Part 48 (2/2)

Had it been permitted, Dr Plausible would have received his guest with a flourish of trumpets, as great men are upon the stage, without which it is impossible now-a-days to know a great man from a little one.

However, the hired attendants did their duty, and the name of Fizzybelli was fizzed about the room in every direction. Dr Plausible trod on the corns of old Lady G---, upset Miss Periwinkle, and nearly knocked down a French _savant_, in his struggle to obtain the door to receive his honoured guest, who made a bow, looked at the crowd--looked at the chandelier--looked at his watch, and looked very tired in the course of five minutes, when Prince Fizzybelli ordered his carriage, and was off.

Newton, who had examined several very strange things, which occupied the tables about the room, at last made his way to the ante-room, where the crowd was much more dense than elsewhere. Taking it for granted that there was something interesting to be seen, he persevered until he had forced his way to the centre, when what was his astonishment when he beheld under a long gla.s.s-case a figure of a woman modelled in wax, of exact and certainly of beautiful proportion! It was as large as life, and in a state of perfect nudity. The face lifted up, and discovered the muscles beneath: in fact, every part of the image could be removed, and presented to the curious, every part of the human frame, modelled exact, and coloured. Newton was indeed astonished: he had witnessed several articles in the other room, which he had considered more fitted for the museum of an inst.i.tution than a drawing-room; but this was indeed a novelty; and when, to crown all, he witnessed certain little _demireps_ of science, who fancied that not to be ashamed was now as much a proof of knowledge, as in our first parents it was of innocence, and who eyed the figure without turning away from it or blus.h.i.+ng, he quitted the room with disgust, and returned home quite satisfied with one _conversazione_.

I am not partial to blues: generally speaking, ladies do not take up science until they find that the men will not take up them; and a remarkably clever woman by reputation is too often a remarkably unpleasant, or a remarkably ugly one. But there are exceptions; exceptions that a nation may be proud of--women who can fulfil their duties to their husbands and their children, to their G.o.d and to their neighbour, although endowed with minds more powerful than allotted to one man in tens of thousands. These are heavenly blues; and, among the few, no one s.h.i.+nes more pre-eminent than my dear Mrs S---e.

However, whether Newton was satisfied or not, this _conversazione_ was a finisher to Dr Feasible, who resigned the contest. Dr Plausible not only carried away the palm--but, what was still worse, he carried off the ”practice!”

VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER EIGHT.

Their only labour is to kill the time; And labour dire it is, and weary woe.

They sit--they lounge--turn o'er some idle rhyme; Then rising sudden--to the gla.s.s they go, Or saunter forth with loitering step and slow.

_Castle of Indolence_.

Captain Oughton who commanded the Windsor Castle was an original. His figure was short and thickset, his face broad, and deeply pitted with the small-pox, his nose an apology for a nose, being a small tubercle arising mid-way between his eyes and mouth, the former of which were small, the latter wide, and displaying a magnificent row of white teeth.

On the whole, it was impossible to look in his face without being immediately struck with his likeness to a bull-dog. His temperament and his pursuits were also a.n.a.logous; he was a great pugilist, knew the merits of every man in the ring, and the precise date and circ.u.mstances attending every battle which had been fought for the previous thirty years. His conversation was at all times interlarded with the slang terms appropriated to the science, to which he was so devoted. In other points he was a brave and trust-worthy officer, although he valued the practical above the theoretical branches of his profession, and was better pleased when superintending the mousing of a stay or the strapping of a block, than when ”flooring” the sun, as he termed it, to ascertain the lat.i.tude, or ”breaking his noddle against the old woman's,” in taking a lunar observation. Newton had been strongly recommended to him, and Captain Oughton extended his hand as to an old acquaintance, when they met on the quarterdeck. Before they had taken a dozen turns up and down, Captain Oughton inquired if Newton could handle the mauleys; and on being answered in the negative, volunteered his instruction during their pa.s.sage out.

”You heard the end of it, I suppose?” said Captain Oughton, in continuance.

”The end of what, sir?”

”What! why, the fight. Spring beat. I've cleared three hundred by him.”

”Then, sir, I am very glad that Spring beat,” replied Newton.

”I'll back him against a stone heavier any day in the week. I've got the newspaper in the cabin, with the fight--forty-seven rounds; but we can't read it now; we must see after these soldiers and their traps.

Look at them,” continued Captain Oughton, turning to a party of the troops ordered for the pa.s.sage, who were standing on the gangway and booms; ”every man Jack, with his tin pot in his hand, and his great-coat on. Twig the drum-boy, he has turned his coat--do you see, with the lining outwards to keep it clean. By Jove, that's a _wrinkle_!”

”How many officers do you expect, Captain Oughton.”

”I hardly know, they make such alterations in their arrangements; five or six, I believe. The boat went on sh.o.r.e for them at nine o'clock.

They have sent her back, with their compliments, seven times already, full of luggage. There's one lieutenant, I forget his name, whose chests alone would fill up the main-deck. There's six under the half-deck,” said Captain Oughton, pointing to them.

”Lieutenant Winterbottom,” observed Newton, reading the name.

”I wish to Heaven that he had remained the winter, or that his chests were all to the bottom! I don't know where the devil we are to stow them. O! here they come! Boatswain's mate, 'tend the side there.”

In a minute or thereabouts, the military gentlemen made their appearance one by one on the quarter-deck, scrutinising their gloves as they bade adieu to the side-ropes, to ascertain if they had in any degree been defiled by the adhesive properties of the pitch and tar.

Captain Oughton advanced to receive them. ”Welcome, gentlemen,” said he, ”welcome on board. We trip our anchor in half an hour. I am afraid that I have not the pleasure of knowing your names, and must request the honour of being introduced.”

”Major Clavering, sir,” said the major, a tall handsome man, gracefully taking off his hat; ”the officers who accompany are (waving his hand towards them in succession) Lieutenant Winterbottom.”

Lieutenant Winterbottom bowed.

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