That occasion, by the way, was the Tuesday when, according to invitation, I was to go up to the lodgings of Daly and the Field-Marshal, there to meet my old schoolfellow Flanagan.
I had looked forward not a little to this meeting, and was secretly glad that he would find me one of a set represented by such respectable and flourishing persons as Doubleday and Daly. When, a fortnight before, Smith and I had hunted up and down his street to find him, I knew nothing of “what was what” compared with what I did now. I was determined to make an impression on my old schoolfellow; and therefore, as I have said, trimmed up the ends of my trousers with Mrs Nash’s scissors, invested in a new (cheap), necktie, and carefully doctored the seam under my armpit with ink and blacking.
Thus decorated I hurried off to my host’s lodgings. The first thing I saw as I entered the door filled me with mortification. It was Flanagan, dressed in a loud check suit, with a stick-up collar and a horseshoe scarf-pin—with cloth “spats” over his boots, and cuffs that projected at least two inches from the ends of his coat sleeves.
I felt so shabby and disreputable that I was tempted to turn tail and escape. I had all along hoped that Flanagan would be got up in a style which would keep me in countenance, and make me feel rather more at home than I did among the other stylish fellows of the set. But so far from that being the case, here he was the most howling swell of them all.
Before I could recover from the surprise and disappointment I felt he had seen me, and advanced with all his old noisy frankness.
“Hullo! here he is. How are you, Batchelor? Here we are again, eh? Rather better than the Henniker’s parlour, eh?”
I forgot all my disappointment for a moment in the pleasure of meeting him. In voice and manner at least he was the Flanagan of old days. Why couldn’t he dress rather more quietly?
Daly was there in all his glory, and the Field-Marshal as lank and cadaverous as ever; and besides ourselves there was Whipcord with the straw in his mouth, and one or two other fellows belonging to our host’s particular set. The supper was quite as elaborate and a good deal more noisy than that at Doubleday’s. I sat next to Flanagan, and hoped to be able to get some talk with him about old days; but I found he was far too much taken up with the fun that was going on to be a very attentive listener. And so I felt more than ever extinguished and out of it, and all my fond hopes of making an impression on my old schoolfellow speedily vanished.
“What are you going to do?” said Whipcord, when the meal was over.
“I don’t care,” said Daly; “cards if you like.”