The Newcomes

m and take it. Look how a steadily purposed man or woman at court, at a ball, or exhibition, wherever there is a competition and a squeeze, gets the best place;

in the cloakroom to look for her shawls, with which some one else has whisked away an hour ago. What a man has to do in society is to assert himself. Is there a good place at table? Take it. At the Treasury or the Home Office? Ask for it. Do you want to go to a party to which you are not invited? Ask to be asked. Ask A., ask B., ask Mrs. C., ask everybody you know: you will be thought a bore; but you will have your way. What matters if you are considered obt

ome on the steps of her house, she orders him to come to her evening party; and though he has not been to an evening party for five-and-thirty years — though he has not been to bed the night before — though he has no mufti-coat except one sent him out by Messrs. Stultz to India in the year 1821 — he never once thinks of disobeying Mrs.

a white waistcoat and scarlet under-waistcoat, and a pair of the never-failing duck trousers, complete Thomas Newcome’s costume, along with the white hat in which we have seen him in the morning, and which was one of two dozen purchased by him some years since at public out

ximilien Tranchard, French exile and apostle of liberty, were the only whiskers in the room capable of vying in interest with Colonel Newcome’s. Polish chieftains were at this time so common in London, that nobody (except one noble Member for Marylebone, once a year, the Lord Mayor) took any interest in them. The general opinion was, that the stranger was the Wallachian Boyar, whose arrival at Mivart’s the Morning Post had just announced. Mrs. Miles, whose delicious every other Wednesdays in Montague Square are supposed by some to be rival entertainments to Mrs. Newcome’s alternate Thursdays in Bryanstone Square, pinched her daughter Mira, engaged in a polyglot conversation with Herr Schnurr, nor Carabossi, the guitarist, and Mo

e, and in whose honour (for his servants always brought a couple or more of hookahs with them) many English gentlemen made themselves sick, while trying to emulate the same practice. Mr. Newcome had been obliged to go to bed himself in consequence of the uncontrollable nausea produced by the chillum; and Doctor McGuffog, in hopes of converting His Highness, had puffed his till he was as black in th

pest humility. He bowed his head and put his two hands before his eyes, and came creeping towards him submissively, to the wondermen

anguage, which Colonel Newcome received twirling his mustachios with much hauteur. He turned on his heel rather abr

shed she could have had room for him at dinner! And there was room after all, for Mr. Shaloony wa

of the handsomest young women in the room, whose fair face was turned towards him, whose blond ring

ustachios up to his eyes in his wrath. “You don’t mean that that man calls himse

arnes! is it possible that you do me the honour to come all the way from Mayfair to Marylebone? I t

ut the least outward manifestation of surprise. “I suppose you dined here to meet the black Prin

m very unwell indeed, Barnes. How is Lady Anne? Is Lord Kew in London? Is your sister better for Brighton

on perfectly well, thank you,” Barnes said drily; and his aunt, o

a row made when I smoked at Marblehead. You are promised to us for Wednesday, please. Is there anybody you would like to meet? Not our friend the Rummun? How the girls crowd round him! By Gad, a fellow who’s rich in London may have the pick of any gal — not here — not in this sort of thing; I mean in s

s society?” as

derstand. I give you my honour there are not three people in the room one meets anywhere, excep

el. “He began from very low beginnings, and odd

ellow as keen as the oldest curmudgeon; a lad with scarce a beard to his chin, that would pursue his bond as rigidly as Shylock. “If he is like this at twenty, what will he be at fifty?” groaned the Colonel. “I’d rather Clive were dead than have him such a heartless woriding as this.” And yet the young man was not ungenerous, not untruth-telling, not unserviceable. He thought his life was good enough. It was as good as that of other folks he lived with. You don’t suppose he had any misgivings, provided he was in the City early enough in the morning; or slept badly, unless he indulged too freely over-night; or twinges of conscience that his life was misspent? He thought his life a most lucky and reputable one. He had a share in a good business, and felt that he could

opportunity to address him. The Colonel remarked the eagerness with which the gentleman in black regarded him, and asked Mr. Barnes who was the padre? Mr. Barnes turned his eyeglass towards the spectacles, and said “he didn’t know any more than the dead; he didn’t know two people in the room.” The spe

, pressed onwards with outstretched hands, and it was towards the Colonel he turned these smiles and friendly salu

s, “Charles Honeyman,” and seized the hand of his brother-inlaw. “My poor sister’s husband,” he continued; “my own be

beat up your quarters today, but we were busy until dinnertime. You put me in mind of poor Emma, Charles,” he added, sadly. Emma h

siness or the pocket-handkerchief business better, or smothered his emotion more beautifully. “In the gayest moments, in the giddiest throng of fashion, the thoughts of the past will rise; the depart

, who knew him perfectly well. “T

ognise me, sir; I have had the honour of seeing you in your public capacity in the

t, Honeyman!” c

eyman. “I should be a very bad man, and a very un

ke leave my k

ome, sir? my cab is at the door, and I shall be glad to drive you.” But the Colonel said he must talk to his brother-inlaw for a whi

ge of learning, genius, and virtue, might well delight and astonish a stranger. “That lady in the red turban, with the handsome daughters, is Lady Budge, wife of the eminent judge of that name — everybody was astonished that he was not made Chief Justice, and elevated to the Peerage — the only objection (as I have heard confidentially) was on the part of a late sovereign, who said he never could co

white waistcoat talking to the Jew

rofession an attorney. But he has quitted the law for the Muses, and it woul

life,” says the Colonel, la

urr, who was locked up in Spielberg, and got out up a chimney, and through a window? Had he waited a few months there are very few windows he could have passed through. That splendid man in the red fez is Kurbash Pasha — another renegade, I deeply lament to say — a hairdresser from Marseilles, by name Monsieur Ferehaud, who passed into Egypt, and laid aside the tongs for a turban. He is talking with Mr. Palmer, one of our most delightful young poets, and with Desmond O’Tara, son of the late revered Bishop of Ballinafad, who has lately quitted ours for the errors of the Church of Rome. Let me whisper to you that your kinswoman is rather a searcher after what we call here notabilities. I heard talk of one I knew in better days — of one who was the comrade of my youth, and the delight of Oxford — poor Pidge of Brasenose, who got the Newdigate in my third year, and who, under his present name of Father Bartolo, was to have been here in his capuchin dress, with a beard and bare feet; but I presume he could not get permission from his Superior. That is Mr. Huff, the political economis

wn family persons who worship mere worldly rank, and think but of fashion and gaiety; but such, I trust, will never be the objects in life of me and my children. We are but merchants; we seek to be no more. If I can look around me and see as I do”-(she waves her fan round, and points to the illustrations scintillating round the room)—“and see as I do now — a Poski, whose name is ever connected with Polish history — an Ettore, who has exchanged a tonsure and a rack for our own free country — a Hammerstein, and a Quartz, a Miss Rudge, our Transatlantic sister (who I trust will not mention this modest salon in her forthcoming work on Europ

hs puddled with melted ice, glasses hazy with sherry, and broken bits of bread. The Colonel said he never supped; and he and Honeyman walked away together, the former to bed, the la

ed to with a sigh. The incumbent of Lady Whittlesea’s chapel seldom rose before eleven. For, to tell the trut

sed liver; who has a vulgar wife, with a retinue of black servants whom she maltreats, and a gentle son and daughter with good impulses and an imperfect education, desirous to amend their own and their parents’ lives, and thoroughly ashamed of the follies of the old people. If you go to the house of an Indian gentleman now, he does not say, “Bring more curricles,” like the famous Nabob of Stanstead Park. He goes to Leadenhall Street in an omnibus, and walks back from the City for exercise. I have known some who have had maid-servants to wait on them at dinner. I have met scores who look as florid and rosy as any British squire who has never left his paternal beef and acres. They do not wear nankeen j

shillings and fourpence per mile — calculating the mile at only sixteen hundred yards. He asked the waiter at what time Colonel Newcome had ordered dinner, and finding there was an hour on his hands before the meal, walked out to examine the neighbourhood for a lodging where he could live more quietly than in a hotel. He called it a hotel. Mr. Binnie was a North Briton, his father having been a Writer to the Signet, in Edinburgh, who had procured his son a writership in return for electioneering services done to an East Indian Director. B

placed on an opposite chair. Mr. Binnie woke up briskly when the Colonel entered. “It is you, you gad-about, is it?” cried the civilian. “How has the beau monde of London treated the Indian Adonis? Have you mad

to be a dandy; but get a coat from a good tailor, and then have do

e never done with it

other. How long did you and my boy sit up together — isn’t he a fine lad, Binn

at scapegrace of yours. And if I had gone to bed, I should have had you walking up to No. 28, and waking me out of my first rosy slumber. Well, now confess; avoid no

sits on the table. Was it joy, or the bedroom candle with which he lighted h

eness fourteen. Adhesiveness two. Amativeness is not yet of course fully developed, but I expect will be prodeegiously strong. The imaginative and reflective organs are very large — those, of calculation weak. He may make a poet or a pai

l gravely, “you are alway

not the question. My opinion, Colonel, is, that young Scapegrace will give you a deal of trouble; or would, only you are so absurdly proud of him that you think everything he does is perfaction. He’ll spend your money for you: he’ll do as little work as need be. He’ll get into scrapes with the sax. He’s almost as simple as his f

out to his party, Newcome had laid a deep scheme with Binnie, and it had be

knows as much about Greek and Latin as I kn

possible? You, the best

is most probable he would do no such thing. But at the cost of — how much? two hundred pounds annually — for five years — he has acquired about five-and-twenty guineas’ worth of classical leeterature — enough, I dare say, to enable him to quote Horace respectably through life, a

r you are in jest or in earnest,

he inherits from his father, the deuce is in it if he can’t make his way. What time’s the breakfast? Eh, but it was a comfort this morning not to hear the holystoning on the deck. We ought to go into lodgings, and not fling our money out of the window of this hotel. We must make the young chap take us about and show us t

ad thought of quitting their beds. The housemaid was the only being stirring in the morning when little Mr. Binnie blundered over her pail as she was washing the deck. Early as he was, his fellow-traveller had

y about the gills as chanticleer, broke out in a morning salutation, “Hush,” says the Colone

the little Scot; “and what for

Colonel, with a countenan

ag; “mayn’t I just step in and look at his beau

he other answered, quite gravely; and Binnie turned away to

yer over your rosy infant’s s

eep was nine years ago, a sickly little pale-faced boy in his little cot, and now, sir, that I see him again, strong and handsome, and all that a fond father can

iering, no rogues and no magistrates to catch them.” The Colonel wondered at his friend’s enthusiasm, who was not used to be complimentary; indeed what so usual with him as that simple act of gratitude and devoti

. The Colonel said a grace over that meal: the life was begun which he had longed and prayed for, and