Well, the ladies went through the whole establishment with perfect pleasure. They beheld the coffee-rooms, and the little tables laid for dinner, and the gentlemen who were taking their lunch, and old Jawkins thundering away as usual; they saw the reading-rooms, and the rush for the evening papers; they saw the kitchens—those wonders of art—where the CHEF was presiding over twenty pretty kitchen-maids, and ten thousand shining saucepans: and they got into the light-blue fly perfectly bewildered with pleasure.
Sackville did not enter it, though little Laura took the back seat on purpose, and left him the front place alongside of Mrs. Chuff's red tabinet.
'We have your favourite dinner,' says she, in a timid voice; 'won't you come, Sackville?'
'I shall take a chop here to-day, my dear,' Sackville replied. 'Home, James.' And he went up the steps of the 'Sarcophagus,' and the pretty face looked very sad out of the carriage, as the blue fly drove away.
CHAPTER XLIV—CLUB SNOBS
Why—Why did I and Wagley ever do so cruel an action as to introduce young Sackville Maine into that odious 'Sarcophagus'? Let our imprudence and his example be a warning to other gents; let his fate and that of his poor wife be remembered by every British female. The consequences of his entering the Club were as follows:—
One of the first vices the unhappy wretch acquired in this abode of frivolity was that of SMOKING. Some of the dandies of the Club, such as the Marquis of Macabaw, Lord Doodeen, and fellows of that high order, are in the habit of indulging in this propensity upstairs in the billiard-rooms of the 'Sarcophagus'—and, partly to make their acquaintance, partly from a natural aptitude for crime, Sackville Maine followed them, and became an adept in the odious custom. Where it is introduced into a family I need not say how sad the consequences are, both to the furniture and the morals. Sackville smoked in his dining-room at home, and caused an agony to his wife and mother-in-law which I do not venture to describe.
He then became a professed BILLIARD-PLAYER, wasting hours upon hours at that amusement; betting freely, playing tolerably, losing awfully to Captain Spot and Col. Cannon. He played matches of a hundred games with these gentlemen, and would not only continue until four or five o'clock in the morning at this work, but would be found at the Club of a forenoon, indulging himself to the detriment of his business, the ruin of his health, and the neglect of his wife.
From billiards to whist is but a step—and when a man gets to whist and five pounds on a rubber, my opinion is, that it is all up with him. How was the coal business to go on, and the connection of the firm to be kept up, and the senior partner always at the card-table?