_M._ It was but yesterday you spoke him well--
You've changed your mind so soon?
_N._ Not I--'tis he
That, changing to my thought, has changed my mind.
No man puts rotten apples in his pouch
Because their upper side looked fair to him.
Constancy in mistake is constant folly.
The news that the rich heir of the Transomes was actually come back, and
had been seen at Treby, was carried to some one else who had more
reasons for being interested in it than the Reverend Rufus Lyon was yet
conscious of having. It was owing to this that at three o'clock, two
days afterward, a carriage and pair, with coachman and footman in
crimson and drab, passed through the lodge gates at Transome Court.
Inside there was a hale, good-natured-looking man of sixty, whose hands
rested on a knotted stick held between his knees; and a blue-eyed,
well-featured lady, fat and middle-aged--a mountain of satin, lace, and
exquisite muslin embroidery. They were not persons of a highly
remarkable appearance, but to most Trebians they seemed absolutely
unique, and likely to be known anywhere. If you had looked down upon
them from the box of Sampson's coach, he would have said, after lifting
his hat, "Sir Maximus and his lady--did you see?" thinking it needless
to add the surname.
"We shall find her greatly elated, doubtless," Lady Debarry was saying.
"She has been in the shade so long."
"Ah, poor thing!" said Sir Maximus. "A fine woman she was in her bloom.
I remember the first county ball she attended we were all ready to fight
for the sake of dancing with her. I always liked her from that time--I
never swallowed the scandal about her myself."
"If we are to be intimate with her," said Lady Debarry, "I wish you
would avoid making such allusions, Sir Maximus. I should not like Selina
and Harriet to hear them."
"My dear, I should have forgotten all about the scandal, only you remind
me of it sometimes," retorted the baronet, smiling and taking out his
snuff-box.
"These sudden turns of fortune are often dangerous to an excitable
constitution," said Lady Debarry, not choosing to notice her husband's
epigram. "Poor Lady Alicia Methurst got heart-disease from a sudden
piece of luck--the death of her uncle, you know. If Mrs. Transome was
wise she would go to town--she can afford it now, and consult Dr.
Truncheon. I should say myself he would order her digitalis: I have
often guessed exactly what a prescription would be. But it certainly was
one of her weak points to think she understood medicine better than
other people."
"She's a healthy woman enough, surely: see how upright she is, and she
rides about like a girl of twenty."
"She is so thin that she makes me shudder."
"Pooh! she's slim and active; women are not bid for by the pound."
"Pray don't be so coarse."
Sir Maximus laughed and showed his good teeth, which made his laughter
very becoming. The carriage stopped, and they were soon ushered to Mrs.
Transome's sitting-room, where she was working at her worsted
embroidery. A little daily embroidery had been a constant element in
Mrs. Transome's life; but that soothing occupation of taking stitches to
produce what neither she nor any one else wanted, was then the resource
of many a well-born and unhappy woman.
She received much warm congratulation and pressure of her hand with
perfect composure of manner; but she became paler than usual, and her
hands turned quite cold. The Debarrys did not yet know what Harold's
politics were.
"Well, our lucky youngster is come in the nick of time," said Sir
Maximus: "if he'll stand, he and Philip can run in harness together and
keep out both the Whigs."
"It is really quite a providential thing--his returning just now," said
Lady Debarry. "I couldn't help thinking that something would occur to
prevent Philip from having such a man as Peter Garstin for his
colleague."
"I call my friend Harold a youngster," said Sir Maximus, "for, you know,
I remember him only as he was when that portrait was taken."
"That is a long while ago," said Mrs. Transome. "My son is much altered,
as you may imagine."
There was a confused sound of voices in the library while this talk was
going on. Mrs. Transome chose to ignore that noise, but her face, from
being pale, began to flush a little.
"Yes, yes, on the outside, I dare say. But he was a fine fellow--I
always liked him. And if anybody should ask me what I should choose for
the good of the country, I couldn't have thought of anything better than
having a young Transome for a neighbor who will take an active part. The
Transomes and the Debarrys were always on the right side together in old
days. Of course he'll stand--he has made up his mind to it?"
The need for an answer to this embarrassing question was deferred by the
increase of inarticulate sounds accompanied by a bark from the library,
and the sudden appearance at the tapestry-hung doorway of old Mr.
Transome with a cord around his waist, playing a very poor-paced horse
for a black-maned little boy about three years old, who was urging him
on with loud encouraging noises and occasional thumps from a stick which
he wielded with difficulty. The old man paused with a vague smile at the
doorway while the baronet got up to speak to him. Nimrod snuffed at his
master's legs to ascertain that he was not hurt, and the little boy,
finding something new to be looked at, let go the cord and came round in
front of the company, dragging his stick, and standing at a safe
war-dancing distance as he fixed his great black eyes on Lady Debarry.
"Dear me, what a splendid little boy, Mrs. Transome! why--it cannot
be--can it be--that you have the happiness to be a grandmamma?"
"Yes; that is my son's little boy."
"Indeed!" said Lady Debarry, really amazed. "I never heard you speak of
his marriage. He has brought you home a daughter-in-law, then?"
"No," said Mrs. Transome, coldly; "she is dead."
"O--o--oh!" said Lady Debarry, in a tone ludicrously undecided between
condolence, satisfaction, and general mistiness. "How very singular--I
mean that we should not have heard of Mr. Harold's marriage. But he's a
charming little fellow: come to me, you round-cheeked cherub."
The black eyes continued fixed as if by a sort of fascination on Lady
Debarry's face, and her affable invitation was unheeded. At last,
putting his head forward and pouting his lips, the cherub gave forth
with marked intention the sounds, "Nau-o-oom," many times repeated:
apparently they summed up his opinion of Lady Debarry, and may perhaps
have meant "naughty old woman," but his speech was a broken lisping
polyglot of hazardous interpretation. Then he turned to pull at the
Blenheim spaniel, which, being old and peevish, gave a little snap.
"Go, go, Harry; let poor Puff alone--he'll bite you," said Mrs.
Transome, stooping to release her aged pet.
Her words were too suggestive, for Harry immediately laid hold of her
arm with his teeth, and bit with all his might. Happily the stuffs upon
it were some protection, but the pain forced Mrs. Transome to give a low
cry; and Sir Maximus, who had now turned to reseat himself, shook the
little rascal off, whereupon he burst away and trotted into the library
again.
"I fear you are hurt," said Lady Debarry, with sincere concern. "What a
little savage! Do have your arm attended to, my dear--I recommend
fomentation--don't think of me."
"Oh, thank you, it is nothing," said Mrs. Transome, biting her lip and
smiling alternately; "it will soon go off. The pleasures of being a
grandmamma, you perceive. The child has taken a dislike to me; but he
makes quite a new life for Mr. Transome; they were playfellows at once."
"Bless my heart!" said Sir Maximus, "it is odd to think of Harold having
been a family man so long. I made up my mind he was a young bachelor.
What an old stager I am, to be sure! And whom has he married? I hope we
shall soon have the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Harold Transome." Sir
Maximus, occupied with old Mr. Transome, had not overheard the previous
conversation on that subject.
"She is no longer living," Lady Debarry hastily interposed; "but now, my
dear Sir Maximus, we must not hinder Mrs. Transome from attending to her
arm. I am sure she is in pain. Don't say another word, my dear--we shall
see you again--you and Mr. Harold will come and dine with us on
Thursday--say yes, only yes. Sir Maximus is longing to see him: and
Philip will be down."
"Yes, yes!" said Sir Maximus; "he must lose no time in making Philip's
acquaintance. Tell him Philip is a fine fellow--carried everything
before him at Oxford. And your son must be returned along with him for
North Loamshire. You said he meant to stand?"
"I will write and let you know if Harold has any engagement for
Thursday; he would of course be happy otherwise," said Mrs. Transome,
evading the question.
"If not Thursday, the next day--the very first day he can."
The visitors left, and Mrs. Transome was almost glad of the painful bite
which had saved her from being questioned further about Harold's
politics. "This is the last visit I shall receive from them," she said
to herself as the door closed behind them, and she rang for Denner.
"That poor creature is not happy, Sir Maximus," said Lady Debarry as
they drove along. "Something annoys her about her son. I hope there is
nothing unpleasant in his character. Either he kept his marriage a
secret from her, or she was ashamed of it. He is thirty-four at least by
this time. After living in the East so long he may have become a sort of
person one would not care to be intimate with, and that savage boy--he
doesn't look like a lady's child."
"Pooh, my dear," said Sir Maximus, "women think so much of those
minutiæ. In the present state of the country it is our duty to look at a
man's position and politics. Philip and my brother are both of that
opinion, and I think they know what's right, if any man does. We are
bound to regard every man of our party as a public instrument, and to
pull all together. The Transomes have always been a good Tory family,
but it has been a cipher of late years. This young fellow coming back
with a fortune to give the family a head and a position is a clear gain
to the county; and with Philip he'll get into the right hands--of course
he wants guiding, having been out of the country so long. All we have to
ask is, whether a man's a Tory, and will make a stand for the good of
the country?--that's the plain English of the matter. And I do beg of
you, my dear, to set aside all these gossiping niceties, and exert
yourself, like a woman of sense and spirit as you are, to bring the
right people together."
Here Sir Maximus gave a deep cough, took out his snuff-box, and tapped
it: he had made a serious marital speech, an exertion to which he was
rarely urged by anything smaller than a matter of conscience. And this
outline of the whole duty of a Tory was a matter of conscience with him;
though the _Duffield Watchman_ had pointed expressly to Sir Maximus
Debarry amongst others, in branding the co-operation of the Tories as a
conscious selfishness and reckless immorality, which, however, would be
defeated by the co-operation of all the friends of truth and liberty,
who, the _Watchman_ trusted, would subordinate all non-political
differences in order to return representatives pledged to support the
present government.
"I am sure, Sir Maximus," Lady Debarry answered, "you could not have
observed that anything was wanting in my manners to Mrs. Transome."
"No, no, my dear; but I say this by way of caution. Never mind what was
done at Smyrna, or whether Transome likes to sit with his heels tucked
up. We may surely wink at a few things for the sake of the public
interest, if God Almighty does; and if He didn't, I don't know what
would have become of the country--Government could never have been
carried on, and many a good battle would have been lost. That's the
philosophy of the matter, and common-sense too."
Good Sir Maximus gave a deep cough and tapped his box again, inwardly
remarking, that if he had not been such a lazy fellow he might have made
as good a figure as his son Philip.
But at this point the carriage, which was rolling by a turn toward Treby
Magna, passed a well-dressed man, who raised his hat to Sir Maximus, and
called to the coachman to stop.
"Excuse me, Sir Maximus," said this personage, standing uncovered at the
carriage-door, "but I have just learned something of importance at
Treby, which I thought you would like to know as soon as possible."
"Ah! what's that? Something about Garstin or Clement?" said Sir Maximus,
seeing the other draw a poster from his pocket.
"No; rather worse, I fear you will think. A new Radical candidate. I got
this by a stratagem from the printer's boy. They're not posted yet."
"A Radical!" said Sir Maximus, in a tone of incredulous disgust, as he
took the folded bill. "What fool is he?--he'll have no chance."
"They say he's richer than Garstin."
"Harold Transome!" shouted Sir Maximus, as he read the name in
three-inch letters. "I don't believe it--it's a trick--it's a squib:
why--why--we've just been to his place--eh? do you know any more? Speak,
sir--speak; don't deal out your story like a damned mountebank, who
wants to keep people gaping."
"Sir Maximus, pray don't give way so," said Lady Debarry.
"I'm afraid there's no doubt about it, sir," said Christian. "After
getting the bill, I met Mr. Labron's clerk, and he said he had just had
the whole story from Jermyn's clerk. The Ram Inn is engaged already, and
a committee is being made up. He says Jermyn goes like a steam engine,
when he has a mind, although he makes such long-winded speeches."
"Jermyn be hanged for a two-faced rascal! Tell Mitchell to drive on.
It's of no use to stay chattering here. Jump up on the box and go home
with us. I may want you."
"You see I was right, Sir Maximus," said the baronet's wife. "I had an
instinct that we should find him an unpleasant person."
"Fudge! if you had such a fine instinct, why did you let us go to
Transome Court and make fools of ourselves?"
"Would you have listened to me? But of course you will not have him to
dine with you?"
"Dine with me? I should think not. I'd sooner he should dine off me. I
see how it is clearly enough. He has become a regular beast among those
Mahometans--he's got neither religion nor morals left. He can't know any
thing about English politics. He'll go and cut his own nose off as a
landholder, and never know. However, he won't get in--he'll spend his
money for nothing."
"I fear he is a very licentious man," said Lady Debarry. "We know now
why his mother seemed so uneasy. I should think she reflects a little,
poor creature."
"It's a confounded nuisance we didn't meet Christian on our way, instead
of coming back; but better now than later. He's an uncommonly adroit,
useful fellow, that factotum of Philip's. I wish Phil would take my man
and give me Christian. I'd make him house-steward: he might reduce the
accounts a little."
Perhaps Sir Maximus would not have been so sanguine as to Mr.
Christian's economical virtues if he had seen that gentleman relaxing
himself the same evening among the other distinguished dependents of the
family and frequenters of the steward's room. But a man of Sir Maximus's
rank is like those antediluvian animals whom the system of things
condemned to carry such a huge bulk that they really could not inspect
their bodily appurtenance, and had no conception of their own tails:
their parasites doubtless had a merry time of it, and often did
extremely well when the high-bred saurian himself was ill at ease. Treby
Manor, measured from the front saloon to the remotest shed, was as large
as a moderate-sized village, and there were certainly more lights
burning in it every evening, more wine, spirits, and ale drunk, more
waste and more folly, than could be found in some large villages. There
was fast revelry in the steward's room, and slow revelry in the Scotch
bailiff's room; short whist, costume, and flirtation in the
housekeeper's room, and the same at a lower price in the servants' hall;
a select Olympian feast in the private apartment of the cook, who was a
much grander person than her ladyship, and wore gold and jewelry to a
vast amount of suet; a gambling group in the stables, and the coachman,
perhaps the most innocent member of the establishment, tippling in
majestic solitude by a fire in the harness-room. For Sir Maximus, as
every one said, was a gentleman of the right sort, condescended to no
mean enquiries, greeted his head-servants with a "good-evening,
gentlemen," when he met them in the park, and only snarled in a subdued
way when he looked over the accounts, willing to endure some personal
inconvenience in order to keep up the institutions of the country, to
maintain his hereditary establishment, and do his duty in that station
of life--the station of the long-tailed saurian--to which it had pleased
Providence to call him.
The focus of brilliancy at Treby Manor that evening was in no way the
dining-room, where Sir Maximus sipped his port under some mental
depression, as he discussed with his brother, the Reverend Augustus, the
sad fact that one of the oldest names in the county was to be on the
wrong side--not in the drawing-room, where Miss Debarry and Miss Selina,
quietly elegant in their dress and manners, were feeling rather dull
than otherwise, having finished Mr. Bulwer's "Eugene Aram," and being
thrown back on the last great prose work of Mr. Southey, while their
mamma slumbered a little on the sofa. No; the centre of eager talk and
enjoyment was the steward's room, where Mr. Scales, house-steward and
head-butler, a man most solicitous about his boots, wristbands, the roll
of his whiskers, and other attributes of a gentleman, distributed
cigars, cognac, and whiskey, to various colleagues and guests who were
discussing, with that freedom of conjecture which is one of our
inalienable privileges as Britons, the probable amount of Harold
Transome's fortune, concerning which fame had already been busy long
enough to have acquired vast magnifying power.
The chief part in this scene was undoubtedly Mr. Christian's, although
he had hitherto been comparatively silent; but he occupied two chairs
with so much grace, throwing his right leg over the seat of the second,
and resting his right hand on the back; he held his cigar and displayed
a splendid seal-ring with such becoming nonchalance, and had his gray
hair arranged with so much taste, that experienced eyes would at once
have seen even the great Scales himself to be but a secondary character.
"Why," said Mr. Crowder, an old respectable tenant, though much in
arrear as to his rent, who condescended frequently to drink in the
steward's room for the sake of the conversation; "why, I suppose they
get money so fast in the East--it's wonderful. Why," he went on, with a
hesitating look toward Mr. Scales, "this Transome p'r'aps got a matter
of a hundred thousand."
"A hundred thousand, my dear sir! fiddle-stick's end of a hundred
thousand," said Mr. Scales, with a contempt very painful to be borne by
a modest man.
"Well," said Mr. Crowder, giving way under torture, as the all-knowing
butler puffed and stared at him, "perhaps not so much as that."
"Not so much, sir! I tell you that a hundred thousand pounds is a
bagatelle."
"Well, I know it's a big sum," said Mr. Crowder, deprecatingly.
Here there was a general laugh. All the other intellects present were
more cultivated than Mr. Crowder's.
"Bagatelle is the French for trifle, my friend," said Mr. Christian.
"Don't talk over people's heads so, Scales. I shall have hard work to
understand you myself soon."
"Come, that's a good one," said the head-gardener, who was a ready
admirer; "I should like to hear the thing you don't understand,
Christian."
"He's a first-rate hand at sneering," said Mr. Scales, rather nettled.
"Don't be waspie, man. I'll ring the bell for lemons, and make some
punch. That's the thing for putting people up to the unknown tongues,"
said Mr. Christian, starting up and slapping Scales's shoulder as he
passed him.
"What I mean, Mr. Crowder, is this." Here Mr. Scales paused to puff,
and pull down his waistcoat in a gentlemanly manner, and drink. He was
wont in this way to give his hearers time for meditation.
"Come, then, speak English; I'm not against being taught," said the
reasonable Crowder.
"What I mean is, that in a large way of trade a man turns his capital
over almost as soon as he can turn himself. Bless your soul! I know
something about these matters, eh, Brent?"
"To be sure you do--few men more," said the gardener, who was the person
appealed to.
"Not that I've had anything to do with commercial families myself. I've
those feelings that I look to other things besides lucre. But I can't
say that I've not been intimate with parties who have been less nice
than I am myself; and knowing what I know, I shouldn't wonder if
Transome had as much as five hundred thousand. Bless your soul, sir!
people who get their money out of land are as long scraping five pounds
together as your trading men are in turning five pounds into a hundred."
"That's a wicked thing, though," said Mr. Crowder, meditatively.
"However," he went on, retreating from this difficult ground, "trade or
no trade, the Transomes have been poor enough this many a long year.
I've a brother a tenant on their estate--I ought to know a little bit
about that."
"They've kept up no establishment at all," said Mr. Scales, with
disgust. "They've even let their kitchen gardens. I suppose it was the
son's gambling. I've seen something of that. A man who has always lived
in first-rate families is likely to know a thing or two on that
subject."
"Ah, but it wasn't gambling did the first mischief," said Mr. Crowder,
with a slight smile, feeling that it was his turn to have some
superiority. "New-comers don't know what happened in this country twenty
and thirty years ago. I'm turned fifty myself, and my father lived under
Sir Maximus's father. But if anybody from London can tell me more than I
know about this country-side, I'm willing to listen."
"What was it, then, if it wasn't gambling?" said Mr. Scales, with some
impatience. "_I_ don't pretend to know."
"It was law--law--that's what it was. Not but what the Transomes always
won."
"And always lost," said the too-ready Scales. "Yes, yes; I think we all
know the nature of law."
"There was the last suit of all made the most noise, as I understood,"
continued Mr. Crowder; "but it wasn't tried hereabout. They said there
was a deal o' false swearing. Some young man pretended to be the true
heir--let me see--I can't justly remember the names--he'd got two. _He_
swore he was one man, and _they_ swore he was another. However Lawyer
Jermyn won it--they say he'd win a game against the Old One himself--and
the young fellow turned out to be a scamp. Stop a bit--his name was
Scaddon--Henry Scaddon."
Mr. Christian here let a lemon slip from his hand into the punch-bowl
with a splash which sent some of the nectar into the company's faces.
"Hallo! What a bungler I am!" he said, looking as if he were quite
jarred by this unusual awkwardness of his. "Go on with your tale, Mr.
Crowder--a scamp named Henry Scaddon."
"Well, that's the tale," said Mr. Crowder. "He was never seen nothing of
anymore. It was a deal talked of at the time--and I've sat by; and my
father used to shake his head; and always when this Mrs. Transome was
talked of, he used to shake his head, and say she carried things with a
high hand once. But, Lord! it was before the battle of Waterloo, and I'm
a poor hand at tales; I don't see much good in 'em myself--but if
anybody'll tell me a cure for the sheep-rot, I'll thank him."
Here Mr. Crowder relapsed into smoking and silence, a little discomfited
that the knowledge of which he had been delivered had turned out rather
a shapeless and insignificant birth.
"Well, well, bygones should be bygones; there are secrets in most good
families," said Mr. Scales, winking, "and this young Transome, coming
back with a fortune to keep up the establishment, and have things done
in a decent and gentlemanly way--it would all have been right if he'd
not been this sort of Radical madman. But now he's done for himself. I
heard Sir Maximus say at dinner that he would be excommunicated; and
that's a pretty strong word, I take it."
"What does it mean, Scales?" said Mr. Christian, who loved tormenting.
"Ay, what's the meaning?" insisted Mr. Crowder, encouraged by finding
that even Christian was in the dark.
"Well, it's a law term--speaking in a figurative sort of way--meaning
that a Radical was no gentleman."
"Perhaps it's partly accounted for by his getting his money so fast, and
in foreign countries," said Mr. Crowder, tentatively. "It's reasonable
to think he'd be against the land and this country--eh, Sircome?"
Sircome was an eminent miller who had considerable business transactions
at the Manor, and appreciated Mr. Scales's merits at a handsome
percentage on the yearly account. He was a highly honorable tradesman,
but in this and in other matters submitted to the institutions of his
country; for great houses, as he observed, must have great butlers. He
replied to his friend Crowder sententiously.
"I say nothing. Before I bring words to market, I should like to see 'em
a bit scarcer. There's the land and there's trade--I hold with both. I
swim with the stream."
"Hey-day, Mr. Sircome! that's a Radical maxim," said Mr. Christian, who
knew that Mr. Sircome's last sentence was his favorite formula. "I
advise you to give it up, else it will injure the quality of your
flour."
"A Radical maxim!" said Mr. Sircome, in a tone of angry astonishment. "I
should like to hear you prove that. It's as old as my grandfather,
anyhow."
"I'll prove it in one minute," said the glib Christian. "Reform has set
in by the will of the majority--that's the rabble, you know; and the
respectability and good sense of the country, which are in the minority,
are afraid of Reform running on too fast. So the stream must be running
toward Reform and Radicalism; and if you swim with it, Mr. Sircome,
you're a Reformer and a Radical, and your flour is objectionable, and
not full weight--and being tried by Scales, will be found wanting."
There was a roar of laughter. This pun upon Scales was highly
appreciated by every one except the miller and butler. The latter pulled
down his waistcoat, and puffed and stared in rather an excited manner.
Mr. Christian's wit, in general, seemed to him a poor kind of quibbling.
"What a fellow you are for fence, Christian," said the gardener. "Hang
me, if I don't think you're up to everything."
"That's a compliment you might pay Old Nick, if you come to that," said
Mr. Sircome, who was in the painful position of a man deprived of his
formula.
"Yes, yes," said Mr. Scales; "I'm no fool myself, and could parry a
thrust if I liked, but I shouldn't like it to be said of me that I was
up to everything. I'll keep a little principle if you please."
"To be sure," said Christian, ladling out the punch. "What would justice
be without Scales?"
The laughter was not quite so full-throated as before. Such excessive
cleverness _was_ a little Satanic.
"A joke's a joke among gentlemen," said the butler, getting exasperated;
"I think there has been quite liberties enough taken with my name. But
if you must talk about names, I've heard of a party before now calling
himself a Christian, and being anything _but_ it."
"Come, that's beyond a joke," said the surgeon's assistant, a fast man,
whose chief scene of dissipation was the manor. "Let it drop, Scales."
"Yes, I dare say it's beyond a joke. I'm not a harlequin to talk nothing
but jokes. I leave that to other Christians, who are up to everything,
and have been everywhere--to the hulks, for what I know; and more than
that, they come from nobody knows where, and try to worm themselves into
gentlemen's confidence, to the prejudice of their betters."
There was a stricter sequence in Mr. Scales's angry eloquence than was
apparent--some chief links being confined to his own breast, as is often
the case in energetic discourse. The company were in a state of
expectation. There was something behind worth knowing, and something
before them worth seeing. In the general decay of other fine British
pugnacious sports, a quarrel between gentlemen was all the more
exciting, and though no one would himself have liked to turn on Scales,
no one was sorry for the chance of seeing him put down. But the amazing
Christian was unmoved. He had taken out his handkerchief and was rubbing
his lips carefully. After a slight pause, he spoke with perfect
coolness.
"I don't intend to quarrel with you, Scales. Such talk as this is not
profitable to either of us. It makes you purple in the face--you _are_
apoplectic, you know--and it spoils good company. Better tell a few fibs
about me behind my back--it will heat you less, and do me more harm.
I'll leave you to it; I shall go and have a game of whist with the
ladies."
As the door closed behind the questionable Christian, Mr. Scales was in
a state of frustration that prevented speech. Every one was rather
embarrassed.
"That's an uncommon sort o' fellow," said Mr. Crowder, in an undertone,
to his next neighbor, the gardener. "Why, Mr. Philip picked him up in
foreign parts, didn't he?"
"He was a courier," said the gardener. "He's had a deal of experience.
And I believe, by what I can make out--for he's been pretty free with me
sometimes--there was a time when he was in that rank of life that he
fought a duel."
"Ah! that makes him such a cool chap," said Mr. Crowder.
"He's what I call an overbearing fellow," said Mr. Sircome, also _sotto
voce_, to his next neighbor, Mr. Filmore, the surgeon's assistant. "He
runs you down with a sort of talk that's neither here nor there. He's
got a deal too many samples in his pocket for me."
"All I know is, he's a wonderful hand at cards," said Mr. Filmore, whose
whiskers and shirt-pin were quite above the average. "I wish I could
play _écarté_ as he does; it's beautiful to see him; he can make a man
look pretty blue; he'll empty his pocket for him in no time."
"That's none to his credit," said Mr. Sircome.
The conversation had in this way broken up into _tête-à-tête_, and the
hilarity of the evening might be considered a failure. Still the punch
was drunk, the accounts were duly swelled, and, notwithstanding the
innovating spirit of the time, Sir Maximus Debarry's establishment was
kept up in sound hereditary British manner.