GAME IN SEASON.
2. Epsom Races.—"Surrey for the Field."
Death of Desdemona.
Foul—from the Moor.
How hard
to
bear-o,
♌ ♄ ☿ ♒
Faro
that's
unfair-o.
High game.
ROULETTE AT EPSOM.—Tent Scene.
I'm very ill; my circulation halts
I' the blood;
Soh! shall I take a dose of Epsom salts,
Or forego Epsom salts for Epsom races?
I chose the trip before the physic-sipping,
And very prettily I paid for tripping!
"Start fair," I cried,—I'd often started fowl
Out of the Moors,—but then I did start fair:
The Course of course I reach'd, and cheek by jowl
Was standing with my betters, gazing there
At a horse winning at his jockey's beck,
As felons win the gallows—by a neck!
"Tak tent!" the Scotchman says, that's "look about,"
But, "take care of the tent," he should have said:
I went within, and wish I'd gone without
A stake, or had a good rump-steak instead;
But I had cash, and having made a set
At them, and they at me, slap at Roulette.
And if 'twas natural to have gone within,
I soon discovered it was very flat:
A sovereign good for me it would have been
If I had had no sovereigns,—verbum sat!
I lost!—and took no note when all was done,
Except a note of how much they had won!
I cannot say they were a dirty set,
Because they clean'd me so completely out;
A bout like this of Epsom Downs' roulette
Teaches a mortal what he is about.
Cheating is physic.—While the game's alive
It empties pockets if it doesn't thrive!
5. Boniface, (first Alderman of Port-soken?)
Cordial reception.
Caught in his own gin.
12. Mr. Wakley declared, that Gin was his best friend—it was equal to 1000 inquests a year.
A Palace reared! and lo! in quest of gin,
Thousands, sans scruple, pass for drams within;
Water they'd spurn, e'en from Geneva's lake,
Gin ever—not Geneva's—they will take:
In quest of that, when they no more can run,
Wakley his inquest holds, and all is done!
JUNE.—Striking a Balance.
Next door to us, in Portland-place, lived the Right Honourable the Earl of Kilblazes, of Kilmacrasy Castle, county Kildare, and his mother, the Dowager Countess. Lady Kilblazes had a daughter, Lady Juliana Matilda Mac Turk, of the exact age of our dear Jemimarann; and a son, The Honourable Arthur Wellington Anglesea Blucher Bulow Mac Turk, only ten months older than our boy, Tug.
My darling Jemmy is a woman of spirit, and, as became her station, made every possible attempt to become acquainted with the Dowager Countess of Kilblazes, which her ladyship (because, forsooth, she was the daughter of the Minister, and the Prince of Wales's great friend, the Earl of Portansherry) thought fit to reject. I don't wonder at my Jemmy growing so angry with her, and determining, in every way, to put her ladyship down. The Kilblazes' estate is not so large as the Tuggeridge property, by two thousand a-year, at least; and so my wife, when our neighbours kept only two footmen, was quite authorized in having three; and she made it a point, as soon as ever the Kilblazes' carriage-and-pair came round, to have her own carriage-and-four.
Well, our box was next to theirs at the Opera; only twice as big. Whatever masters went to Lady Juliana, came to my Jemimarann; and what do you think Jemmy did? she got her celebrated governess, Madam de Flicflac, away from the Countess, by offering a double salary. It was quite a treasure, they said, to have Madame Flicflac; she had been (to support her father, the Count, when he emigrated) a French dancer at the Italian Opera. French dancing, and Italian, therefore, we had at once, and in the best style: it is astonishing how quick and well she used to speak—the French especially.
Master Arthur Mac Turk was at the famous school of the Reverend Clement Coddler, along with a hundred and ten other young fashionables, from the age of three to fifteen; and to this establishment Jemmy sent our Tug, adding forty guineas to the hundred and twenty paid every year for the boarders. I think I found out the dear soul's reason, for, one day, speaking about the school to a mutual acquaintance of ours and the Kilblazes, she whispered to him, that "she never would have thought of sending her darling boy at the rate which her next-door neighbour paid; their lad, she was sure, must be starved: however, poor people! they did the best they could on their income."
Coddler's, in fact, was the tip-top school near London; he had been tutor to the Duke of Buckminster, who had set him up in the school, and, as I tell you, all the peerage and respectable commoners came to it. You read in the bill (the snopsis, I think Coddler called it), after the account of the charges for board, masters, extras, &c.: "Every young nobleman (or gentleman) is expected to bring a knife and fork, spoon, and goblet, of silver (to prevent breakage), which will not be returned; a dressing-gown and slippers; toilet-box, pomatum, curling-irons, &c. &c. The pupil must, on NO ACCOUNT, be allowed to have more than ten guineas of pocket-money, unless his parents particularly desire it, or he be above fifteen years of age. Wine will be an extra charge; as are warm, vapour, and douche baths; carriage exercise will be provided at the rate of fifteen guineas per quarter. It is earnestly requested that no young nobleman (or gentleman) be allowed to smoke. In a place devoted to the cultivation of polite literature, such an ignoble enjoyment were profane
"Clement Coddler, M.A.,
"Chaplain and late tutor to his Grace the
Duke of Buckminster.
"Mount Parnassus, Richmond, Surrey."
To this establishment our Tug was sent. "Recollect, my dear," said his mamma, "that you are a Tuggeridge by birth, and that I expect you to beat all the boys in the school, especially that Wellington Mac Turk, who though he is a lord's son, is nothing to you, who are the heir of Tuggeridgeville."
Tug was a smart young fellow enough, and could cut and curl as well as any young chap of his age; he was not a bad hand at a wig either, and could shave, too, very prettily; but that was in the old time, when we were not great people: when he came to be a gentleman, he had to learn Latin and Greek, and had a deal of lost time to make up for on going to school.
However we had no fear; for the Reverend Mr. Coddler used to send monthly accounts of his pupils' progress, and if Tug was not a wonder of the world, I don't know who was. It was
| General behaviour | excellent |
| English | very good |
| French | très bien |
| Latin | optimé. |
and so on; he possessed all the virtues, and wrote to us every month for money. My dear Jemmy and I determined to go and see him, after he had been at school a quarter; we went, and were shown by Mr. Coddler, one of the meekest, smilingest little men I ever saw, into the bed-rooms and eating rooms (the dromitaries and refractories he called them), which were all as comfortable as comfortable might be. "It is a holiday to-day," said Mr. Coddler; and a holiday it seemed to be. In the dining-room were half a dozen young gentlemen playing at cards ("all tip-top nobility," observed Mr. Coddler);—in the bed-rooms there was only one gent; he was lying on his bed, reading a novel and smoking cigars. "Extraordinary genius!" whispered Coddler; "Honourable Tom Fitz-Warter, cousin of Lord Byron's; smokes all day; and has written the sweetest poems you can imagine. Genius, my dear madam, you know, genius must have its way." "Well, upon my word," says Jemmy, "if that's genus, I had rather that Master Tuggeridge Coxe Tuggeridge remained a dull fellow."
"Impossible, my dear madam." said Coddler. "Mr. Tuggeridge Coxe couldn't be stupid if he tried."
Just then up comes Lord Claude Lollypop, third son of the Marquis of Allycompane. We were introduced instantly, "Lord Claude Lollypop, Mr. and Mrs. Coxe:" the little lord wagged his head, my wife bowed very low, and so did Mr. Coddler, who, as he saw my lord making for the play-ground, begged him to show us the way.—"Come along," says my lord; and as he walked before us, whistling, we had leisure to remark the beautiful holes in his jacket and elsewhere.
About twenty young noblemen (and gentlemen) were gathered round a pastrycook's shop, at the end of the green. "That's the grub-shop," said my lord, "where we young gentlemen wot has money buys our wittles, and them young gentlemen wot has none, goes tick."
Then he passed a poor red-haired usher, sitting on a bench alone. "That's Mr. Hicks, the Husher, ma'am," says my lord, "we keep him, for he's very useful to throw stones at, and he keeps the chaps' coats when there's a fight, or a game at cricket.—Well, Hicks, how's your mother? what's the row now?" "I believe, my lord," said the usher, very meekly, "there is a pugilistic encounter somewhere on the premises—the Honourable Mr. Mac——"
"O! come along," said Lord Lollypop, "come along, this way, ma'am! Go it, ye cripples!" and my lord pulled my dear Jemmy's gown in the kindest and most familiar way, she trotting on after him, mightily pleased to be so taken notice of, and I after her. A little boy went running across the green. "Who is it, Petitoes?" screams my lord. "Turk and the barber," pipes Petitoes, and runs to the pastrycook's like mad. "Turk and the ba—," laughs out my lord, looking at us: "hurrah! this way, ma'am;" and, turning round a corner he opened a door into a court-yard, where a number of boys were collected and a great noise of shrill voices might be heard. "Go it, Turk!" says one "Go it, barber!" says another. "Punch hith life out," roars another, whose voice was just cracked, and his clothes half a yard too short for him!
Fancy our horror, when, on the crowd making way, we saw Tug pummelling away at the Honourable Master Mac Turk! My dear Jemmy, who don't understand such things, pounced upon the two at once, and, with one hand tearing away Tug, sent him spinning back into the arms of his seconds, while, with the other, she clawed hold of Master Mac Turk's red hair, and, as soon as she got her second hand free, banged it about his face and ears like a good one.
"You nasty—wicked—quarrelsome—aristocratic (each word was a bang)—aristocratic, oh! oh! oh!" Here the words stopped; for, what with the agitation, maternal solicitude, and a dreadful kick on the shins which, I am ashamed to say, Master Mac Turk administered, my dear Jemmy could bear it no longer, and sunk, fainting away, in my arms.
See Swithin spout
The water out;
A Wiper-snake pattern
While wet sustains
Highgate.