Mr. Pompadour's complexion was clear and transparent,—but it was not his own. His teeth were white and regular,—but they were artificial. His hair was black and glossy,—but it was dyed. His whiskers were ibid.,—but they were ditto. His dress was the perfection of fashion and taste, though rather youthful; and withal he carried himself with a jaunty air, and a light and springing step, smiling blandly on all he met, as if smiles were dollars and he were dispensing them right royally.
He had an only son,—Augustus Fitz Clarence Pompadour,—who was heir-apparent to the very considerable property supposed to belong to the "said aforesaid." This son was twenty-three, and had graduated at college with some knowledge of some things, if not of some others. He was a modern Mithridates in his power to withstand strychnine and nicotine; and he had devoted much attention to that branch of geometry which treats of the angles of balls on a cushion. One beautiful trait in his character, however, was his tender affection for his father, which showed itself most touchingly—whenever he was in need of money.
In person he was prepossessing, having light-blue eyes, dark-brown hair, and a drooping moustache. Nor will I allow that he was a vicious lad. Indolent and useless he certainly was,—an insignificant numeral in the great sum of humanity, but a roué he certainly was not. The worst thing about him was his name, and that he received from a weak, silly novel-reading mother, who gave her life for his, and, with her dying breath, charged his father to pay this homage to the yellow-covered world in which she had lived.
If there was anything wanting in the comfortable mansion, where the Pompadours, father and son, kept bachelor's hall, it was the refining and softening influence of woman. And this brings us to the consideration of the skeleton which abode in the closets of Pompadour and son.
The late Mrs. Pompadour had possessed some property which she had retained after marriage. Before her death she made a will, leaving to Augustus the fee, and to his father the income of the estate. In case, however, Augustus should marry before his father did, he was to enter into full possession of the property. Wives, in dying, do not generally offer their husbands a premium for replacing them; and so the judges inferred that the real meaning of the testatrix would be arrived at by inserting the letter e in the word "did;" thus making the contingency turn upon Augustus' marrying before his father died. Moreover, the lawyer who drew the will (his ancestor was limned by Æsop in the fable of the Ass in the lion's skin) swore positively to this rendering being in accordance with the wish of the deceased, and so the courts decided that in the event of Mr. Pompadour's marrying before his son, he should retain his interest during life.
Now Mr. Pompadour, aside from mercenary motives, was very uxoriously inclined; and would doubtless have married years before, had he not set too high an estimate on himself.
His condition of mind at the beginning of this history might be expressed logically somewhat as follows:—
First, he must get married.
Second, Augustus must not.
And Augustus, by analogous reasoning on identical premises, mutatis mutandis, had arrived at a dual conclusion.