Dwala was a social success, an object of multiple affection. His large
grave ways, his modesty, his kindliness, made him personally beloved.
He was, of course, always a ‘native’; there was no escaping that. But
to be tolerated, if you are tolerated everywhere, is social greatness.
One thing he lacked, they said--the sense of humour. The tiny shock
that makes a human joke was too slight for his large senses. But
humour, after all, is a rather bourgeois quality.
He was adopted from the beginning, pushed, trumpeted, imposed,
by that powerful paper the ‘Flywheel.’ He had captivated Captain
Howland-Bowser, its correspondent, at the first encounter. The
‘Flywheel,’ descending after a century, from its Olympian heights, into
the arena of popular favour--by gradual stages, beginning with the
great American ‘pill competition’--had put itself on a level with the
rest by adding a column of ‘Beau Monde Intime’ to its daily issue. The
thing was done on the old Olympian scale. The column was not entrusted
to a chattering magpie-newswoman, or to a broken-winged baronet, as is
the way with lesser sheets; but to an eagle of the heights--the famous
Captain Howland-Bowser, our modern Petronius, the Grand Old Man of
Pall Mall; the Buck from Bath, as envious youngsters called him; the
well-known author of ‘Furbelows’ and the ‘Gourmet’s Calendar.’
The fateful evening is recorded in his ‘Memoirs of a Man about Town,’
that farrago of entertaining scandal, which proved a mine of wealth to
his sorrowing wife and family, to whom he bequeathed the manuscript
when he died, as a consolation for a somewhat neglectful attitude in
life:
‘It was at Lady L----’s that I first met Prince D----, that “swart
monarch” whose brilliant career, with its astonishing _dénouement_,
made so much stir in 19--. I remember that evening well. We had supper
at the Blackguards; _homards à la Cayenne_ with _crème de crevettes_,
_cailles Frédérique_, _salade Howland-Bowser_, &c., &c. Tom Warboys
was there, gallant Tom; Harry Clarke, of Sandown fame; Lord F----
(Mrs. W----’s Lord F----); R----, the artist; poor H----, who shot
himself afterwards; and a few others. W-rb-ck W-m-ss came in later, and
delighted the company with some of his well-known anecdotes. We formed
a brilliant little group in the dear old club--Adolphe was in his
zenith then. The Prince was in great form, saying little, but enjoying
all the fun with a grave relish which was all his own. R---- was the
only blemish in the galaxy; _il faisait tache_, as the volatile Gaul
would say. H---- was getting hold of him at the time to choose some
pictures for the Prince’s “’umble ’ut” in Park Lane. R---- raised a
general laugh at his own expense when I pressed him for an estimate of
Grisetti’s “Passive Resistance,” the gem of our little collection. The
knowingest men in London were agreed that it was not only one of the
wittiest pictures of the year, but the girl the man was kissing was the
most alluring young female ever clapped on canvas. R---- valued it at
twenty pounds--the price of the frame! We roared. It had cost a cool
two thousand, and was worth at least five hundred more. So much for
experts! He was very chapfallen the rest of the evening.
‘However, _revenons à notre mouton_, as the gay Parisians said,
when the siege was raised and _bottines sauce souris_ went out of
fashion. It was at the supper-table that Prince D---- revealed that
extraordinary delicacy of perception which first opened your humble
servant’s eyes to what a pitch refinement can go. His manners,
by-the-bye, were unimpeachable: stately, and yet affable. _Non
imperitus loquor._ But the amazing thing was his palate. There are
delicate palates in London--though many who pose as “men of culture”
have little or none--but the delicacy of Prince D----’s was what I
should call “superhuman,” if subsequent events had not proved that this
extraordinary gift had, by some topsy-turvy chance, fallen to the lot
of one who, I suppose, after all, we must now acknowledge “sub-human.”
‘I had just brought to what I thought, and still think, perfection,
a mixed claret, on which I had been at work a long time. The waiter
had his orders. “_Fiat experimentum_,” said I, and three bottles,
unmarked, were brought. Every one at table was given a liqueur glass of
each to taste. The company mumbled and mouthed them, and each one gave
a different opinion--all wrong. The poor “gamboge-slinger” admitted at
once that he didn’t know port from burgundy: I had suspected as much.
‘“Well, Prince,” said I, “what’s your opinion?” To my astonishment I
saw that he hadn’t touched a drop. He sat quite still, leaning back in
his chair; his nostrils quivered a little. Suddenly he put out one of
his long fingers--his hands were enormous--and touched what I shall
call, for short, “Glass A.”
‘“That is a good wine,” he said, “the same as we had at home night
before last.” He turned to poor H----.
‘“Château Mauville,” said H----.
‘“And that,” he said, touching Glass B, “is thin and sour; it smells
of leather. And that,” he said, touching Glass C, “is a mixture of the
two, and very good it is.” Saying which, he drank it off and licked his
lips.
‘“Gentlemen!” cried I, jumping up; “this is the most extraordinary
thing I ever heard. Without tasting a drop, the Prince has guessed
_exactly_ right. It’s Château Mauville, which I have mixed--a sudden
inspiration which came to me one morning in my bath--with an inferior
Spanish claret, tinged with that odd smack of the wine-skin, which I
thought would fit in with the rather tea-rosy taste of the Mauville.”
‘You can imagine the excitement which this event produced in that
coterie of _viveurs_. From that moment his success in London was
assured. The story got about, in a distorted form of course, as these
things will. I was obliged to give the correct version of it in the
“Flywheel” a few days later.
‘It was I that introduced him to Lord X----, who had been complaining
for years that there wasn’t a man in town fit to drink his Madeira.
Trench by trench the citadel of public opinion was stormed and taken.
How well I remember,’ &c., &c.