Piccadilly Part 7

"I know you disapprove of cards, but perhaps you will allow me to suggest the word 'trump' as being more expressive than 'prize,'" I said.

"Well, now we have got through the companies, what have we here? Why, Lady Broadhem, you have positively taken no less than seven unfurnished houses this year. What on earth do you intend to do with them all?"

"My dear Frank, where have you been living for the last few years? Do with them? Exactly what dozens of smart people, with very little to live on, do with houses--let them, to be sure. I made 1100 last year in four houses, and all by adding it on to the premiums. I don't like furnishing and putting it in the rent. In the first place, one is apt to have disagreeable squabbles about the furniture, which, however good you give people, they always say is shabby; and in the second, you get much more into the hands of the house-agents."

"Well, but," I said, "here is one of the largest houses in London--rent, unfurnished, 1500 a-year. That is rather hazardous: who do you expect will take that?"

"Oh, that is the safest speculation of them all," said Lady Broadhem. "I had an infinity of trouble to get it. Spiffy first suggested the plan to me, and we found it succeed admirably last year. It was we who brought out Mrs Gorgon Tompkins and her daughters. She took the house from me at my own rent on condition that Spiffy managed her b.a.l.l.s, and got all the best people in London to go to them. This year we are going to bring out the Bodwinkles. It will be much easier, because she is young, and has no family. He, you know, is a man of immense wealth in the City--in fact, as I said before, his name is almost essential to the success of any new company. I told his wife I could have nothing to do with them unless he came into Parliament, for they are horridly vulgar, and they were bound to do what they could for themselves before I could think of taking them up. Lady Mundane positively refused to have anything to do with them, and, in fact, I live so little in the world, though I keep it up to some extent for the sake of my girls, that it was quite an accident my hearing of them. Now, however, he has got into the House of Commons, and it is arranged that she is to take the house, and Bodwinkle is to help Spiffy in City matters, on condition that he gets all Lady Mundane's list to her first party. Poor Spiffy is a little nervous, as Bodwinkle actually wanted to put it in writing on a stamped paper; but he is so immensely useful to society, that the least people can do is to be good-natured on an occasion of this kind."

"No fear of them," said I; "if Bodwinkle is the only man who can launch a company in the City, no one can compete with Spiffy in launching a sn.o.b in Mayfair. But I thought you never went to b.a.l.l.s."

"I never do; but because I do not approve of dancing, there is no reason why I should not let houses for the purpose. You might as well say a religious banker ought not to open an account with a theatre, or a good brewer live by his beer, because some people drink too much of it. If any one was to leave a gin-palace to me in a legacy, I should not refuse the rent."

"Any more than you do the interest of your shares in the music-hall. And now," said I, coolly, gathering up all her papers and putting them in my pocket, "as it is past one o'clock, and I see you are tired, I will take these away with me, and let you know to-morrow what I think had better be done under the circ.u.mstances."

"What are you doing, Frank? what an unheard-of proceeding! I insist upon your leaving my papers here."

"If I do, you must look elsewhere for the money. No, Lady Broadhem"--I felt that my moral ascendancy was increasing every moment, and that I should never have such another opportunity of establishing it--"we had better understand each other clearly. You regard me at this moment in the light of your future son-in-law, and in that capacity expect me to extricate you and your family from your financial difficulties. Now I am quite capable of 'behaving badly,' as the world calls it, at the shortest notice. I told you at d.i.c.kiefield that I was totally without principle, and we are both trusting to Ursula to reform me. But I will relinquish the pleasure of paying your debts, and the advantage of being reformed by your daughter, unless you agree to my terms."

"And they are?" said her ladyship, doggedly.

"First, that from this evening you put the entire management of your affairs into my hands, and, as a preliminary measure, allow me to take away these papers, giving me a note to your lawyer authorising him to follow my instructions in everything; and, secondly, that you never, under any pretence, enter into any company or speculation of any kind except with my permission."

A glance of very evil meaning shot across her ladyship's eyes as they met mine after this speech, but I frightened it away by the savageness of my gaze, till she was literally obliged to put her hand up to her forehead. The crisis was exciting me, for Ursula was at stake, and it was just possible my conditions might be refused; but I felt the magnetism of my will concentrating itself in my eyes as if they were burning-gla.s.ses. It seemed to dash itself upon the reefs and barriers of Lady Broadhem's rocky nature; the inner forces of our organisms were engaged in a decisive struggle for the mastery; but the field of battle was in her, not in me. I had invaded the enemy's country, and her frontier was as long and difficult to defend as ours is in Canada. So I kept on pouring in mesmeric reinforcements, as she sat with her head bent, and her whole moral being in turmoil. Never before had any man ventured to dictate to this veteran campaigner. The late Lord had been accustomed to regard her as infallible, and Broadhem has not yet known the pleasures of independence. She never had friends who were not servile, or permitted herself to be contradicted, except by a few privileged ecclesiastics, and then only in unctuous and deprecatory tones. That I, of whom the world was accustomed to speak in terms of compa.s.sion, and whom she inwardly despised at this moment, should stand over her more unyielding and imperious than herself, caused her to experience a sensation nearly allied to suffocation. I seemed instinctively to follow the mental processes through which she was pa.s.sing, and a certain consciousness that I did so demoralised her. Now, I felt, she is going to take me to task in a "sweet Christian spirit"

about the state of my soul, and I brought up "will" reinforcements which I poured down upon her brain through the parting of her front, till she backed suddenly out of the position, and took up a hostile, I might almost say an abusive, att.i.tude. Here again I met her with such a shower of invective, "uttered not, yet comprehended," that after a silent contest she gave this up too, and finally fell back on the flat rejection of me and my money altogether. This, I confess, was the critical moment. She took her hand down when she came to this mental resolution, and she looked at me, I thought, but it might have been imagination, demoniacally. What had I to oppose to it? My love for Ursula? No; that would soften me. My aversion to Lady Broadhem? No; for it was not so great as hers for me. For a moment I wavered; my will seemed paralysed; her gaze was becoming fascinating, while mine was getting clouded, till a mist seemed to conceal her from me altogether.

And now, at the risk of being misunderstood and ridiculed, I feel bound to describe exactly the most remarkable occurrence of my life. At that moment I saw distinctly, in the luminous haze which surrounded me, a fiery cross. I have already said that objects of this kind often appeared to me in the dark, apropos of nothing; but upon no former occasion had a lighted room become dim, and a vision manifested itself within which seemed to answer to the involuntary invocation for a.s.sistance that I made when I found the powers of my own will beginning utterly to fail me; and, what was still more strange, never before had any such manifestation effected an immediate revolution in my sentiments. Up to that moment I had been internally fierce and overbearing in my resolution to subdue the nature with which I was contending, and I was actually defeated when I received this supernatural indication of a.s.sistance. Before the dazzling vision had vanished, it had conveyed its lesson of self-sacrifice, and created within me a new impulse, under the influence of which I solemnly vowed that if I triumphed now I should use my victory for the good not only of those I loved, but of her then sitting before me. The demon of my own nature, which had evidently been struggling with the demon of hers, suddenly deserted me, and his place seemed occupied by an angel of light, furnishing me with the powers of exorcism, which were to be gained only at the sacrifice of self. My very breath seemed instantly charged with prayers for her, at the moment I felt she regarded me with loathing and hate.

An ineffable calm pervaded my whole being. A sense of happiness and grat.i.tude deprived the consciousness of the conquest which I had gained of any sentiment of exultation; on the contrary, I felt gentle and subdued myself--anxious to soothe and comfort her with that consolation I had just experienced. Ah, Lady Broadhem! at that moment, had I not been in the presence of a "saint," I should have fallen upon my knees.

Perhaps as it was I might have done so, had she not suddenly leant back exhausted.

"Frank," she said, "I seem to have been dreaming. I am subject to fits of violent nervous depression, and the agitation of this scene has completely overcome me; my brain seems stunned, and all my faculties have become torpid. I can think of nothing more now, do what you like; all I want is to go to sleep. If you ring the bell in that corner, Jenkins will come down. Good-night; I shall see you to-morrow. Take the papers with you."

I took Lady Broadhem's hand--it was cold and clammy--and held it till her maid came down. She had already fallen into a half-mesmeric sleep, but was not conscious of her condition. I saw her safely on her way to her bedroom on the arm of her maid, and left the house with my pockets full of papers, more fresh and invigorated than I had felt for weeks. A new light had indeed dawned upon me. For the first time one of these "hallucinations," as medical men usually term them, to which I am subject, had contained a lesson. Not only had I profited from it upon the spot, but it had suggested to me an entirely new line of conduct in the great question which most nearly affected my own happiness, and seemed to guarantee me the strength of will and moral courage which should enable me to carry it out.

As I walked home, with the piercing March wind cutting me through, solemn thoughts and earnest aspirations arose within me, and, struggling into existence amid the wreck that seemed to strew the disturbed chambers of my brain, came the prayer of an old saint, which, in years gone by, had fixed itself permanently in some vacant niche of my mind:--

"Great G.o.d! I ask Thee for no meaner pelf, Than that I may not disappoint myself, That in my actions I may soar as high As I can now discern with this clear eye; And next in value what Thy kindness lends, That I may greatly disappoint my friends, Howe'er they think or hope that it might be, They may not dream how Thou'st distinguished me; That my weak hand may equal my firm faith, And my life practise more than my tongue saith; That my low conduct may not show, Nor my relenting lines, That I Thy purpose did not know, Or overrated Thy designs."

Time alone will show whether the project I formed under the new influences which were now controlling me, will ever be realised.

There is one point which I have in common with Archimedes,--my most brilliant inspirations very often come to me in my tub, or while I am dressing. On the morning following the scene above described, I trusted to this moment to furnish me with an idea which should enable me to put my plan into operation, but I sought in vain.

In the first place, though I a.s.sumed in the presence of Lady Broadhem a thorough knowledge of the peculiar description of the transaction in which she was engaged, I feel bound not to conceal from my readers that I have made it a rule through life to confine my knowledge of business strictly to theory, and though I am as thoroughly conversant with the terms of the Stock Exchange as with the language of the swell mob, I avoid, in ordinary life, making use either of one or the other. Hence I have always treated debentures, stock, scrip, coupons, and all the jargon connected with such money-making and money-losing contrivances, as pertaining to the abstract science of finance; nor do I ever desire to know anything of them practically, feeling a.s.sured that the information thus acquired is of a character calculated to exercise an injurious influence upon the moral nature. I do not for a moment wish to reflect upon those honest individuals who devote their whole lives to the acquisition of money and nothing else. Had one of my own ancestors not done so, I should not now be the millionaire I am, and able to write thus of the pursuit of wealth. But let no man tell me that the supreme indifference to it which I entertain, does not place me upon a higher platform than a gold-hunter can possibly aspire to. When, therefore, I looked forward to an interview with the Honourable Spiffington Goldtip, I felt that I incurred a very serious responsibility. Not being versed in the Capel Court standard of morality, or being in the habit of treading those delicate lines upon which Spiffy had learnt to balance himself so gracefully, I might, instead of doing him good, be the means of encouraging him in that pecuniary scramble which enabled him to gain a precarious livelihood.

"After all," I thought, "why not hover about the City with one's hands full of gold, as one used to after dinner at Greenwich, when showers of copper delighted the ragged crowd beneath, and have the fun of seeing all the mud-larking Spiffys, fashionable and sn.o.bbish, scrambling in wild confusion, and rolling fraternally over each other in the dirt? If I can't convert them, if I must be 'done' by them, I will 'do' to them as I would be 'done' by; and rather than leave them to perish, will adopt an extreme measure, and keep on suffocating them with the mud they delight to revel in, till they cry aloud for help. What a pleasure it would be to wash Spiffy all over afterwards, and start him fresh and sweet in a new line of life!" As I said before, I was in my tub myself as I made this appropriate reflection; then my thoughts involuntarily reverted to Chundango. When I had threatened Lady Broadhem with the mercenary spirit of that distinguished Oriental, I inwardly doubted whether, indeed, it were possible for her to propose any pecuniary sacrifice which he was not prepared to make, in order to gain the social prize upon which he had set his heart; and I dreaded lest I should have driven her in despair to have recourse to this "dark"

alternative,--whether, in order to save the Broadhem family from ruin and disgrace--for I suspected that the papers I had carried away contained evidence that the one was as possible as the other--Ursula would accede to the pressure of the family generally, and of her mother in particular, whose wish none of her children had ever dared to thwart, was a consideration which caused me acute anxiety. I must prepare myself shortly for a conversation on the subject with Grandon. What should I say to him? Granting that the means occasionally justify the end, which I do not admit, what would be the use of making a false statement either in the sense that I was, or that I was not, going to marry Ursula? If I said I was, he would think me a traitor and her a jilt; if I said I was not, I must go on and tell him that the family would be ruined and disgraced, or that she must marry Chundango to save it. He would obtain comfort neither way. He had evidently not seen the Broadhems, and was therefore sure now to be in blissful ignorance that anything has happened at all. Better leave him so. If he is convinced that Ursula loves him, he would never dream of her accepting me. Even had our acquaintance been longer than it was, before I was so mad as to think of proposing to her, the best thing I can do is certainly to hold my tongue; but then, I thought, how will he account for my reserve? what can he think except that it arises from an unworthy motive?--and I brushed my hair viciously. At that instant I heard a thump at the door, and before I could answer, in walked the subject of my meditation.

"Well, my dear old fellow," said Grandon, as he grasped my hand warmly, "how mysterious and spasmodic you have been in your movements! I was afraid even now, if I had not invaded the sanct.i.ty of your dressing-room, that you would have slipped through my fingers. I know you have a great deal to tell me, of interest to us both, and we are too fast friends to hesitate to confide in each other on any matters which affect our happiness. True men never have any reticence as between themselves; they only have recourse to that armour when they happen to be cursed with false friends." I cannot describe my feelings during this speech. How on earth was I to avoid reticence? how show him that I loved and trusted him when I had just been elaborately devising a speech which should tell him nothing? and I thought of our school and then our college days--how I never seemed to be like other boys or other men of my own age--and how when n.o.body understood me Grandon did, and how when n.o.body defended my peculiarities Grandon did--how he protected and advised me at first out of sheer compa.s.sion, until at last I had become as a younger brother to him. How distressed he was when I gave up diplomacy, and how anxious during the five years that I was exploring in the Far West and gold-digging in Australia! and how nothing but his letters ever induced me to leave the wild reckless life that possessed such a wonderful charm for me; and how he bore with my wilfulness and vanity--for the faults of my character at such moments would become painfully apparent to me; and how now I was going to return it all, by allowing him to suppose that I had deliberately plotted against his happiness, and ruthlessly sapped the solid foundations upon which our life's friendship had been built. He saw these painful thoughts reflected but too accurately upon my face, for he had been accustomed to read it for so many years, and he smiled a look of encouragement and kindliness. "Come," he said, "I will tell you exactly, first, everything I suspect, and then everything I know, and then what I think about it, so that you will have as little of the labour of revelation as possible.

First of all, I suspect that you imagine that I had proposed to Lady Ursula Newlyte before we met the other day at d.i.c.kiefield: I need not say that in that case I should have told you as much upon the evening we parted; I pledge you my word I have never uttered a syllable to Lady Ursula from which she could suspect the state of my feelings towards her, and she has never given me any indication that she returned my affection; I therefore did not mention myself when you told me your intention of proposing to her at d.i.c.kiefield; I only do so now in consequence of a letter which I received from Lady Broadhem last night."

"A letter from Lady Broadhem?" said I, aghast.

"Yes," he said, "in which she encloses a copy of one of yours containing a proposal to Lady Ursula, and informs me that you were aware, when you made it, of the difficulties you might have to encounter through me. She goes on to say that, whatever may have been her daughter's feelings towards me at one time, they have completely changed, as she at once accepted you; and she winds up with the rather unnecessary remark that this is the less to be regretted by me, as under no circ.u.mstances would I have obtained either her consent or that of Lord Broadhem. And so," my poor friend went on, but his lips were quivering, and I turned away my eyes to avoid seeing the effort it cost him--"and so, you see, my dear Frank, it is all for the best. In the first place, she never loved me. I have too high an opinion of her to suppose that if she had, she would have accepted you; in the second, she would never have married me against her mother's consent--and so, even if she had loved me, we should have both been miserable; and thirdly, if there is one thing that could console me under such a blow, it is, that the man she loves, and the family approve, is my dear old friend, who is far more worthy the happiness in store for him than I should have been." He put his hand kindly on my shoulder as his strong voice shook with the force of his suppressed emotion, and I bowed my head. I felt utterly humiliated by a magnanimity so n.o.ble, and by a tenderness surpa.s.sing that of women. I thanked G.o.d at that moment that Lady Ursula did _not_ love me, and I vowed that Lady Broadhem should bitterly expiate her sins against us both. Here, then, was the secret of her refusing to acknowledge that she had stolen my missing letter at d.i.c.kiefield, and this was the precious use she had made of it. The question now was, What was to be done? But my mind was paralysed--all its strength seemed expended in vowing vengeance against Lady Broadhem. When I tried to form a sentence of explanation to Grandon, my brain refused its functions; I felt as if I were in a net, and that the slightest movement on my part would entangle me more inextricably in its meshes. The last resolution I had come to before he entered the room was on no account to tell him anything, and this resolution had now become an _idee fixe_. I had not clearness of mind at the moment to decide whether it was right or wrong. I felt that when my head was clear I had come to the conclusion that it was best, so I stuck to it now. True, it involved leaving him in the delusion that Ursula and I were engaged--but was it altogether certain to remain a delusion? Did Lady Ursula really care for him? I had only Lady Broadhem's word for it. Again, had I anything better to give him? would it be a comfort to him to hear the Chundango alternative? These in a confused way were the thoughts which flitted across my brain in this moment of doubt and difficulty, so I said nothing. He misinterpreted my silence, and thought me overwhelmed with remorse at the part I had played. "Believe me," he said, "I do not think one particle the worse of you for what you have done; I know how difficult it is to control one's feelings in moments of pa.s.sion; and you see you were quite right not to believe Lady Broadhem when she told you Ursula cared for me."

"I had already written the letter," I stammered out.

"Of course you had: I never supposed you could do the dishonourable thing of hearing she cared about me first, and writing to her afterwards, although Lady Broadhem said so. When you did make the discovery that Lady Ursula's affections were not already engaged, you were perfectly right to win her if you could. I only bargain that you ask me to be your best man."

This was a well-meant but such a very unsuccessful attempt at resignation on Grandon's part, that it touched me to the quick. "My dear Grandon," I said--and I saw my face in the gla.s.s opposite, looking white and stony with the effort it cost me not to fall upon his neck and cry like a woman--"I solemnly swear, whatever you may think now, that the day will come when you will find that I was worthy the privilege of having been even your friend, I was going to say, Till then, believe me and trust me; but I need not, for I know that, however unnatural it seems for me to ask you not to allude again to the subject we have just been discussing, you will be satisfied that I would not ask it without having a reason which if you knew you would approve. On my conscience I believe that I am right in reserving from you my full confidence for the first time in my life; but do not let the fact of one forbidden topic alienate us--let it rather act as another link, hidden for the moment, but which may some day prove the most powerful to bind us together."

Grandon's face lit up with a bright frank smile. "I trust and believe in you from the bottom of my soul, and you shall bury any subject you like till it suits you to exhume it. Come, we will go to breakfast, and I will discourse to you on the political and military expediency of spending 200,000 on the fortifications of Quebec."

"Well," thought I, as I followed Grandon down-stairs, "for a man who is yearning to be honest, and to do the right thing by everybody, I have got into as elaborate a complication of lies as if I were a Russian diplomatist. First, I have given both Lady Broadhem and Grandon distinctly to understand that I am at this moment engaged to Ursula, which I am not; and secondly, I have solemnly a.s.sured that young lady herself that I am conscious of being occasionally mad."

In this tissue of falsehoods, it is poor consolation to think that the only one in which there may be some foundation of truth is the last.

Supposing I was to go in for dishonesty, perhaps I could not help telling the truth by the rule of "contraries." I will go and ask the Honourable Spiffington whether he finds this to be the case, and I parted from Grandon in the hope of catching that gentleman before he had betaken himself to his civic haunts. I was too late, and pursued him east of Temple Bar. Here he frequented sundry "board-rooms" of companies which by a figure of speech he helped to "direct," and was also to be found in the neighbourhood of Hercules Pa.s.sage and the narrow streets which surround the Stock Exchange, in the little back dens of pet brokers upon whom he relied for "good things." Spiffy used to collect political news in fashionable circles all through the night and up to an early hour of the morning, and then come into the City with it red-hot, so as to "operate." He was one of the most lively little rabbits to be found in all that big warren of which the Bank is the centre, and popped in and out of the different holes with a quickness that made him very difficult to catch. At last I ran him to a very dingy earth, where he was pausing, seated on a green baize table over a gla.s.s of sherry and a biscuit, and chaffing a rising young broker who hoped ultimately to be proposed by Spiffy for the Piccadilly Club. He was trying to establish a claim thereto now, on the strength of having been at Mrs Gorgon Tompkins's ball on the previous evening. "It is rather against you than otherwise," said Spiffy, who was an extremely off-hand little fellow, and did not interrupt his discourse after he had nodded to me familiarly; "I can't afford to take you up yet; indeed, what have you ever done to merit it? and Mrs Gorgon Tompkins has enough to do this season to keep her own head above water without attempting to float you.

I did what I could for her last night, but she can't expect to go on with her successes of last year. We had a regular scene at 6 A.M. this morning, 'in banquet halls deserted'--tears, and all that sort of thing--n.o.body present but self, Gorgon, and partner. We took our last year's list, and compared them with the invitations sent out this year.

The results were painful; only the f.a.g-end of the diplomatic corps had responded--none of the great European powers present, and our own Cabinet most slenderly represented. Obliged to resort for young men to the byways and hedges; no expense spared, and yet the whole affair a miserable failure."

"Have you tried lobsters boiled in champagne at supper, as a draw?" said I.

"No," said Spiffy, looking at me with admiration; "I did not know this sort of thing was in your line, Frank." He had not the least right to call me Frank; but as everybody, whether they knew him or not, called him Spiffy, he always antic.i.p.ated this description of familiarity.

"To tell you the truth, I could pull the Tompkinses through another season, but I am keeping all my best ideas for the Bodwinkles.

Bodwinkles' first ball is to cost 2000. He wanted me to do it for 1500, and I should have been able to do it for that if Mrs Bodwinkle had had any _h_'s; but the _creme, de la creme_ require an absence of aspirations to be made up to them somehow. Oh, with the extra 500 I can do it easily," said Spiffy, with an air of self-complacency. "She is a comparatively young woman, you see, without daughters; that simplifies matters very much. And then Bodwinkle can be so much more useful to political men than Gorgon Tompkins; the only fear is that he may commit himself at a late hour at the supper-table, but I have hit on a notion which will overcome all these possible _contretemps_."

"What is that?" said I, curiously.

"In confidence, I don't mind telling you, as you are not in the line yourself; but it is a master-stroke of genius. Like all great ideas, its merit lies in its simplicity."

"Don't keep us any longer in suspense; I promise not to appropriate it."

"Well," said Spiffy, triumphantly, "I am going to _pay_ the aristocracy to come!"

"Pay them!" said I, really astounded; "how on earth are you going to get them to take the money?"

"Ah, that is the secret. Wait till the Bodwinkles' ball. You will see how delicately I shall contrive it; a great deal more neatly than you do when you leave your doctor's fee mysteriously wrapped in paper upon his mantelpiece. I shall no more hurt that high sense of honour, and that utter absence of anything like sn.o.bbism which characterises the best London Society, than a French cook would offend the nostrils of his guests with an overpowering odour of garlic; but it is a really grand idea."

"Worthy of Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, or the first Napoleon," said I; "posterity will recognise you as a social giant with a mission, if the small men and the envious of the present day refuse to do so."

"I don't mind telling you," Spiffy went on, "that the idea first occurred to me in a Scotch donkey-circus, where I won, as a prize for entering the show, a red plush waistcoat worth five shillings. The fact is, Bodwinkle is so anxious to get people, he would go to any expense; he has even offered me a commission on all the accepted invitations I send out for him, graduated on a scale proportioned to the rank of the acceptor. I am afraid it would not be considered quite the right thing to take it; what do you think?"

"I doubt whether society would stand that. You must bring them to it gradually. At present, I feel sure they would draw the line at a 'commission.' Apropos of the Bodwinkles, I want to have a little private conversation with you."

"I am awfully done," said Spiffy. "I never went to bed at all last night. I got some information about Turkish certificates before I went to the Tompkinses; then I stayed there till past six, and had to come on here at ten to turn what I knew to account. However, go ahead; what is it in? Jones here will do it for you. No need of mystery between us.

'Cosmopolitan district' is the sort of thing I can conscientiously recommend--I'll tell you why: I went down to the lobby of the House last night on purpose to hear what the fellows were saying who prowl about there pushing what my wretched tailor would call 'a little bill' through Committee. It is becoming a sort of 'ring,' and the favourites last night were light Cosmopolitans."

"What on earth are they as distinguished from heavy?" I asked.