good if he praised it, I can tell you. I imported it myself, and gave him the
address of the Bordeaux merchant; and he said he had seldom tasted any like it.
Those were his very words. I must get you fellows to come and taste it some
day."
"Some day! What day? Name it, generous Amphitryon!" cries Rosebury.
"Some day at seven o'clock. With a plain, quiet dinner??a clear soup, a bit of
fish, a couple of little entr?es, a and a nice little roast. That's my kind of
dinner. And we'll taste that claret, young men. It is not a heavy wine. It is
not a first-class wine. I don't mean even to say it is a dear wine, but it has a
bouquet and a pureness. What, you will smoke, you fellows?"
"We will do it, Mr. Twysden. Better do as the rest of us do. Try one of these."
The little man accepts the proffered cigar from the young nobleman's box, lights
it, hems and hawks, and lapses into silence.
"I thought that would do for him," murmurs the facetious Ascot. "It is strong
enough to blow his old head off, and I wish it would. That cigar," he continues,
"was given to my father by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who had it out of the
Queen of Spain's own box. She smokes a good deal, but naturally likes 'em mild.
I can give you a stronger one."
"Oh, no. I dare say this is very fine. Thank you!" says poor Talbot.
"Leave him alone, can't you?" says Philip. "Don't make a fool of him before the
young men, Ascot."
Philip still looked very dismal in the midst of the festivity. He was thinking
of his differences with his absent parent.
We might all have been easily consoled, if the doctor had taken away with him
the elderly companion whom he had introduced to Phil's feast. He could not have
been very welcome to our host, for Phil scowled at his guest, and whispered,
"Hang Hunt!" to his neighbour.
"Hang Hunt"??the Reverend Tufton Hunt was his name??was in nowise disconcerted
by the coolness of his reception. He drank his wine very freely; addressed
himself to his neighbours affably; and called out a loud "Hear, hear," to
Twysden, when that gentleman announced his intention of making a night of it. As
Mr. Hunt warmed with wine he spoke to the table. He talked a great deal about
the Ringwood family, had been very intimate at Wingate, in old days, as he told
Mr. Twysden, and an intimate friend of poor Cinqbars, Lord Ringwood's only son.
Now, the memory of the late Lord Cinqbars was not an agreeable recollection to
the relatives of the house of Ringwood. He was in life a dissipated and
disreputable young lord. His name was seldom mentioned in his family; never by
his father, with whom he had had many quarrels.
"You know I introduced Cinqbars to your father, Philip?" calls out the dingy
clergyman.
"I have heard you mention the fact," says Philip.
"They met at a wine in my rooms in Corpus. Brummell Firmin we used to call your
father in those days. He was the greatest buck in the university?? always a
dressy man, kept hunters, gave the best dinners in Cambridge. We were a wild
set. There was Cinqbars, Brand Firmin, Beryl, Toplady, about a dozen of us,
almost all noblemen or fellow-commoners?? fellows who all kept their horses and
had their private servants."
This speech was addressed to the company, who yet did not seem much edified by
the college recollections of the dingy elderly man.
"Almost all Trinity men, sir! We dined with each other week about. Many of them
had their tandems. Desperate fellow across country your father was. And, but we
won't tell tales out of school, hey?"
"No; please don't sir," said Philip, clenching his fists, and biting his lips.
The shabby, ill-bred, swaggering man was eating Philip's salt; Phil's lordly
ideas of hospitality did not allow him to quarrel with the guest under his tent.
"When he went out in medicine, we were all of us astonished. Why, sir, Brand
Firmin, at one time, was the greatest swell in the university," continued Mr.
Hunt, "and such a plucky fellow! So was poor Cinqbars, though he had no stamina.
He, I, and Firmin, fought for twenty minutes before Caius' Gate with about
twenty bargemen, and you should have seen your father hit out! I was a handy one
in those days, too, with my fingers. We learned the noble art of self-defence in
my time, young gentlemen! We used to have Glover, the boxer, down from London,
who gave us lessons. Cinqbars was a pretty sparrer??but no stamina. Brandy
killed him, sir??brandy killed him! Why, this is some of your governor's wine!
He and I have been drinking it to-night in Parr Street, and talking over old
times."
"I am glad, sir, you found the wine to your taste," says Philip, gravely.
"I did, Philip, my boy! And when your father said he was coming to your wine, I
said I'd come to."
"I wish somebody would fling him out of window," groaned Philip.
"A most potent, grave, and reverend senior," whispered Rosebury to me. "I read
billards, Boulogne, gambling-houses, in his noble lineaments. Has he long
adorned your family circle, Firmin?"
"I found him at home about a month ago, in my father's ante-room, in the same
clothes, with a pair of mangy moustaches on his face; and he has been at our
house every day since."
"?chapp? de Toulon," says Rosebury, blandly, looking towards the stranger. "Cela
se voit. Homme parfaitement distingu?. You are quite right, sir. I was speaking
of you; and asking our friend Philip where it was I had the honour of meeting
you abroad last year? This courtesy," he gently added, "will disarm tigers."
"I was abroad, sir, last year," said the other, nodding his head.
"Three to one he was in Boulogne gaol, or perhaps officiating chaplain at a
gambling-house. Stop, I have it! Baden Baden, sir?"
"I was there, safe enough," says the clergyman. "It is a very pretty place; but
the air of the Apr?s kills you. Ha! ha! Your father used to shake his elbow when
he was a youngster, too, Philip! I can't help calling you Philip. I've known
your father these thirty years. We were college chums, you know."
"Ah! what would I give," sighs Rosebury, "if that venerable being would but
address me by my Christian name! Philip, do something to make your party go. The
old gentlemen are throttling it? Sing something, somebody! or let us drown our
melancholy in wine. You expressed your approbation of this claret, sir, and
claimed a previous acquaintance with it?"
"I've drunk two dozen of it in the last month," says Mr. Hunt, with a grin.
"Two dozen and four, sir," remarks Mr. Brice, putting a fresh bottle on the
table.
"Well said, Brice! I make the Firmin Arms my head-quarters; and honour the
landlord with a good deal of my company," remarks Mr. Hunt.
"The Firmin Arms are honoured by having such supporters!" says Phil, glaring and
with a heaving chest. At each moment he was growing more and more angry with
that parson.
At a certain stage of conviviality Phil was fond of talking of his pedigree;
and, though a professor of very liberal opinions, was not a little proud of some
of his ancestors.
> "Oh, come, I say! Sink the heraldry!" cries Lord Ascot.
"I am very sorry! I would do anything to oblige you, but I can't help being a
gentleman!" growls Philip.
"Oh, I say! If you intend to come King Richard III. over us??" breaks out my
lord.
"Ascot! your ancestors were sweeping counters when mine stood by King Richard in
that righteous fight!" shouts Philip.
That monarch had conferred lands upon the Ringwood family. Richard III. was
Philip's battle-horse; when he trotted it after dinner he was splendid in his
chivalry.
"Oh, I say! If you are to saddle White Surrey, fight Bosworth Field, and murder
the kids in the Tower!" continues Lord Ascot.
"Serve the little brutes right!" roars Phil. "They were no more heirs of the
blood royal of England than??"
"I daresay! Only I'd rather have a song now the old boy is gone. I say; you
fellows; chant something,?? do now! Bar all this row about Bosworth Field and
Richard the Third! Always does it when he's beer on board??always does it, give
you my honour!" whispers the young nobleman to his neighbour.
"I am a fool! I am a fool!" cries Phil, smacking his forehead. "There are
moments when the wrongs of my race will intervene. It's not your fault, Mr.
What-d'ye-call-'em, that you alluded to my arms in a derisive manner. I bear you
no malice! Nay, I ask your pardon! Nay! I pledge you in this claret, which is
good, though it's my governor's. In our house everything isn't, hum??Bosh! it's
twenty-five claret, sir! Ascot's father gave him a pipe of it for saving a life
which might be better spent; and I believe the apothecary would have pulled you
through, Ascot, just as well as my governor. But the wine's good! Good! Brice,
some more claret! A song! Who spoke of a song? Warble us something, Tom Dale! A
song, a song, a song!"
Whereupon the exquisite ditty of "Moonlight on the Tiles" was given by Tom Dale
with all his accustomed humour. Then politeness demanded that our host should
sing one of his songs, and as I have heard him perform it many times, I have the
privilege of here reprinting it: premising that the tune and chorus were taken
from a German song-book, which used to delight us melodious youth in bygone
days. Philip accordingly lifted up his great voice and sang:??
DOCTOR LUTHER.
"For the souls' edification Of this decent congregation, Worthy people! by your
grant, I will sing a holy chant, I will sing a holy chant. If the ditty sound
but oddly, 'Twas a father, wise and godly, Sang it so long ago. Then sing as
Doctor Luther sang, As Doctor Luther sang, Who loves not wine, woman, and song,
He is a fool his whole life long.
"He, by custom patriarchal, Loved to see the beaker sparkle, And he thought the
wine improved, Tasted by the wife he loved, By the kindly lips he loved.
Friends! I wish this custom pious Duly were adopted by us, To combine love,
song, wine; And sing as Doctor Luther sang, As Doctor Luther sang, Who loves not
wine, woman, and song, He is a fool his whole life long.
"Who refuses this our credo, And demurs to drink as we do, Were he holy as John
Knox, I'd pronounce him heterodox, I'd pronounce him heterodox. And from out
this congregation, With a solemn commination, Banish quick the heretic, Who
would not sing as Luther sang, As Doctor Luther sang, Who loves not wine, woman,
and song, He is a fool his whole life long." The reader's humble servant was
older than most of the party assembled at this symposium; but as I listened to
the noise, the fresh laughter, the songs remembered out of old university days,
the talk and cant phrases of the old school of which most of us had been
disciples, dear me, I felt quite young again, and when certain knocks came to
the door about midnight, enjoyed quite a refreshing pang of anxious interest for
a moment, deeming the proctors were rapping, having heard our shouts in the
court below. The late comer, however, was only a tavern waiter, bearing a
supper-tray; and we were free to speechify, shout, quarrel, and be as young as
we liked, with nobody to find fault, except, perchance, the bencher below, who,
I daresay, was kept awake with our noise.
When that supper arrived, poor Talbot Twysden, who had come so far to enjoy it,
was not in a state to partake of it. Lord Ascot's cigar had proved too much for
him; and the worthy gentleman had been lying on a sofa, in a neighbouring room,
for some time past in a state of hopeless collapse. He had told us, whilst yet
capable of speech, what a love and regard he had for Philip; but between him and
Philip's father there was but little love. They had had that worst and most
irremediable of quarrels, a difference about twopence half-penny in the division
of the property of their late father-in-law. Firmin still thought Twysden a
shabby curmudgeon; and Twysden considered Firmin an unprincipled man. When Mrs.
Firmin was alive, the two poor sisters had had to regulate their affections by
the marital orders, and to be warm, cool, moderate, freezing, according to their
husbands' state for the time being. I wonder are there many real
reconciliations? Dear Tomkins and I are reconciled, I know. We have met and
dined at Jones's. And ah! how fond we are of each other! Oh, very! So with
Firmin and Twysden. They met, and shook hands with perfect animosity. So did
Twysden junior and Firmin junior. Young Twysden was the elder, and thrashed and
bullied Phil as a boy, until the latter arose and pitched his cousin downstairs.
Mentally, they were always kicking each other downstairs. Well, poor Talbot
could not partake of the supper when it came, and lay in a piteous state on the
neighbouring sofa of the absent Mr. Vanjohn.
Who would go home with him, where his wife must be anxious about him? I agreed
to convoy him, and the parson said he was going our way, and would accompany us.
We supported this senior through the Temple, and put him on the front seat of a
cab. The cigar had disgracefully overcome him; and any lecturer on the evils of
smoking might have pointed his moral on the helpless person of this wretched
gentleman.
The evening's feasting had only imparted animation to Mr. Hunt, and occasioned
an agreeable abandon in his talk. I had seen the man before in Dr. Firmin's
house, and own that his society was almost as odious to me as to doctor's son
Philip. On all subjects and persons, Phil was accustomed to speak his mind out a
great deal too openly; and Mr. Hunt had been an object of special dislike to him
ever since he had known Hunt. I tried to make the best of the matter. Few men of
kindly feeling and good station are without a dependent or two. Men start
together in the race of life; and Jack wins, and Tom falls by his side. The
successful man succours and reaches a friendly hand to the unfortunate
competitor. Remembrance of early times gives the latter a sort of right to call
on his luckier comrade; and a man finds himself pitying, then enduring, then
embracing a companion for whom, in old days, perhaps, he never had had any
regard or esteem. A prosperous man ought to have follower
s: if he has none, he
has a hard heart.
This philosophizing was all very well. It was good for a man not to desert the
friends of his boyhood. But to live with such a cad as that??with that creature,
low, servile, swaggering, besotted??How could his father, who had fine tastes,
and loved grand company, put up with such a fellow? asked Phil. "I don't know
when the man is the more odious, when he is familiar or when he is respectful;
when he is paying compliments to my father's guests in Parr Street, or telling
hideous old stale stories, as he did at my call-supper."
The wine of which Mr. Hunt freely partook on that occasion made him, as I have
said, communicative. "Not a bad fellow, our host," he remarked, on his part,
when we came away together. "Bumptious, goodlooking, speaks his mind, hates me,
and I don't care. He must be well to do in the world, Master Philip."
I said I hoped and thought so.
"Brummell Firmin must make four or five thousand a year. He was a wild fellow in
my time, I can tell you??in the days of the wild Prince and Poyns??stuck at
nothing, spent his own money, ruined himself, fell on his legs somehow, and
married a fortune. Some of us have not been so lucky. I had nobody to pay my
debts. I missed my Fellowship by idling and dissipating with those confounded
hats and silver-laced gowns. I liked good company in those days??always did when
I could get it. If you were to write my adventures, now, you would have to tell
some queer stories. I've been everywhere; I've seen high and low??'specially
low. I've tried schoolmastering, bear-leading, newspapering, America, West
Indies. I've been in every city in Europe. I haven't been as lucky as Brummell
Firmin. He rolls in his coach, he does, and I walk in my highlows. Guineas drop
into his palm every day, and are uncommonly scarce in mine, I can tell you; and
poor old Tufton Hunt is not much better off at fifty odd than he was when he was
an undergraduate at eighteen. How do you do, old gentleman? Air do you good?
Here we are at Beaunash Street; hope you've got the key, and missis won't see
you." A large butler, too well bred to express astonishment at any event which
occurred out of doors, opened Mr. Twysden's and let in that lamentable
gentleman. He was very pale and solemn. He gasped out a few words, intimating
his intention to fix a day to ask us to come and dine soon, and taste that wine
that Winton liked so. He waved an unsteady hand to us. If Mrs. Twysden was on
the stairs to see the condition of her lord, I hope she took possession of the
candle. Hunt grumbled as we came out: "He might have offered us some refreshment
after bringing him all that way home. It's only half-past one. There's no good
in going to bed so soon as that. Let us go and have a drink somewhere. I know a
very good crib close by. No, you wont? I say" (here he burst into a laugh which
startled the sleeping street), "I know what you've been thinking all the time in
the cab. You are a swell,??you are, too! You have been thinking, 'This dreary
old parson will try and borrow money from me.' But I won't, my boy. I've got a
banker. Look here! Fee, faw, fum. You understand. I can get the sovereigns out
of my medical swell in Old Parr Street. I prescribe bleeding for him ??I drew
him to-night. He is a very kind fellow, Brummell Firmin is. He can't deny such a
dear old friend anything. Bless him!" And as he turned away to some midnight
haunt of his own, he tossed up his hand in the air. I heard him laughing through
the silent street, and policeman X, tramping on his beat, turned round and
suspiciously eyed him.
Then I thought of Dr. Firmin's dark, melancholy face and eyes. Was a benevolent
remembrance of old times the bond of union between these men? All my house had
long been asleep, when I opened and gently closed my house door. By the
twinkling night-lamp I could dimly see child and mother softly breathing. Oh,
blessed they on whose pillow no remorse sits! Happy you who have escaped