Part 24 (1/2)
I looked up at him fiercely enough, but the placid smile which had returned to his face disarmed me.
”Your cla.s.s,” he went on, ”blind yourselves and our cla.s.s as much by wholesale denunciations of us, as we, alas! who should know better, do by wholesale denunciations of you. As you grow older, you will learn that there are exceptions to every rule.”
”And yet the exception proves the rule.”
”Most painfully true, sir. But that argument is two-edged. For instance, am I to consider it the exception or the rule, when I am told that you, a journeyman tailor, are able to correct these proofs for me?”
”Nearer the rule, I think, than you yet fancy.”
”You speak out boldly and well; but how can you judge what I may please to fancy? At all events, I will make trial of you. There are the proofs. Bring them to me by four o'clock this afternoon, and if they are well done, I will pay you more than I should do to the average hack-writer, for you will deserve more.”
I took the proofs; he turned to go, and by a side-look at George beckoned him out of the room. I heard a whispering in the pa.s.sage; and I do not deny that my heart beat high with new hopes, as I caught unwillingly the words--
”Such a forehead!--such an eye!--such a contour of feature as that!--Locule mi--that boy ought not to be mending trousers.”
My cousin returned, half laughing, half angry.
”Alton, you fool, why did you let out that you were a snip?”
”I am not ashamed of my trade.”
”I am, then. However, you've done with it now; and if you can't come the gentleman, you may as well come the rising genius. The self-educated dodge pays well just now; and after all, you've hooked his lords.h.i.+p--thank me for that. But you'll never hold him, you impudent dog, if you pull so hard on him”--He went on, putting his hands into his coat-tail pockets, and sticking himself in front of the fire, like the Delphic Pythoness upon the sacred tripod, in hopes, I suppose, of some oracular afflatus--”You will never hold him, I say, if you pull so hard on him. You ought to 'My lord'
him for months yet, at least. You know, my good fellow, you must take every possible care to pick up what good breeding you can, if I take the trouble to put you in the way of good society, and tell you where my private birds'-nests are, like the green schoolboy some poet or other talks of.”
”He is no lord of mine,” I answered, ”in any sense of the word, and therefore I shall not call him so.”
”Upon my honour! here is a young gentleman who intends to rise in the world, and then commences by trying to walk through the first post he meets! Noodle! can't you do like me, and get out of the carts' way when they come by? If you intend to go ahead, you must just dodge in and out like a dog at a fair. 'She stoops to conquer' is my motto, and a precious good one too.”
”I have no wish to conquer Lord Lynedale, and so I shall not stoop to him.”
”I have, then; and to very good purpose, too. I am his whetstone, for polis.h.i.+ng up that cla.s.sical wit of his on, till he carries it into Parliament to astonish the country squires. He fancies himself a second Goethe, I hav'n't forgot his. .h.i.tting at me, before a large supper party, with a certain epigram of that old turkeyc.o.c.k's about the whale having his unmentionable parasite--and the great man likewise. Whale, indeed! I bide my time, Alton, my boy--I bide my time; and then let your grand aristocrat look out! If he does not find the supposed whale-unmentionable a good stout holding harpoon, with a tough line to it, and a long one, it's a pity, Alton my boy!”
And he burst into a coa.r.s.e laugh, tossed himself down on the sofa, and re-lighted his meerschaum.
”He seemed to me,” I answered, ”to have a peculiar courtesy and liberality of mind towards those below him in rank.”
”Oh! he had, had he? Now, I'll just put you up to a dodge. He intends to come the Mirabeau--fancies his mantle has fallen on him--prays before the fellow's bust, I believe, if one knew the truth, for a double portion of his spirit; and therefore it is a part of his game to ingratiate himself with all pot-boy-dom, while at heart he is as proud, exclusive an aristocrat, as ever wore n.o.bleman's hat. At all events, you may get something out of him, if you play your cards well--or, rather, help me to play mine; for I consider him as my property, and you only as my aide-de-camp.”
”I shall play no one's cards,” I answered, sulkily. ”I am doing work fairly, and shall be fairly paid for it, and keep my own independence.”
”Independence--hey-day! Have you forgotten that, after all, you are my--guest, to call it by the mildest term?”
”Do you upbraid me with that?” I said, starting up. ”Do you expect me to live on your charity, on condition of doing your dirty work? You do not know me, sir. I leave your roof this instant!”
”You do not!” answered he, laughing loudly, as he sprang over the sofa, and set his back against the door. ”Come, come, you Will-o'-the-Wisp, as full of flights, and fancies, and vagaries, as a sick old maid! can't you see which side your bread is b.u.t.tered? Sit down, I say! Don't you know that I'm as good-natured a fellow as ever lived, although I do parade a little Gil Bias morality now and then, just for fun's sake? Do you think I should be so open with it, if I meant anything very diabolic? There--sit down, and don't go into King Cambyses' vein, or Queen Hecuba's tears either, which you seem inclined to do.”
”I know you have been very generous to me,” I said, penitently; ”but a kindness becomes none when you are upbraided with it.”
”So say the copybooks--I deny it. At all events, I'll say no more; and you shall sit down there, and write as still as a mouse till two, while I tackle this never-to-be-enough-by-unhappy-third-years'-men-execrated Griffin's Optics.”
At four that afternoon, I knocked, proofs in hand, at the door of Lord Lynedale's rooms in the King's Parade. The door was opened by a little elderly groom, grey-coated, grey-gaitered, grey-haired, grey-visaged. He had the look of a respectable old family retainer, and his exquisitely neat groom's dress gave him a sort of interest in my eyes. Cla.s.s costumes, relics though they are of feudalism, carry a charm with them. They are symbolic, definitive; they bestow a personality on the wearer, which satisfies the mind, by enabling it instantly to cla.s.sify him, to connect him with a thousand stories and a.s.sociations; and to my young mind, the wiry, shrewd, honest, grim old serving-man seemed the incarnation of all the wonders of Newmarket, and the hunting-kennel, and the steeple-chase, of which I had read, with alternate admiration and contempt, in the newspapers. He ushered me in with a good breeding which surprised me;--without insolence to me, or servility to his master; both of which I had been taught to expect.