Part 5

Dinner was brought in, and a tolerably sumptuous affair it was. "Commercial gentlemen," even at the "first-rate commercial inns," don't "cut it quite so fat" (for so vulgar a phrase may be allowed since it will apply to the dinners) now-a-days, as they did then,--since we are speaking of something more than twenty years bygone; and the last twenty years, with their wonderful innovations of railway travelling and increased competition, have made woeful alterations among your princely commercial travellers: they were the innkeeper's grandees then: the case is altered now. Diggory, with all his intellectuality and sentimentalism and so forth, was pleased to see the goodly provisions of the table, for he was very hungry; and he began to muster up his recollections of "the book of etiquette."

But, behold!--a single moment threw all his calculations out of order. He was the youngest in the room; and by the rules of the road, he must, therefore, take the post of vice-president at the dinner! Diggory's book said nothing about this; for it was not written expressly for "commercial gentlemen," but for "good society" generally. Poor Dig took the post, however, but felt in a strange perturbation as the gentleman at his right hand intimated a wish for a little mutton, and looked at him, "the Vice!" The chairman was already helping his end of the table to slices of a sirloin, and so Diggory drew the piece of hot mutton near him, and was beginning to cut, but did it so awkwardly that the gentleman at his right-hand, who was somewhat of a gourmand, cried out, "Oh dear, sir! not that way!" Diggory stopped,--stared,--blushed: but the chairman, an elderly and fatherly-looking man, put on an encouraging smile, and said, "Lengthwise, sir, if you please; not across: the other way keeps in the gravy best." Diggory's heart cleaved to the man who told him this so kindly and handsomely, and he thanked the chairman, adding, in his simplicity, that he was unused to carving mutton, especially a shoulder, he added, looking at it, and thinking it could not be a leg.

"A shoulder!" exclaimed the gentleman on his right hand, staring like one who was horror-struck; "why, God bless me, 'tis a saddle!"

Diggory blushed worse than before, for there was a perceptible laugh round the table; but he made no reply, and tried to proceed with his work of carving. Trembling as he did, there was no wonder that he spattered the right-hand gentleman with gravy until the gentleman grew angry. And then Diggory apologised; but the gentleman, still more indignantly, besought him to go on, and not keep the company waiting,--meaning himself. How glad was the lad when he had succeeded in filling the man's plate, and silencing him! The rest whom he had to accommodate were of less irritable natures; but no one offered to relieve him, until each had despatched their first plate, and _then_ Diggory's appetite was gone, for he had not been able to eat a mouthful up to that time, through the throng of his new and difficult employment.

The next course increased poor Diggory's trouble: he knew no more about carving a fowl than conducting a ship to China; and when he had cut off a blundering slice at a venture, and put it on the right-hand gentleman's plate, the irritable gourmand stared ferociously in his face, shovelled the clumsy slice off the plate into the dish, cried aloud, "Mangling done here!" and to Diggory's consternation seized the carving-knife and fork, to cut for himself.

And now the chairman interfered. "He trusted he should be supported by the company, sitting there as he did: if the young gentleman was an improficient in the duties of the table, perhaps he might be allowed to say that they all knew what it was to be young at one time in their lives, and he _did_ think--though he was the last man in the world to wish to give the slightest offence--that the gentleman to the right of the vice-president of that table had not acted so courteously as he might have done." And then there was a pretty general "Hear, hear!" But quickly uprose the irritable gentleman, and rejected the admonition of the president with scorn, and thumped the table during his delivery of a most energetic oration of half a minute, until he shook the glasses so that they rang changes against each other.

The irritable gentleman no sooner sat down than another arose, and another, and another, each demanding that he should apologise to the president for his want of courtesy, and the irritable gentleman yielded to apologise--though it was far more from eagerness to eat, than a return of good-nature.--Diggory was "assisted" in cutting up the fowl by one on his left, who began to be warmed with sympathy for the youth, now the sympathiser's stomach was allayed in some small degree by sundry hearty slices of mutton. To the drawing of the cloth Diggory experienced no further mortification: but the past was enough, in any conscience; and during the season in which that company of "highly respectable gentlemen" were masticating their viands, poor Diggory, who did not eat three mouthfuls, might most aptly be styled "the lad who felt like a fish out of water."

And now the wine was pushed about; and whether it was the little "tiff" which had taken place during the dinner, or whatever might be the cause, considerable difficulty was felt, for some time, by all the company, in attaining that sense of freedom, that warm hilariousness, which an Englishman always looks for, over the bottle, and by the charm of which, and not by the animal gust for the liquor, drinking usages have become so widely established. This uneasy feeling, however, was dissipated by degrees; and then, by the natural reaction of the human spirits, the zest for good-fellowship grew unbounded. And yet this over-heated, steamy sort of boon companionship manifested itself exactly as might be expected among "highly respectable commercial gentlemen," though poor Diggory was too ignorant of the genus to make the proper calculation. They neither called each other by familiar names, nor sang, nor shouted, nor huzzaed, nor laughed, till they hiccupped. Compliments, that out-heroded Herod in their gorgeousness of dress and brilliancy of colouring,--good-wishes,--mighty, vast, profound, coming from the "bottom of their hearts,"--for the prosperity of each other in their undertakings,--testimonies to each other's "respectability" (_always_ first), honour, candour, probity, (take the first catalogue of the virtues you find, and supply all the rest,)--flowed out of the smiling, bubbling, fountain of their wine-warmed hearts, and wreathed itself so fantastically into the vaporous shapes of words (if that be nonsense, take it for a specimen of their speeches),--that Diggory Lawson was puzzled to determine whether they were more lunatic or tipsy.

Luckily, he found a little relief, both corporeally and mentally in nibbling at the remnant of the dessert, which the whole company forgot for wine and speechifying. Yet he had but a torturous time of it, and was still "the lad who felt like a fish out of water."

It should scarcely be omitted, that by the natural way of ascending from the mediocre to the sublime, so genial to the minds of "highly respectable commercial gentlemen," the last hour of the speechifying was entirely occupied by that grand problem,--that question of questions,--that important and absorbing interrogation of "_the_ commercial room,"--"Is it not time to smoke?"

Now the president insisted, that eight o'clock being the established hour for "permitting to smoke" in _that_ room, he, as president of _that_ company, sitting there as he did, could not grant permission to smoke, since it was but just seven. And then arose the irritable little gentleman who talked so politely about "mangling" when Diggory spoilt the fowl. He really felt that he _must_ claim the indulgence of the company: but he would appeal to every gentleman in the room, and he, most conscientiously, felt that he _could_ safely and confidently appeal to them, and he was sure they would bear testimony that no one was more observant than himself of the rules of _that_ room, (and then there was a general "Hear, hear!" though Diggory, in spite of his timidity, could not forbear saying "Hem!")--and he would feel it beneath him to infringe on the necessary regulations for the preservation of comfort in good society; but yet,--but yet, on the present occasion,--feeling as they all did, that warmth of esteem, and union of sentiment and feeling, and--(we omit a page here)--he thought the president of that company might take it upon him to dispense with the peculiar rule relative to smoking on _that_ occasion.

_Pro_ and _con_--the arguments were equally laborious, equally long, and equally senseless; and the president, being one of the oldest "gentlemen on the road," and though very bland in his nature, yet a stickler for custom, stuck to his point to the last, and was only worsted by the clock. Truly, Diggory Lawson, during the smoke discussion, was "the lad who felt like a fish out of water." Much more did he resemble the said unlucky fish when the smoking began, insomuch that he was compelled to seize an early opportunity of retiring to bed.

Diggory Lawson completed his journey, but returned to London with a complete mental nausea of the cockney's plan for making him into a gentleman. Torn entirely from his beloved books, he was infinitely more miserable than when their only companionship subjected him to weariness. His mind hurried with anxiety, dissipated by the unintellectual nature of his engagement, annoyed and disgusted with the manners of those he was compelled to regard as the proper associates of his leisure, he wrote home to his father entreating permission to return. One paragraph will show the character of his letter:--

"Not a single thought or habit of my short life has prepared me for such an engagement as that procured me by your friend. It was misery enough to listen to the prattle of 'unidea'd girls,' as Dr. Johnson expressed himself on a similar occasion; but of all the tortures in the world, deliver me from the company of empty, conceit-blown mortals, who have such large notions of their own importance as these 'highly respectable commercial gentlemen.' I entreat your permission to return home, for I am 'like a fish out of water.'"

The boon was readily granted,--for Diggory's mother, having never been separated from her child before, had wept every day since she parted with him. The very next month, Dig's father gave up the notion of making him into a gentleman,--for the bobbin-net speculation waned,--and there was an end to making an immense fortune in a twinkling. He embarked the little capital he had gained in the more staple manufacture of the town, took Diggory into the trade, and associating with plain, sensible men, and cultivating knowledge in his leisure hours, Diggory Lawson was happier every day, and was no longer "the lad who felt like a fish out of water."

THE INTELLECTUAL LEVER THAT LACKED A FULCRUM.

Mr. Mortimer had suddenly inherited an estate of something more than five hundred a year, by the death of an uncle, and was persuaded by his Whig acquaintances in the metropolis, since he had just jumped into "a qualification," to set himself in earnest about getting into Parliament: for a seat then, when Lord Melbourne's premiership seemed to be held by a very frail tenure, might--his cockney friends entreated him to remember--enable him to "_save_ the country" for, at least, another year, from the "merciless grasp" of the Tories. So Mr. Mortimer set his wits to work, to find out how the seat was to be gained. He hunted for opinions wherever he went; but none "took his fancy" so much as a shrewd hour's advice given him one day, without a fee, by a lawyer, or a person who said he was one, and with whom he fell into conversation on board one of the Richmond steamers.

"Start a newspaper, sir; that's your only sure card, for cheapness," said the earnest talking man who called himself "a solicitor:" "the press gives a man a power that is irresistible."

Mr. Mortimer was struck with the words, and wondered that he had never, by his own unassisted thought, alighted on so "tangibly-intelligent an idea," as he inwardly and emphatically termed it. But the "legal gentleman's" next words made him feel still more confident that he was talking to a man who was worth listening to:--a solid matter-of-fact man, and not a mere fanciful idealist:--one who surveyed his ground before he either trod upon it himself, or recommended others to set their feet upon it.

"And, if I were asked," the said legal gentleman continued, _without_ being asked,--"if I were asked _where_ would you start it? I should say 'Kent,' in one word. You desire to serve the present administration. Well: there's Greenwich, and Deptford, and Woolwich: the naval and military establishments give the government full sweep there: Chatham, the same: Deal and Sandwich, no difference: Dover, as beforesaid: Hythe--there Marchbanks (that's the genteel way of pronouncing his name) can put you in if he likes, for he's a Whig: Canterbury: Lord Albert Conyngham's going out, and a Whig's sure to be returned there. In fact, there is but old Rochester where the Tories are sure; and Maidstone where the Conservatives can't easily be got out. Start a paper on Whig principles in Kent, sir; and--this is autumn of Eighteen-Forty--and, my word to a thousand pounds! before Forty-one is out, you will be returned for one or other of the Kentish boroughs."

Mr. Mortimer was quite decided: he declared he was. And so he buttoned up the breast of his surtout, and put on his gloves, after pulling them off very suddenly,--and began to walk, very energetically, about the deck of the little packet. The "solicitor" took care to keep close to his elbow, suggesting, and then answering, a hundred questions on hops, and cherries, and wheat, and sanfoin, and clover, and smuggled spirits and tobacco; and the scores of "houses to let" at the watering-places, and the company there, and how it differed at Margate and Ramsgate, and Dover and Gravesend, respectively; and, in short, on "all and sundry," the natural and manufactured productions of "Kent, the first English county in point of rank," as the legal gentleman assured Mr. Mortimer it was always esteemed to be.

Mr. Mortimer was quite decided: he declared he was!

"Egad! now I recollect," said the legal gentleman. "A friend of mine in one of the streets leading into Cheapside, has, at this very time, a large assortment of type, with a small handy machine-press, a most neat affair, I'll assure you! in fact, every thing that would be suitable for a commencement: they came into his hands for a bad debt, and might be had amazingly cheap."

Mr. Mortimer looked just as eager as the solicitor wished him to look.

"And, if you like," continued the solicitor; "if you like,--but 'tis of no consequence if you prefer new type,--only that would be most confoundedly expensive,--but, if you like,--I have no doubt I could get the whole lump,--I had almost said, dirt-cheap for you."

Mr. Mortimer commissioned the legal gentleman, in a twinkling, to make the purchase; for he was decided: he declared he was. So Mr. Mortimer gave the gentleman his card; and the "solicitor" (who swore, when he discovered that he had "lost his card-case") gave Mr. Mortimer his address; and as the packet was at Westminster Stairs by this time, Mr. Mortimer got out, and bade "good day," with a grateful smile, to the "solicitor," who remained in the boat to land at London Bridge, for the city.

Mr. Mortimer dined very heartily, and in most speechless silence; for he was exceedingly full of thought, and exceedingly pleased with his good-fortune. Every thing had fallen out so exceedingly, so wonderfully lucky. The advice of the legal gentleman was so intelligent,--so sensible,--so deeply distinguished by common sense, which Dean Swift (Mr. Mortimer remembered) always said was of more value than all other kinds of sense put together. In fact, the man he (Mr. Mortimer) could clearly see was "up to snuff," and knew all about the mysteries of government influence, and where it lay, and what the county produced; and--every thing! But to complete his good fortune, to put the crowning mark upon it, this very man knew where type and a machine-press was to be had for a mere trifle! so that he (Mr. Mortimer) had nothing to do but to write out an advertisement for the Chronicle; and he _would_ write it out that very afternoon, and take it to the office himself; and to-morrow morning, within three hours of the paper being published, no doubt, half-a-score literary men would be at the door, as corrivals and competitors for the new editorship.

Thus was Mr. Mortimer ruminating over his third glass of claret, when the servant's announcement that Mr. ---- had called,--the very legal gentleman whom Mr. Mortimer left at Westminster Stairs but two hours before,--caused him to open his eyes very wide, and ask the gentleman's name again. The gentleman was introduced, however, and, with a world of apologies, but another world of assurances that it resulted from his zeal to serve Mr. Mortimer, regretted that he should have intruded at such a time; but he had bought the machine-press and the type, for he had run upon his friend in Cheapside before he reached his own residence, and snapped up the whole thing before any one else found it, and it was now actually at the door!

"At the door!" cried Mr. Mortimer,--"what door?"

"My dear sir," answered the legal gentleman, with singular suavity, "I regret exceedingly, as I have just observed, that I should have intruded at this particular time; but I knew the highly important object,--the national object, as I may say,--that you had fixed your mind upon--admitted of no delay, and so I went to work _instanter_. To a gentleman who is rather unused to these things----"

Mr. Mortimer confessed he _was_ unused to these things, and felt that he _ought_ to feel grateful, exceedingly grateful, to the gentleman.

The gentleman begged there might be no apology.--But Mr. Mortimer really felt he ought to apologise.--Yet the gentleman most particularly begged there might be no apology; and--there was the little bill!--and--where would Mr. Mortimer have the goods put, since they were in a van--the very first thing, in the shape of a conveyance, that the gentleman could see when he had bargained for the type and the machine-press--in a van, at the door!

The bill was something more than one hundred pounds, and--and--Mr. Mortimer was staggered, for he had not calculated on half the sum; but, what could he say? It would be so disrespectful, so ungrateful, so ungentlemanlike, to demur to the price or the purchase; so Mr. Mortimer thanked the gentleman "most heartily:" he was under very deep obligations to him: it was what he ought not to expect from a mere stranger: he would retain a most grateful sense of the gentleman's kindness. And he begged the gentleman would be seated; and would the gentleman take claret, or did he prefer Burgundy?

The gentleman reminded Mr. Mortimer that the van was at the door, and it was necessary to say what was to be done with the goods. He (the "legal gentleman") had an unoccupied office just now on his hands, and it was at Mr. Mortimer's service if----

An English thought shot across Mr. Mortimer's mind, and he rang the bell, and summoned his landlady. "Did she know of any upholsterer, or other tradesman in the neighbourhood, who could take care of a little furniture that was in the van at the door?" The landlady replied that she did, and Mr. Mortimer begged she would see it taken care of, in her own name.

The legal gentleman looked very sharply and earnestly at his watch,--when the landlady withdrew, and Mr. Mortimer again mentioned the wine. He, the "legal gentleman," really could not stay at that particular time: he had acted thus promptly in order to serve Mr. Mortimer, for he was aware of the vast importance of promptitude in national affairs, and Mr. Mortimer's particular business might most emphatically be termed a national affair, when its ultimate purpose was considered.

Mr. Mortimer could not press the gentleman under such circumstances, so began to write out a cheque for the amount of the bill. A sudden thought struck him, however, just as he had handed it to the gentleman.

"We must talk one point over, my dear sir," he said, "and that is, _where_ must the paper be published? for you observed that there were already several small papers of an insignificant character in the county, and that they were published at different towns. Now _where_ must my new paper be published, so as best to compete with one of them?"

The legal gentleman looked as if taken aback for a moment, but speedily answered, "Why not in London?"

"Hum!" replied Mr. Mortimer, musingly: "would not that be rather out of character? Might not the Kentish people deny that the paper was a Kentish paper at all, then?"

"Your plan, sir, is this," answered the solicitor, with the same air of unanswerable decision and discernment which he wore in the steamer;--"take a trip of observation through the whole county for yourself: it will cost you little, if you go shrewdly to work; and you will learn much, by the way, that will be of immense service to you, in the great undertaking itself: that's the likeliest way to find your fulcrum, as a clever mechanical friend of mine always says, and then plant your intellectual lever; and may it prove successful, sir, is my heart's best wish, in raising you speedily to the House of Commons!"

The legal gentleman rounded with a smile; but his speech needed no gilding for Mr. Mortimer: it went to the inmost chamber of his brain, with the speed and power of instant and undisturbable conviction; and he shook his adviser most fervently by the hand, and regretted, again and again, that the gentleman could not stay and spend the evening, but hoped he would have the pleasure of his company again, when he, Mr. Mortimer, had completed the little projected tour. The legal gentleman assured Mr. Mortimer he would feel honoured in accepting the invitation, and, with great politeness, withdrew.