Wise Saws and Modern Instances Part 2

At the end of a week, two letters of introduction arrived: one to the M.P. who represented the borough in which Ingram had resided, and to whose cause he had rendered some service in his former newspaper capacity; the other was from a baronet, Ingram had also served in a similar mode, to a literary man of some eminence; in fact, the M.P. was also an eminent _litterateur_, so that Ingram's hopes grew large and fervid. The gentleman advised moderation; but Ingram _could_ not observe it: his const.i.tution, as yet, was master of his reason. He was smilingly received by the literary man; but he could not help observing that the literary man smiled more as he read the baronet's letter, than at his, Ingram's, application. He was begged politely to call again. He _did_ call again--and again---and again--before he found the literary man once more "at home." The event was a recommendation to wait on a small publisher, who had commenced a small periodical, and wanted a young man of genius, and all that, to edit it. Ingram went to work in that quarter:--helped to bring out four weekly numbers of the periodical--received one sovereign for his month's labour--and then the thing was stopped, like hundreds of similar ephemera, because "it did not sell."

The same literary man was visited again, when this engagement failed; but Ingram left his door in wrath, and never called again; because _he saw_ the literary man enter his own house, while he, Ingram, was but at a dozen yards' distance from it; and yet the servant affirmed "he was not at home."

Ingram's better and more magnificent hopes, however, were yet undissipated. During his month's hara.s.sing and ill-paid labour on the unsuccessful magazine, he was awaiting an important decision: at least he believed so. The literary M.P. had also received him with smiles--smiles that Ingram had been inured to at election seasons; but which, as green as he was, he always _felt_ to be a.s.sumed; for it is the heart, not the understanding, that really judges of the genuineness of a smile. Yet, on the occasion of Ingram's first call at the town residence of the legislator, the smile was so prolonged, that Ingram conceived it to be more like a _real_ smile, than the evanescent and valvular-like changes of skin and muscle that the M.P. always seemed to have at such delightful and momentary command while "canva.s.sing" or "returning thanks," in the borough he represented. And then the M.P. entered, of his own accord, on the inquiry as to _what_ Ingram had written, and begged he would entrust a little ma.n.u.script or two, to his, the M.P.'s, care, and _he_ would place them in the hand of _his own_ publisher, with _his own_ recommendation, _if_ he believed they possessed merit.

The _if_ shook Ingram a little; but he, next day, took his best ma.n.u.script, and left it at the M.P.'s house, for _he_ was "_not_ at home," like the other literary man, although Ingram really thought he heard his voice, when the servant took in the name of the caller; but the valet said, "Not at home, sir," when he returned, and so Ingram left the ma.n.u.script, and called again next day. To make the story as short as possible, he called fifteen times during the four weeks, but had only one more interview with the literary M.P. during that term; and this was the product of it: the M.P. a.s.sured Ingram that his ma.n.u.script possessed merit, much merit; that he had left it with his own publisher; and begged Ingram would call again in a few more days, and he would tell him whether the publisher received it.

This seemed to Ingram Wilson a very solid foundation for most magnificent hopes. How could a publisher refuse a ma.n.u.script which was so highly recommended? and how could the M.P. fail, very highly, to recommend what he himself said "possessed merit, much merit?" Such were Ingram's questions; and he was a little shocked to see his friend, the kind gentleman, shake his head and give a silent look, when they were proposed in the gentleman's hearing.

Another month pa.s.sed, and the dream was dissipated! Ingram was always answered, "Not at home," when he called at the M.P.'s: his friend, the kind gentleman, called at the publisher's, and learned, most unequivocally, that the publisher had never had such a ma.n.u.script presented to him, either by the M.P. or any other person: Ingram wrote to the M.P., and received his ma.n.u.script by a messenger, for an answer; and was only prevented from writing back to tell the M.P. he was a rascal, by the advice, or, rather, _authority_, for it amounted to that, of his friend, the kind gentleman.

And now, Ingram, spirit-broken and humbled with what he conceived to be his sanguine and foundationless folly, vowed to his friend that he would never believe promises in future, and would copy at the Museum, or "do any thing" as a means of obtaining a mere livelihood, till he could finish one of his works entirely, and try a publisher by his own application, and solely on the merits of his production. The gentleman cheered the youth, as well as he was able, but Ingram drooped from that time.

A winter of heartache, inward grief, mortified pride, colds and coughs, and, eventually, consumption, succeeded. And then the sweet face of his beloved faded; and when the spring returned, it did not bring back the roses to her cheek.

A summer of toil for little pecuniary reward succeeded that winter, and Ingram received, at length, the appalling information from his friend, the kind gentleman, that he had embarra.s.sed himself by entertaining him, for the gentleman was merely a retired half-pay naval officer. A look, depicturing such agony as Ingram never saw before, in the face of man, accompanied this declaration on the part of his friend, and Ingram never felt so truly miserable, since he was born, as he felt while witnessing it.

There was no room for hesitation: Ingram never tasted food in the kind gentleman's house after that avowal. Yet he called every day to exchange words of grateful friends.h.i.+p with the gentleman, words and looks of love with the beautiful being that was fast journeying to the tomb. In mid-winter she died: her delicate const.i.tution, her sensitive fears and griefs for Ingram's fate, combined, were too much for her endurance.

Ingram drooped, and became a dependent on charity, in an hospital for six weeks; and then the kind gentleman and his wife followed his corpse to the grave, which was dug beside that of their daughter--the beloved of the unfortunate young man of genius!

Will the story prevent or check romance and adventure in others? Ah! no: more Chattertons will perish, more Otways be choked with a crust, unless human nature becomes unlike its former and present self; ay, and more Shakespeares will prosper, in the ages to come, or, otherwise, the true glory and vigour of the human mind have all gone by, and the future must feed on its dregs!

THE LAD WHO FELT LIKE A FISH OUT OF WATER.

Diggory Lawson was not fond of his baptismal name, and often wondered what in the world had put it into his father's head to give him such a one. But where was the use of grumbling, now the name was inevitably his own?--was a sensible thought which often pa.s.sed through the brain of Dig (for his mother used to shorten the awkward name into that still more awkward one of three letters), where was the use of grumbling about it?

His name could not mend him if Nature had marred him, nor could it mar him if Nature had made him fit for any good and useful purpose of existence.

With such thoughts, though but a very little lad, Diggory used to ramble, when school was up, about pleasant Nottingham, where he was born, and about its charming neighbourhood. His father was only a poor lace-weaver; but an affectionate and almost overweening fondness for their only child rendered his parents prompt to sacrifice any personal comfort, in order to secure him a respectable portion of education. The lad was, therefore, kept steadily at school. But his father mingled no little of the eccentric in his const.i.tution, as may be guessed from the name he gave his child, for he had no "family reason" for it; and so it happened, which was not at all the worse, that the lad was not left to gather his knowledge simply from the dry and barren teaching of a day-school. His father was a dabbler in the mathematics, in astronomy, in dialling, in botany and floriculture, in history and antiquities; and so Dig Lawson caught a tincture of each of these knowledges, at such seasons as his father felt disposed to communicate what he knew of them.

Nor did the irregularity of communication in his father's fragmentary hints prevent the lad's mind and its stores from taking a regular form.

That form was somewhat unique, perhaps, but a true philosopher would have thought it symmetrical. The lad did not forget his humble condition: he was never proud: but his thinkings were far more exalted than those of the majority of the children who were, at times, his playmates. The greater part of his leisure was spent in lonely wanderings. And if any locality in England can tend to elevate the sentiments of its young habitants, one would think it to be Nottingham.

Such was its effect, however, on the mind of young Dig Lawson: he became a vehicle of n.o.ble, though somewhat romantic thinkings, while wandering in the meadows by the beautiful Trent, and watching, alternately, the ripple of the stream, or the unfolding of some beautiful flower that grew on its border; or rambling over the wildernesses of the Forest-ground, so cla.s.sically English, and giving himself up, for the nonce, to day-dreams of Robin Hood, till he half imagined he saw the merry band tripping over the hill-side among the furze and stunted trees, clad in their Lincoln green, and heard the real sound of bold Robin's bugle; or climbing the rocks that project round the beautiful park, and looking up at "Mortimer's Hole" in the castled cliff, and picturing the chivalrous attack on the concealed traitor by the mailed bands of the third Edward; or creeping among the strange-looking Druid caves on the border of the silver Lene, and conjuring up in his imagination the white-bearded priests crowned with oak, and bearing the "mistletoe bough," and chanting the hymn to the sun or moon, while a crowd of painted Britons struck up the chorus "Derry-down." Less florid but more substantial thinkings often occupied him, when he watched the last rays of the setting sun tint up the windows of the modern building called "the Castle" (the unruly Radicals had not blackened it then,) and remembered how, on its memorable rock, the fated Stuart first unfurled the standard of war against his own people and parliament, and how unweariedly the high-souled and incorruptible Hutchinson sustained the hara.s.sments of petty faction so long on the same spot. These more weighty thoughts, especially, visited him as his boyhood began to ripen into youth. And as soon as his understanding began to mature, and he became capable of combining the useful with the comely, in his delights and preferences, he could derive almost as much pleasure from a walk round the splendid area of the market-place of his native town, as from a stroll in the park, or by the Trent. He was often told there was no market-place like it in England; and he felt as proud of its superb s.p.a.ce and neat ornamental piazzas, as if he were a man, and owner of half the buildings round it. Diggory Lawson, therefore, had not yet become "the lad who felt like a fish out of water."

Neither did Dig at all resemble such an unfortunate animal for the three years, that is to say, from fourteen to seventeen, that he pa.s.sed at his father's humble trade. Every leisure season was spent in literature; and he had not only read some hundreds of volumes by the time that he had reached the age of seventeen, but he had made some attempts at original composition that were by no means contemptible. The lad was happy enough, and was likely to make a happy and useful man, had "Luck"--that spirit with so questionable a name--kept out of his father's way, and thereby prevented the father from placing himself in Dig's way.

The brilliant but evanescent "Bobbin-net" speculation sprung up, like a forest of mushrooms--with an immense surface of promise, but very slender stalk for continuance--in the town of Nottingham. Diggory's father was just the man to jump into a new scheme; and he really jumped into the bobbin-net speculation to some purpose, apparently, for he realised a thousand pounds' profit in twelve months. Such "luck," of course, determined him to continue in the pursuit of money, in the same line; but he was seized, alas! with a vehement resolution to make Dig into a gentleman!

The large admixture of whimsicality in his father's composition, however, left Diggory's destiny in a very nondescript condition for some time; since his ideas of the exactest, best, and fittest way of making his lad into the thing he thought of were none of the clearest, and most fixed. One step, and one only, could Dig's father determine upon--and that was--that Dig should work no more! No: he could work himself, and could make as much money as ever Dig would want as long as he lived: but Dig shouldn't work; and his mother said, "No, _that_ he shouldn't," when she heard her husband say so; and so Dig was compelled, as the neighbours said, to "drop it"--and to lay aside his every-day clothes, and put on his Sunday ones, and to consider that, from that day forth, he had done working with his hands--to the end of his life.

Well: for a lad of seventeen, who was so fond of books and of sentimentalising by the Trent, and in the Park, and as far as Clifton Grove, this was, certainly, for the first week, a glorious state of existence. But, somehow or other, the second holyday week, in Sunday clothes every day, was not so happy as the first; and when the third arrived--then Diggory Lawson, for the first time in his life, became "the lad who felt like a fish out of water." The river did not look so beautiful and silvery, nor the flowers so lovely, nor the Park so green; in brief, Dig was tired of all he saw, and all he read, and tired even of himself; and he told his father and mother so outright. But la! the mother had an answer for Dig so nicely opportune that she was in ecstacies to tell it--for she was sure it was a piece of such excellent "luck." Mrs. Strutabout, the lace-merchant's lady (who had a large family of unmarried daughters), had sent so politely to say that she would be very happy to see _young_ Mister Lawson to tea that afternoon--and they were such respectable people! Dig's father said, "Capital! just the thing!" when he heard it; for he felt instantaneously sure--and indeed all his convictions ran by fits and starts--that _that_ was certainly a step towards making Dig into a gentleman. An introduction to genteel society, to "respectable" company--what could be finer?

Diggory himself, however, hung his head, and felt shy about it, for he had never been "out to tea" before, in his life. But his father said, "Pshaw! you young shame-face! you must shake all that off: remember I intend you to be as respectable a man as any of 'em!" And the mother reminded Diggory that he would be sure to hear some music, for the young ladies Strutabout were thumping away on the piano from morning to night; you might hear them any hour of the day that you went by the front-room windows. It was the last hint that enabled Diggory to master his bashfulness; for although he knew not a note scientifically, nor could he play on any instrument, yet his love of music amounted to a pa.s.sion.

And so, at five o'clock in the afternoon, Dig knocked, with a heart pit-a-pat, at the front-door of the merchant Strutabout, and was immediately welcomed in, and received, in the best room, by Mrs.

Strutabout herself, so smilingly--and by the half dozen Misses Strutabout, so sweetly--that he hardly knew where he was with the novelty of so much genteel welcome. One of the young ladies, so gently and winningly, took his hat, saying, "Pray let me take your hat, _Mister_ Lawson!"--for poor Diggory, in his plainness, had brought it into the room, and, for the life of him did not know where to put it!

And then "the infinite deal of nothings" that the young ladies talked for a full half hour--Mrs. Strutabout herself retiring, and saying so politely, "She hoped Mister Lawson would excuse her a short time,"--and poor Diggory's difficulty in framing answers about nothing! If they had talked of anybody he knew from books, either of Socrates or Alexander, of Cicero or Caesar, of Wat Tyler or John of Gaunt, of Hampden or Lord Chatham, of Marlborough or Napoleon; or of anybody that was "worth talking about," as he said to himself; or of any thing, or place, or substance, of which any thing could be said that was sensible, Diggory could have talked, ay, and in good, thundering, long-syllabled words, too, as well as any man or youth in the three kingdoms. But to take up a full half-hour in prattling about--Lord! he could not describe it when he returned home, it was such infantile sort of stuff as he had never supposed mortals uttered in "respectable" or any other sort of society!

Diggory Lawson was, indeed, during that half-hour, "the lad that felt like a fish out of water."

At length, Mrs. Strutabout sailed in with her high turban cap, and her wide-spread swelling dress, more smilingly than ever, and the tea was brought in, and Mr. Strutabout arrived from the counting-house, and places began to be taken, and _Mister_ Lawson was "begged" to come to the table, "unless he chose to take a cup where he was." Diggory stared at the addition to the invitation. And it was well for him that Mr.

Strutabout jumped up, and began to urge him to the table, for had they handed Dig a cup of tea with cake, as he sat in the recess by the window, he would have been in a woeful pucker, no doubt. As it was, he was in trouble enough. Poor Diggory! he took his tea every day in a basin at home, and held up a book before it, devouring the contents of the volume far more eagerly than his food; and it was a cruel piece of ambition in his mother and father to thrust him upon "respectable"

society so unthinkingly. It may seem strange to fine drawing-room people, but with all Dig's knowledge, and as old as he was, the silver tea-spoon bothered him so indescribably, in the cup, that he knew not what to do; yet he durst not put it out upon the tray, because he saw, by peeping aside with his head down, that no one else did so. The eldest Miss Strutabout saw this, and would have liked to show him how to place the spoon neatly under the side of his forefinger, but then, it would be so strange a thing to tell him at table. As for the younger misses they were much disposed to giggle at poor Dig's awkwardness, only the mother looked gentle daggers at them, and restrained their lightness. The good lady strove to hide Diggory's blunders, and the merchant engaged the youth in general talk on trade and business, so as to enable him to get through with the appearance that he was too much taken up with the conversation to attend to table etiquette. But for all this good service and kindly interference, Diggory Lawson, while at Mrs. Strutabout's tea-table, was indeed, and of a truth, "the lad who felt like a fish out of water."

The mortal agony was at last ended; and Diggory began to hope that he would reap some little enjoyment from his stay the remainder of the evening, since the piano was mentioned. But, lackadaisy! the young ladies thumped and rattled, till Dig thought it was any thing but music; and as for their singing--so unlike the simple ditties of the milkmaids, under the cows, which he used to listen in the early summer mornings by the "pasture Trent," with the skylark carolling overhead--so much like the midnight melody of some stray grimalkin was the singing of the Misses Strutabout, that it made Dig wish himself, over and over again, five miles out of hearing of it. He must endure it, however, since he dare not offend the family by suddenly withdrawing, they were so "respectable:" nay, more, he was compelled to praise, for at the end of every overture, or solo, or duet, he was asked "how he liked that?" or "what he thought of that?" and the poor lad was compelled to torture his tongue into the utterance of commendations on what he began actually to loathe, until the announcement of supper gave a momentary suspension to his discontent. And merely momentary was his ease, for the confounded ceremoniousness of the supper plagued him worse than the etiquette of the tea-table; and pa.s.sing over the mention of all his blushes and throbbings, under the consciousness that he knew nothing about the niceties of this second eating process, let us come at once to the end of the adventure, and say that when he had fairly stepped into the street at ten o'clock, and when, after unnumbered polite adieus, the door of the merchant Strutabout was closed behind him, Diggory Lawson drew in a full breath of air with a feeling of thankfulness similar to that of one who pa.s.ses out of a prison after a twelvemonth's confinement.

Very gleefully did Dig's mother salute her boy when he came home, and his father not less proudly; but how queer they felt, when the poor lad told them he had "felt like a fish out of water!" And when Diggory had given them such a brief account of his treat, as his dislike would permit, they looked at each other, and began to think, and to remember, that "they ought to have known that the lad would meet with fine manners that he was unused to at home." But Dig's father told him to "cheer up,"

for he would know better how to go on another time. But Diggory, inwardly, felt indisposed to try another time; yet he did not say so, and so the affair pa.s.sed over.

Now Diggory's mother knew no more about the right way of making the lad into a gentleman than the father; but she began to grow greatly distressed at observing the lad's restlessness and disquietude, for the hours and days went over Diggory's head more heavily the longer he was idle. So she seriously took her husband to task, as they say in Nottinghams.h.i.+re, about his delay in determining how Dig was to begin to be a gentleman. Her discourse would have rendered the poor man very uneasy, indeed, had not "luck" extricated him from his dilemma on the next day succeeding the curtain lecture.

In his new manufacture, Diggory Lawson's father did business with a Londoner: this personage made his quarterly call at the very moment when his customer was so much intent on the great problem as to display much concern in his face. A shrewd question was put: Dig's father told his trouble, and the c.o.c.kney gave most instantaneous advice how the thing was to be done, as soon as he had been informed of what was so much desired. "The young man must be had out to travel," he said; "_he_ would procure him a 'highly respectable' situation as a genteel commercial traveller for a house in town: _that_ was the way to set him off in the world, and make a real gentleman of him, for he would be thrown into the very best society!"

Such was the c.o.c.kney's advice; and it was sincere, too, for the pert little man really believed there was nothing in the world more "highly respectable" than that morsel of vanity--himself! And then his prate was so fluent, so glib, so high sounding, he was such a walking vocabulary of commercial phrases, that he completely enfevered Dig's father with the persuasion of his cleverness; and the countryman yielded to the advice of the Londoner, believing he had been shown the very best way in the world for beginning to make his son into a gentleman. The lad was, it is true, willing to go, he was so weary of the insipidity of his present idleness, and besides, he wanted to see London, and other parts of the country, never having yet quitted his native s.h.i.+re; but yet his common sense was a little suspicious, that this was _not_ exactly the way to make him a gentleman. Still this suspicion on the part of Diggory was no impediment in the way of a trial--for the lad did not so much wish to be a gentleman as a man--and he thought a little knowledge of the world would not prevent his progress towards that better climax.

"Mr. Lawson, the bobbin-net manufacturer," would have had his son fas.h.i.+onably clothed ere he started for town; but the c.o.c.kney turned up his nose at the very idea. "It was a thing quite out of character," he told Mr. Lawson: "all the country tailors' fits were reckoned only dresses for scarecrows by the best tailors in town: it wouldn't do at all: he was against it, most decidedly!"

Young Diggory, therefore, was impursed with a handsome sum, more than sufficient to purchase an outfit in London; for his father well knew he could trust to his prudence, and was despatched, per mail, to town, in company with the all-sufficient Londoner. A week, or so, was spent, in visiting the various public exhibitions, and seeing the sights,--a change of neat suits was purchased (for the lad was too sensible to be fooled into the kickshaw dandy habits which the c.o.c.kney recommended),--a situation, a "highly respectable" situation, (although but at very low remuneration, a thing of no consequence to Diggory,) was procured by the all-sufficient gentleman; and off started the new adventurer into Kent, to canva.s.s for orders for a citizen and dry-salter of London.

The merchant, his employer, had had but one interview with him, having engaged him chiefly through a quick impression of his solid intelligence, rather than from the c.o.c.kney's florid recommendation; but the c.o.c.kney gave him a regular "drill," as it might be called in his new profession, before he started out; and, although the tradesmen upon whom he called perceived that he was a "new beginner," yet his good sense prevented his experiencing any insurmountable difficulty in making his way as a commercial traveller. In fact, Diggory had a much larger stock of theoretical knowledge to enable him to eke out his deficiencies in what was practical, than most young fellows who go out, for the first time, on similar engagements; and, therefore, it was not as a "greenhorn" among tradesmen, that he was likely to feel "like a fish out of water:" that was not the sort of uneasiness that newly awaited Diggory Lawson.

What was it then?--Nothing less than the old pest in a new form:--etiquette. He had been most cogently admonished by the c.o.c.kney to take up his quarters at the very best commercial inns in his prescribed route,--or it would let down his employer, disgust customers, and injure his patron's business; nor had he been less earnestly warned to avoid deporting himself in any way contrary to the rules and customs of gentlemen he would meet with, who were "on the road" like himself, and who had their "highly respectable" established usages. Diggory, like an obedient son, followed his father's monitions, and strove to conduct himself exactly as the Londoner advised and directed. At the first-rate commercial inn in each town he stopped, hasted to canva.s.s the tradesmen, and punctually returned to the inn at the hour when he was told dinner would be on the table in the "Commercial Room." Diggory, too, being a sharp lad, as the reader knows by this time, bought a book on "Etiquette" and all that sort of thing, while in London: but though he imagined he would be a match for his new compeers "of the road," he found himself sorely mistaken, in the very outset, at Maidstone.

At four, exactly, returned Diggory to his inn, having despatched considerable business for a mere beginner, and entered the "Commercial Room." A buzz and a general whisper went round, as he entered, and no one returned his courteous movement (for he followed his book) when he performed it! The company was large, well-dressed, and from the "bang-up" appearance of the numerous leather portmanteaus under the side-tables in the room, and the das.h.i.+ng whips and proud cloaks on the hooks, Diggory was sure they were, indeed, what the c.o.c.kney would call "highly respectable" commercial gentlemen, or "gentlemen on the road."

It was strange, he thought, that they should be so uncourteous. Yet, Diggory observed, that every new comer was received in the same way; and so he set it down in his memory that it was the wrong time of the day for bows of courtesy among "commercial gentlemen;"--and that was not a bad idea, either, for so green an observer,--especially as the gentlemen had not dined.

Dinner was brought in, and a tolerably sumptuous affair it was.

"Commercial gentlemen," even at the "first-rate commercial inns," don't "cut it quite so fat" (for so vulgar a phrase may be allowed since it will apply to the dinners) now-a-days, as they did then,--since we are speaking of something more than twenty years bygone; and the last twenty years, with their wonderful innovations of railway travelling and increased compet.i.tion, have made woeful alterations among your princely commercial travellers: they were the innkeeper's grandees then: the case is altered now. Diggory, with all his intellectuality and sentimentalism and so forth, was pleased to see the goodly provisions of the table, for he was very hungry; and he began to muster up his recollections of "the book of etiquette."

But, behold!--a single moment threw all his calculations out of order.

He was the youngest in the room; and by the rules of the road, he must, therefore, take the post of vice-president at the dinner! Diggory's book said nothing about this; for it was not written expressly for "commercial gentlemen," but for "good society" generally. Poor Dig took the post, however, but felt in a strange perturbation as the gentleman at his right hand intimated a wish for a little mutton, and looked at him, "the Vice!" The chairman was already helping his end of the table to slices of a sirloin, and so Diggory drew the piece of hot mutton near him, and was beginning to cut, but did it so awkwardly that the gentleman at his right-hand, who was somewhat of a gourmand, cried out, "Oh dear, sir! not that way!" Diggory stopped,--stared,--blushed: but the chairman, an elderly and fatherly-looking man, put on an encouraging smile, and said, "Lengthwise, sir, if you please; not across: the other way keeps in the gravy best." Diggory's heart cleaved to the man who told him this so kindly and handsomely, and he thanked the chairman, adding, in his simplicity, that he was unused to carving mutton, especially a shoulder, he added, looking at it, and thinking it could not be a leg.

"A shoulder!" exclaimed the gentleman on his right hand, staring like one who was horror-struck; "why, G.o.d bless me, 'tis a saddle!"

Diggory blushed worse than before, for there was a perceptible laugh round the table; but he made no reply, and tried to proceed with his work of carving. Trembling as he did, there was no wonder that he spattered the right-hand gentleman with gravy until the gentleman grew angry. And then Diggory apologised; but the gentleman, still more indignantly, besought him to go on, and not keep the company waiting,--meaning himself. How glad was the lad when he had succeeded in filling the man's plate, and silencing him! The rest whom he had to accommodate were of less irritable natures; but no one offered to relieve him, until each had despatched their first plate, and _then_ Diggory's appet.i.te was gone, for he had not been able to eat a mouthful up to that time, through the throng of his new and difficult employment.

The next course increased poor Diggory's trouble: he knew no more about carving a fowl than conducting a s.h.i.+p to China; and when he had cut off a blundering slice at a venture, and put it on the right-hand gentleman's plate, the irritable gourmand stared ferociously in his face, shovelled the clumsy slice off the plate into the dish, cried aloud, "Mangling done here!" and to Diggory's consternation seized the carving-knife and fork, to cut for himself.

And now the chairman interfered. "He trusted he should be supported by the company, sitting there as he did: if the young gentleman was an improficient in the duties of the table, perhaps he might be allowed to say that they all knew what it was to be young at one time in their lives, and he _did_ think--though he was the last man in the world to wish to give the slightest offence--that the gentleman to the right of the vice-president of that table had not acted so courteously as he might have done." And then there was a pretty general "Hear, hear!" But quickly uprose the irritable gentleman, and rejected the admonition of the president with scorn, and thumped the table during his delivery of a most energetic oration of half a minute, until he shook the gla.s.ses so that they rang changes against each other.

The irritable gentleman no sooner sat down than another arose, and another, and another, each demanding that he should apologise to the president for his want of courtesy, and the irritable gentleman yielded to apologise--though it was far more from eagerness to eat, than a return of good-nature.--Diggory was "a.s.sisted" in cutting up the fowl by one on his left, who began to be warmed with sympathy for the youth, now the sympathiser's stomach was allayed in some small degree by sundry hearty slices of mutton. To the drawing of the cloth Diggory experienced no further mortification: but the past was enough, in any conscience; and during the season in which that company of "highly respectable gentlemen" were masticating their viands, poor Diggory, who did not eat three mouthfuls, might most aptly be styled "the lad who felt like a fish out of water."

And now the wine was pushed about; and whether it was the little "tiff"

which had taken place during the dinner, or whatever might be the cause, considerable difficulty was felt, for some time, by all the company, in attaining that sense of freedom, that warm hilariousness, which an Englishman always looks for, over the bottle, and by the charm of which, and not by the animal gust for the liquor, drinking usages have become so widely established. This uneasy feeling, however, was dissipated by degrees; and then, by the natural reaction of the human spirits, the zest for good-fellows.h.i.+p grew unbounded. And yet this over-heated, steamy sort of boon companions.h.i.+p manifested itself exactly as might be expected among "highly respectable commercial gentlemen," though poor Diggory was too ignorant of the genus to make the proper calculation.

They neither called each other by familiar names, nor sang, nor shouted, nor huzzaed, nor laughed, till they hiccupped. Compliments, that out-heroded Herod in their gorgeousness of dress and brilliancy of colouring,--good-wishes,--mighty, vast, profound, coming from the "bottom of their hearts,"--for the prosperity of each other in their undertakings,--testimonies to each other's "respectability" (_always_ first), honour, candour, probity, (take the first catalogue of the virtues you find, and supply all the rest,)--flowed out of the smiling, bubbling, fountain of their wine-warmed hearts, and wreathed itself so fantastically into the vaporous shapes of words (if that be nonsense, take it for a specimen of their speeches),--that Diggory Lawson was puzzled to determine whether they were more lunatic or tipsy.