‘“Is he jealous?” asked a young man, looking as if he did not know what jealousy was, and as if he had no time to be jealous.
‘“Jealous!—the very incarnation of jealousy; the second edition, revised, corrected, and considerably enlarged; as jealous as poor Gressigny, who is dying of it.”
‘“What! Gressigny too? why, ‘tis growing quite into fashion: egad! I must try and be jealous,” said Monsieur de Beauval. “But see! here comes the delicious Duchess of Bellefiore,”’ etc. etc. etc.
. . . . .
Enough, enough; this kind of fashionable Parisian conversation, which is, says our author, ‘a prodigious labour of improvising,’ a ‘chef-d’œuvre,’ a ‘strange and singular thing, in which monotony is unknown,’ seems to be, if correctly reported, a ‘strange and singular thing’ indeed; but somewhat monotonous, at least to an English reader, and ‘prodigious’ only, if we may take leave to say so, for the wonderful rascality which all the conversationists betray. Miss Neverout and the Colonel, in Swift’s famous dialogue, are a thousand times more entertaining and moral; and, besides, we can laugh at those worthies as well as with them; whereas the ‘prodigious’ French wits are to us quite incomprehensible. Fancy a duchess as old as Lady —— herself, and who should begin to tell us ‘of what she would do if ever she had a mind to take a lover;’ and another duchess, with a fourth lover, tripping modestly among the ladies, and returning the gaze of the men by veiled glances, full of coquetry and attack!—Parbleu, if Monsieur de Viel-Castel should find himself among a society of French duchesses, and they should tear his eyes out, and send the fashionable Orpheus floating by the Seine, his slaughter might almost be considered as justifiable Counticide.
A GAMBLER’S DEATH
ANYBODY who was at C—— school some twelve years since, must recollect Jack Attwood: he was the most dashing lad in the place, with more money in his pocket than belonged to the whole fifth form in which we were companions.
When he was about fifteen, Jack suddenly retreated from C——, and presently we heard that he had a commission in a cavalry regiment, and was to have a great fortune from his father, when that old gentleman should die. Jack himself came to confirm these stories a few months after, and paid a visit to his old school chums. He had laid aside his little school-jacket and inky corduroys, and now appeared in such a splendid military suit as won the respect of all of us. His hair was dripping with oil, his hands were covered with rings, he had a dusky down over his upper lip which looked not unlike a moustache, and a multiplicity of frogs and braiding on his surtout, which would have sufficed to lace a field-marshal. When old Swishtail, the usher, passed in his seedy black coat and gaiters, Jack gave him such a look of contempt as set us all a-laughing: in fact it was his turn to laugh now; for he used to roar very stoutly some months before, when Swishtail was in the custom of belabouring him with his great cane.
Jack’s talk was all about the regiment and the fine fellows in it: how he had ridden a steeplechase with Captain Boldero, and licked him at the last hedge; and how he had very nearly fought a duel with Sir George Grig, about dancing with Lady Mary Slamken at a ball. ‘I soon made the baronet know what it was to deal with a man of the N—th,’ said Jack. ‘Dammee, sir, when I lugged out my barkers, and talked of fighting across the mess-room table, Grig turned as pale as a sheet, or as——’
‘Or as you used to do, Attwood, when Swishtail hauled you up,’ piped out little Hicks, the foundation-boy.