"Not like it, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Clipclose, with astonishment.
"No, I don't, demme! Is this a court dress? It's a quaker's made into a footman's! 'Pon my soul, I look the exact image of a footman; and a devilish vulgar one too!" The two individuals beside him turned suddenly away—looking in different directions—and from their noses there issued the sounds of ill-suppressed laughter.
"Oh, sir—I beg a thousand pardons!"—quickly exclaimed Mr. Clipclose, "what can I have been thinking about? There's the sword—we've quite forgot it!"
"Ah—'pon my life, I thought there was something wrong!" quoth Titmouse, as Mr. Clipclose, having brought the sword from the table at the other end of the room, where he had laid it upon entering, buckled it upon his distinguished customer.
"I flatter myself that now, sir"—commenced he.
"Ya—as—Quite the correct thing! 'Pon my soul—must say—most uncommon striking!"—exclaimed Titmouse, glancing at his figure in the glass, with a triumphant smile. "Isn't it odd, now, that this sword should make all the difference between me and a footman, by Jove?" Here his two companions were seized with a simultaneous fit of coughing.
"Ah, ha—it's so, a'n't it?" continued Titmouse, his eyes glued to the glass.
"Certainly, sir," replied Mr. Clipclose, "it undoubtedly gives—what shall I call it? a grace—a finish—a sort of commanding appearance—especially to a figure that becomes it"—he continued with cool assurance, observing that the valet understood him. "But—may I, sir, take so great a liberty? If you are not accustomed to wear a sword—as I think you said you had not been at court before—I beg to remind you that it will require particular care to manage it, and prevent it from getting between"——
"Demme, sir!" exclaimed Titmouse, turning round with an offended air—"d'ye think I don't know how to manage a sword? By all that's tremendous"—and plucking the taper weapon out of its scabbard, he waved it over his head; and throwing himself into the first position—he had latterly paid a good deal of attention to fencing—with rather an excited air, he went through several of the preliminary movements. 'Twas a subject for a painter, and exhibited a very striking spectacle—as an instance of power silently concentrated, and ready to be put forth upon an adequate occasion. The tailor and the valet, who stood separate from each other, and at a safe and respectful distance from Mr. Titmouse, gazed at him with silent admiration.
When the great day arrived—Titmouse having thought of scarce anything else in the interval, and teased every one whom he had met with his endless questions and childish observations on the subject—he drove up, at the appointed hour, to the Earl of Dreddlington's; whose carriage, with an appearance of greater state than usual about it, was standing at the door. On alighting from his cab, he skipped so nimbly up-stairs, that he could not have had time to observe the amusement which his figure occasioned even to the well-disciplined servants of the Earl of Dreddlington. Much allowance ought to have been made for them. Think of Mr. Titmouse's little knee-breeches, white silks, silver shoe-buckles, shirt ruffles and frills, coat, bag, and sword; and his hair, plastered up with bear's grease, parted down the middle of his head, and curling out boldly over each temple; and his open countenance irradiated with a subdued smile of triumph and excitement! On entering the drawing-room he beheld a really striking object—the earl in court costume, wearing his general's uniform, with all his glistening orders, standing in readiness to set off, and holding in his hand his hat, with its snowy plume. His posture was at once easy and commanding. Had he been standing to Sir Thomas Lawrence, he could not have disposed himself more effectively. Lady Cecilia was sitting on the sofa, leaning back, and languidly talking to him; and, from the start which they both gave on Titmouse's entrance, it was plain that they could not have calculated upon the extraordinary transmogrification he must have undergone, in assuming court costume. For a moment or two, each was as severely shocked as when his absurd figure had first presented itself in that drawing-room. "Oh, heavens!" murmured Lady Cecilia: while the earl seemed struck dumb by the approaching figure of Titmouse. That gentleman, however, was totally changed from the Titmouse of a former day. He had now acquired a due sense of his personal importance, a just confidence in himself. Greatness had lost its former petrifying influence over him. And, as for his appearance on the present occasion, he had grown so familiar with it, as reflected in his glass, that it never occurred to him that the case might be different with others who beheld him for the first time. The candor upon which I pride myself urges me to state, however, that when Titmouse beheld the military air and superb equipments of the earl—notwithstanding that Titmouse, too, wore a sword—he felt himself done. He advanced, nevertheless, pretty confidently—bobbing about, first to Lady Cecilia, and then to the earl; and after a hasty salutation, observed,—"'Pon my life, my Lord, I hope it's no offence, but your Lordship does look most remarkable fine." The earl made no reply, but inclined towards him magnificently—not seeing the meaning and intention of Titmouse, but being affronted by his words.