Page:Once a Week NS Volume 7.djvu/13



I When I first went into that part of the country where my estate lies, I was asked to dinner at the house of a hospitable neighbour, where I met a lady de par It grand monde, whom I had known in her and my youth, and whom I had never met since. Our paths had lain different and separate, and perhaps twenty years had elapsed since last we met. There is always, somehow, a free masonry between well-bred people—or, at all events, there used to be—which reunites 1 them after many years’ absence, and takes up a link again, however long it may have been broken. We talked of old times, and of the difference in society nowadays to what it was. She was saying how difficult it was to get young men to go to balls, and how matters were changed. They wouldn’t go for the mere pleasure of dancing, and she feared they went for purposes less innocent. There was no getting them away from their clubs.

I said that, when I was a young fellow, having just left Oxford and entering on London life, I belonged to one or two good clubs, and lived in the Temple on four hundred a-year, allowed me by my father, and never was so rich in my life. I dined out, went to balls, spent my autumn in country houses, and hardly ever had to pay for anything but my cab hire, clothes, and cigars. In short, I said, an agreeable, gentleman like young fellow, with talents of society, and a moderate income, may live like a prince.

To my astonishment, a good-looking snob, sitting next to this lady, with great, big brown eyes, from which occasionally shot flashes of sapient imbecility, a silly mouth with prominent teeth, and receding chin, proclaiming the half-educated idiot, cut into the conversation, and said—

“ I can’t contheve any man living all the year round on his friends.”

“ I dare say you can’t, sir,” I replied, with the quiet insolence I can assume at discretion; “but I was speaking of an agreeable gentleman .”

The silly mouth looked sillier, till some one else, a minute afterwards, changed the conversation. He was the son of a purveyor of guano, who had amassed a large fortune. The wretched creature—on the strength of his good looks, which are undeniable, and an estate of a few hundred acres, on which he shoots the foxes, to the great I delight of the surrounding squires, who are great fox hunters—ventured to pit himself against the immortal Gadabout!

However, we are very good friends now. He has not, I fear, profited much by the rude lesson I taught him. He came up to me in our county club the other day— where, of course, there are some rough ones —and said—

“ I do wish we could keep this club more exclusive. I would gladly pay ten guineas a-year if that would prevent my meeting certain men I object to.”

“Well, my good fellow, pay the ten guineas to yourself, and hire a room. I promise you, no one will join you. And how pleased the certain men you object to—and who equally object to you—will be!”

But I am warned that time is up, and that my portfolio—still heavy with countless portraits of Sham Swells—must be closed. Young gentlemen, who read these papers, a word to you! Gadabout’s experience and manners are unquestionable, whatever his morals may have been. To be modest, to be retiring; not to advance your opinions, however correct you may know them to be; not to correct a mal-quotation, or laugh at it, as some do; to lose or win your money— especially win—with equanimity; not to assert your rank, your learning, your proficiency in this or that; to be as polite to an old fishfag as to a duchess; to keep your temper under extreme provocation; to consort cordially, if not intimately, with your inferiors in position or birth; to display a respect you perhaps cannot feel for your superiors in age;—all these will secure you against being a Sham Swell, and will at least have their weight with the “ gallery;” and, in spite of themselves and their jealousy, command their respect. To bully an inferior, or abuse a servant, is to make yourself, to a very far-seeing people, a cad. I have heard it said of officers, masters, and others in authority, “He was uncommon strict; but then he was such a thorough gentleman.” Good manners and good breeding —les deux se disent —I firmly believe, have more to do with a man’s success in life than anything else. How often do you hear at the bar, for instance—I am not talking about what I don’t understand, it was my own profession—

“ Such an one is not a great lawyer, or even a great speaker; but he is such a gentleman, he can always get the ear of the Court or jury.” Be modest and retiring, my young friends, and polite. Remember your Cicero