Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/251

Rh ways—such as the transmission of billet-doux, and the retailing to Pinner, the maid, of various anecdotes, which served to place Mr. Percival Wylde in a favourable, if not heroic, light. These fragments of biography were collected by the affable Canary from his friends and neighbours in the servants'-hall of Mr. Wylde's establishment; and, having been properly spiced and seasoned by the faithful Pinner, were duly served up for Miss Fanny's entertainment during the several courses of that young lady's toilette. As the young gentleman's love was encouraged by the young lady's mamma and papa—who were naturally anxious to secure a young man of position and property for their almost dowerless daughter,—and was opposed by Mr. Wylde alone, and that solely from pecuniary motives,—the whole band of Mr. Douglas's retainers headed by the affable Canary and the faithful Pinner (between whom, indeed, there were certain love passages, that led them to a sympathy with others in the same position), espoused the cause of the young lovers; and did not, as touching this subject, quarrel with, or bite their thumbs, at the retainers of the house of Wylde, after the fashion of the Capulet and Montague factions. The affable Canary, indeed, regarded the Juliet of his house with the most paternal feelings, speaking of her to his brother retainers, as "our eldest daughter"—as though she were a species of joint-stock property—and receiving her Romeo, and ushering him into her presence, with an air that seemed to express, "I give my consent—take her, and be happy."

On the present occasion, therefore, the affable Canary not only felt pleasure at opening the door to Romeo, but was also enabled to divine the object of Romeo's visit: