A Barren Title: A Novel

by T. W. Speight

"Not even to hear that would afford him the pleasure he would derive from knowing that his mother was really better."

"Ah, yes, Clem's a good boy; a model son in every way." Macer looked up quickly, but Mr. Fildew, with his glass in his eye, was apparently contemplating a cobweb in a far corner of the room. "But I must go now," he added, as he turned on his heel. "Don't forget to ask Clem for the half-sovereign; and if neither of you should be so fortunate as to have your picture hung by the Academy, I hope you won't go and hang yourselves instead." And, with one of his peculiar smiles and a curt nod of the head, he left the room.

"Poor Clem! What a pity Providence didn't provide him with a different kind of father," said Tony Macer, as he turned to his work again. "Egad! if the fellow were worth ten thousand a year, he could hardly give himself more airs."

[CHAPTER II.]

AT THE BROWN BEAR.

The Brown Bear, the tavern usually patronized by Mr. Fildew of an evening, was situate in a quiet street no great distance from Bloomsbury Square. It was one of the few taverns dating from a bygone generation that had escaped the hands of the modern innovator. It could boast no plate-glass windows lighted up with a score of gas-jets. There was plenty of old mahogany, black with age, to be seen inside the bar, but there were no mirrors and no gilding; neither was there any lavish display of colored glass or artificial shrubs. You went down one step from the street into the bar, the floor of which was sprinkled with sand, as in the days when George the Third was king. A huge oaken beam supported the ceiling. On a topmost shelf stood a couple of immense punchbowls backed by some flagons of antique design, and below them were several bottles of Schiedam and other liquors that had been ripening for a dozen years. There was an air of sombre substantiality about the whole place.

Behind the bar was the "coffee-room," so called. Straight-backed, rush-bottomed chairs occupied three sides of it, in front of which were ranged four or five oblong tables, black with age and much polishing. At the upper end of the room was an elaborately carved arm-chair, where the president or chairman for the evening took his seat, opposite which stood a brass box containing tobacco, the lid of which flew open as often as a halfpenny was dropped through an orifice at the opposite end. A few smoke-dried prints of coaching and sporting subjects, and three or four pipe-racks, decorated the walls.

The general public were not allowed to invade this sanctum for them there was another room at the opposite end of the bar. The coffee-room was set apart and kept sacred for a certain set of regular customers, and such private friends as they might choose to bring with them from time to time, who, year in and year out, made a point of spending their evenings at the Brown Bear. Some there were who put in an appearance almost every night, some of them showed up only two or three times a week, but they were all known to each other and to the landlord, the freemasonry of good-fellowship, or what passed among them as such, being the one bond that kept them together. Several of them were small tradesmen of the neighborhood, two or three were connected with the law, a few of them were men whose work in this world was over, and who were ekeing out the remainder of their days on some small pension or private means of their own.

At nine P.M. such of the company as might be present voted one of their number into the chair, a post which it was not considered etiquette to vacate till the clock struck twelve. At ten o'clock they were generally joined by the landlord, who, on such occasions, ordered and paid for what he drank like an ordinary customer. The last proceeding of each evening was for the chairman to treat such of the company as might be left to "goes" of grog at his own expense; one cannot expect to have the honors of this world thrust upon one without having to pay for them.

It is quite possible that some of the frequenters of the Brown Bear were drawn thither by the love of hearing themselves talk, and of having others to listen to them, rather than by any more convivial motives. As a consequence, the affairs of the nation were discussed and settled, and the proceedings of the party in power impugned or approved of, as the case might be, to the satisfaction of everybody concerned; while such minor topics as the weather, the crops, the last murder, or the latest scandal in high life, did not fail to come in for their due share of attention. Some old fogies there were who scarcely opened their lips except to order their grog, or to interject an "exactly" or a "just so" at the proper moment, whenever any particular proposition was pointedly aimed at them, but who otherwise puffed placidly at their pipes in stolid silence. These non-talkers were by no means among the least popular of the company, for how can a man who feels called upon to enlighten his fellow-citizens do so with any satisfaction to himself unless he has appreciative listeners? That those others chose to be listeners rather than talkers was by no means put down to any obtuseness of intellect on their part, for are we not taught that a still tongue is a sign of a wise head? and a man may be brimful of wisdom, and yet be at pains to conceal that fact from his fellows.