll stay the summer
in town. Mrs. Clan--, should like him to be one of us." This latter was
said sotto voce, and was a practice he continued to adopt in presenting
me to his several friends through the room.
Miss Riley, a horrid old fright, in a bird of paradise plume, and corked
eyebrows, gibbetted in gilt chains and pearl ornaments, and looking as
the grisettes say, "superbe en chrysolite"--"Miss Riley, Captain
Lorrequer, a friend I have long desired to present to you--fifteen
thousand a-year and a baronetcy, if he has sixpence"--sotto again.
"Surgeon M'Culloch--he likes the title," said Tom in a whisper--"Surgeon,
Captain Lorrequer. By the by, lest I forget it, he wishes to speak to
you in the morning about his health; he is stopping at Sandymount for the
baths; you could go out there, eh!" The tall thing in green spectacles
bowed, and acknowledged Tom's kindness by a knowing touch of the elbow.
In this way he made the tour of the room for about ten minutes, during
which brief space, I was according to the kind arrangements of
O'Flaherty, booked as a resident in the boarding-house--a lover to at
least five elderly, and three young ladies--a patient--a client--a second
in a duel to a clerk in the post-office--and had also volunteered
(through him always) to convey, by all of his Majesty's mails, as many
parcels, packets, band-boxes, and bird-cages, as would have comfortably
filled one of Pickford's vans. All this he told me was requisite to my
being well received, though no one thought much of any breach of compact
subsequently, except Mrs. Clan--herself. The ladies had, alas! been
often treated vilely before; the doctor had never had a patient; and as
for the belligerent knight of the dead office, he'd rather die than fight
any day.
The last person to whom my friend deemed it necessary to introduce me,
was a Mr. Garret Cudmore, from the Reeks of Kerry, lately matriculated to
all the honors of freshmanship in the Dublin university. This latter was
a low-sized, dark-browed man, with round shoulders, and particularly long
arms, the disposal of which seemed sadly to distress him. He possessed
the most perfect brogue I ever listened to; but it was difficult to get
him to speak, for on coming up to town some weeks before, he had been
placed by some intelligent friend at Mrs. Clanfrizzle's establishment,
with the express direction to mark and thoroughly digest as much as he
could of the habits and customs of the circle about him, which he was
rightly informed was the very focus of good breeding and haut ton; but
on no account, unless driven thereto by the pressure of sickness,
or the wants of nature, to trust himself with speech, which, in his
then uninformed state, he was assured would inevitably ruin him
among his fastidiously cultivated associates.
To the letter and the spirit of the despatch he had received, the worthy
Garret acted rigidly, and his voice was scarcely ever known to transgress
the narrow limits prescribed by his friends. In more respects that one,
was this a good resolve; for so completely had he identified himself with
college habits, things, and phrases, that whenever he conversed, he
became little short of unintelligible to the vulgar--a difficulty not
decreased by his peculiar pronunciation.
My round of presentation was just completed, when the pale figure in
light blue livery announced Counsellor Daly and dinner, for both came
fortunately together. Taking the post of honour, Miss Riley's arm, I
followed Tom, who I soon perceived ruled the whole concern, as he led
the way with another ancient vestal in black stain and bugles. The long
procession wound its snake-like length down the narrow stair, and into
the dining-room, where at last we all got seated; and here let me briefly
vindicate the motives of my friend--should any unkind person be found to
impute to his selection of a residence, any base and grovelling passion
for gourmandaise, that day's experience should be an eternal vindication
of him. The soup--alas! that I should so far prostitute the word; for
the black broth of Sparta was mock turtle in comparison--retired to make
way for a mass of beef, whose tenderness I did not question; for it sank
beneath the knife of the carver like a feather bed--the skill of Saladin
himself would have failed to divide it. The fish was a most rebellious
pike, and nearly killed every loyal subject at table; and then down the
sides were various comestibles of chickens, with azure bosoms, and hams
with hides like a rhinoceros; covered dishes of decomposed vegetable
matter, called spinach and cabbage; potatoes arrayed in small masses, and
browned, resembling those ingenious architectural structures of mud,
children raise in the high ways, and call dirt-pies. Such were the chief
constituents of the "feed;" and such, I am bound to confess, waxed
beautifully less under the vigorous onslaught of the party.
The conversation soon became both loud and general. That happy
familiarity--which I had long believed to be the exclusive prerogative of
a military mess, where constant daily association sustains the interest
of the veriest trifles--I here found in a perfection I had not
anticipated, with this striking difference, that there was no absurd
deference to any existing code of etiquette in the conduct of the party
generally, each person quizzing his neighbour in the most free and easy
style imaginable, and all, evidently from long habit and conventional
usage, seeming to enjoy the practice exceedingly. Thus, droll allusions,
good stories, and smart repartees, fell thick as hail, and twice as
harmless, which any where else that I had ever heard of, would assuredly
have called for more explanations, and perhaps gunpowder, in the morning,
than usually are deemed agreeable. Here, however, they knew better; and
though the lawyer quizzed the doctor for never having another patient
than the house dog, all of whose arteries he had tied in the course of
the winter for practice--and the doctor retorted as heavily, by showing
that the lawyer's practice had been other than beneficial to those for
whom he was concerned--his one client being found guilty, mainly through
his ingenious defence of him; yet they never showed any, the slightest
irritation--on the contrary, such little playful badinage ever led to
some friendly passages of taking wine together, or in arrangements for a
party to the "Dargle," or "Dunleary;" and thus went on the entire party,
the young ladies darting an occasion slight at their elders, who
certainly returned the fire, often with advantage; all uniting now and
then, however, in one common cause, an attack of the whole line upon Mrs.
Clanfrizzle herself, for the beef, or the mutton, or the fish, or the
poultry--each of which was sure to find some sturdy defamer, ready and
willing to give evidence in dispraise. Yet even these, and I thought
them rather dangerous sallies, led to no more violent results than
dignified replies from the worthy hostess, upon the goodness of her fare,
and the evident satisfaction it afforded while being eaten, if the
appetites of the party were a test. While this was at its height, Tom
stooped behind my chair, and whispered gently--
"This is good--isn't it, eh?--life in a boarding-house--quite new to you;
but they are civilized now compared to what you'll find them in the
drawing-room. When short whist for five-penny points sets in--then Greek
meets Greek, and we'll have it."
During all this melee tournament, I perceived that the worthy jib as
he would be called in the parlance of Trinity, Mr. Cudmore, remained
perfectly silent, and apparently terrified. The noise, the din of
voices, and the laughing, so completely addled him, that he was like one
in a very horrid dream. The attention with which I had observed him,
having been remarked by my friend O'Flaherty, he informed me that the
scholar, as he was called there, was then under a kind of cloud--an
adventure which occurred only two nights before, being too fresh in his
memory to permit him enjoying himself even to the limited extent it had
been his wont to do. As illustrative, not only of Mr. Cudmore, but the
life I have been speaking of, I may as well relate it.
Soon after Mr. Cudmore's enlistment under the banners of the
Clanfrizzle, he had sought and found an asylum in the drawing-room of the
establishment, which promised, from its geographical relations, to expose
him less to the molestations of conversation than most other parts of the
room. This was a small recess beside the fire-place, not uncommon in
old-fashioned houses, and which, from its incapacity to hold more than
one, secured to the worthy recluse the privacy he longed for; and here,
among superannuated hearth-brushes, an old hand screen, an asthmatic
bellows, and a kettle-holder, sat the timid youth, "alone, but in a
crowd." Not all the seductions of loo, limited to three pence, nor even
that most appropriately designated game, beggar-my-neighbour--could
withdraw him from his blest retreat. Like his countryman, St. Kevin--my
friend Petrie has ascertained that the saint was a native of Tralee--he
fled from the temptations of the world, and the blandishments of the
fair; but, alas! like the saint himself, the
"poor jib little knew
All that wily sex can do;"
For while he hugged himself in the security of his fortress, the web of
his destiny was weaving. So true is it, as he himself used, no less
pathetically than poetically to express it, "misfortune will find you
out, if ye were hid in a tay chest."
It happened that in Mrs. Clanfrizzle's establishment, the "enfant bleu,"
already mentioned, was the only individual of his sex retained; and
without for a moment disparaging the ability or attentions of this gifted
person, yet it may reasonably be credited, that in waiting on a party of
twenty-five or thirty persons at dinner, all of whom he had admitted as
porter, and announced as maitre d'hotel, with the subsequent detail of
his duties in the drawing-room, that Peter, blue Peter--his
boarding-house soubriquet--not enjoying the bird-like privilege of
"being in two places at once," gave one rather the impression of a
person of hasty and fidgetty habits--for which nervous tendency the
treatment he underwent was certainly injudicious--it being the
invariable custom for each guest to put his services in requisition,
perfectly irrespective of all other claims upon him, from whatsoever
quarter coming--and then, at the precise moment that the luckless valet
was snuffing the candles, he was abused by one for not bringing coal; by
another for having carried off his tea-cup, sent on an expedition for
sugar; by a third for having left the door open, which he had never been
near; and so on to the end of the chapter.
It chanced that a few evenings previous to my appearance at the house,
this indefatigable Caleb was ministering as usual to the various and
discrepant wants of the large party assembled in the drawing-room. With
his wonted alacrity he had withdrawn from their obscure retreat against
the wall, sundry little tables, destined for the players at whist, or
"spoil five"--the popular game of the establishment. With a dexterity
that savoured much of a stage education, he had arranged the candles, the
cards, the counters; he had poked the fire, settled the stool for Miss
Riley's august feet, and was busily engaged in changing five shillings
into small silver for a desperate victim of loo--when Mrs. Clanfrizzle's
third, and, as it appeared, last time, of asking for the kettle smote
upon his ear. His loyalty would have induced him at once to desert every
thing on such an occasion; but the other party engaged, held him fast,
saying--
"Never mind HER, Peter--you have sixpence more to give me."
Poor Peter rummaged one pocket, then another--discovering at last three
pence in copper, and some farthings, with which he seemed endeavouring to
make a composition with his creditor for twelve shillings in the pound;
when Mrs. Clan's patience finally becoming exhausted, she turned towards
Mr. Cudmore, the only unemployed person she could perceive, and with her
blandest smile said,
"Mr. Cudmore, may I take the liberty of requesting you would hand me the
kettle beside you."
Now, though the kettle aforesaid was, as the hostess very properly
observed, beside him, yet the fact that in complying with the demand, it
was necessary for the bashful youth to leave the recess he occupied, and,
with the kettle, proceed to walk half across the room--there to perform
certain manual operations requiring skill and presence of mind, before a
large and crowded assembly--was horror to the mind of the poor Jib; and
he would nearly as soon have acceded to a desire to dance a hornpipe, if
such had been suggested as the wish of the company. However, there was
nothing for it; and summoning up all his nerve--knitting his brows
--clenching his teeth, like one prepared to "do or die," he seized the
hissing cauldron, and strode through the room, like the personified
genius of steam, very much to the alarm of all the old ladies in the
vicinity, whose tasteful drapery benefitted but little from his progress.
Yet he felt but little of all this; he had brought up his courage to the
sticking place, and he was absolutely half unconscious of the whole scene
before him; nor was it till some kind mediator had seized his arm, while
another drew him back by the skirts of the coat, that he desisted from
the deluge of hot water, with which, having filled the tea-pot, he
proceeded to swamp every thing else upon the tray, in his unfortunate
abstraction. Mrs. Clanfrizzle screamed--the old ladies accompanied her
--the young ones tittered--the men laughed--and, in a word, poor Cudmore,
perfectly unconscious of any thing extraordinary, felt himself the
admired of all admirers,--very little, it is true, to his own
satisfaction. After some few minutes exposure to these eclats de rire,
he succeeded in depositing the source of his griefs within the fender,
and once more retired to his sanctuary,--having registered a vow, which,
should I speak it, would forfeit his every claim to gallantry for ever.
Whether in the vow aforesaid Mr. Cudmore had only been engaged in that
species of tesselating which furnishes the pavement so celebrated in the
lower regions, I know not; but true it is, that he retired that night to
his chamber very much discomfited at his debut in the great world, and
half disposed to believe that nature had neither intended him for a
Brummel nor a D'Orsay. While he was ruminating on such matters, he was
joined by O'Flaherty, with whom he had been always more intimate than any
other inmate of the house--Tom's tact having entirely concealed what the
manners of the others too plainly evinced, the perfect appreciation of
the student's oddity and singularity. After some few observations on
general matters, O'Flaherty began with a tone of some seriousness to
express towards Cudmore the warm interest he had ever taken in him, since
his first coming among them; his great anxiety for his welfare, and his
firm resolve that no chance or casual inattention to mere ceremonial
observances on his part should ever be seized on by the other guests
as a ground for detraction or an excuse for ridicule of him.
"Rely upon it, my dear boy," said he, "I have watched over you like a
parent; and having partly foreseen that something like this affair of
to-night would take place sooner or later"--
"What affair?" said Cudmore--his eyes staring half out of his head.
"That business of the kettle."
"Kett--el. The kettle! What of that?" said Cudmore.
"What of it? Why, if you don't feel it, I am sure it is not my duty to
remind you; only"--
"Feel it--oh, yes. I saw them laughing, because I spilled the water over
old Mrs. Jones, or something of that sort."
"No, no, my dear young friend, they were not laughing at that--their
mirth had another object."
"What the devil was it at, then?"
"You don't know, don't you?"
"No; I really do not."
"Nor can't guess--eh?"
"Confound me if I can."
"Well. I see, Mr. Cudmore, you are really too innocent for these
people. But come--it shall never be said that youth and inexperience
ever suffered from the unworthy ridicule and cold sarcasm of the base
world, while Tom O'Flaherty stood by a spectator.
"Sir," said Tom, striking his hand with energy on the table, and darting
a look of fiery indignation from his eye, "Sir, you were this night
trepanned--yes, sir, vilely, shamefully trepanned--I repeat the
expression--into the performance of a menial office--an office so
degrading, so offensive, so unbecoming the rank, the station, and the
habits of gentlemen, my very blood recoils when I only think of the
indignity."
The expression of increasing wonder and surprise depicted in Mr.
Cudmore's face at these words, my friend Phiz might convey--I cannot
venture to describe it--suffice it to say, that even O'Flaherty himself
found it difficult to avoid a burst of laughter, as he looked at him and
resumed.
"Witnessing, as I did, the entire occurrence; feeling deeply for the
inexperience which the heartless worldlings had dared to trample upon,
I resolved to stand by you, and here I am come for that purpose."
"Well, but what in the devil's name have I done all this time?"
"What! are you still ignorant?--is it possible? Did you not hand the
kettle from the fire-place, and fill the tea-pot?--answer me that!"
"I did," said Cudmore, with a voice already becoming tremulous.
"Is that the duty of a gentleman?--answer me that."
A dead pause stood in place of a reply, while Tom proceeded--
"Did you ever hear any one ask me, or Counsellor Daly, or Mr. Fogarty,
or any other person to do so?--answer me that."
"No; never" muttered Cudmore, with a sinking spirit.
"Well then why may I ask, were you selected for an office that by your
own confession, no one else would stoop to perform? I'll tell you,
because from your youth and inexperience, your innocence was deemed a fit
victim to the heartless sneers of a cold and unfeeling world."
And here Tom broke forth into a very beautiful apostrophe, beginning--
"Oh, virtue!" (this I am unfortunately unable to present to my readers;
and must only assure them that it was a very faithful imitation of the
well-known one delivered by Burke in the case of Warren Hastings,) and
concluding with an exhortation to Cudmore to wipe out the stain of his
wounded honour, by repelling with indignation the slightest future
attempt at such an insult.
This done, O'Flaherty retired, leaving Cudmore to dig among Greek roots,
and chew over the cud of his misfortune. Punctual to the time and place,
that same evening beheld the injured Cudmore resume his wonted corner,
pretty much with the feeling with which a forlorn hope stands match in
hand to ignite the train destined to explode with ruin to thousands
--himself perhaps amongst the number: there he sat with a brain as
burning, and a heart as excited, as though, instead of sipping his bohea
beside a sea-coal fire, he was that instant trembling beneath the frown
of Dr. Elrington, for the blunders in his Latin theme, and what terror
to the mind of a "Jib" can equal that one?
As luck would have it, this was a company night in the boarding-house.
Various young ladies in long blue sashes, and very broad ribbon sandals,
paraded the rooms, chatting gaily with very distinguished looking young
gentlemen, with gold brooches, and party-coloured inside waistcoats;
sundry elderly ladies sat at card-tables, discussing the "lost honour by
an odd trick they played," with heads as large as those of Jack or Jill
in the pantomime; spruce clerks in public offices, (whose vocation the
expansive tendency of the right ear, from long pen-carrying, betokened)
discussed fashion, "and the musical glasses" to some very over-dressed
married ladies, who preferred flirting to five-and-ten. The tea-table,
over which the amiable hostess presided, had also its standing votaries:
mostly grave parliamentary-looking gentlemen, with powdered heads,
and very long-waisted black coats, among whom the Sir Oracle was a
functionary of his Majesty's High Court of Chancery, though I have reason
to believe, not, Lord Manners: meanwhile, in all parts of the room might
be seen Blue Peter, distributing tea, coffee, and biscuit, and
occasionally interchanging a joke with the dwellers in the house. While
all these pleasing occupations proceeded, the hour of Cudmore's trial was
approaching. The tea-pot which had stood the attack of fourteen cups
without flinching, at last began to fail, and discovered to the prying
eyes of Mrs. Clanfrizzle, nothing but an olive-coloured deposit of soft
matter, closely analogous in appearance and chemical property to the
residuary precipitate in a drained fish-pond; she put down the lid with
a gentle sigh and turning towards the fire bestowed one of her very
blandest and most captivating looks on Mr. Cudmore, saying--as plainly
as looks could say--"Cudmore, you're wanting." Whether the youth did,
or did not understand, I am unable to record: I can only say, the appeal
was made without acknowledgment. Mrs. Clanfrizzle again essayed, and by
a little masonic movement of her hand to the tea-pot, and a sly glance at
the hob, intimated her wish--still hopelessly; at last there was nothing
for it but speaking; and she donned her very softest voice, and most
persuasive tone, saying--
"Mr. Cudmore, I am really very troublesome: will you permit me to ask
you?"--
"Is it for the kettle, ma'am?" said Cudmore, with a voice that startled
the whole room, disconcerting three whist parties, and so absorbing the
attention of the people at loo, that the pool disappeared without any one
being able to account for the circumstance.
"Is it for the kettle, ma'am?"
"If you will be so very kind," lisped the hostess.
"Well, then, upon my conscience, you are impudent," said Cudmore, with
his face crimsoned to the ears, and his eyes flashing fire.
"Why, Mr. Cudmore," began the lady, "why, really, this is so strange.
Why sir, what can you mean?"
"Just that," said the imperturbable jib, who now that his courage was up,
dared every thing.
"But sir, you must surely have misunderstood me. I only asked for the
kettle, Mr. Cudmore."
"The devil a more," said Cud, with a sneer.
"Well, then, of course"--
"Well, then, I'll tell you, of course," said he, repeating her words;
"the sorrow taste of the kettle, I'll give you. Call you own skip--Blue
Pether there--damn me, if I'll be your skip any longer."
For the uninitiated I have only to add, that "skip" is the Trinity
College appellation for servant, which was therefore employed by Mr.
Cudmore, on this occasion, as expressing more contemptuously his sense
of the degradation of the office attempted to be put upon him. Having
already informed my reader on some particulars of the company, I leave
him to suppose how Mr. Cudmore's speech was received. Whist itself was
at an end for that evening, and nothing but laughter, long, loud, and
reiterated, burst from every corner of the room for hours after.
As I have so far travelled out of the record of my own peculiar
confessions, as to give a leaf from what might one day form the matter of
Mr. Cudmore's, I must now make the only amende in my power, by honestly
narrating, that short as my visit was to the classic precincts of this
agreeable establishment, I did not escape without exciting my share of
ridicule, though, I certainly had not the worst of the joke, and may,
therefore, with better grace tell the story, which, happily for my
readers, is a very brief one. A custom prevailed in Mrs. Clanfrizzle's
household, which from my unhappy ignorance of boarding-houses, I am
unable to predicate if it belong to the genera at large, or this one
specimen in particular, however, it is a sufficiently curious fact, even
though thereby hang no tale, for my stating it here. The decanters on
the dinner-table were never labelled, with their more appropriate
designation of contents, whether claret, sherry, or port, but with the
names of their respective owners, it being a matter of much less
consequence that any individual at table should mix his wine, by pouring
"port upon madeira," than commit the truly legal offence of appropriating
to his own use and benefit, even by mistake, his neighbour's bottle.
However well the system may work among the regular members of the
"domestic circle," and I am assured that it does succeed extremely
--to the newly arrived guest, or uninitiated visitor, the affair is
perplexing, and leads occasionally to awkward results.
It so chanced, from my friend O'Flaherty's habitual position at the foot
of the table, and my post of honour near the head, that on the first day
of my appearing there, the distance between us, not only precluded all
possible intercourse, but any of those gentle hints as to habits and
customs, a new arrival looks for at the hands of his better informed
friend. The only mode of recognition, to prove that we belonged to each
other, being by that excellent and truly English custom of drinking wine
together, Tom seized the first idle moment from his avocation as carver
to say,
"Lorrequer, a glass of wine with you."
Having, of course, acceded, he again asked,
"What wine do you drink?" intending thereby, as I afterwards learned, to
send me from his end of the table, what wine I selected. Not conceiving
the object of the inquiry, and having hitherto without hesitation helped
myself from the decanter, which bore some faint resemblance to sherry,
I immediately turned for correct information to the bottle itself, upon
whose slender neck was ticketed the usual slip of paper. My endeavours
to decypher the writing occupied time sufficient again to make O'Flaherty
ask,
"Well, Harry, I'm waiting for you. Will you have port?"
"No, I thank you," I replied, having by this revealed the inscription.
"No, I thank you; I'll just stick to my old friend here, Bob M'Grotty;"
for thus I rendered familiarly the name of Rt. M'Grotty on the decanter,
and which I in my ignorance believed to be the boarding-house soubriquet
for bad sherry. That Mr. M'Grotty himself little relished my familiarity
with either his name or property I had a very decisive proof, for turning
round upon his chair, and surveying my person from head to foot with a
look of fiery wrath, he thundered out in very broad Scotch,
"And by my saul, my freend, ye may just as weel finish it noo, for deil a
glass o' his ain wine did Bob M'Grotty, as ye ca' him, swallow this day."
The convulsion of laughter into which my blunder and the Scotchman's
passion threw the whole board, lasted till the cloth was withdrawn, and
the ladies had retired to the drawing-room, the only individual at table
not relishing the mistake being the injured proprietor of the bottle, who
was too proud to accept reparation from my friend's decanter, and would
scarcely condescend to open his lips during the evening; notwithstanding
which display of honest indignation, we contrived to become exceedingly
merry and jocose, most of the party communicating little episodes of
their life, in which, it is true, they frequently figured in situations
that nothing but their native and natural candour would venture to avow.
One story I was considerably amused at; it was told by the counsellor,
Mr. Daly, in illustration of the difficulty of rising at the bar, and
which, as showing his own mode of obviating the delay that young
professional men submit to from hard necessity, as well as in evidence of
his strictly legal turn, I shall certainly recount, one of these days,
for the edification of the junior bar.