The Christmas Books of Mr. M.A. Titmarsh Part 7

When we go and see him, that Irish Jew courier, whom I have before had the honor to describe, looks up from the novel which he is reading in the ante-room, and says, "Mon maitre est au divan," or, "Monsieur trouvera Monsieur dans son serail," and relapses into the Comte de Montecristo again.

Yes, the impudent wretch has actually a room in his apartments on the ground-floor of his mother's house, which he calls his harem. When Lady Betty Bulbul (they are of the Nightingale family) or Miss Blanche comes down to visit him, their slippers are placed at the door, and he receives them on an ottoman, and these infatuated women will actually light his pipe for him.

Little Spitfire, the groom, hangs about the drawing-room, outside the harem forsooth! so that he may be ready when Clarence Bulbul claps hands for him to bring the pipes and coffee.

He has coffee and pipes for everybody. I should like you to have seen the face of old Bowly, his college-tutor, called upon to sit cross-legged on a divan, a little cup of bitter black Mocha put into his hand, and a large amber-muzzled pipe stuck into his mouth by Spitfire, before he could so much as say it was a fine day. Bowly almost thought he had compromised his principles by consenting so far to this Turkish manner.

Bulbul's dinners are, I own, very good; his pilaffs and curries excellent. He tried to make us eat rice with our fingers, it is true; but he scalded his own hands in the business, and invariably bedizened his shirt; so he has left off the Turkish practice, for dinner at least, and uses a fork like a Christian.

But it is in society that he is most remarkable; and here he would, I own, be odious, but he becomes delightful, because all the men hate him so. A perfect chorus of abuse is raised round about him. "Confounded impostor," says one; "Impudent jacka.s.s," says another; "Miserable puppy," cries a third; "I'd like to wring his neck," says Bruff, scowling over his shoulder at him. Clarence meanwhile nods, winks, smiles, and patronizes them all with the easiest good-humor. He is a fellow who would poke an archbishop in the ap.r.o.n, or clap a duke on the shoulder, as coolly as he would address you and me.

I saw him the other night at Mrs. b.u.mpsher's grand let-off. He flung himself down cross-legged on a pink satin sofa, so that you could see Mrs. b.u.mpsher quiver with rage in the distance, Bruff growl with fury from the further room, and Miss Pim, on whose frock Bulbul's feet rested, look up like a timid fawn.

"Fan me, Miss Pim," said he of the cushion. "You look like a perfect Peri to-night. You remind me of a girl I once knew in Circa.s.sia--Ameena, the sister of Schamyl Bey. Do you know, Miss Pim, that you would fetch twenty thousand piastres in the market at Constantinople?"

"Law, Mr. Bulbul!" is all Miss Pim can e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e; and having talked over Miss Pim, Clarence goes off to another houri, whom he fascinates in a similar manner. He charmed Mrs. Waddy by telling her that she was the exact figure of the Pasha of Egypt's second wife. He gave Miss Tokely a piece of the sack in which Zuleika was drowned; and he actually persuaded that poor little silly Miss Vain to turn Mahometan, and sent her up to the Turkish amba.s.sador's to look out for a mufti.

THE DOVE OF OUR STREET.

If Bulbul is our Lion, Young Oriel may be described as The Dove of our colony. He is almost as great a pasha among the ladies as Bulbul. They crowd in flocks to see him at Saint Waltheof's, where the immense height of his forehead, the rigid asceticism of his surplice, the tw.a.n.g with which he intones the service, and the namby-pamby mysticism of his sermons, have turned all the dear girls' heads for some time past.

While we were having a rubber at Mrs. Chauntry's, whose daughters are following the new mode, I heard the following talk (which made me revoke by the way) going on, in what was formerly called the young ladies'

room, but is now styled the Oratory:--

THE ORATORY.

MISS CHAUNTRY. MISS ISABEL CHAUNTRY.

MISS DE L'AISLE. MISS PYX.

REV. L. ORIEL. REV. O. SLOc.u.m--[In the further room.]

Miss Chauntry (sighing).--Is it wrong to be in the Guards, dear Mr.

Oriel?

Miss Pyx.--She will make Frank de Boots sell out when he marries.

Mr. Oriel.--To be in the Guards, dear sister? The church has always encouraged the army. Saint Martin of Tours was in the army; Saint Louis was in the army; Saint Waltheof, our patron, Saint Witikind of Aldermanbury, Saint Wamba, and Saint Walloff were in the army. Saint Wapshot was captain of the guard of Queen Boadicea; and Saint Werewolf was a major in the Danish cavalry. The holy Saint Ignatius of Loyola carried a pike, as we know; and--

Miss De l'Aisle.--Will you take some tea, dear Mr. Oriel?

Oriel.--This is not one of MY feast days, Sister Emma. It is the feast of Saint Wagstatf of Walthamstow.

The Young Ladies.--And we must not even take tea?

Oriel.--Dear sisters, I said not so. YOU may do as you list; but I am strong (with a heart-broken sigh); don't ply me (he reels). I took a little water and a parched pea after matins. To-morrow is a flesh day, and--and I shall be better then.

Rev. O. Sloc.u.m (from within).--Madam, I take your heart with my small trump.

Oriel.--Yes, better! dear sister; it is only a pa.s.sing--a--weakness.

Miss I. Chauntry.--He's dying of fever.

Miss Chauntry.--I'm so glad De Boots need not leave the Blues.

Miss Pyx.--He wears sackcloth and cinders inside his waistcoat.

Miss De l'Aisle.--He's told me to-night he's going to--to--Ro-o-ome.

[Miss De l'Aisle bursts into tears.]

Rev. O. Sloc.u.m.--My lord, I have the highest club, which gives the trick and two by honors.

Thus, you see, we have a variety of clergymen in Our Street. Mr. Oriel is of the pointed Gothic school, while old Sloc.u.m is of the good old tawny port-wine school: and it must be confessed that Mr. Gronow, at Ebenezer, has a hearty abhorrence for both.

As for Gronow, I pity him, if his future lot should fall where Mr. Oriel supposes that it will.

And as for Oriel, he has not even the benefit of purgatory, which he would accord to his neighbor Ebenezer; while old Sloc.u.m p.r.o.nounces both to be a couple of humbugs; and Mr. Mole, the demure little beetle-browed chaplain of the little church of Avemary Lane, keeps his sly eyes down to the ground when he pa.s.ses any one of his black-coated brethren.

There is only one point on which, my friends, they seem agreed. Sloc.u.m likes port, but who ever heard that he neglected his poor? Gronow, if he comminates his neighbor's congregation, is the affectionate father of his own. Oriel, if he loves pointed Gothic and parched peas for breakfast, has a prodigious soup-kitchen for his poor; and as for little Father Mole, who never lifts his eyes from the ground, ask our doctor at what bedsides he finds him, and how he soothes poverty, and braves misery and infection.

THE b.u.mPSHERS.

No. 6, Pocklington Gardens, (the house with the quant.i.ty of flowers in the windows, and the awning over the entrance,) George b.u.mpsher, Esquire, M.P. for Humborough (and the Beanstalks, Kent).

For some time after this gorgeous family came into our quarter, I mistook a bald-headed, stout person, whom I used to see looking through the flowers on the upper windows, for b.u.mpsher himself, or for the butler of the family; whereas it was no other than Mrs. b.u.mpsher, without her chestnut wig, and who is at least three times the size of her husband.

The b.u.mpshers and the house of Mango at the Pineries vie together in their desire to dominate over the neighborhood; and each votes the other a vulgar and purse-proud family. The fact is, both are City people.

b.u.mpsher, in his mercantile capacity, is a wholesale stationer in Thames Street; and his wife was the daughter of an eminent bill-broking firm, not a thousand miles from Lombard Street.

He does not sport a coronet and supporters upon his London plate and carriages; but his country-house is emblazoned all over with those heraldic decorations. He puts on an order when he goes abroad, and is Count b.u.mpsher of the Roman States--which t.i.tle he purchased from the late Pope (through Prince Polonia the banker) for a couple of thousand scudi.

It is as good as a coronation to see him and Mrs. b.u.mpsher go to Court.

I wonder the carriage can hold them both. On those days Mrs. b.u.mpsher holds her own drawing-room before her Majesty's; and we are invited to come and see her sitting in state, upon the largest sofa in her rooms.

She has need of a stout one, I promise you. Her very feathers must weigh something considerable. The diamonds on her stomacher would embroider a full-sized carpet-bag. She has rubies, ribbons, cameos, emeralds, gold serpents, opals, and Valenciennes lace, as if she were an immense sample out of Howell and James's shop.

She took up with little Pinkney at Rome, where he made a charming picture of her, representing her as about eighteen, with a cherub in her lap, who has some liking to Bryanstone b.u.mpsher, her enormous, vulgar son; now a cornet in the Blues, and anything but a cherub, as those would say who saw him in his uniform jacket.

I remember Pinkney when he was painting the picture, Bryanstone being then a youth in what they call a skeleton suit (as if such a pig of a child could ever have been dressed in anything resembling a skeleton)--I remember, I say, Mrs. B. sitting to Pinkney in a sort of Egerian costume, her boy by her side, whose head the artist turned round and directed it towards a piece of gingerbread, which he was to have at the end of the sitting.

Pinkney, indeed, a painter!--a contemptible little humbug, a parasite of the great! He has painted Mrs. b.u.mpsher younger every year for these last ten years--and you see in the advertis.e.m.e.nts of all her parties his odious little name stuck in at the end of the list. I'm sure, for my part, I'd scorn to enter her doors, or be the toady of any woman.

JOLLY NEWBOY, ESQ., M.P.