It was only yesterday that I dined with BULMER, the wealthy brewer, in his magnificent mansion in the neighbourhood (I dare not be more precise) of Belgrave Square. You know as well as I do that BULMER's origin, though it may not have been humble, was certainly obscure. Nobody quite knows how he first managed to become a partner in the great concern which he now entirely controls. Fifteen years ago few people ever heard of or drank the "Pellucid Ale" without which no tap-room and few middle-class luncheon tables can now be considered complete. Suddenly, however, column upon column of the daily press overflowed, as it were, with those two magic words; analytical chemists investigated the properties of the beverage, and one and all pronounced it in highly technical language to contain more bone-forming and sinew-developing elements than any other known beer. The poetry-and-beer-loving public was fascinated by a series of memorable stanzas:—
"The hardy Briton loves good cheer,
His mighty sinews never fail:
'Pour me,' he cries 'a draught of Beer,
And let it be Pellucid Ale.'"
So the verse began, and it was illustrated by a flaring symbolical picture in two compartments. In the first a throng of gaunt and miserable creatures was represented crawling with difficulty towards an immense barrel, astride which sat a lusty, hop-crowned deity. In the second, every member of the same throng had become stout and hearty. The hollow cheeks were round and shining with health, the bent backs were straight, the dreary faces were wreathed in smiles, and every hand held a foam-topped glass of "Pellucid Ale." Underneath were painted the words, "After one glass." Even without the title, the inference was obvious; the confiding public drew it, and immense quantities of BULMER's ale, almost simultaneously, and the result was that, in a very short time, BULMER might have rolled in money if he had felt disposed—as, to do him justice, he never did—to render himself ridiculous. Now what is there in the fact that BULMER has made a fortune in beer that should inflate him to so insufferable an extent? Can it be that there is some mysterious property in the liquid itself, some property which, having escaped even the careful investigation of the analytical chemists, has pervaded the being of BULMER, and has induced him to patronise the inhabited world? I thought so once. Indeed I have lost myself in conjectures on this point. But I now know that BULMER has fallen under your sway, and that you, my dear POMPOSITY, direct his every movement, and inspire his every thought. Now, the other night, when, as I say, I was dining at his table, BULMER was in one of his most glorious and vain-glorious moods. Patronage radiated from him upon my humble self and the rest of the tribe of undoubted inferiors whom he permitted to bask in his shining presence.
"My dear boy," said BULMER to me, while he inserted his thumbs in the arm-openings of his waistcoats, and drummed an approving tattoo upon his shining shirt-front, "my dear boy, I have always been your friend, and nobody knows it better than you. Many a time have I proved it to you, and I can honestly assure you that nothing gives me greater pleasure than to welcome you in person to my humble home."
I thanked the great man deferentially, and assured him I was deeply sensible of his many kindnesses. But after he had turned away, some malicious spirit prompted me, in spite of myself, to reflect upon the favours that BULMER has conferred upon me. Were they, after all, so numerous and so great? Was I, on the whole, so poor a worm as he imagined me to be? Had he in fact made me what I am? These ungrateful thoughts chased one another through my perplexed brain, and I was forced to acknowledge to myself that at the various crises of my career the fairy form of BULMER had been absent. Yet BULMER is firmly convinced that I owe any modest success I may have attained and all my annual income to his beneficent efforts on my behalf. And the worst of it is, that he has a kind of top-heavy and overwhelming good-nature about him. He honestly means to be kind and genial where he only succeeds in irritating his perverse acquaintances. Was BULMER always thus? When he began on his small salary, did he patronise the office-boy? When he had learnt to spell, did he devote his first epistolary efforts to the pompous patronage of his parents? I fancy I can hear him declaring to his tottering father that a man so blessed in his son might well console himself for many a grievous disappointment, and the old man I am sure meekly accepted his son's assurance, and joined with his wife in thanking providence for granting them so great a happiness. But BULMER has different fashions of showing his superiority. I will do him the credit of saying that I do not believe him to be a Snob. He does not prostrate himself before the great, since he believes himself to be greater than they can ever be. But he knows that ordinary human nature is apt to be impressed by the appearance of intimate familiarity with persons of title. And BULMER therefore uses the Peers of his circle as instruments wherewith he may belabour the minds of his humbler friends.
"The Marquis of CHEDDAR," he will say, in a tone of grandeur, "did me the honour to consult me about his furniture to-day, and I told him what I thought. The fact is her Ladyship has no taste, and the Marquis has less, but I arranged it all for them."