Boys and Girls from Thackeray

by Kate Dickinson Sweetser

Binnie did not laugh any more. "By George! Tom Newcome," said he, "you're just one of the saints of the earth. If all men were like you there'd be an end of both our trades; and there would be no fighting and no soldiering, no rogues, and no magistrates to catch them." The Colonel wondered at his friend's enthusiasm, who was not used to be complimentary; indeed what so usual with him as that simple act of gratitude and devotion about which his comrade spoke to him? To ask a blessing for his boy was as natural to him as to wake with the sunrise, or to go to rest when the day was over. His first and his last thought was always the child.

The two gentlemen were home in time enough to find Clive dressed, and his uncle arrived for breakfast. The Colonel said a grace over that meal; the life was begun which he had longed and prayed for, and the son smiling before his eyes who had been in his thoughts for so many fond years.

If my memory serves me right it was at about this time that I, the humble biographer of Mr. Clive Newcome's life, met him again for the first time since my school days at Grey Friars.

Going to the play one night with some fellows of my own age, and laughing enthusiastically at the farce, we became naturally hungry at midnight, and a desire for Welch Rabbits and good old glee-singing led us to the "Cave of Harmony," then kept by the celebrated Hoskins, with whom we enjoyed such intimacy that he never failed to greet us with a kind nod. We also knew the three admirable glee-singers. It happened that there was a very small attendance at the "Cave" that night, and we were all more sociable and friendly because the company was select. The songs were chiefly of the sentimental class; such ditties were much in vogue at the time of which I speak.

There came into the "Cave" a gentleman with a lean brown face and long black moustaches, dressed in very loose clothes, and evidently a stranger to the place. At least he had not visited it for a long time. He was pointing out changes to a lad who was in his company; and, calling for sherry and water, he listened to the music, and twirled his moustaches with great enthusiasm.

At the very first glimpse of me the boy jumped up from the table, bounded across the room, ran to me with his hands out, and, blushing, said, "Don't you know me?"

It was little Newcome, my school-fellow, whom I had not seen for six years, grown a fine tall young stripling now, with the same bright blue eyes which I remembered when he was quite a little boy.

"What the deuce brings you here?" said I.

He laughed and looked roguish. "My father—that's my father—would come. He's just come back from India. He says all the wits used to come here. I told him your name, and that you used to be very kind to me when I first went to Smithfield. I've left now: I'm to have a private tutor. I say, I've got such a jolly pony. It's better fun than old Smiffle."

Here the whiskered gentleman, Newcome's father, strode across the room twirling his moustaches, and came up to the table where we sat, making a salutation with his hat in a very stately and polite manner, so that Hoskins himself felt obliged to bow; the glee-singers murmured among themselves, and that mischievous little wag, little Nadab the Improvisatore, began to mimic him, feeling his imaginary whiskers, after the manner of the stranger, and flapping about his pocket-handkerchief in the most ludicrous manner. Hoskins checked this sternly, looking towards Nadab, and at the same time calling upon the gents to give their orders.