As the supper progressed, however, and more especially when the champagne (which really was not bad for Tickle-town) had made two or three rounds, affairs began to brighten. Mrs. Fitz-Siddons, unlike the voracious Macheath (which hungry highwayman still continued to demolish a supper more fitted for forty thieves than for one), was able to eat, drink, and talk at the same moment; and soon, by the cheerful, not to say jolly, style alike of the sentiments she expressed and of the manner in which she expressed them, succeeded in placing the “young people,” as she called them, upon a more friendly footing.
“Cora-lee, my love,” she began (and be it observed, parenthetically, that this, noble woman spoke with a slight Irish brogue—a philological fact to be accounted for only by the hypothesis, which she herself had started on a particular occasion, when she was suffering from a temporary nervous affection which confused her speech and imparted a slight unsteadiness to her gait, viz., that her mother must have been an Irishman), “Cora-lee, my love! don’t ye see Mr. Biggington waiting to take wine with ye; thank ye, sir, since you’re so very pressing I’ll not refuse; only up to my thumb, if you please, sir” (as she spoke, she, with delightful unconsciousness, ran her thumb up the glass as the wine advanced, until her digit and the champagne reached the brim simultaneously). “Your health, Mr. Norman, sir; O-phaliur, my darling, the same to the fortunes of the colville family. Go you;—it’s the cavalry you’re going into, Mr. Norman, they do tell me, and it’s an ornament you’ll be to the ridgimint—fine men they are, the Lancers. I’d a brother in them once; maybe you’ll have heard tell of Major Fitz-Siddons? Six feet six did he stand in his stocking-soles, till he fell gloriously leading a forlorn hope at the siege of—of—bless the name of the place! now I can’t for the life of me lay my tongue to it.”
“Troy, perhaps,” suggested Terry, politely.
“Belleisle, more likely,” put in Jack Sprattly; it was the first word he had uttered since they sat down, and he had a largish tartlet in his mouth as he spoke;—swallowing the morsel, he continued in a whisper to Biggington, next to whom he was seated—
“The major was no major at all, but only a private, and was drummed out of the regiment for stealing the captain’s shirts.”
Having once found his tongue, which was not until he had more than satisfied even his uncompromising appetite, Jack proceeded to make use (we can scarcely in conscience say, good use) of it, to relate all sorts of anecdotes, theatrical and otherwise, of which the wit was so small as scarcely to deserve the name, while what ought to have been the moral was rather the reverse.
Then, quite by accident, another gentleman connected with the theatre called to speak to Mr. Sprattly, so of course he was invited to join them, and proved a great acquisition to the party, as it was generally reported of him that there was no subject, grave or gay, human or divine, on which he could not perpetrate a bad pun; and certainly on that evening he did his best, or more correctly, his worst, to justify popular opinion. And thus a vast amount of nonsense was talked, and many bottles of wine drunk, until Norman conceived that the time was ripe for the execution of his project.
It has before been intimated that the apparent friendship existing between Biggington and Norman was based upon a most false and hollow foundation,—the truth being that the cock of the school, who was older than Norman, had, in times past, availed himself of his superior strength to bully, and impose insults and indignities upon, his junior, under which the proud spirit of the embryo lancer had chafed, until a deep thirst for revenge was excited, which he only waited a favourable opportunity to satisfy. During the previous year, a change had taken place in their relation to each other. Biggington having grown up, was, by the immutable laws of nature, prevented from growing any higher, while Norman, in obedience to the same laws, grew steadily after him until he also had attained the full stature of man; while, although of a slighter build, he had so strengthened his frame by athletic exercises, that he was now no contemptible antagonist even for the colossal Biggington. That the bully himself was aware of this fact, may be gathered from the extreme care with which he avoided giving Norman an opportunity of picking a quarrel with him—a line of policy which, until the evening in question, had proved most successful. Norman, although apparently enjoying himself to the utmost, and constantly hastening the circulation of the decanters, contrived to drink very little wine; Biggington, on the other hand, who was essentially animal in his tastes, indulged freely, until the effects became unmistakably apparent in his flushed cheeks and rapid, thick utterance. During the earlier part of the evening he had devoted his attentions to the amiable and accomplished Juliet Elphinstone (alias Betsy Slasher) as he found that young lady, who was of a singularly affable, not to say free and easy, disposition, least trouble to get on with; and Biggington hated trouble. But as Coralie’s diffidence vanished before the influence of the champagne, and the polished compliments which Norman from time to time addressed to her not unwilling ears, she laughed and displayed her white teeth and uttered piquant nothings in the prettiest broken English imaginable, till she appeared altogether so fascinating, that Biggington began to perceive he had made a mistake, which the wine he drank rendered him determined at all hazards to remedy.
Norman, who watched him closely, remarking this, redoubled his attentions to Coralie, and Biggington’s dissatisfaction and ill-temper became so unmistakable that they were observed even by Mrs. Fitz-Siddons, whose troublesome nerves were again beginning to inconvenience her, as was evinced by a slight disposition towards the unromantic spasmodic affection popularly termed winking, with which she punctuated (so to speak) her sentences. Feeling desirous that so agreeable an evening should end as harmoniously as it had begun, she tossed off a final bumper of claret (Mrs. Fitz-S. was great at claret), and, turning to the young ladies, began—
“Cora-lee, my love—O-phaliur, my darling, all that’s bright my dears, must (wink)—the fondest hearts must part; ‘parting is such sweet sorrow,’ you remember! Not another drop, I’m obleeged to ye, Mr. Biggington, sir—well, if you will have it so I suppose I must (wink); we weaker vessels you know—”