MR. PUFFINGTON; OR THE YOUNG MAN ABOUT TOWN
Mr. Puffington took the Mangeysterne, now the Hanby hounds, because he
thought they would give him consequence. Not that he was particularly
deficient in that article; but being a new man in the county, he thought
that taking them would make him popular, and give him standing. He had no
natural inclination for hunting, but seeing friends who had no taste for
the turf take upon themselves the responsibility of stewardships, he saw
no reason why he should not make a similar sacrifice at the shrine of
Diana. Indeed, Puff was not bred for a sportsman. His father, a most
estimable man, and one with whom we have spent many a convivial evening,
was a great starch-maker at Stepney; and his mother was the daughter of an
eminent Worcestershire stone-china maker. Save such ludicrous hunts as they
might have seen on their brown jugs, we do not believe either of them had
any acquaintance whatever with the chase. Old Puffington was, however, what
a wise heir esteems a great deal more--an excellent man of business, and
amassed mountains of money. To see his establishment at Stepney, one would
think the whole world was going to be starched. Enormous dock-tailed
dray-horses emerged with ponderous waggons heaped up to the very skies,
while others would come rumbling in, laden with wheat, potatoes, and other
starch-making ingredients. Puffington's blue roans were well known about
town, and were considered the handsomest horses of the day; quite equal to
Barclay and Perkin's piebalds.
Old Puffington was not like a sportsman. He was a little, soft, rosy,
roundabout man, with stiff resolute legs that did not look as if they could
be bent to a saddle. He was great, however, in a gig, and slouched like a
sack.
Mrs. Puffington, _nee_ Smith, was a tall handsome woman, who thought a good
deal of herself. When she and her spouse married, they lived close to the
manufactory, in a sweet little villa replete with every elegance and
convenience--a pond, which they called a lake--laburnums without end; a
yew, clipped into a dock-tailed waggon-horse; standing for three horses and
gigs, with an acre and half of land for a cow.
Old Puffington, however, being unable to keep those dearest documents of
the British merchant, his balance-sheets, to himself, and Mrs. Puffington
finding a considerable sum going to the 'good' every year, insisted, on the
birth of their only child, our friend, upon migrating to the 'west,' as she
called it, and at one bold stroke they established themselves in Heathcote
Street, Mecklenburgh Square. Novelists had not then written this part down
as 'Mesopotamia,' and it was quite as genteel as Harley or Wimpole Street
are now. Their chief object then was to increase their wealth and make
their only son 'a gentleman.' They sent him to Eton, and in due time to
Christ Church, where, of course, he established a red coat to persecute Sir
Thomas Mostyn's and the Duke of Beaufort's hounds, much to the annoyance of
their respective huntsmen, Stephen Goodall and Philip Payne, and the
aggravation of poor old Griff. Lloyd.
What between the field and college, young Puffington made the acquaintance
of several very dashing young sparks--Lord Firebrand, Lord Mudlark, Lord
Deuceace, Sir Harry Blueun, and others, whom he always spoke of as
'Deuceace,' 'Blueun,' etc., in the easy style that marks the perfect
gentleman.[1] How proud the old people were of him! How they would sit
listening to him, flashing, and telling how Deuceace and he floored a
Charley, or Blueun and he pitched a snob out of the boxes into the pit.
This was in the old Tom-and-Jerry days, when fisticuffs were the fashion.
One evening, after he had indulged us with a more than usual dose, and was
leaving the room to dress for an eight o'clock dinner at Long's, 'Buzzer!'
exclaimed the old man, clutching our arm, as the tears started to his eyes,
'Buzzer! that's an am_aa_zin' instance of a pop'lar man!' And certainly, if
a large acquaintance is a criterion of popularity, young Puffington, as he
was then called, had his fair share. He once did us the honour--an honour
we shall never forget--of walking down Bond Street with us, in the
spring-tide of fashion, of a glorious summer's day, when you could not
cross Conduit Street under a lapse of a quarter of an hour, and carriages
seemed to have come to an interminable lock at the Piccadilly end of the
street. In those days great people went about like great people, in
handsome hammer-clothed, arms-emblazoned coaches, with plethoric
three-corner-hatted coachmen, and gigantic, lace-bedizened,
quivering-calved Johnnies, instead of rumbling along like apothecaries in
pill-boxes, with a handle inside to let themselves out. Young men, too,
dressed as if they were dressed--as if they were got up with some care and
attention--instead of wearing the loose, careless, flowing, sack-like
garments they do now.
We remember the day as if it were but yesterday; Puffington overtook us in
Oxford Street, where we were taking our usual sauntering stare into the
shop windows, and instead of shirking or slipping behind our back, he
actually ran his arm up to the hilt in ours, and turned us into the middle
of the flags, with an 'Ah, Buzzer, old boy, what are you doing in this
debauched part of the town? Come along with me, and I'll show you Life!'
So saying he linked arms, and pursuing our course at a proper kill-time
sort of pace, we were at length brought up at the end of Vere Street, along
which there was a regular rush of carriages, cutting away as if they were
going to a fire instead of to a finery shop.
Many were the smiles, and bows, and nods, and finger kisses, and bright
eyes, and sweet glances, that the fair flyers shot at our friend as they
darted past. We were lost in astonishment at the sight. 'Verily,' said we,
'but the old man was right. This _is_ an am_aa_zin' instance of a pop'lar
man.'
Young Puffington was then in the heyday of youth, about one-and-twenty or
so, fair-haired, fresh-complexioned, slim, and standing, with the aid of
high-heeled boots, little under six feet high. He had taken after his
mother, not after old Tom Trodgers, as they called his papa. At length we
crossed over Oxford Street, and taking the shady side of Bond Street, were
quickly among the real swells of the world--men who crawled along as if
life was a perfect burden to them--men with eye-glasses fixed and tasselled
canes in their hands, scarcely less ponderous than those borne by the
footmen. Great Heavens! but they were tight, and smart, and shiny; and
Puffington was just as tight, and smart, and shiny as any of them. He was
as much in his element here as he appeared to be out of it in Oxford
Street. It might be prejudice, or want of penetration on our part, but we
thought he looked as high-bred as any of them. They all seemed to know each
other, and the nodding, and winking, and jerking, began as soon as we got
across. Puff kindly acted as cicerone, or we should not have been aware of
the consequence we were encountering.
'Well, Jemmy!' exclaimed a debauched-looking youth to our friend, 'how are
you?--breakfasted yet?'
'Going to,' replied Puffington, whom they called Jemmy because his name was
Tommy.
'That,' said he, in an undertone, 'is a _capital_ fellow--Lord Legbail,
eldest son of the Marquis of Loosefish--will be Lord Loosefish. We were at
the Finish together till six this morning--such fun!--bonneted a Charley,
stole his rattle, and broke an early breakfast-man's stall all to shivers.'
Just then up came a broad-brimmed hat, above a confused mass of greatcoats
and coloured shawls.
'Holloa, Jack!' exclaimed Mr. Puffington, laying hold of a mother-of-pearl
button nearly as large as a tart-plate, 'not off yet?'
'Just going,' replied Jack, with a touch of his hat, as he rolled on,
adding, 'want aught down the road?'
'What coachman is that?' asked we.
'_Coachman!_' replied Puff, with a snort. 'That's Jack Linchpin--Honourable
Jack Linchpin--son of Lord Splinterbars--best gentleman coachman in
England.'
So Puffington sauntered along, good morninging 'Sir Harrys' and 'Sir
Jameses,' and 'Lord Johns' and 'Lord Toms,' till, seeing a batch of
irreproachable dandies flattening their noses against the windows of the
Sailors' Old Club, in whose eyes, he perhaps thought, our city coat and
country gaiters would not find much favour, he gave us a hasty parting
squeeze of the arm and bolted into Long's just as a mountainous
hackney-coach was rumbling between us and them.
But to the old man. Time rolled on, and at length old Puffington paid the
debt of nature--the only debt, by the way, that he was slow in
discharging--and our friend found himself in possession, not only of the
starch manufactory, but of a very great accumulation of consols--so great
that, though starch is as inoffensive a thing as a man can well deal in, a
thing that never obtrudes itself, or, indeed appears in a shop unless it is
asked for--notwithstanding all this, and though it was bringing him in lots
of money, our friend determined to 'cut the shop' and be done with trade
altogether.
Accordingly, he sold the premises and good-will, with all the stock of
potatoes and wheat, to the foreman, old Soapsuds, at something below what
they were really worth, rather than make any row in the way of advertising;
and the name of 'Soapsuds, Brothers & Co.' reigns on the
blue-and-whitey-brown parcel-ends, where formerly that of Puffington stood
supreme.
It is a melancholy fact, which those best acquainted with London society
can vouch for, that her 'swells' are a very ephemeral race. Take the last
five-and-twenty years--say from the days of the Golden Ball and Pea-green
Hayne down to those of Molly C----l and Mr. D-l-f-ld--and see what a
succession of joyous--no, not joyous, but rattling, careless, dashing,
sixty-percenting youths we have had.
And where are they all now? Some dead, some at Boulogne-sur-Mer, some in
Denman Lodge, some perhaps undergoing the polite attentions of Mr.
Commissioner Phillips, or figuring in Mr. Hemp's periodical publication of
gentlemen 'who are wanted.'
In speaking of 'swells,' of course we are not alluding to men with
reference to their clothes alone, but to men whose dashing, and perhaps
eccentric, exteriors are but indicative of their general system of
extravagance. The man who rests his claims to distinction solely on his
clothes will very soon find himself in want of society. Many things
contribute to thin the ranks of our swells. Many, as we said before, outrun
the constable. Some get fat, some get married, some get tired, and a few
get wiser. There is, however, always a fine pushing crop coming on. A man
like Puffington, who starts a dandy (in contradistinction to a swell), and
adheres steadily to clothes--talking eternally of the cuts of coats or the
ties of cravats--up to the sober age of forty, must be always falling back
on the rising generation for society.
Puffington was not what the old ladies call a profligate young man. On the
contrary, he was naturally a nice, steady young man; and only indulged in
the vagaries we have described because they were indulged in by the
high-born and gay.
Tom and Jerry had a great deal to answer for in the way of leading
soft-headed young men astray; and old Puffington having had the misfortune
to christen our friend 'Thomas,' of course his companions dubbed him
'Corinthian Tom'; by which name he has been known ever since.
A man of such undoubted wealth could not be otherwise than a great
favourite with the fair, and innumerable were the invitations that poured
into his chambers in the Albany--dinner parties, evening parties, balls,
concerts, boxes for the opera; and as each succeeding season drew to a
close, invitations to those last efforts of the desperate, boating and
whitebait parties.
Corinthian Tom went to them all--at least, to as many as he could
manage--always dressing in the most exemplary way, as though he had been
asked to show his fine clothes instead of to make love to the ladies.
Manifold were the hopes and expectations that he raised. Puff could not
understand that, though it is all very well to be 'an am_aa_zin' instance
of a pop'lar man' with the men, that the same sort of thing does not do
with the ladies.
We have heard that there were six mammas, bowling about in their barouches,
at the close of his second season, innuendoing, nodding, and hinting to
their friends, 'that, &c.,' when there wasn't one of their daughters who
had penetrated the rhinoceros-like hide of his own conceit. The consequence
was that all these ladies, all their daughters, all the relations and
connexions of this life, thought it incumbent upon them to 'blow' our
friend Puff--proclaim how infamously he had behaved--all because he had
danced three supper dances with one girl, brought another a fine bouquet
from Covent Garden, walked a third away from her party at a picnic at
Erith, begged the mamma of a fourth to take her to a Woolwich ball, sent a
fifth a ticket for a Toxophilite meeting, and dangled about the carriage of
the sixth at a review at the Scrubbs. Poor Puff never thought of being
more than an am_aa_zin' instance of a pop'lar man!
Not that the ladies' denunciations did the Corinthian any harm at
first--old ladies know each other better than that; and each new mamma had
no doubt but Mrs. Depecarde or Mrs. Mainchance, as the case might be, had
been deceiving herself--'was always doing so, indeed; her ugly girls were
not likely to attract any one--certainly not such an elegant man as
Corinthian Tom.'
But as season after season passed away, and the Corinthian still played the
old game--still went the old rounds--the dinner and ball invitations
gradually dwindled away, till he became a mere stop-gap at the one, and a
landing-place appendage at the other.
[Illustration: MR. PUFFINGTON, FROM THE ORIGINAL PICTURE]