Part 64 (1/2)
”Have you never tried to work, then,--hard work, I mean?”
”Oh Lord, no! Besides, I've always been too busy, y'know. I've never had to work. Y' see, as luck would have it, I was born a gentleman, Beverley.”
”Yes,” nodded Barnabas, more thoughtful than ever, ”but--what is a gentleman?”
”A gentleman? Why--let me think!” said the Captain, manoeuvring his horses skilfully as they swung into the Strand.
And when he had thought as far as the Savoy he spoke:
”A gentleman,” said he, ”is a fellow who goes to a university, but doesn't have to learn anything; who goes out into the world, but doesn't have to--work at anything; and who has never been blackballed at any of the clubs. I've done a good many things in my time, but I've never had to work.”
”That is a great pity!” sighed Barnabas.
”Oh! is it, b'gad! And why?”
”Because hard work enn.o.bles a man,” said Barnabas.
”Always heard it was a deuce of a bore!” murmured the Captain.
”Exertion,” Barnabas continued, growing a little didactic perhaps, ”exertion is--life. By idleness come degeneration and death.”
”Sounds cursed unpleasant, b'gad!” said the Captain.
”The work a man does lives on after him,” Barnabas continued, ”it is his monument when he is no more, far better than your high-sounding epitaphs and stately tombs, yes, even though it be only the furrow he has ploughed, or the earth his spade has turned.”
”But,--my dear fellow, you surely wouldn't suggest that I should take up--digging?”
”You might do worse,” said Barnabas, ”but--”
”Ha!” said the Captain, ”well now, supposing I was a--deuced good digger,--a regular rasper, b'gad! I don't know what a digger earns, but let's be moderate and say five or six pounds a week. Well, what the deuce good d'you suppose that would be to me? Why, I still owe Gaunt, as far as I can figure it up, about eighty thousand pounds, which is a deuced lot more than it sounds. I should have been rotting in the Fleet, or the Marshalsea, years ago if it hadn't been for my uncle's gout, b'gad!”
”His gout?”
”Precisely! Every twinge he has--up goes my credit. I'm his only heir, y'know, and he's seventy-one. At present he's as sound as a bell, --actually rode to hounds last week, b'gad! Consequently my credit's--nowhere. Jolly old boy, though--deuced fond of him--ha!
there's Haynes! Over yonder! Fellow driving the phaeton with the black-a-moor in the rumble.”
”You mean the man in the bright green coat?”
”Yes. Call him 'Pea-green Haynes'--one of your second-rate, ultra dandies. Twig his vasty whiskers, will you! Takes his fellow hours to curl 'em. And then his cravat, b'gad!”
”How does he turn his head?” inquired Barnabas.
”Never does,--can't! I lost a devilish lot to him at hazard a few years ago--crippled me, y' know. But talking of my uncle--devilish fond of him--always was.”
”But mark you, Beverley, a man has no right--no business to go on living after he's seventy, at least, it shows deuced bad taste, I think--so thoughtless, y'know. Hallo! why there's Ball Hughes--driving the chocolate-colored coach, and got up like a regular jarvey. Devilish rich, y'know--call him 'The Golden Ball'--deuce of a fellow! Pitch and toss, or whist at five pound points, damme! Won small fortune from Petersham at battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k,--played all night too.”
”And have you lost to him also?”
”Of course?”
”Do you ever win?”
”Oh, well--now and then, y'know, though I'm generally unlucky. Must have been under--Aldeboran, is it?--anyhow, some cursed star or other.