Punctual to the hour—(by the way, I cannot omit to mark down my hatred, scorn, and indignation towards those miserable Snobs who come to dinner at nine when they are asked at eight, in order to make a sensation in the company. May the loathing of honest folks, the backbiting of others, the curses of cooks, pursue these wretches, and avenge the society on which they trample!)—Punctual, I say, to the hour of five, which Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Gray had appointed, a youth of an elegant appearance, in a neat evening-dress, whose trim whiskers indicated neatness, whose light step denoted activity (for in sooth he was hungry, and always is at the dinner hour, whatsoever that hour may be), and whose rich golden hair, curling down his shoulders, was set off by a perfectly new four-and-ninepenny silk hat, was seen wending his way down Bittlestone Street, Bittlestone Square, Gray's Inn. The person in question, I need not say, was Mr. Snob. HE was never late when invited to dine. But to proceed my narrative:—
Mr. Snob may have flattered himself that he made a sensation as he strutted down Bittlestone with his richly gilt knobbed cane (and indeed I vow I saw heads looking at me from Miss Squilsby's, the brass-plated milliner opposite Raymond Gray's, who has three silver-paper bonnets, and two fly-blown prints of fashion in the window), yet what was the emotion produced by my arrival, compared to that which the little street thrilled, when at five minutes past five the floss-wigged coachman, the yellow hammer-cloth and flunkeys, the black horses and blazing silver harness of Mr. Goldmore whirled down the street!
It is a very little street, of very little houses, most of them with very large brass plates like Miss Squilsby's. Coal-merchants, architects and surveyors, two surgeons, a solicitor, a dancing-master, and of course several house-agents, occupy the houses—little two-storeyed edifices with little stucco porticoes. Goldmore's carriage overtopped the roofs almost; the first floors might shake hands with Croesus as he lolled inside; all the windows of those first floors thronged with children and women in a twinkling. There was Mrs. Hammerly in curl-papers; Mrs. Saxby with her front awry; Mr. Wriggles peering through the gauze curtains, holding the while his hot glass of rum-and-water—in fine, a tremendous commotion in Bittlestone Street, as the Goldmore carriage drove up to Mr. Raymond Gray's door.
'How kind it is of him to come with BOTH the footmen!' says little Mrs. Gray, peeping at the vehicle too. The huge domestic, descending from his perch, gave a rap at the door which almost drove in the building. All the heads were out; the sun was shining; the very organ-boy paused; the footman, the coach, and Goldmore's red face and white waistcoat were blazing in splendour. The herculean plushed one went back to open the carriage-door.
Raymond Gray opened his—in his shirt-sleeves. He ran up to the carriage. 'Come in, Goldmore,' says he; 'just in time, my boy. Open the door, What-d'ye-call'um, and let your master out,'—and What-d'ye-call'um obeyed mechanically, with a face of wonder and horror, only to be equalled by the look of stupefied astonishment which ornamented the purple countenance of his master.
'Wawt taim will you please have the CAGE, sir?' says What-d'ye-call'um, in that peculiar, unspellable, inimitable, flunkefied pronunciation which forms one of the chief charms of existence.
Best have it to the theatre at night,' Gray exclaims; 'it is but a step from here to the Wells, and we can walk there. I've got tickets for all. Be at Sadler's Wells at eleven.'
'Yes, at eleven,' exclaims Goldmore, perturbedly, and walks with a flurried step into the house, as if he were going to execution (as indeed he was, with that wicked Gray as a Jack Ketch over him). The carriage drove away, followed by numberless eyes from doorsteps and balconies; its appearance is still a wonder in Bittlestone Street.
'Go in there, and amuse yourself with Snob,' says Gray, opening the little drawing-room door. 'I'll call out as soon as the chops are ready. Fanny's below, seeing to the pudding.'
'Gracious mercy!' says Goldmore to me, quite confidentially, 'how could he ask us? I really had no idea of this—this utter destitution.'
'Dinner, dinner!' roars out Gray, from the diningroom, whence issued a great smoking and frying; and entering that apartment we find Mrs. Gray ready to receive us, and looking perfectly like a Princess who, by some accident, had a bowl of potatoes in her hand, which vegetables she placed on the table. Her husband 'was meanwhile cooking mutton-chops on a gridiron over the fire.
Fanny has made the roly-poly pudding,' says he; the chops are my part. Here's a fine one; try this, Goldmore.' And he popped a fizzing cutlet on that gentleman's plate. What words, what notes of exclamation can describe the nabob's astonishment?
The tablecloth was a very old one, darned in a score places. There was mustard in a teacup, a silver fork for Goldmore—all ours were iron.
'I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth,' says Gray, gravely. 'That fork is the only one we have. Fanny has it generally.'
'Raymond!'—cries Mrs. Gray, with an imploring face. 'She was used to better things, you know: and I hope one day to get her a dinner-service. I'm told the electro-plate is uncommonly good. Where the deuce IS that boy with the beer? And now,' said he, springing up, 'I'll be a gentleman.' And so he put on his coat, and sat down quite gravely, with four fresh mutton-chops which he had by this time broiled.
'We don't have meat every day, Mr. Goldmore,' he continued, 'and it's a treat to me to get a dinner like this. You little know, you gentlemen of England, who live at home at ease, what hardships briefless barristers endure.'
'Gracious mercy!' says Mr. Goldmore.
'Where's the half-and-half? Fanny, go over to the 'Keys' and get the beer. Here's sixpence.' And what was our astonishment when Fanny got up as if to go!
'Gracious mercy! let ME,' cries Goldmore.
'Not for worlds, my dear sir. She's used to it. They wouldn't serve you as well as they serve her. Leave her alone. Law bless you!' Raymond said, with astounding composure. And Mrs. Gray left the room, and actually came back with a tray on which there was a pewter flagon of beer. Little Polly (to whom, at her christening, I had the honour of presenting a silver mug EX OFFICIO) followed with a couple of tobacco-pipes, and the queerest roguish look in her round little chubby face.
'Did you speak to Tapling about the gin, Fanny, my dear?' Gray asked, after bidding Polly put the pipes on the chimney-piece, which that little person had some difficulty in reaching. 'The last was turpentine, and even your brewing didn't make good punch of it.'
'You would hardly suspect, Goldmore, that my wife, a Harley Baker, would ever make gin-punch? I think my mother-in-law would commit suicide if she saw her.'
'Don't be always laughing at mamma, Raymond,' says Mrs. Gray.
'Well, well, she wouldn't die, and I DON'T wish she would. And you don't make gin-punch, and you don't like it either and—Goldmore do you drink your beer out of the glass, or out of the pewter?'
'Gracious mercy!' ejaculates Croesus once more, as little Polly, taking the pot with both her little bunches of hands, offers it, smiling, to that astonished Director.
And so, in a word, the dinner commenced, and was presently ended in a similar fashion. Gray pursued his unfortunate guest with the most queer and outrageous description of his struggles, misery, and poverty. He described how he cleaned the knives when they were first married; and how he used to drag the children in a little cart; how his wife could toss pancakes; and what parts of his dress she made. He told Tibbits, his clerk (who was in fact the functionary who had brought the beer from the public-house, which Mrs. Fanny had fetched from the neighbouring apartment)—to fetch 'the bottle of port-wine,' when the dinner was over; and told Goldmore as wonderful a history about the way in which that bottle of wine had come into his hands as any of his former stories had been. When the repast was all over, and it was near time to move to the play, and Mrs. Gray had retired, and we were sitting ruminating rather silently over the last glasses of the port, Gray suddenly breaks the silence by slapping Goldmore on the shoulder, and saying, 'Now, Goldmore, tell me something.'
'What?' asks Croesus.
'Haven't you had a good dinner?'
Goldmore started, as if a sudden truth had just dawned upon him. He HAD had a good dinner; and didn't know it until then. The three mutton-chops consumed by him were best of the mutton kind; the potatoes were perfect of their order; as for the rolypoly, it was too good. The porter was frothy and cool, and the port-wine was worthy of the gills of a bishop. I speak with ulterior views; for there is more in Gray's cellar.
'Well,' says Goldmore, after a pause, during which he took time to consider the momentous question Gray put to him—' 'Pon my word—now you say so—I—I have—I really have had a monsous good dinnah—monsous good, upon my ward! Here's your health, Gray my boy, and your amiable lady; and when Mrs. Goldmore comes back, I hope we shall see you more in Portland Place.' And with this the time came for the play, and we went to see Mr. Phelps at Sadler's Wells. The best of this story (for the truth of every word of which I pledge my honour) is, that after this banquet, which Goldmore enjoyed so, the honest fellow felt a prodigious compassion and regard for the starving and miserable giver of the feast, and determined to help him in his profession. And being a Director of the newly-established Antibilious Life Assurance Company, he has had Gray appointed Standing Counsel, with a pretty annual fee; and only yesterday, in an appeal from Bombay (Buckmuckjee Bobbachee v. Ramchowder-Bahawder) in the Privy Council, Lord Brougham complimented Mr. Gray, who was in the case, on his curious and exact knowledge of the Sanscrit language.
Whether he knows Sanscrit or not, I can't say; but Goldmore got him the business; and so I cannot help having a lurking regard for that pompous old Bigwig.
'We Bachelors in Clubs are very much obliged to you,' says my old school and college companion, Essex Temple, 'for the opinion which you hold of us. You call us selfish, purple-faced, bloated, and other pretty names. You state, in the simplest possible terms, that we shall go to the deuce. You bid us rot in loneliness, and deny us all claims to honesty, conduct, decent Christian life. Who are you, Mr. Snob, to judge us. Who are you, with your infernal benevolent smirk and grin, that laugh at all our generation?
'I will tell you my case,' says Essex Temple; 'mine and my sister Polly's, and you may make what you like of it; and sneer at old maids, and bully old bachelors, if you will.
'I will whisper to you confidentially that my sister was engaged to Serjeant Shirker—a fellow whose talents one cannot deny, and be hanged to them, but whom I have always known to be mean, selfish, and a prig. However, women don't see these faults in the men whom Love throws in their way. Shirker, who has about as much warmth as an eel, made up to Polly years and years ago, and was no bad match for a briefless barrister, as he was then.
Have you ever read Lord Eldon's Life? Do you remember how the sordid old Snob narrates his going out to purchase twopence-worth of sprats, which he and Mrs. Scott fried between them? And how he parades his humility, and exhibits his miserable poverty—he who, at that time, must have been making a thousand pounds a year? Well, Shirker was just as proud of his prudence—just as thankful for his own meanness, and of course would not marry without a competency. Who so honourable? Polly waited, and waited faintly, from year to year. HE wasn't sick at heart; HIS passion never disturbed his six hours' sleep, or kept his ambition out of mind. He would rather have hugged an attorney any day than have kissed Polly, though she was one of the prettiest creatures in the world; and while she was pining alone upstairs, reading over the stock of half-a-dozen frigid letters that the confounded prig had condescended to write to her, HE, be sure, was never busy with anything but his briefs in chambers—always frigid, rigid, self-satisfied, and at his duty. The marriage trailed on year after year, while Mr. Serjeant Shirker grew to be the famous lawyer he is.
'Meanwhile, my younger brother, Pump Temple, who was in the 120th Hussars, and had the same little patrimony which fell to the lot of myself and Polly, must fall in love with our cousin, Fanny Figtree, and marry her out of hand. You should have seen the wedding! Six bridesmaids in pink, to hold the fan, bouquet, gloves, scent-bottle, and pocket-handkerchief of the bride; basketfuls of white favours in the vestry, to be pinned on to the footmen and horses; a genteel congregation of curious acquaintance in the pews, a shabby one of poor on the steps; all the carriages of all our acquaintance, whom Aunt Figtree had levied for the occasion; and of course four horses for Mr. Pump's bridal vehicle.
'Then comes the breakfast, or DEJEUNER, if you please, with a brass band in the street, and policemen to keep order. The happy bridegroom spends about a year's income in dresses for the bridesmaids and pretty presents; and the bride must have a TROUSSEAU of laces, satins, jewel-boxes and tomfoolery, to make her fit to be a lieutenant's wife. There was no hesitation about Pump. He flung about his money as if it had been dross; and Mrs. P. Temple, on the horse Tom Tiddler, which her husband gave her, was the most dashing of military women at Brighton or Dublin.
How old Mrs. Figtree used to bore me and Polly with stories of Pump's grandeur and the noble company he kept! Polly lives with the Figtrees, as I am not rich enough to keep a home for her.
'Pump and I have always been rather distant. Not having the slightest notions about horseflesh, he has a natural contempt for me; and in our mother's lifetime, when the good old lady was always paying his debts and petting him, I'm not sure there was not a little jealousy. It used to be Polly that kept the peace between us.
'She went to Dublin to visit Pump, and brought back grand accounts of his doings—gayest man about town—Aide-de-Camp to the Lord-Lieutenant—Fanny admired everywhere—Her Excellency godmother to the second boy: the eldest with a string of aristocratic Christian-names that made the grandmother wild with delight. Presently Fanny and Pump obligingly came to London, where the third was born.
'Polly was godmother to this, and who so loving as she and Pump now? “Oh, Essex,” says she to me, “he is so good, so generous, so fond of his family; so handsome; who can help loving him, and pardoning his little errors?” One day, while Mrs. Pump was yet in the upper regions, and Doctor Fingerfee's brougham at her door every day, having business at Guildhall, whom should I meet in Cheapside but Pump and Polly? The poor girl looked more happy and rosy than I have seen her these twelve years. Pump, on the contrary, was rather blushing and embarrassed.
'I couldn't be mistaken in her face and its look of mischief and triumph. She had been committing some act of sacrifice. I went to the family stockbroker. She had sold out two thousand pounds that morning and given them to Pump. Quarrelling was useless—Pump had the money; he was off to Dublin by the time I reached his mother's, and Polly radiant still. He was going to make his fortune; he was going to embark the money in the Bog of Allen—I don't know what. The fact is, he was going to pay his losses upon the last Manchester steeple-chase, and I leave you to imagine how much principal or interest poor Polly ever saw back again.
'It was more than half her fortune, and he has had another thousand since from her. Then came efforts to stave off ruin and prevent exposure; struggles on all our parts, and sacrifices, that' (here Mr. Essex Temple began to hesitate)—'that needn't be talked of; but they are of no more use than such sacrifices ever are. Pump and his wife are abroad—I don't like to ask where; Polly has the three children, and Mr. Serjeant Shirker has formally written to break off an engagement, on the conclusion of which Miss Temple must herself have speculated, when she alienated the greater part of her fortune.
'And here's your famous theory of poor marriages!' Essex Temple cries, concluding the above history. 'How do you know that I don't want to marry myself? How do you dare sneer at my poor sister? What are we but martyrs of the reckless marriage system which Mr. Snob, forsooth, chooses to advocate?' And he thought he had the better of the argument, which, strange to say, is not my opinion.
But for the infernal Snob-worship, might not every one of these people be happy? If poor Polly's happiness lay in linking her tender arms round such a heartless prig as the sneak who has deceived her, she might have been happy now—as happy as Raymond Raymond in the ballad, with the stone statue by his side. She is wretched because Mr. Serjeant Shirker worships money and ambition, and is a Snob and a coward.
If the unfortunate Pump Temple and his giddy hussy of a wife have ruined themselves, and dragged down others into their calamity, it is because they loved rank, and horses, and plate, and carriages, and COURT GUIDES, and millinery, and would sacrifice all to attain those objects.
And who misguides them? If the world were more simple, would not those foolish people follow the fashion? Does not the world love COURT GUIDES, and millinery, and plate, and carriages? Mercy on us! Read the fashionable intelligence; read the COURT CIRCULAR; read the genteel novels; survey mankind, from Pimlico to Red Lion Square, and see how the Poor Snob is aping the Rich Snob; how the Mean Snob is grovelling at the feet of the Proud Snob; and the Great Snob is lording it over his humble brother. Does the idea of equality ever enter Dives' head? Will it ever? Will the Duchess of Fitzbattleaxe (I like a good name) ever believe that Lady Croesus, her next-door neighbour in Belgrave Square, is as good a lady as her Grace? Will Lady Croesus ever leave off pining the Duchess's parties, and cease patronizing Mrs. Broadcloth whose husband has not got his Baronetcy yet? Will Mrs. Broadcloth ever heartily shake hands with Mrs. Seedy, and give up those odious calculations about poor dear Mrs. Seedy's income? Will Mrs. Seedy who is starving in her great house, go and live comfortably in a little one, or in lodgings? Will her landlady, Miss Letsam, ever stop wondering at the familiarity of tradespeople, or rebuking the insolence of Suky, the maid, who wears flowers under her bonnet like a lady?
But why hope, why wish for such times? Do I wish all Snobs to perish? Do I wish these Snob papers to determine? Suicidal fool, art not thou, too, a Snob and a brother?
As I wish to be particularly agreeable to the ladies (to whom I make my most humble obeisance), we will now, if you please, commence maligning a class of Snobs against whom, I believe, most female minds are embittered—I mean Club Snobs. I have very seldom heard even the most gentle and placable woman speak without a little feeling of bitterness against those social institutions, those palaces swaggering in St. James's, which are open to the men; while the ladies have but their dingy three-windowed brick boxes in Belgravia or in Paddingtonia, or in the region between the road of Edgware and that of Gray's Inn.
In my grandfather's time it used to be Freemasonry that roused their anger. It was my grand-aunt (whose portrait we still have in the family) who got into the clock-case at the Royal Rosicrucian Lodge at Bungay, Suffolk, to spy the proceedings of the Society, of which her husband was a member, and being frightened by the sudden whirring and striking eleven of the clock (just as the Deputy-Grand-Master was bringing in the mystic gridiron for the reception of a neophyte), rushed out into the midst of the lodge assembled; and was elected, by a desperate unanimity, Deputy-Grand-Mistress for life. Though that admirable and courageous female never subsequently breathed a word with regard to the secrets of the initiation, yet she inspired all our family with such a terror regarding the mysteries of Jachin and Boaz, that none of our family have ever since joined the Society, or worn the dreadful Masonic insignia.
It is known that Orpheus was torn to pieces by some justly indignant Thracian ladies for belonging to an Harmonic Lodge. 'Let him go back to Eurydice,' they said, 'whom he is pretending to regret so.' But the history is given in Dr. Lempriere's elegant dictionary in a manner much more forcible than any this feeble pen can attempt. At once, then, and without verbiage, let us take up this subject-matter of Clubs.
Clubs ought not, in my mind, to be permitted to bachelors. If my friend of the Cuttykilts had not our club, the 'Union Jack,' to go to (I belong to the 'U.J. and nine other similar institutions), who knows but he never would be a bachelor at this present moment? Instead of being made comfortable, and cockered up with every luxury, as they are at Clubs, bachelors ought to be rendered profoundly miserable, in my opinion. Every encouragement should be given to the rendering their spare time disagreeable. There can be no more odious object, according to my sentiments, than young Smith in the pride of health, commanding his dinner of three courses; than middle-aged Jones wallowing (as I may say) in an easy padded arm-chair, over the delicious novel or brilliant magazine; or than old Brown, that selfish old reprobate for whom mere literature has no charms, stretched on the best sofa, sitting on the second edition of THE TIMES, having the MORNING CHRONICLE between his knees, the HERALD pushed in between his coat and waistcoat, the STANDARD under his arm, the GLOBE under the other pinion, and the DAILY NEWS in perusal. 'I'll trouble you for PUNCH, Mr. Wiggins' says the unconscionable old gormandiser, interrupting our friend, who is laughing over the periodical in question.
This kind of selfishness ought not to be. No, no. Young Smith, instead of his dinner and his wine, ought to be, where?—at the festive tea-table, to be sure, by the side of Miss Higgs, sipping the bohea, or tasting the harmless muffin; while old Mrs. Higgs looks on, pleased at their innocent dalliance, and my friend Miss Wirt, the governess, is performing Thalberg's last sonata in treble X., totally unheeded, at the piano.
Where should the middle-aged Jones be? At his time of life, he ought to be the father of a family. At such an hour—say, at nine o'clock at night—the nursery-bell should have just rung the children to bed. He and Mrs. J. ought to be, by rights, seated on each side of the fire by the dining-room table, a bottle of port-wine between them, not so full as it was an hour since. Mrs. J. has had two glasses; Mrs. Grumble (Jones's mother-in-law) has had three; Jones himself has finished the rest, and dozes comfortably until bed-time.
And Brown, that old newspaper-devouring miscreant, what right has HE at a club at a decent hour of night? He ought to be playing his rubber with Miss MacWhirter, his wife, and the family apothecary. His candle ought to be brought to him at ten o'clock, and he should retire to rest just as the young people were thinking of a dance. How much finer, simpler, nobler are the several employments I have sketched out for these gentlemen than their present nightly orgies at the horrid Club.
And, ladies, think of men who do not merely frequent the dining-room and library, but who use other apartments of those horrible dens which it is my purpose to batter down; think of Cannon, the wretch, with his coat off, at his age and size, clattering the balls over the billiard-table all night, and making bets with that odious Captain Spot!—think of Pam in a dark room with Bob Trumper, Jack Deuceace, and Charley Vole, playing, the poor dear misguided wretch, guinea points and five pounds on the rubber!—above all, think—oh, think of that den of abomination, which, I am told, has been established in SOME clubs, called THE SMOKING-ROOM,—think of the debauchees who congregate there, the quantities of reeking whisky-punch or more dangerous sherry-cobbler which they consume;—think of them coming home at cock-crow and letting themselves into the quiet house with the Chubb key;—think of them, the hypocrites, taking off their insidious boots before they slink upstairs, the children sleeping overhead, the wife of their bosom alone with the waning rushlight in the two-pair front—that chamber so soon to be rendered hateful by the smell of their stale cigars: I am not an advocate of violence; I am not, by nature, of an incendiary turn of mind: but if, my dear ladies, you are for assassinating Mr. Chubb and burning down Club-houses in St. James's, there is ONE Snob at who will not think the worse of you.
The only men who, as I opine, ought to be allowed the use of Clubs, are married men without a profession. The continual presence of these in a house cannot be thought, even by the most loving of wives, desirable. Say the girls are beginning to practise their music, which in an honourable English family, ought to occupy every young gentlewoman three hours; it would be rather hard to call upon poor papa to sit in the drawing-room all that time, and listen to the interminable discords and shrieks which are elicited from the miserable piano during the above necessary operation. A man with a good ear, especially, would go mad, if compelled daily to submit to this horror.
Or suppose you have a fancy to go to the milliner's, or to Howell and James's, it is manifest, my dear Madam, that your husband is much better at the Club during these operations than by your side in the carriage, or perched in wonder upon one of the stools at Shawl and Gimcrack's, whilst young counter-dandies are displaying their wares.
This sort of husbands should be sent out after breakfast, and if not Members of Parliament, or Directors of a Railroad, or an Insurance Company, should be put into their clubs, and told to remain there until dinner-time. No sight is more agreeable to my truly regulated mind than to see the noble characters so worthily employed. Whenever I pass by St. James's Street, having the privilege, like the rest of the world, of looking in at the windows of 'Blight's,' or 'Foodle's,' or 'Snook's,' or the great bay at the 'Contemplative Club,' I behold with respectful appreciation the figures within—the honest rosy old fogies, the mouldy old dandies, the waist-belts and glossy wigs and tight cravats of those most vacuous and respectable men. Such men are best there during the day-time surely. When you part with them, dear ladies, think of the rapture consequent on their return. You have transacted your household affairs; you have made your purchases; you have paid your visits; you have aired your poodle in the Park; your French maid has completed the toilette which renders you so ravishingly beautiful by candlelight, and you are fit to make home pleasant to him who has been absent all day.
Such men surely ought to have their Clubs, and we will not class them among Club Snobs therefore:—on whom let us reserve our attack for the next chapter.
Such a Sensation has been created in the Clubs by the appearance of the last paper on Club Snobs, as can't but be complimentary to me who am one of their number.
I belong to many Clubs. The 'Union Jack,' the 'Sash and Marlin-spike'—Military Clubs. 'The True Blue,' the 'No Surrender,' the 'Blue and Buff,' the 'Guy Fawkes,' and the 'Cato Street'—Political Clubs. 'The Brummel' and the 'Regent'—Dandy Clubs. The 'Acropolis,' the 'Palladium,' the 'Areopagus,' the 'Pnyx' the 'Pentelicus,' the 'Ilissus' and the 'Poluphloisboio Thalasses'—Literary Clubs. I never could make out how the latter set of Clubs got their names; I don't know Greek for one, and I wonder how many other members of those institutions do? Ever since the Club Snobs have been announced, I observe a sensation created on my entrance into any one of these places. Members get up and hustle together; they nod, they scowl, as they glance towards the present Snob. 'Infernal impudent jackanapes! If he shows me up,' says Colonel Bludyer, 'I'll break every bone in his skin.' 'I told you what would come of admitting literary men into the Club,' says Ranville Ranville to his colleague, Spooney, of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office. 'These people are very well in their proper places, and as a public man, I make a point of shaking hands with them, and that sort of thing; but to have one's privacy obtruded upon by such people is really too much. Come along, Spooney,' and the pair of prigs retire superciliously.
As I came into the coffee-room at the 'No Surrender,' old Jawkins was holding out to a knot of men, who were yawning, as usual. There he stood, waving the STANDARD, and swaggering before the fire. 'What,' says he, 'did I tell Peel last year? If you touch the Corn Laws, you touch the Sugar Question; if you touch the Sugar, you touch the Tea. I am no monopolist. I am a liberal man, but I cannot forget that I stand on the brink of a precipice; and if were to have Free Trade, give me reciprocity. And what was Sir Robert Peel's answer to me? “Mr. Jawkins,” he said—'
Here Jawkins's eye suddenly turning on your humble servant, he stopped his sentence, with a guilty look—his stale old stupid sentence, which every one of us at the Club has heard over and over again.
Jawkins is a most pertinacious Club Snob. Every day he is at that fireplace, holding that STANDARD, of which he reads up the leading-article, and pours it out ORE ROTUNDO, with the most astonishing composure, in the face of his neighbour, who has just read every word of it in the paper. Jawkins has money, as you may see by the tie of his neckcloth. He passes the morning swaggering about the City, in bankers' and brokers parlours, and says:—'I spoke with Peel yesterday, and his intentions are so and so. Graham and I were talking over the matter, and I pledge you my word of honour, his opinion coincides with mine; and that What-d'ye-call-um is the only measure Government will venture on trying.' By evening-paper time he is at the Club: 'I can tell you the opinion of the City, my lord,' says he, 'and the way in which Jones Loyd looks at it is briefly this: Rothschilds told me so themselves. In Mark Lane, people's minds are QUITE made up.' He is considered rather a well-informed man.
He lives in Belgravia, of course; in a drab-coloured genteel house, and has everything about him that is properly grave, dismal, and comfortable. His dinners are in the MORNING HERALD, among the parties for the week; and his wife and daughters make a very handsome appearance at the Drawing-Room, once a year, when he comes down to the Club in his Deputy-Lieutenant's uniform.
He is fond of beginning a speech to you by saying, 'When I was in the House, I &c.'—in fact he sat for Skittlebury for three weeks in the first Reformed Parliament, and was unseated for bribery; since which he has three times unsuccessfully contested that honourable borough.
Another sort of Political Snob I have seen at most Clubs and that is the man who does not care so much for home politics, but is great upon foreign affairs. I think this sort of man is scarcely found anywhere BUT in Clubs. It is for him the papers provide their foreign articles, at the expense of some ten thousand a-year each. He is the man who is really seriously uncomfortable about the designs of Russia, and the atrocious treachery of Louis Philippe. He it is who expects a French fleet in the Thames, and has a constant eye upon the American President, every word of whose speech (goodness help him!) he reads. He knows the names of the contending leaders in Portugal, and what they are fighting about: and it is he who says that Lord Aberdeen ought to be impeached, and Lord Palmerston hanged, or VICE VERSA.
Lord Palmerston's being sold to Russia, the exact number of roubles paid, by what house in the City, is a favourite theme with this kind of Snob. I once overheard him—it was Captain Spitfire, R.N., (who had been refused a ship by the Whigs, by the way)—indulging in the following conversation with Mr. Minns after dinner.
Why wasn't the Princess Scragamoffsky at Lady Palmerston's party, Minns? Because SHE CAN'T SHOW—why can't she show? Shall I tell you, Minns, why she can't show? The Princess Scragainoffsky's back is flayed alive, Minns—I tell you it's raw, sir! On Tuesday last, at twelve o'clock, three drummers of the Preobajinski Regiment arrived at Ashburnham House, and at half-past twelve, in the yellow drawing-room at the Russian Embassy, before the ambassadress and four ladies'-maids, the Greek Papa, and the Secretary of Embassy, Madame de Scragamoffsky received thirteen dozen. She was knouted, sir, knouted in the midst of England—in Berkeley Square, for having said that the Grand Duchess Olga's hair was red. And now, sir, will you tell me Lord Palmerston ought to continue Minister?'
Minns: 'Good Ged!'
Minns follows Spitfire about, and thinks him the greatest and wisest of human beings.
Why does not some great author write 'The Mysteries of the Club-houses; or St. James's Street unveiled?' It would be a fine subject for an imaginative writer. We must all, as boys, remember when we went to the fair, and had spent all our money—the sort of awe and anxiety with which we loitered round the outside of the show, speculating upon the nature of the entertainment going on within.
Man is a Drama—of Wonder and Passion, and Mystery and Meanness, and Beauty and Truthfulness, and Etcetera. Each Bosom is a Booth in Vanity Fair. But let us stop this capital style, I should die if I kept it up for a column (a pretty thing a column all capitals would be, by the way). In a Club, though there mayn't be a soul of your acquaintance in the room, you have always the chance of watching strangers, and speculating on what is going on within those tents and curtains of their souls, their coats and waistcoats. This is a never-failing sport. Indeed I am told there are some Clubs in the town where nobody ever speaks to anybody. They sit in the coffee-room, quite silent, and watching each other.
Yet how little you can tell from a man's outward demeanour! There's a man at our Club—large, heavy, middle-aged—gorgeously dressed—rather bald—with lacquered boots—and a boa when he goes out; quiet in demeanour, always ordering and consuming a RECHERCHE little dinner: whom I have mistaken for Sir John Pocklington any time these five years, and respected as a man with five hundred pounds PER DIEM; and I find he is but a clerk in an office in the City, with not two hundred pounds income, and his name is Jubber. Sir John Pocklington was, on the contrary, the dirty little snuffy man who cried out so about the bad quality of the beer, and grumbled at being overcharged three-halfpence for a herring, seated at the next table to Jubber on the day when some one pointed the Baronet out to me.
Take a different sort of mystery. I see, for instance, old Fawney stealing round the rooms of the Club, with glassy, meaningless eyes, and an endless greasy simper—he fawns on everybody he meets, and shakes hands with you, and blesses you, and betrays the most tender and astonishing interest in your welfare. You know him to be a quack and a rogue, and he knows you know it. But he wriggles on his way, and leaves a track of slimy flattery after him wherever he goes. Who can penetrate that man's mystery? What earthly good can he get from you or me? You don't know what is working under that leering tranquil mask. You have only the dim instinctive repulsion that warns you, you are in the presence of a knave—beyond which fact all Fawney's soul is a secret to you.
I think I like to speculate on the young men best. Their play is opener. You know the cards in their hand, as it were. Take, for example, Messrs. Spavin and Cockspur.
A specimen or two of the above sort of young fellows may be found, I believe, at most Clubs. They know nobody. They bring a fine smell of cigars into the room with them, and they growl together, in a corner, about sporting matters. They recollect the history of that short period in which they have been ornaments of the world by the names of winning horses. As political men talk about 'the Reform year,' 'the year the Whigs went out,' and so forth, these young sporting bucks speak of TARNATION'S year, or OPODELDOC'S year, or the year when CATAWAMPUS ran second for the Chester Cup. They play at billiards in the morning, they absorb pale ale for breakfast, and 'top up' with glasses of strong waters. They read BELL'S LIFE (and a very pleasant paper too, with a great deal of erudition in the answers to correspondents). They go down to Tattersall's, and swagger in the Park, with their hands plunged in the pockets of their paletots.
What strikes me especially in the outward demeanour of sporting youth is their amazing gravity, their conciseness of speech, and careworn and moody air. In the smoking-room at the 'Regent,' when Joe Millerson will be setting the whole room in a roar with laughter, you hear young Messrs. Spavin and Cockspur grumbling together in a corner. 'I'll take your five-and-twenty to one about Brother to Bluenose,' whispers Spavin. 'Can't do it at the price,' Cockspur says, wagging his head ominously. The betting-book is always present in the minds of those unfortunate youngsters. I think I hate that work even more than the 'Peerage.' There is some good in the latter—though, generally speaking, a vain record: though De Mogyns is not descended from the giant Hogyn Mogyn; though half the other genealogies are equally false and foolish; yet the mottoes are good reading—some of them; and the book itself a sort of gold-laced and livened lackey to History, and in so far serviceable. But what good ever came out of, or went into, a betting-book? If I could be Caliph Omar for a week, I would pitch every one of those despicable manuscripts into the flames; from my Lord's, who is 'in' with Jack Snaffle's stable, and is over-reaching worse-informed rogues and swindling greenhorns, down to Sam's, the butcher-boy's, who books eighteenpenny odds in the tap-room, and 'stands to win five-and-twenty bob.'
In a turf transaction, either Spavin or Cockspur would try to get the better of his father, and, to gain a point in the odds, victimise his best friends. One day we shall hear of one or other levanting; an event at which, not being sporting men, we shall not break our hearts. See—Mr. Spavin is settling his toilette previous to departure; giving a curl in the glass to his side-wisps of hair. Look at him! It is only at the hulks, or among turf-men, that you ever see a face so mean, so knowing, and so gloomy.
A much more humane being among the youthful Clubbists is the Lady-killing Snob. I saw Wiggle just now in the dressing-room, talking to Waggle, his inseparable.
WAGGLE.—'Pon my honour, Wiggle, she did.'
WIGGLE.—'Well, Waggle, as you say—I own I think she DID look at me rather kindly. We'll see to-night at the French play.'
And having arrayed their little persons, these two harmless young bucks go upstairs to dinner.
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 classes. 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 noble 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 butterflies. 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 Snobs.
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 passes 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 Snob). 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 assumes an agonized and mysterious expression, and he buries his head in the sofa cushions, as if plunging into a whirlpool of passionate 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 passion. 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 passions. 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 album, 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, Snob! such an opportunity! Such a divine creature! She's asked me to write verses for her album, and I can't.'
'Is she rich?' said I. 'I thought you would never marry any but an heiress.'
'Oh, Snob! 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, Snob. I want something wild and tender,—like Byron. I want to tell her that amongst the festive balls, 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 pawn 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 passion I may not. . . .'
'I say, Snob!' 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, Snob, 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 illustrious 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, nobody 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 Snobs, are scoundrels likewise. Their cases go up to a higher Court.'