Charles Lever - Lord Kilgobbin

Without perceiving it, he had now taken his pipe, lighted it, and was smoking away. ‘By the way, how those same Imperialists have played the game! – the two or three middle-aged men that Kinglake says, “put their heads together to plan for a livelihood.” I wish they had taken me into the partnership. It’s the sort of thing I’d have liked well; ay, and I could have done it, too! I wonder,’ said he aloud – ‘I wonder if I were an emperor should I marry Letty Clancy? I suspect not. Letty would have been flippant as an empress, and her cousins would have made atrocious princes of the imperial family, though, for the matter of that – Hullo! Here have I been smoking without knowing it! Can any one tell us whether the sins we do inadvertently count as sins, or do we square them off by our inadvertent good actions? I trust I shall not be called on to catalogue mine. There, my courage is out!’ As he said this he emptied the ashes of his pipe, and gazed sorrowfully at the empty bowl.

‘Now, if I were the son of some good house, with a high-sounding name, and well-to-do relations, I’d soon bring them to terms if they dared to cast me off. I’d turn milk or muffin man, and serve the street they lived in. I’d sweep the crossing in front of their windows, or I’d commit a small theft, and call on my high connections for a character – but being who and what I am, I might do any or all o these, and shock nobody.

‘Next to take stock of my effects. Let me see what my assets will bring when reduced to cash, for this time it shall be a sale.’ And he turned to a table where paper and pens were lying, and proceeded to write. ‘Personal, sworn under, let us say, ten thousand pounds. Literature first. To divers worn copies of Virgil , Tacitus , Juvenal , and Ovid , Cæsar’s Commentaries , and Catullus ; to ditto ditto of Homer , Lucian , Aristophanes , Balzac , Anacreon , Bacon’s Essays , and Moore’s Melodies ; to Dwight’s Theology – uncut copy, Heine’s Poems – very much thumbed, Saint Simon – very ragged, two volumes of Les Causes Célèbres , Tone’s Memoirs , and Beranger’s Songs ; to Cuvier’s Comparative Anatomy , Shroeder on Shakespeare , Newman’s Apology , Archbold’s Criminal Law and Songs of the Nation ; to Colenso, East’s Cases for the Crown , Carte’s Ormonde , and Pickwick . But why go on? Let us call it the small but well-selected library of a distressed gentleman, whose cultivated mind is reflected in the marginal notes with which these volumes abound. Will any gentleman say, “£10 for the lot”? Why the very criticisms are worth – I mean to a man of literary tastes – five times the amount. No offer at £10? Who is it that says “five”? I trust my ears have deceived me. You repeat the insulting proposal? Well, sir, on your own head be it! Mr. Atlee’s library – or the Atlee collection is better – was yesterday disposed of to a well-known collector of rare books, and, if we are rightly informed, for a mere fraction of its value. Never mind, sir, I bear you no ill-will! I was irritable, and to show you my honest animus in the matter, I beg to present you in addition with this, a handsomely-bound and gilt copy of a sermon by the Reverend Isaac Atlee, on the opening of the new meeting-house in Coleraine – a discourse that cost my father some sleepless nights, though I have heard the effect on the congregation was dissimilar.

‘The pictures are few. Cardinal Cullen, I believe, is Kearney’s; at all events, he is the worse for being made a target for pistol firing, and the archiepiscopal nose has been sorely damaged. Two views of Killarney in the weather of the period – that means July, and raining in torrents – and consequently the scene, for aught discoverable, might be the Gaboon. Portrait of Joe Atlee, ætatis four years, with a villainous squint, and something that looks like a plug in the left jaw. A Skye terrier, painted, it is supposed, by himself; not to recite unframed prints of various celebrities of the ballet, in accustomed attitudes, with the Reverend Paul Bloxham blessing some children – though from the gesture and the expression of the juveniles it might seem cuffing them – on the inauguration of the Sunday school at Kilmurry Macmacmahon.

‘Lot three, interesting to anatomical lecturers and others, especially those engaged in palæontology. The articulated skeleton of an Irish giant, representing a man who must have stood in his no-stockings eight feet four inches. This, I may add, will be warranted as authentic, in so far that I made him myself out of at least eighteen or twenty big specimens, with a few slight “divergencies” I may call them, such as putting in eight more dorsal vertebrae than the regulation, and that the right femur is two inches longer than the left. The inferior maxillary, too, was stolen from a “Pithacus Satyrus” in the Cork Museum by an old friend, since transported for Fenianism. These blemishes apart, he is an admirable giant, and fully as ornamental and useful as the species generally.

‘As to my wardrobe, it is less costly than curious; an alpaca paletot of a neutral tint, which I have much affected of late, having indisposed me to other wear. For dinner and evening duty I usually wear Kearney’s, though too tight across the chest, and short in the sleeves. These, with a silver watch which no pawnbroker – and I have tried eight – will ever advance more on than seven-and-six. I once got the figure up to nine shillings by supplementing an umbrella, which was Dick’s, and which still remains, “unclaimed and unredeemed.”

‘Two o’clock, by all that is supperless! evidently Kearney is enjoying himself. Ah, youth, youth! I wish I could remember some of the spiteful things that are said of you – not but on the whole, I take it, you have the right end of the stick. Is it possible there is nothing to eat in this inhospitable mansion?’ He arose and opened a sort of cupboard in the wall, scrutinising it closely with the candle. ‘“Give me but the superfluities of life,” says Gavarni, “and I’ll not trouble you for its necessaries.” What would he say, however, to a fellow famishing with hunger in presence of nothing but pickled mushrooms and Worcester sauce! Oh, here is a crust! “Bread is the staff of life.” On my oath, I believe so; for this eats devilish like a walking-stick.

‘Hullo! back already?’ cried he, as Kearney flung wide the door and entered. ‘I suppose you hurried away back to join me at supper.’

‘Thanks; but I have supped already, and at a more tempting banquet than this I see before you.’

‘Was it pleasant? was it jolly? Were the girls looking lovely? Was the champagne-cup well iced? Was everybody charming? Tell me all about it. Let me have second-hand pleasure, since I can’t afford the new article.’

‘It was pretty much like every other small ball here, where the garrison get all the prettiest girls for partners, and take the mammas down to supper after.’

‘Cunning dogs, who secure flirtation above stairs and food below! And what is stirring in the world? What are the gaieties in prospect? Are any of my old flames about to get married?’

‘I didn’t know you had any.’

‘Have I not! I believe half the parish of St. Peter’s might proceed against me for breach of promise; and if the law allowed me as many wives as Brigham Young, I’d be still disappointing a large and interesting section of society in the suburbs.’

‘They have made a seizure on the office of the Pike , carried off the press and the whole issue, and are in eager pursuit after Madden, the editor.’