The difference between Jack at six, and Jack at seven, was the difference between a clock down and a clock wound up—between a bird in the shell, and a bird on the wing—between a bowl of punch before, and after, the spirit is poured in,—it was the difference between Philip drunk and Philip sober (or the reverse if you will)—between a lord mayor in his plain blue-coat and kerseys, and a lord mayor in his state robes;—between Grimaldi at the side-scene waiting to go on, with that most melancholy shadow on his face which tradition has so touchingly painted, and Grimaldi on the stage, in view of the convulsed spectators, the illuminator of congregated dulness, the instantaneous disperser of the blues, the explorer of every crevice of the heart wherein care can lurk—an embodied grin. It was the difference, to speak more exactly still, between Sappho at her toilet, and Sappho at an evening mask.
To see Jack when just beginning to prepare for a drop-in somewhere, late at night—between ten and twelve—was almost as good as seeing him when arrived there. The rash promise made, he always contrived to fulfil it—though it was often ten chances to one that he did not, and he appeared to keep his engagements by miracle. As the hour drew nigh, you would imagine that he had just received tidings of the dreadful loss of several relatives per railroad, or that half his income had been swallowed up in a mine, or forged exchequer-bills. It would be impossible to conjecture that his shrugs and sighs, peevish gestures and muttered execrations, were but the dark shadows of a brilliant "coming event"—that discontent and mortification were the forerunners of the gay Hours, and that bitter moroseness, limping and growling, announced the approach of the dancing Pleasures!
So it was; for Jack at that moment, instead of hailing these dancing Pleasures by anticipation, and meeting them at least half-way, would gladly have ridden ten miles in any other direction. He could make himself tolerably comfortable anywhere, save at the place to which he was ruthlessly, imperiously bound—with anybody, save with the people who were anxiously waiting for a glimpse of his good-humoured visage. He was fully bent on going, in fact he felt that he must; yet he raised every obstacle that ill-temper could invent, knowing all the while that he should be obliged to surmount them.
He would even allow his reluctance to stir, to prevail so far over the gentlemanly principle of his nature, as to question secretly within himself whether he ought to go, while he entertained a suspicion that the people who had again invited him were not quite prudent in giving so many expensive parties!
He would catch hold of any rag of an acquaintance just then, to cover his loneliness, and to save him from utter solitude; to give him an excuse for procrastinating, and an opportunity of grumbling out his regrets at stripping from head to foot, not to go to bed, but to go out; at being doomed to shake off his quiet moping mood, and plunge head-foremost into festivity. And then, when the effort had been made, when the last obstacle had been overcome, when he was arrayed from top to toe, and could no longer complain of this thing not in readiness, and that thing mislaid, or the glove that split in drawing it on, or the cab that was not (and never was) on the stand when he wanted one, he would ask himself with a deep-drawn sigh the melancholy question: "Isn't it hard that a man must go out, with a broken heart, to take an hour or two's jollification at this time of night!"
Off went Jack Gay; and until four in the morning the merry Hours lagged far behind his joyous spirits. Hospitality put on his magic boots to run a race with him, and the bewitching eyes of Pleasure herself looked grave and sleepy compared with the glistening orbs of her votary!
THE KING OF BRENTFORD'S TESTAMENT.
BY MICHAEL ANGELO TITMARSH.
The noble King of Brentford