Another accomplishment, at which not a few of the fast fellows excel, is that of imitating upon a key-bugle various animals, in an especial manner the braying of an ass: when the fast fellows drive down to the Trafalgar at Greenwich, the Toy at Hampton Court, or the Swan at Henley upon Thames, the bugle-player mounts aloft, the rest of the fast fellows keeping a lookout for donkeys; when one is seen, a hideous imitative bray is set up by the man of music, and his quadrupedal brother, attracted by the congenial sound, rushes to the roadside—mutual recognition, with much merriment, is the result.
The fast fellow who does this best, is considered one of the immortals; and we are not without expectation, in due time, of seeing his talent rewarded by a pension.
Breaking bells, twisting knockers, and "knapping" rail-heads, has descended so low of late that the fast fellows are ashamed of it, and have resigned it to the medical students, patriotic young members of Parliament, and others of the imitative classes; but there yet exists, or very lately existed, a collection of these and various other surreptitiously acquired properties, known among the fast fellow by the title of ——'s Museum, every article being ticketed artistically, and the whole presenting an example of devotion to the cause of science, we believe, without a parallel.
These are a few of the comparatively innocent amusements of the fast fellows; others there are of graver character, which we need not refer to, especially as the fast school is fast wearing itself out, and many of the fast fellows already begin to "put on the drag," and go at a more reasonable pace.
Their ignorance, with the single exception of horse-flesh, is appalling. Nobody who does not know the fast fellows, would credit that men could by any possibility grow up in such absolute ignorance of whatever a gentleman is expected to know; whatever a gentleman is expected not to know, they have at their tongues' and fingers' ends.
Intellectual men, of whatever description, they regard with the most perfect indifference—an indifference too passive for contempt; they affect to wonder, or probably do wonder, what such men are for, or why people sometimes talk about them. Books they find convenient for putting under the legs of barrack-room tables, to bring them to a level, and think they are made of different sizes for that purpose; but no fast fellow was ever yet detected in looking into one of them, to see whether there was any thing inside. Such as have been taught to spell, employ part of the Sunday in deciphering the smutty jokes of the Satirist, and pronounce the jokes "d—d good," and the paper "a d—d honest paper." If they happen, by any chance, to come into contact with one of the slow school, or any body who has been taught to read, they have a method of silencing his battery, which they think "capital." If a man should say in their company, that Chaucer was a great poet, one will immediately enquire, "how much?" while another wishes to know if Chaucer is entered for the "Derby?" "How much?" is the invariable slang, whenever a man gets the bit out of his mouth, or, in other words, talks of any thing but horses.
There is no novelty in this; it is only a second edition of Dean Swift's "new-fashioned way of being witty," which, in his fashionable day, was called "a bite." "You must ask a bantering question," he informs Stella, "or tell some damned lie in a serious manner, and then they will answer or speak as if you were in earnest; then cry you, 'there's a bite.' I would not have you undervalue this, for it is the constant amusement in court, and every where else among the great people; and I let you know it, in order to have it obtain amongst you, and teach you a new refinement."
If they accept an invitation from Lord Northampton to go to one of his soirées, which they sometimes do for a "lark," their antics are vastly amusing; they put on grave, philosophic faces, and mimic the savans to the life; if the noble president, thinking he is doing the polite thing, points out to them a poet, for example, or a professor, they have a knack of elevating the shoulders, looking at the man with a pitying air, and whispering the words "poor beast," with a tone and manner quite inimitable. Indeed this is one of the few clever things they do, and on or off the stage we have never seen any thing like it.
If Dickens were to die—an event that, we hope and trust, may not occur these fifty years, the fast fellows would have some such conversation upon the event, as follows:—
A. So, Dickens, I hear, is dead.