Nevertheless, the proprietor of the circus bowed to them and smiled paternally.
"One shouldn't look for too much," said the Vicar, "but I think the old fellow is a bit of a sportsman."
"Not at all a bad fellow," said honest George, expansively. "Not at all a bad fellow. Not at all a bad fellow."
However, a subtle fear lay within the breast of a married man, a father of a family, and a county member, lest our excellent Vicar had spoken in excess of his knowledge. I foresaw that the ordeal by fire was coming. When the ladies left the room desperation urged me to bestow a pointed hint upon the Church.
"Perhaps, Vicar," I said, plaintively, "if you joined the ladies? Not at all a bad fellow, you know, not at all a bad fellow, but perhaps not—er—altogether—don't you know!"
"None the worse for that," said the hardest riding parson in three counties, filling up his glass with composure and with cordiality. "If you think the old buffer can appreciate a yarn, I will tell that old one of my Uncle Jackson's. It is rather a chestnut these days, but perhaps he mayn't have heard it."
The clerical effort was by no means vieux jeu. And it is only just to the Church to mention that the style of the raconteur compared very favourably with that he affected in his vocation. Ferdinand the Twelfth guffawed heartily, and replied with a couple of masterpieces that brought the blush of shame to the cheek of modesty. I am afraid there was only one cheek, however, in which the emblem in question was able to find sanctuary, and truth compels me to assert that it was neither that of the Church nor the Police.
For nearly an hour by the clock the bottle was circulated and we were royally entertained. Ferdinand had had a rich and various experience of life. Much had he seen and done; he had made and unmade history; he was of the world, he loved it and he courted it; no personality had emerged upon the European chequer-board during the past half-century of whom he could not discourse out of a full and intimate knowledge. If it pleased him, he could pull aside the curtain and disclose the showman making the puppets dance in the political theatre.
He spoke with immense gusto; his zest of life was magnificent, and somewhat strangely there was nothing cynical or ignoble about his point of view. For the best part of an hour he held the least wise of us in thrall. He had an abundance, an overplus of nature, and subtle and Jesuitical—for want of a happier word—as he doubtless was, there was something humane and great-hearted about him as a man.
He gave away the great ones of the earth, showing them in their habit as they dwelt. He made them neither less nor more than they were. Naught was set down in malice, but his anecdotes mostly had a Rabelaisian tang which sprang from a prodigality of nature. He was a great and not unbeneficent force who drained the cup of life to the lees, smacked his lips heartily, and demanded more. His philosophy seemed to be to fear God but not to scruple to use to the full all the noble and infinite gifts of your inheritance. His rule of conduct, however, was not, to measure men by their strength but by their weakness. "Every man has his blind spot," he said, apropos of Bismarck. "Find it and he is yours."