CHAPTER XLI. CLUB SNOBS. BACCHUS is the divinity to whom Waggle devotes his especial worship. "Give me wine, my boy," says he to his friend Wiggle, who is prating about lovely woman; and holds up his glass full of the rosy fluid, and winks at it portentously, and sips it, and smacks his lips after it, and meditates on it, as if he were the greatest of connoisseurs. I have remarked this excessive wine-amateurship especially in youth. Snoblings from college, Fledglings from the army, Goslings from the public schools, who ornament our Clubs, are frequently to be heard in great force upon wine questions. "This bottle's corked," says Snobling; and Mr. Sly, the butler, taking it away, returns presently with the same wine in another jug, which the young amateur pronounces excellent. "Hang champagne!" says Fledgling, "it's only fit for gals and children. Give me pale sherry at dinner, and my twentythree claret afterwards." "What's port now?" says Gosling; "disgusting thick sweet stuff - where's the old dry wine one used to get?" Until the last twelvemonth, Fledgling drank small-beer at Doctor Swishtail's; and Gosling used to get his dry old port at a gin-shop in Westminster- till he quitted that seminary, in 1844. Anybody who has looked at the caricatures of thirty years ago, must remember how frequently bottle-noses, pimpled faces, and other Bardolphian features are introduced by the designer. They are much more rare now (in nature, and in pictures, therefore,) than in those good old times; but there are still to be found amongst the youth of our Clubs lads who glory in drinking-bouts, and whose faces, quite sickly and yellow, for the most part are decorated with those marks which Rowland's Kalydor is said to efface. "I was so cut last night -old boy!" Hopkins says to Tomkins (with amiable confidence). I tell you what we did. We breakfasted with Jack Herring at twelve, and kept up with brandy and soda-water and weeds till four; then we toddled into the Park for an hour; then we dined and drank mulled port till half-price; then we looked in for an hour at the Haymarket; then we came back to the Club, and had grills and whiskey punch till all was blue. -Hullo, waiter! Get me a glass of cherry-brandy." Club waiters, the civilest, the kindest, the patientest of men, die under the infliction of these cruel young topers. But if the reader wishes to see a perfect picture on the stage of this class of young fellows, I would recommend him to witness the ingenious comedy of London Assurance the amiable heroes of which are represented, not only as drunkards and five-o'clockin-the-morning men, but as showing a hundred other delightful traits of swindling, lying, and general debauchery, quite edifying to witness. How different is the conduct of these outrageous youths to the decent behavior of my friend, Mr. Papworthy; who says to Poppins, the butler at the club: Papworthy. : Poppins, I'm thinking of dining early; is there any cold game in the house?” Poppins. There's a game pie, sir; there's cold grouse, sir; there's cold pheasant, sir; there's cold peacock, sir; cold swan, sir; cold ostrich, sir," &c. &c. (as the case may be). Papworthy." Hem! What's your best claret now, Poppins?-in pints I mean." Poppins."There's Cooper and Magnum's Lafite, sir; there's Lath and Sawdust's St. Jullien, sir: Bung's Leoville is considered remarkably fine; and I think you'd like Jugger's Chateau-Margaux." Papworthy. "Hum! -hah!-well-give me a crust of bread and a glass of beer. I'll only lunch, Poppins." Captain Shindy is another sort of Club bore. He has been known to throw all the Club in an uproar about the quality of his mutton-chop. "Look at it, sir? Is it cooked, sir? Smell it, sir! Is it meat fit for a gentleman?" he roars out to the steward, who stands trembling before him, and who in vain tells him that the Bishop of Bullocksmithy has just had three from the same loin. All the waiters in the Club are huddled round the captain's mutton-chop. He roars out the most horrible curses at John for not bringing the pickles: he utters the most dreadful oaths because Thomas has not arrived with the Harvey sauce; Peter comes tumbling with the water-jug over Jeames, who is bringing the glittering canisters with bread." Whenever Shindy enters the room (such is the force of character), every table is deserted, every gentleman must dine as he best may, and all those big footmen are in terror. 66 He makes his account of it. He scolds, and is better waited At the Club he has ten servants scud upon in consequence. Poor Mrs. Shindy and the children are, meanwhile in dingy lodgings somewhere, waited upon by a charity-girl in pattens. CHAPTER XLII. CLUB SNOBS. EVERY well-bred English female will sympathize with the subject of the harrowing tale, the history of Sackville Maine, I am now about to recount. The pleasures of Clubs have been spoken of: let us now glance for a moment at the dangers of those institutions, and for this purpose I must introduce you to my young acquaintance, Sackville Maine. It was at a ball at the house of my respected friend, Mrs. Perkins, that I was introduced to this gentleman and his charming lady. Seeing a young creature before me in a white dress, with white satin shoes; with a pink ribbon, about a yard in breadth, flaming out as she twirled in a polka in the arms of Monsieur de Springbock, the German diplomatist; with a green wreath on her head, and the blackest hair this individual ever set eyes on seeing, I say, before me a charming young woman whisking beautifully in a beautiful dance, and presenting, as she wound round and round the room, now a full face, then a three-quarter face, then a profile — a face, in fine, which in every way you saw it, looked pretty, and rosy, and happy, I felt (as I trust) a not unbecoming curiosity regarding the owner of this pleasant countenance, and asked Wagley (who was standing by, in conversation with an acquaintance) who was the lady in question? "Which?" says Wagley. "That one with the coal-black eyes," I replied. "Hush!" says he; and the gentleman with whom he was talking moved off, with rather a discomfited air. When he was gone Wagley burst out laughing. “Coal-black eyes!" said he; you've just hit it. That's Mrs. Sackville Maine, and that was her husband who just went away. He's a coal-merchant, Snob, my boy, and I have no doubt Mr. Perkins's Wallsends are supplied from his wharf. He is in a flaming furnace when he hears coals mentioned. He and his wife and his mother are very proud of Mrs. Sackville's family; she was a Miss Chuff, daughter of Captain Chuff, R.N. That is the widow; that stout woman in crimson tabbinet, battling about the odd trick with old Mr. Dumps, at the card-table.” And so, in fact, it was. Sackville Maine (whose name is a hundred times more elegant, surely, than that of Chuff) was blest with a pretty wife, and a genteel mother-in-law, both of whom some people may envy him. Soon after his marriage the old lady was good enough to come and pay him a visit-just for a fortnight—at his pretty little cottage, Kennington Oval; and, such is her affection for She has also the place, has never quitted it these four years. brought her son, Nelson Collingwood Chuff, to live with her; but he is not so much at home as his mamma, going as a dayboy to Merchant Taylors' School, where he is getting a sound classical education. If these beings, so closely allied to his wife, and so justly dear to her, may be considered as drawbacks to Maine's happiness, what man is there that has not some things in life to complain of? And when I first knew Mr. Maine, no man seemed more comfortable than he. His cottage was a picture of elegance and comfort; his table and cellar were excellently and neatly supplied. There was every enjoyment, but no ostentation. The omnibus took him to business of a morning; the boat brought him back to the happiest of homes, where he would while away the long evenings by reading out the fashionable novels to the ladies as they worked; or accompany his wife on the flute (which he played elegantly); or in any one of the hundred pleasing and innocent amusements of the domestic circle. Mrs. Chuff covered the drawing-rooms with prodigious tapestries. the work of her hands. Mrs. Sackville had a particular genius for making covers of tape or network for these tapestried cushions. She could make home-made wines. She could make She had an album, into which, during preserves and pickles. the time of his courtship, Sackville Maine had written choice scraps of Byron's and Moore's poetry, analogous to his own situation, and in a fine mercantile hand. She had a large inannscript receipt-book every quality, in a word, which indicated a virtuous and well-bred English female mind. "And as for Nelson Collingwood." Sackville would say, If he laughing," we couldn't do without him in the house. didn't spoil the tapestry we should be over-cushioned in a few months; and whom could we get but him to drink Laura's home-made wine?" The truth is, the gents who came from the City to dine at the "Oval" could not be induced to drink it-in which fastidiousness, I myself, when I grew to be intimate with the family, confess that I shared. "And yet, sir, that green ginger has been drunk by some of England's proudest heroes," Mrs. Chuff would exclaim. Admiral Lord Exmouth tasted and praised it, sir, on board Captain Chuff's ship, the Nebuchadnezzar,' 74, at Algiers; and he had three dozen with him in the Pitcufork' frigate, a part of which was served out to the men before he went into his immortal action with the Furibonde,' Captain Choufleur, in the Gulf of Panama." All this, though the old dowager told us the story every day when the wine was produced, never served to get rid of any quantity of it—and the green ginger, though it had fired British tars for combat and victory, was not to the taste of us peaceful and degenerate gents of modern times. a I see Sackville now, as on the occasion when, presented by Wagley, I paid my first visit to him. It was in July Sunday afternoon Sackville Maine was coming from church, with his wife on one arm, and his mother-in-law (in red tabbinet, as usual,) on the other. A half-grown, or hobbadehoyish footman, so to speak, walked after them, carrying their shining golden prayer-books-the ladies had splendid parasols with tags and fringes. Mrs. Chuff's great gold watch, fastened to her stomach, gleamed there like a ball of fire. Nelson Collingwood was in the distance, shying stones at an old horse on Kennington Common. 'Twas on that verdant spot we met nor can I ever forget the majestic courtesy of Mrs. Chuff, as she remembered having had the pleasure of seeing me at Mrs. Perkins's -- nor the glance of scorn which she threw at an unfortunate gentleman who was preaching an exceedingly desultory discourse to a sceptical audience of omnibus-cads and nurse-maids, on a tub, as we passed by. "I cannot help it, sir," says she;"I am the widow of an officer of Britain's Navy : I was taught to honor my Church and my King: and I cannot bear a Radical, or a Dissenter." With these fine principles I found Sackville Maine impressed. "Wagley," said he, to my introducer, "if no better engagement, why shouldn't self and friend dine at the Oval?' Mr. Snob, sir, the mutton's coming off the spit at this very minute. Laura and Mrs. Chuff" (he said Laurar and Mrs. Chuff; but I hate people who make remarks on these peculiarities of pronunciation) will be most happy to see you; and I can promise |