Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/127

 throwing up his part in a pet. Hobhouse made the necessary explanation to the audience and referred to the culprit as "a Mr. Tulk." This scornful allusion wounded the pride of the aspiring Roscius who openly resented the expression. "Perhaps" drawled out Scrope "you prefer being entitled the Mr. Tulk." This suggestion irritated him still more, but he knew that the lips which uttered it were those of a man with the reputation of being a good shot who had already fought two or three duels and he retired muttering some empty threats. The friends whom Davies attracted to his side at Cambridge made easy for him the entrance into the inner life of society in London. He became one of the most fashionable men of his day. Byron, Douglas Kinnaird and Hobhouse "formed one part of the chain," Brummell, Alvanley and Davies another. Gronow no bad judge of a man's fitness for the dining table and the drawing room, who "lived much" with him and Wedderburn Webster called him "one of the most agreeable men I ever met." The rooms into which he entered once, were open to him always. Quietness in style, the absence of anything showy, these were the notes of his demeanour in social life. He had read much of classical and modern literature and was always ready with an apt quotation, which the man of Eton learning could appreciate. Gronow used to delight in obtaining from Davies his opinion of Byron. The answer was invariably the same. One unfailing expression came from his lips. Byron was "vain, overbearing, conceited, suspicious and jealous."

Davies on his way to taking the waters of Harrogate spent a week at Newstead Abbey with Byron in the August of 1811, when his host penned the comment on his parting guest "his gaiety (death cannot mar it) has done me service." It was arranged between them that