Young Diggory, therefore, was impursed with a handsome sum, more than sufficient to purchase an outfit in London; for his father well knew he could trust to his prudence, and was despatched, per mail, to town, in company with the all-sufficient Londoner. A week, or so, was spent, in visiting the various public exhibitions, and seeing the sights,—a change of neat suits was purchased (for the lad was too sensible to be fooled into the kickshaw dandy habits which the cockney recommended),—a situation, a "highly respectable" situation, (although but at very low remuneration, a thing of no consequence to Diggory,) was procured by the all-sufficient gentleman; and off started the new adventurer into Kent, to canvass for orders for a citizen and dry-salter of London.
The merchant, his employer, had had but one interview with him, having engaged him chiefly through a quick impression of his solid intelligence, rather than from the cockney's florid recommendation; but the cockney gave him a regular "drill," as it might be called in his new profession, before he started out; and, although the tradesmen upon whom he called perceived that he was a "new beginner," yet his good sense prevented his experiencing any insurmountable difficulty in making his way as a commercial traveller. In fact, Diggory had a much larger stock of theoretical knowledge to enable him to eke out his deficiencies in what was practical, than most young fellows who go out, for the first time, on similar engagements; and, therefore, it was not as a "greenhorn" among tradesmen, that he was likely to feel "like a fish out of water:" that was not the sort of uneasiness that newly awaited Diggory Lawson.
What was it then?—Nothing less than the old pest in a new form:—etiquette. He had been most cogently admonished by the cockney to take up his quarters at the very best commercial inns in his prescribed route,—or it would let down his employer, disgust customers, and injure his patron's business; nor had he been less earnestly warned to avoid deporting himself in any way contrary to the rules and customs of gentlemen he would meet with, who were "on the road" like himself, and who had their "highly respectable" established usages. Diggory, like an obedient son, followed his father's monitions, and strove to conduct himself exactly as the Londoner advised and directed. At the first-rate commercial inn in each town he stopped, hasted to canvass the tradesmen, and punctually returned to the inn at the hour when he was told dinner would be on the table in the "Commercial Room." Diggory, too, being a sharp lad, as the reader knows by this time, bought a book on "Etiquette" and all that sort of thing, while in London: but though he imagined he would be a match for his new compeers "of the road," he found himself sorely mistaken, in the very outset, at Maidstone.
At four, exactly, returned Diggory to his inn, having despatched considerable business for a mere beginner, and entered the "Commercial Room." A buzz and a general whisper went round, as he entered, and no one returned his courteous movement (for he followed his book) when he performed it! The company was large, well-dressed, and from the "bang-up" appearance of the numerous leather portmanteaus under the side-tables in the room, and the dashing whips and proud cloaks on the hooks, Diggory was sure they were, indeed, what the cockney would call "highly respectable" commercial gentlemen, or "gentlemen on the road." It was strange, he thought, that they should be so uncourteous. Yet, Diggory observed, that every new comer was received in the same way; and so he set it down in his memory that it was the wrong time of the day for bows of courtesy among "commercial gentlemen;"—and that was not a bad idea, either, for so green an observer,—especially as the gentlemen had not dined.
Dinner was brought in, and a tolerably sumptuous affair it was. "Commercial gentlemen," even at the "first-rate commercial inns," don't "cut it quite so fat" (for so vulgar a phrase may be allowed since it will apply to the dinners) now-a-days, as they did then,—since we are speaking of something more than twenty years bygone; and the last twenty years, with their wonderful innovations of railway travelling and increased competition, have made woeful alterations among your princely commercial travellers: they were the innkeeper's grandees then: the case is altered now. Diggory, with all his intellectuality and sentimentalism and so forth, was pleased to see the goodly provisions of the table, for he was very hungry; and he began to muster up his recollections of "the book of etiquette."
But, behold!—a single moment threw all his calculations out of order. He was the youngest in the room; and by the rules of the road, he must, therefore, take the post of vice-president at the dinner! Diggory's book said nothing about this; for it was not written expressly for "commercial gentlemen," but for "good society" generally. Poor Dig took the post, however, but felt in a strange perturbation as the gentleman at his right hand intimated a wish for a little mutton, and looked at him, "the Vice!" The chairman was already helping his end of the table to slices of a sirloin, and so Diggory drew the piece of hot mutton near him, and was beginning to cut, but did it so awkwardly that the gentleman at his right-hand, who was somewhat of a gourmand, cried out, "Oh dear, sir! not that way!" Diggory stopped,—stared,—blushed: but the chairman, an elderly and fatherly-looking man, put on an encouraging smile, and said, "Lengthwise, sir, if you please; not across: the other way keeps in the gravy best." Diggory's heart cleaved to the man who told him this so kindly and handsomely, and he thanked the chairman, adding, in his simplicity, that he was unused to carving mutton, especially a shoulder, he added, looking at it, and thinking it could not be a leg.
"A shoulder!" exclaimed the gentleman on his right hand, staring like one who was horror-struck; "why, God bless me, 'tis a saddle!"
Diggory blushed worse than before, for there was a perceptible laugh round the table; but he made no reply, and tried to proceed with his work of carving. Trembling as he did, there was no wonder that he spattered the right-hand gentleman with gravy until the gentleman grew angry. And then Diggory apologised; but the gentleman, still more indignantly, besought him to go on, and not keep the company waiting,—meaning himself. How glad was the lad when he had succeeded in filling the man's plate, and silencing him! The rest whom he had to accommodate were of less irritable natures; but no one offered to relieve him, until each had despatched their first plate, and then Diggory's appetite was gone, for he had not been able to eat a mouthful up to that time, through the throng of his new and difficult employment.
The next course increased poor Diggory's trouble: he knew no more about carving a fowl than conducting a ship to China; and when he had cut off a blundering slice at a venture, and put it on the right-hand gentleman's plate, the irritable gourmand stared ferociously in his face, shovelled the clumsy slice off the plate into the dish, cried aloud, "Mangling done here!" and to Diggory's consternation seized the carving-knife and fork, to cut for himself.
And now the chairman interfered. "He trusted he should be supported by the company, sitting there as he did: if the young gentleman was an improficient in the duties of the table, perhaps he might be allowed to say that they all knew what it was to be young at one time in their lives, and he did think—though he was the last man in the world to wish to give the slightest offence—that the gentleman to the right of the vice-president of that table had not acted so courteously as he might have done." And then there was a pretty general "Hear, hear!" But quickly uprose the irritable gentleman, and rejected the admonition of the president with scorn, and thumped the table during his delivery of a most energetic oration of half a minute, until he shook the glasses so that they rang changes against each other.