“You are amongst very humble people, Mr. Massingbred,—a country shopkeeper, and his wife, and son,—and they 'll be only too happy to feel that you don't despise their company. Come, and I 'll show you your room.” And so saying, Nelligan led him up a narrow stair, and at the end of a corridor opened a door into a neatly furnished chamber, which looked out into a spacious garden. The whole interior was scrupulously clean and comfortable; and as Jack surveyed his new dominions, he inwardly blessed his good fortune that had piloted him into such a haven.
“I 'll just step down and write to Joe. Meanwhile you 'll have your things brought over to you. Make yourself at home here—at least, as much as you can in such a place—and when you want anything, just ask for it.” And with these words old Nelligan left him to his own thoughts.
Whatever savored of an adventure was the delight of Jack Massingbred. He was one of those men whose egotism takes the shape of playing hero to themselves,—a tolerably large category amongst the spoiled children of this world. To be thrown into any strange or novel position, with associates he was unused to, and amidst circumstances totally unlike all he had ever met before, was his great happiness; and although here there was nothing like actual peril to heighten the zest of the enjoyment, there was a certain dash of embarrassment in the situation that increased its piquancy. This embarrassment lay in his approaching meeting with young Nelligan.
All the reserve his young college friend had maintained with regard to his family was at once explained; and Jack began to think over how often it must have occurred to him to say the most galling and offensive things in his ignorance of Nelligan's real station. “If he had been frank and open with me,” said he to himself, “this would never have happened.” But therein Jack made two errors, since Nelligan was in no wise bound to make such revelations, nor was Massingbred the man to distinguish himself amongst his associates by a close friendship with the son of a country shopkeeper. He had been trained in a very different school, and taught to estimate his own station by the standard of his companionship. Indeed, he had witnessed the lenity which met his transgressions when they occurred in high company, and saw his father pay the debts he had contracted amongst titled associates with a far more generous forgiveness than had they taken their origin with more plebeian friends. “What could have induced the man to become a Fellow-Commoner,” said he, over and over; “it is such a palpable piece of presumption?” The truth was, Jack felt excessively irritated at never having even suspected his friend's pretensions, and was eager to throw the blame of a deception where none had ever been practised.
“They told me I should find everything very different here from in England, but they never hinted at anything like this.” There came then another phase over his reflections, as he asked himself, “But what affair is it of mine? Nelligan never thrust himself on me, it was I that sought him. He never proposed introducing me to his family, it was I that made them out,—I, in fact, who have imposed myself upon them. If I deemed the old grocer infra dig., I need never have known him; but I have not felt this to be the case. He may be—indeed, Joe Nelligan's father ought to be—a very superior fellow, and at all events the whole situation is new, and must be amusing.”
Such was the course of his thoughts as he arranged his clothes in the little chest of drawers, put out his few books and papers on the table, and proceeded to make himself perfectly at home and comfortable in his new quarters.
The embarrassments of selfish men are always lighter than those of other people, their egotism filling, as it does, such a very large space in the sea of their troubles. Thus was it that Massingbred suffered little discomfort at the thought of his friend Nelligan's probable shame and awkwardness, his thoughts being occupied by how he, clever fellow that he was, had traced out his home and origin,—won, by a few words, the old father's esteem, and established himself, by his own sharp wits, a guest of his house.
“It is a downright adventure,” said he; he even thought how the thing would tell afterwards at some convivial meeting, and set about dramatizing to himself his own part in the incident, to heighten the piquancy of the narrative. He resolved to conform in everything to the habits of the household,—to accommodate himself in all respects to old Nelligan's tastes, so that Joe should actually be amazed at the versatile resources of his nature, and struck with astonishment at this new evidence of his powers.
Nor was Mr. Nelligan idle during all this time; the thought of a fellow collegian of his son Joe being a guest under his roof was a very proud and inspiring reflection. It was such a recognition of Joe's social claims,—so flat a contradiction to all the surmises of those who deprecated his college life, and said “that old Dan was wrong to put his boy into Trinity”—that he already regarded the incident as the full earnest of success.
“What would have brought him here, if it wasn't for Joe? How would he ever have been under my roof, if he wasn't Joe's friend?” There was a palpable triumph here that nothing could gainsay, and with a proud heart he locked up his desk, resolving to do no more business that day, but make it one of enjoyment.