The Book of Snobs Part 15

And having arrayed their little persons, these two harmless young bucks go upstairs to dinner.

CHAPTER XL--CLUB Sn.o.bS

Both sorts of young men, mentioned in my last under the flippant names of Wiggle and Waggle, may be found in tolerable plenty, I think, in Clubs. Wiggle and Waggle are both idle. They come of the middle cla.s.ses.

One of them very likely makes believe to be a barrister, and the other has smart apartments about Piccadilly. They are a sort of second-chop dandies; they cannot imitate that superb listlessness of demeanour, and that admirable vacuous folly which distinguish the n.o.ble and high-born chiefs of the race; but they lead lives almost as bad (were it but for the example), and are personally quite as useless. I am not going to arm a thunderbolt, and launch it at the beads of these little Pall Mall b.u.t.terflies. They don't commit much public harm, or private extravagance. They don't spend a thousand pounds for diamond earrings for an Opera-dancer, as Lord Tarquin can: neither of them ever set up a public-house or broke the bank of a gambling-club, like the young Earl of Martingale. They have good points, kind feelings, and deal honourably in money-transactions--only in their characters of men of second-rate pleasure about town, they and their like are so utterly mean, self-contented, and absurd, that they must not be omitted in a work treating on Sn.o.bs.

Wiggle has been abroad, where he gives you to understand that his success among the German countesses and Italian princesses, whom he met at the TABLES-D'HOTE, was perfectly terrific. His rooms are hung round with pictures of actresses and ballet-dancers. He pa.s.ses his mornings in a fine dressing-gown, burning pastilles, and reading 'Don Juan' and French novels (by the way, the life of the author of 'Don Juan,' as described by himself, was the model of the life of a Sn.o.b). He has twopenny-halfpenny French prints of women with languishing eyes, dressed in dominoes,--guitars, gondolas, and so forth,--and tells you stories about them.

'It's a bad print,' says he, 'I know, but I've a reason for liking it.

It reminds me of somebody--somebody I knew in other climes. You have heard of the Principessa di Monte Pulciano? I met her at Rimini. Dear, dear Francesca! That fair-haired, bright-eyed thing in the Bird of Paradise and the Turkish Simar with the love-bird on her finger, I'm sure must have been taken from--from somebody perhaps whom you don't know--but she's known at Munich, Waggle my boy,--everybody knows the Countess Ottilia de Eulenschreckenstein. Gad, sir, what a beautiful creature she was when I danced with her on the birthday of Prince Attila of Bavaria, in '44. Prince Carloman was our vis-a-vis, and Prince Pepin danced the same CONTREDANSE. She had a Polyanthus in her bouquet.

Waggle, I HAVE IT NOW.' His countenance a.s.sumes an agonized and mysterious expression, and he buries his head in the sofa cushions, as if plunging into a whirlpool of pa.s.sionate recollections.

Last year he made a considerable sensation by having on his table a morocco miniature-case locked by a gold key, which he always wore round his neck, and on which was stamped a serpent--emblem of eternity--with the letter M in the circle. Sometimes he laid this upon his little morocco writing-table, as if it were on an altar--generally he had flowers upon it; in the middle of a conversation he would start up and kiss it. He would call out from his bed-room to his valet, 'Hicks, bring me my casket!'

'I don't know who it is,' Waggle would say. 'Who DOES know that fellow's intrigues! Desborough Wiggle, sir, is the slave of pa.s.sion. I suppose you have heard the story of the Italian princess locked up in the Convent of Saint Barbara, at Rimini? He hasn't told you? Then I'm not at liberty to speak. Or the countess, about whom he nearly had the duel with Prince Witikind of Bavaria? Perhaps you haven't even heard about that beautiful girl at Pentonville, daughter of a most respectable Dissenting clergyman. She broke her heart when she found he was engaged (to a most lovely creature of high family, who afterwards proved false to him), and she's now in Hanwell.'

Waggle's belief in his friend amounts to frantic adoration. 'What a genius he is, if he would but apply himself!' he whispers to me. 'He could be anything, sir, but for his pa.s.sions. His poems are the most beautiful things you ever saw. He's written a continuation of "Don Juan," from his own adventures. Did you ever read his lines to Mary?

They're superior to Byron, sir--superior to Byron.'

I was glad to hear this from so accomplished a critic as Waggle; for the fact is, I had composed the verses myself for honest Wiggle one day, whom I found at his chambers plunged in thought over a very dirty old-fashioned alb.u.m, in which he had not as yet written a single word.

'I can't,' says he. 'Sometimes I can write whole cantos, and to-day not a line. Oh, Sn.o.b! such an opportunity! Such a divine creature! She's asked me to write verses for her alb.u.m, and I can't.'

'Is she rich?' said I. 'I thought you would never marry any but an heiress.'

'Oh, Sn.o.b! she's the most accomplished, highly-connected creature!--and I can't get out a line.'

'How will you have it?' says I. 'Hot, with sugar?'

'Don't, don't! You trample on the most sacred feelings, Sn.o.b. I want something wild and tender,--like Byron. I want to tell her that amongst the festive b.a.l.l.s, and that sort of thing, you know--I only think about her, you know--that I scorn the world, and am weary of it, you know, and--something about a gazelle, and a bulbul, you know.'

'And a yataghan to finish off with,' the present writer observed, and we began:--

'TO MARY

'I seem, in the midst of the crowd, The lightest of all; My laughter rings cheery and loud, In banquet and ball. My lip hath its smiles and its sneers, For all men to see; But my soul, and my truth, and my tears, Are for thee, are for thee!'

'Do you call THAT neat, Wiggle?' says I. 'I declare it almost makes me cry myself.'

'Now suppose,' says Wiggle, 'we say that all the world is at my feet--make her jealous, you know, and that sort of thing--and that--that I'm going to TRAVEL, you know? That perhaps may work upon her feelings.'

So WE (as this wretched prig said) began again:--

'Around me they flatter and fawn--The young and the old, The fairest are ready to p.a.w.n Their hearts for my gold. They sue me--I laugh as I spurn The slaves at my knee, But in faith and in fondness I turn Unto thee, unto thee!'

'Now for the travelling, Wiggle my boy!' And I began, in a voice choked with emotion--

'Away! for my heart knows no rest Since you taught it to feel; The secret must die in my breast I burn to reveal; The pa.s.sion I may not. . . .'

'I say, Sn.o.b!' Wiggle here interrupted the excited bard (just as I was about to break out into four lines so pathetic that they would drive you into hysterics). 'I say--ahem--couldn't you say that I was--a--military man, and that there was some danger of my life?'

'You a military man?--danger of your life? What the deuce do you mean?'

'Why,' said Wiggle, blushing a great deal, 'I told her I was going out--on--the--Ecuador--expedition.'

'You abominable young impostor,' I exclaimed. 'Finish the poem for yourself!' And so he did, and entirely out of all metre, and bragged about the work at the Club as his own performance.

Poor Waggle fully believed in his friend's genius, until one day last week he came with a grin on his countenance to the Club, and said, 'Oh, Sn.o.b, I've made SUCH a discovery! Going down to the skating to-day, whom should I see but Wiggle walking with that splendid woman--that lady of ill.u.s.trious family and immense fortune, Mary, you know, whom he wrote the beautiful verses about. She's five-and-forty. She's red hair. She's a nose like a pump-handle. Her father made his fortune by keeping a ham-and-beef shop, and Wiggle's going to marry her next week.'

'So much the better, Waggle, my young friend,' I exclaimed. 'Better for the sake of womankind that this dangerous dog should leave off lady-killing--this Blue-Beard give up practice. Or, better rather for his own sake. For as there is not a word of truth in any of those prodigious love-stories which you used to swallow, n.o.body has been hurt except Wiggle himself, whose affections will now centre in the ham-and-beef shop. There ARE people, Mr. Waggle, who do these things in earnest, and hold a good rank in the world too. But these are not subjects for ridicule, and though certainly Sn.o.bs, are scoundrels likewise. Their cases go up to a higher Court.'

CHAPTER XLI--CLUB Sn.o.bS

Bacchus is the divinity to whom Waggle devotes his especial worship.

'Give me wine, my boy,' says he to his friend Wiggle, who is prating about lovely woman; and holds up his gla.s.s full of the rosy fluid, and winks at it portentously, and sips it, and smacks his lips after it, and meditates on it, as if he were the greatest of connoisseurs.

I have remarked this excessive wine-amateurship especially in youth.

Sn.o.blings from college, Fledglings from the army, Goslings from the public schools, who ornament our Clubs, are frequently to be heard in great force upon wine questions. 'This bottle's corked,' says Sn.o.bling; and Mr. Sly, the butler, taking it away, returns presently with the same wine in another jug, which the young amateur p.r.o.nounces excellent. 'Hang champagne!' says Fledgling, 'it's only fit for gals and children.

Give me pale sherry at dinner, and my twenty-three claret afterwards.'

'What's port now?' says Gosling; 'disgusting thick sweet stuff--where's the old dry wine one USED to get?' Until the last twelvemonth, Fledgling drank small-beer at Doctor Swishtail's; and Gosling used to get his dry old port at a gin-shop in Westminster--till he quitted that seminary, in 1844.

Anybody who has looked at the caricatures of thirty years ago, must remember how frequently bottle-noses, pimpled faces, and other Bardolphian features are introduced by the designer. They are much more rare now (in nature, and in pictures, therefore,) than in those good old times; but there are still to be found amongst the youth of our Clubs lads who glory in drinking-bouts, and whose faces, quite sickly and yellow, for the most part are decorated with those marks which Rowland's Kalydor is said to efface. 'I was SO cut last night--old boy!' Hopkins says to Tomkins (with amiable confidence). 'I tell you what we did. We breakfasted with Jack Herring at twelve, and kept up with brandy and soda-water and weeds till four; then we toddled into the Park for an hour; then we dined and drank mulled port till half-price; then we looked in for an hour at the Haymarket; then we came back to the Club, and had grills and whisky punch till all was blue--Hullo, waiter! Get me a gla.s.s of cherry-brandy.' Club waiters, the civilest, the kindest, the patientest of men, die under the infliction of these cruel young topers.

But if the reader wishes to see a perfect picture on the stage of this cla.s.s of young fellows, I would recommend him to witness the ingenious comedy of LONDON a.s.sURANCE--the amiable heroes of which are represented, not only as drunkards and five-o'clock-in-the-morning men, but as showing a hundred other delightful traits of swindling, lying, and general debauchery, quite edifying to witness.

How different is the conduct of these outrageous youths to the decent behaviour of my friend, Mr. Papworthy; who says to Poppins, the butler at the Club:--

PAPWORTHY.--'Poppins, I'm thinking of dining early; is there any cold game in the house?'

POPPINS.--'There's a game pie, sir; there's cold grouse, sir; there's cold pheasant, sir; there's cold peac.o.c.k, sir; cold swan, sir; cold ostrich, sir,' &c. &c. (as the case may be).

PAPWORTHY.--'Hem! What's your best claret now, Poppins?--in pints, I mean.'

POPPINS.--'There's Cooper and Magnum's Lafitte, sir: there's Lath and Sawdust's St. Julien, sir; Bung's Leoville is considered remarkably fine; and I think you'd like Jugger's Chateau-Margaux.'

PAPWORTHY.--'Hum!--hah!--well--give me a crust of bread and a gla.s.s of beer. I'll only LUNCH, Poppins.

Captain Shindy is another sort of Club bore. He has been known to throw all the Club in an uproar about the quality of his mutton-chop.

'Look at it, sir! Is it cooked, sir? Smell it, sir! Is it meat fit for a gentleman?' he roars out to the steward, who stands trembling before him, and who in vain tells him that the Bishop of Bullocksmithy has just had three from the same loin. All the waiters in the Club are huddled round the captain's mutton-chop. He roars out the most horrible curses at John for not bringing the pickles; he utters the most dreadful oaths because Thomas has not arrived with the Harvey Sauce; Peter comes tumbling with the water-jug over Jeames, who is bringing 'the glittering canisters with bread.' Whenever Shindy enters the room (such is the force of character), every table is deserted, every gentleman must dine as he best may, and all those big footmen are in terror.

He makes his account of it. He scolds, and is better waited upon in consequence. At the Club he has ten servants scudding about to do his bidding.

Poor Mrs. Shindy and the children are, meanwhile, in dingy lodgings somewhere, waited upon by a charity-girl in pattens.