CHAPTER VIII.
That knowing French minister, Louvois, whose power is said to have been maintained by his surpassing skill in collecting and spreading secret and swift intelligence, had in his pay various classes of unsuspected agents, dancing-masters, fencing-masters, language-masters, milliners, hairdressers and barbers—dentists, he would have added, had he lived to our times; and not all Paris could have furnished him with a person better suited to his purpose than the most fashionable London dentist of the day, St. Leger Swift. Never did Frenchman exceed him in volubility of utterance, or in gesture significant, supplying all that words might fear or fail to tell; never was he surpassed by prattling barber or privileged hunchback in ancient or modern story, Arabian or Persian; but he was not a malicious, only a coxcomb scandal-monger, triumphing in his sçavoir dire. St. Leger Swift was known to everybody—knew everybody in London that was to be or was not to be known, every creature dead or alive that ever had been, or was about to be celebrated, fashionable, or rich, or clever, or notorious, roué or murderer, about to be married or about to be hanged—for that last class of persons enjoys in our days a strange kind of heroic celebrity, of which Voltaire might well have been jealous. St, Leger was, of course, hand and glove with all the royal family; every illustrious personage—every most illustrious personage—had in turn sat in his chair; he had had all their heads, in their turns, in his hands, and he had capital anecdotes and sayings of each, with which he charmed away the sense of pain in loyal subjects. But with scandal for the fair was he specially provided. Never did man or woman skim the surface tittle-tattle of society, or dive better, breathless, into family mysteries; none, with more careless air, could at the same time talk and listen—extract your news and give you his on dit, or tell the secret which you first reveal. There was in him and about him such an air of reckless, cordial coxcombry, it warmed the coldest, threw the most cautious off their guard, brought out family secrets as if he had been one of your family—your secret purpose as though he had been a secular father confessor; as safe every thing told to St. Leger Swift, he would swear to you, as if known only to yourself: he would swear, and you would believe, unless peculiarly constituted, as was the lady who, this morning, took her seat in his chair—
Miss Clarendon. She was accompanied by her aunt, Mrs. Pennant.
“Ha! old lady and young lady, fresh from the country. Both, I see, persons of family—of condition,” said St. Leger to himself. On that point his practised eye could not mistake, even at first glance; and accordingly it was really doing himself a pleasure, and these ladies, as he conceived it, a pleasure, a service, and an honour, to put them, immediately on their arrival in town, au courant du jour. Whether to pull or not to pull a tooth that had offended, was the professional question before him.
Miss Clarendon threw back her head, and opened her mouth.
“Fine teeth, fine! Nothing to complain of here surely,” said St. Leger. “As fine a show of ivory as ever I beheld. ‘Pon my reputation, I know many a fine lady who would give—all but her eyes for such a set.”
“I must have this tooth out,” said Miss Clarendon, pointing to the offender.
“I see; certainly, ma’am, as you say.”