Charles Lever - Jack Hinton - The Guardsman

“Faith, I am very stupid this morning; can’t say that I do.”

“Not see it! It is a hollow thing; but perhaps you are in the scheme too. There, you needn’t look angry; I only meant it in joke – ha! ha! ha! I say, Hinton, do you take care of yourself: Englishers have no chance here; and when they find it won’t do with me , they’ll take you in training.”

“Anything for a pis-aller ” said O’Grady, sarcastically; “but let us not forget there is a levee to-day, and it is already past twelve o’clock.”

“Ha! to be sure, a horrid bore.”

So saying, Lord Dudley lounged one more round the room, looked at himself in the glass, nodded familiarly to his own image, and took his leave. O’Grady soon followed; while I set about my change of dress with all the speed the time required.

[Transcriber’s note: The remainder of this file digitized from a different print copy which uses single quotation marks for all quotes.]

As the day of Mr. Rooney’s grand entertainment drew near, our disappointment increased tenfold at our inability to be present. The only topic discussed in Dublin was the number of the guests, the splendour and magnificence of the dinner, which was to be followed by a ball, at which above eight hundred guests were expected. The band of the Fermanagh militia, at that time the most celebrated in Ireland, was brought up expressly for the occasion. All that the city could number of rank, wealth, and beauty had received invitations, and scarcely a single apology had been returned.

‘Is there no possible way.’ said I, as I chatted with O’Grady on the morning of the event; ‘is there no chance of our getting away in time to see something of the ball at least?’

‘None whatever,’ replied he despondingly; ‘as ill-luck would have it, it’s a command-night at the theatre. The duke has disappointed so often, that he is sure to go now, and for the same reason he ‘ll sit the whole thing out. By that time it will be half-past twelve, we shan’t get back here before one; then comes supper; and – in fact, you know enough of the habits of this place now to guess that after that there is very little use of thinking of going anywhere.’

‘It is devilish provoking,’ said I.

‘That it is: and you don’t know the worst of it. I ‘ve got rather a heavy book on the Loughrea race, and shall want a few hundreds in a week or so; and, as nothing renders my friend Paul so sulky as not eating his dinners, it is five-and-twenty per cent, at least out of my pocket, from this confounded contretemps . There goes De Vere. I say, Dudley, whom have we at dinner to-day?’

‘Harrington and the Asgills, and that set,’ replied he, with an insolent shrug of his shoulder.

‘More of it, by Jove,’ said O’Grady, biting his lip. ‘One must be as particular before these people as a young sub. at a regimental mess. There’s not a button of your coat, not a loop of your aiguillette, not a twist of your sword-knot, little Charley won’t note down; and as there is no orderly-book in the drawing-room, he will whisper to his grace before coffee.’

‘Whatabore!’

‘Ay, and to think that all that time we might have been up to the very chin in fun. The Rooneys to-day will outdo even themselves. They’ve got half-a-dozen new lords on trial; all the judges; a live bishop; and, better than all, every pretty woman in the capital. I’ve a devil of a mind to get suddenly ill, and slip off to Paul’s for the dessert.’

‘No, no, that’s out of the question; we must only put up with our misfortunes as well as we can. As for me, the dinner here is, I think, the worst part of the matter.’

‘I estimate my losses at a very different rate. First, there is the three hundred, which I should certainly have had from Paul, and which now becomes a very crooked contingency. Then there’s the dinner and two bottles – I speak moderately – of such burgundy as nobody has but himself. These are the positive bonâ fide losses: then, what do you say to my chance of picking up some lovely girl, with a stray thirty thousand, and the good taste to look out for a proper fellow to spend it with? Seriously, Jack, I must think of something of that kind one of these days. It’s wrong to lose time; for, by waiting, one’s chances diminish, while becoming more difficult to please. So you see what a heavy blow this is to me: not to mention my little gains at short-whist, which in the half-hour before supper I may fairly set down as a fifty.’

‘Yours is a very complicated calculation; for, except the dinner, and I suppose we shall have as good a one here, I have not been able to see anything but problematic loss or profit.’

‘Of course you haven’t: your English education is based upon grounds far too positive for that; but we mere Irish get a habit of looking at the possible as probable, and the probable as most likely. I don’t think we build castles more than our neighbours, but we certainly go live in them earlier; and if we do, now and then, get a chill for our pains, why we generally have another building ready to receive us elsewhere for change of air.’

‘This is, I confess, somewhat strange philosophy.’

‘To be sure it is, my boy; for it is of pure native manufacture. Every other people I ever heard of deduce their happiness from their advantages and prosperity. As we have very little of one or the other, we extract some fun out of our misfortunes; and, what between laughing occasionally at ourselves, and sometimes at our neighbours, we push along through life right merrily after all. So now, then, to apply my theory: let us see what we can do to make the best of this disappointment. Shall I make love to Lady Asgill? Shall I quiz Sir Charles about the review? Or can you suggest anything in the way of a little extemporaneous devilry, to console us for our disappointment? But, come along, my boy, we’ll take a canter; I want to show you Moddiridderoo. He improves every day in his training; but they tell me there is only one man can sit him across a country, a fellow I don’t much fancy, by-the-bye; but the turf, like poverty, leads us to form somewhat strange acquaintances. Meanwhile, my boy, here come the nags; and now for the park till dinner.’

During our ride O’Grady informed me that the individual to whom he so slightly alluded was a Mr. Ulick Burke, a cousin of Miss Bellew. This individual, who by family and connections was a gentleman, had contrived by his life and habits to disqualify himself from any title to the appellation in a very considerable degree. Having squandered the entire of his patrimony on the turf, he had followed the apparently immutable law on such occasions, and ended by becoming a hawk, where he had begun as a pigeon. For many years past he had lived by the exercise of those most disreputable sources, his own wits. Present at every racecourse in the kingdom, and provided with that undercurrent of information obtainable from jockeys and stable-men, he understood all the intrigue, all the low cunning of the course: he knew when to back the favourite, when to give, when to take the odds; and, if upon any occasion he was seen to lay heavily against a well-known horse, the presumption became a strong one, that he was either ‘wrong’ or withdrawn. But his qualifications ended not here; for he was also that singular anomaly in our social condition – a gentleman-rider, ready upon any occasion to get into the saddle for any one that engaged his services; a flat race, or a steeplechase, all the same to him. His neck was his livelihood, and to support, he must risk it. A racing-jacket, a pair of leathers and tops, a heavy-handled whip, and a shot-belt, were his stock-in-trade, and he travelled through the world a species of sporting Dalgetty, minus the probity which made the latter firm to his engagements, so long as they lasted. At least, report denied the quality to Mr. Burke; and those who knew him well scrupled not to say that fifty pounds had exactly twice as many arguments in its favour as five-and-twenty.