“It’s a very hard thing,” said Cutts, “but I see it’s an invariable rule that matrimony and good-fellowship can never go together. You’re not half the brick you used to be, Fred; but I suppose it can’t be helped. There’s a degree of slow-coachiness about you which I take to be peculiarly distressing, and if you don’t take care it will become a confirmed habit.”
“Seven hundred and fifty pounds—what! all my pretty chickens and their——”
“Don’t swear! it’s a highly immoral practice. At all events you’ll dine with me to-day at six. You shall have as much claret as you can conscientiously desire, and, for company, I have got the queerest fellow here you ever set eyes on. You used to pull the long bow with considerable effect, but this chap beats you hollow.”
“Who is he?”
“How should I know? He calls himself Leopold Young Mandeville—is a surveyor by trade, and has been working abroad at some outlandish line or another for the last two years. He is a very fair hand at the compasses, and so I have got him here by way of assistant. You may think him rather dull at first, but wait till he has finished a pint, and I’m shot if he don’t astonish you. Now, if you will have nothing more, we may as well go out, and take a ride by way of appetiser.”
At six o’clock I received the high honour of an introduction to Mr Young Mandeville. As I really consider this gentleman one of the most remarkable personages of the era in which we live, I may perhaps be excused if I assume the privilege of an acquaintance, and introduce him also to the reader. The years of Mr Mandeville could hardly have exceeded thirty. His stature was considerably above the average of mankind, and would have been greater save for the geometrical curvature of his lower extremities, which gave him all the appearance of a walking parenthesis. His hair was black and streaky; his complexion atrabilious; his voice slightly raucous, like that of a tragedian contending with a cold. The eye was a very fine one—that is, the right eye—for the other optic was evidently internally damaged, and shone with an opalescent lustre. There was a kind of native dignity about the man which impressed me favourably, notwithstanding the reserved manner in which he exchanged the preliminary courtesies.
Cutts did the honours of the table with his usual alacrity. The dinner was a capital one, and the wine not only abundant but unexceptionable. At first, however, the conversation flowed but languidly. My spirits had not yet recovered from the appalling intelligence of the morning; nor could I help reflecting, with a certain uneasiness, upon the reception I was sure to meet with from certain brethren in the Outer House, to whom, in a moment of rash confidence, I had intrusted the tale of my dilemma. I abhor roasting in my own person, and yet I knew I should have enough of it. Mandeville ate on steadily, like one labouring under the conviction that he thereby performed a good and meritorious action, and scorning to mix up extraneous matter with the main object of his exertions. The Saxon awaited his time, and steadily circulated the champagne.
We all got more loquacious after the cloth was removed. A good dinner reconciles one amazingly to the unhappy chances of our lot; and, before the first bottle was emptied, I had tacitly forgiven every one of the Provisional Committee of the Slopperton Railway Company, with the exception of the villanous Glanders, who, for anything I knew, might, at that moment, be transatlantically regaling himself at my particular expense. His guilt was of course inexpiable. Mandeville, having eat like an ogre, began to drink like a dromedary. Both the dark and the opalescent eye sparkled with unusual fire, and with a sigh of philosophic fervour he unbuttoned the extremities of his waistcoat.
“Help yourselves, my boys,” said the jovial Cutts; “there’s lots of time before us between this and the broiled bones. By Jove, I’m excessively thirsty! I say, Mandeville, were you ever in Scotland? I hear great things of the claret there.”
“I never had that honour,” replied Mr Young Mandeville, “which I particularly regret, for I have a high—may I say the highest?—respect for that intelligent country, and indeed claim a remote connection with it. I admire the importance which Scotsmen invariably attach to pure blood and ancient descent. It is a proof, Mr Cutts, that with them the principles of chivalry are not extinct, and that the honours which should be paid to birth alone, are not indiscriminately lavished upon the mere acquisition of wealth.”