CHAPTER VIII.
OF CERTAIN GENTS IN SOCIETY.
Once, when like Mr. Tennyson we were “waiting for the train at Coventry,” and thinking of Lady Godiva—the Gents would like to have peeped at Godiva—we saw a penny show on the ground floor of an empty house in a principal street of that good city. It consisted of “A Happy Family”—a collection of various animals, of different natures, in one cage—like the travelling menagerie opposite the National Gallery, but on a much larger scale. The members of the “family” were quietly enjoying the pleasure of each other’s society, with the exception of two monkeys, one of whom sat sullenly scowling at some mice, as he hugged himself up into a ball in every body’s way; and the other created much discomfort, from time to time, by rushing about in a frantic manner, running over his neighbours, performing totally useless feats of agility, and deporting himself generally in an absurd and unseemly fashion.
Now, taking monkeys to be the Gents of the animal kingdom, we were pleased to see how closely they resemble their human brethren:—for the Gents you encounter in society are of two kinds. Taking an assembly as the place where you would be most likely to come upon them, you will find them either endeavouring to “do the grand,” by not joining in the current amusements of the evening; or overstepping all bounds of ordinary behaviour—“going it,” to use their own words—and committing every kind of preposterous and silly offence against the received rules of society.
If you talk to the first of these, whom we may call the dreary Gent, you will always find that he has been “dining with some fellows he knows;” or “having a weed with a man;” and you will be reminded of cigars. He affects a drawling indifferent tone of voice, which he considers cool and fashionable; and he prefers keeping outside the drawing-room door, upon the landing, because “he don’t want to be bored to dance.” He wears broad tails to his coat, and most probably the buttonholes are brought together over his chest by a small snaffle; whilst, hanging by a bit of chain from his waistcoat pocket, is a little broquet key, made like a dog’s head, the nose of which winds up his watch. His stock is of figured satin, very gay, and very narrow, and with long twisted ends, in which is stuck a large pin—usually a claw holding a stone, as big and as white as a pea of Wenham ice from a sherry cobbler. He will ask you, “if you were up at Putney on Tuesday;” and if you were not, and do not even know what great event took place on that day, be sure that he regards you with great contempt. Like all Gents, he has a great notion of champagne, which at supper he drinks by himself from a tumbler as he would drink it at a night tavern, as aforesaid, from a tankard.
Very opposite to him is the joyous Gent, whom we may term the Perrot of private life. He always gives us the notion of a ballet-dancer spoiled, especially in Pastorale or the Polka; in which latter dance, if he does not happen to have for his partner a young lady of determined spirit, and a keen discrimination of right and wrong, he will launch off into all sorts of toe-and-heel tomfooleries, such as simple people used to perpetrate when the Polka first broke out—such as you may still see, after supper, at Jullien’s and Vauxhall, or at the “Gothics,” and other ten-and-sixpenny demi-public hops, of the same genus, even at the Hanover Square Rooms. The joyous Gent is very great indeed in cheap dancing-academy figures. He knows the “Caledonians” and the “Lancers;” he loves the “Spanish dance,” and patronises the gloomy, and almost extinct “Cellarius.” And we will make any reasonable wager, that before the quadrille begins, he will bow to his partner, and then to the corner lady, or the one on his left.
The social acquirements of the joyous Gent are many, and he delights in every opportunity of exhibiting them. His strongest points are his imitations of popular performers, especially Buckstone, in whose manner he says, “well I never!—did you ever!—oh never!—oh wlaw!” in a manner that elicits the loudest applause. Next he attempts Macready, as follows:—
“Nay—dearest—nay—if thou—wouldst have—me paint
The home—to which—could love—fulfil—its prayers,—
This hand—would lead—thee—listen.”