The mansion of Sir Pitt Crawley, in Great Gaunt Street, was just beginning to dress itself for the day, as Rawdon, in his evening costume, which he had now worn two days, passed by the scared female who was scouring the steps and entered into his brother's study. Lady Jane, in her morning-gown, was up and above stairs in the nursery superintending the toilettes of her children and listening to the morning prayers which the little creatures performed at her knee. Every morning she and they performed this duty privately, and before the public ceremonial at which Sir Pitt presided and at which all the people of the household were expected to assemble. Rawdon sat down in the study before the Baronet's table, set out with the orderly blue books and the letters, the neatly docketed bills and symmetrical pamphlets, the locked account-books, desks, and dispatch boxes, the Bible, the Quarterly Review, and the Court Guide, which all stood as if on parade awaiting the inspection of their chief.
A book of family sermons, one of which Sir Pitt was in the habit of administering to his family on Sunday mornings, lay ready on the study table, and awaiting his judicious selection. And by the sermon-book was the Observer newspaper, damp and neatly folded, and for Sir Pitt's own private use. His gentleman alone took the opportunity of perusing the newspaper before he laid it by his master's desk. Before he had brought it into the study that morning, he had read in the journal a flaming account of "Festivities at Gaunt House," with the names of all the distinguished personages invited by the Marquis of Steyne to meet his Royal Highness. Having made comments upon this entertainment to the housekeeper and her niece as they were taking early tea and hot buttered toast in the former lady's apartment, and wondered how the Rawding Crawleys could git on, the valet had damped and folded the paper once more, so that it looked quite fresh and innocent against the arrival of the master of the house.
Poor Rawdon took up the paper and began to try and read it until his brother should arrive. But the print fell blank upon his eyes, and he did not know in the least what he was reading. The Government news and appointments (which Sir Pitt as a public man was bound to peruse, otherwise he would by no means permit the introduction of Sunday papers into his household), the theatrical criticisms, the fight for a hundred pounds a side between the Barking Butcher and the Tutbury Pet, the Gaunt House chronicle itself, which contained a most complimentary though guarded account of the famous charades of which Mrs. Becky had been the heroine--all these passed as in a haze before Rawdon, as he sat waiting the arrival of the chief of the family.
Punctually, as the shrill-toned bell of the black marble study clock began to chime nine, Sir Pitt made his appearance, fresh, neat, smugly shaved, with a waxy clean face, and stiff shirt collar, his scanty hair combed and oiled, trimming his nails as he descended the stairs majestically, in a starched cravat and a grey flannel dressing-gown--a real old English gentleman, in a word--a model of neatness and every propriety. He started when he saw poor Rawdon in his study in tumbled clothes, with blood-shot eyes, and his hair over his face. He thought his brother was not sober, and had been out all night on some orgy. "Good gracious, Rawdon," he said, with a blank face, "what brings you here at this time of the morning? Why ain't you at home?"
"Home," said Rawdon with a wild laugh. "Don't be frightened, Pitt. I'm not drunk. Shut the door; I want to speak to you."
Pitt closed the door and came up to the table, where he sat down in the other arm-chair--that one placed for the reception of the steward, agent, or confidential visitor who came to transact business with the Baronet--and trimmed his nails more vehemently than ever.
"Pitt, it's all over with me," the Colonel said after a pause. "I'm done."
"I always said it would come to this," the Baronet cried peevishly, and beating a tune with his clean-trimmed nails. "I warned you a thousand times. I can't help you any more. Every shilling of my money is tied up. Even the hundred pounds that Jane took you last night were promised to my lawyer to-morrow morning, and the want of it will put me to great inconvenience. I don't mean to say that I won't assist you ultimately. But as for paying your creditors in full, I might as well hope to pay the National Debt. It is madness, sheer madness, to think of such a thing. You must come to a compromise. It's a painful thing for the family, but everybody does it. There was George Kitely, Lord Ragland's son, went through the Court last week, and was what they call whitewashed, I believe. Lord Ragland would not pay a shilling for him, and--"
"It's not money I want," Rawdon broke in. "I'm not come to you about myself. Never mind what happens to me."
"What is the matter, then?" said Pitt, somewhat relieved.
"It's the boy," said Rawdon in a husky voice. "I want you to promise me that you will take charge of him when I'm gone. That dear good wife of yours has always been good to him; and he's fonder of her than he is of his . . .--Damn it. Look here, Pitt--you know that I was to have had Miss Crawley's money. I wasn't brought up like a younger brother, but was always encouraged to be extravagant and kep idle. But for this I might have been quite a different man. I didn't do my duty with the regiment so bad. You know how I was thrown over about the money, and who got it."
"After the sacrifices I have made, and the manner in which I have stood by you, I think this sort of reproach is useless," Sir Pitt said. "Your marriage was your own doing, not mine."
"That's over now," said Rawdon. "That's over now." And the words were wrenched from him with a groan, which made his brother start.
"Good God! is she dead?" Sir Pitt said with a voice of genuine alarm and commiseration.
"I wish I was," Rawdon replied. "If it wasn't for little Rawdon I'd have cut my throat this morning--and that damned villain's too."
Sir Pitt instantly guessed the truth and surmised that Lord Steyne was the person whose life Rawdon wished to take. The Colonel told his senior briefly, and in broken accents, the circumstances of the case. "It was a regular plan between that scoundrel and her," he said. "The bailiffs were put upon me; I was taken as I was going out of his house; when I wrote to her for money, she said she was ill in bed and put me off to another day. And when I got home I found her in diamonds and sitting with that villain alone." He then went on to describe hurriedly the personal conflict with Lord Steyne. To an affair of that nature, of course, he said, there was but one issue, and after his conference with his brother, he was going away to make the necessary arrangements for the meeting which must ensue. "And as it may end fatally with me," Rawdon said with a broken voice, "and as the boy has no mother, I must leave him to you and Jane, Pitt--only it will be a comfort to me if you will promise me to be his friend."
The elder brother was much affected, and shook Rawdon's hand with a cordiality seldom exhibited by him. Rawdon passed his hand over his shaggy eyebrows. "Thank you, brother," said he. "I know I can trust your word."
"I will, upon my honour," the Baronet said. And thus, and almost mutely, this bargain was struck between them.
Then Rawdon took out of his pocket the little pocket-book which he had discovered in Becky's desk, and from which he drew a bundle of the notes which it contained. "Here's six hundred," he said--"you didn't know I was so rich. I want you to give the money to Briggs, who lent it to us--and who was kind to the boy--and I've always felt ashamed of having taken the poor old woman's money. And here's some more--I've only kept back a few pounds--which Becky may as well have, to get on with." As he spoke he took hold of the other notes to give to his brother, but his hands shook, and he was so agitated that the pocket-book fell from him, and out of it the thousand-pound note which had been the last of the unlucky Becky's winnings.
Pitt stooped and picked them up, amazed at so much wealth. "Not that," Rawdon said. "I hope to put a bullet into the man whom that belongs to." He had thought to himself, it would be a fine revenge to wrap a ball in the note and kill Steyne with it.
After this colloquy the brothers once more shook hands and parted. Lady Jane had heard of the Colonel's arrival, and was waiting for her husband in the adjoining dining-room, with female instinct, auguring evil. The door of the dining-room happened to be left open, and the lady of course was issuing from it as the two brothers passed out of the study. She held out her hand to Rawdon and said she was glad he was come to breakfast, though she could perceive, by his haggard unshorn face and the dark looks of her husband, that there was very little question of breakfast between them. Rawdon muttered some excuses about an engagement, squeezing hard the timid little hand which his sister-in-law reached out to him. Her imploring eyes could read nothing but calamity in his face, but he went away without another word. Nor did Sir Pitt vouchsafe her any explanation. The children came up to salute him, and he kissed them in his usual frigid manner. The mother took both of them close to herself, and held a hand of each of them as they knelt down to prayers, which Sir Pitt read to them, and to the servants in their Sunday suits or liveries, ranged upon chairs on the other side of the hissing tea-urn. Breakfast was so late that day, in consequence of the delays which had occurred, that the church-bells began to ring whilst they were sitting over their meal; and Lady Jane was too ill, she said, to go to church, though her thoughts had been entirely astray during the period of family devotion.
Rawdon Crawley meanwhile hurried on from Great Gaunt Street, and knocking at the great bronze Medusa's head which stands on the portal of Gaunt House, brought out the purple Silenus in a red and silver waistcoat who acts as porter of that palace. The man was scared also by the Colonel's dishevelled appearance, and barred the way as if afraid that the other was going to force it. But Colonel Crawley only took out a card and enjoined him particularly to send it in to Lord Steyne, and to mark the address written on it, and say that Colonel Crawley would be all day after one o'clock at the Regent Club in St. James's Street--not at home. The fat red-faced man looked after him with astonishment as he strode away; so did the people in their Sunday clothes who were out so early; the charity-boys with shining faces, the greengrocer lolling at his door, and the publican shutting his shutters in the sunshine, against service commenced. The people joked at the cab-stand about his appearance, as he took a carriage there, and told the driver to drive him to Knightsbridge Barracks.
All the bells were jangling and tolling as he reached that place. He might have seen his old acquaintance Amelia on her way from Brompton to Russell Square, had he been looking out. Troops of schools were on their march to church, the shiny pavement and outsides of coaches in the suburbs were thronged with people out upon their Sunday pleasure; but the Colonel was much too busy to take any heed of these phenomena, and, arriving at Knightsbridge, speedily made his way up to the room of his old friend and comrade Captain Macmurdo, who Crawley found, to his satisfaction, was in barracks.
Captain Macmurdo, a veteran officer and Waterloo man, greatly liked by his regiment, in which want of money alone prevented him from attaining the highest ranks, was enjoying the forenoon calmly in bed. He had been at a fast supper-party, given the night before by Captain the Honourable George Cinqbars, at his house in Brompton Square, to several young men of the regiment, and a number of ladies of the corps de ballet, and old Mac, who was at home with people of all ages and ranks, and consorted with generals, dog-fanciers, opera-dancers, bruisers, and every kind of person, in a word, was resting himself after the night's labours, and, not being on duty, was in bed.
His room was hung round with boxing, sporting, and dancing pictures, presented to him by comrades as they retired from the regiment, and married and settled into quiet life. And as he was now nearly fifty years of age, twenty-four of which he had passed in the corps, he had a singular museum. He was one of the best shots in England, and, for a heavy man, one of the best riders; indeed, he and Crawley had been rivals when the latter was in the Army. To be brief, Mr. Macmurdo was lying in bed, reading in Bell's Life an account of that very fight between the Tutbury Pet and the Barking Butcher, which has been before mentioned--a venerable bristly warrior, with a little close-shaved grey head, with a silk nightcap, a red face and nose, and a great dyed moustache.
When Rawdon told the Captain he wanted a friend, the latter knew perfectly well on what duty of friendship he was called to act, and indeed had conducted scores of affairs for his acquaintances with the greatest prudence and skill. His Royal Highness the late lamented Commander-in-Chief had had the greatest regard for Macmurdo on this account, and he was the common refuge of gentlemen in trouble.
"What's the row about, Crawley, my boy?" said the old warrior. "No more gambling business, hay, like that when we shot Captain Marker?"
"It's about--about my wife," Crawley answered, casting down his eyes and turning very red.
The other gave a whistle. "I always said she'd throw you over," he began--indeed there were bets in the regiment and at the clubs regarding the probable fate of Colonel Crawley, so lightly was his wife's character esteemed by his comrades and the world; but seeing the savage look with which Rawdon answered the expression of this opinion, Macmurdo did not think fit to enlarge upon it further.
"Is there no way out of it, old boy?" the Captain continued in a grave tone. "Is it only suspicion, you know, or--or what is it? Any letters? Can't you keep it quiet? Best not make any noise about a thing of that sort if you can help it." "Think of his only finding her out now," the Captain thought to himself, and remembered a hundred particular conversations at the mess-table, in which Mrs. Crawley's reputation had been torn to shreds.
"There's no way but one out of it," Rawdon replied--"and there's only a way out of it for one of us, Mac--do you understand? I was put out of the way--arrested--I found 'em alone together. I told him he was a liar and a coward, and knocked him down and thrashed him."
"Serve him right," Macmurdo said. "Who is it?"
Rawdon answered it was Lord Steyne.
"The deuce! a Marquis! they said he--that is, they said you--"
"What the devil do you mean?" roared out Rawdon; "do you mean that you ever heard a fellow doubt about my wife and didn't tell me, Mac?"
"The world's very censorious, old boy," the other replied. "What the deuce was the good of my telling you what any tom-fools talked about?"
"It was damned unfriendly, Mac," said Rawdon, quite overcome; and, covering his face with his hands, he gave way to an emotion, the sight of which caused the tough old campaigner opposite him to wince with sympathy. "Hold up, old boy," he said; "great man or not, we'll put a bullet in him, damn him. As for women, they're all so."
"You don't know how fond I was of that one," Rawdon said, half-inarticulately. "Damme, I followed her like a footman. I gave up everything I had to her. I'm a beggar because I would marry her. By Jove, sir, I've pawned my own watch in order to get her anything she fancied; and she--she's been making a purse for herself all the time, and grudged me a hundred pound to get me out of quod." He then fiercely and incoherently, and with an agitation under which his counsellor had never before seen him labour, told Macmurdo the circumstances of the story. His adviser caught at some stray hints in it. "She may be innocent, after all," he said. "She says so. Steyne has been a hundred times alone with her in the house before."
"It may be so," Rawdon answered sadly, "but this don't look very innocent": and he showed the Captain the thousand-pound note which he had found in Becky's pocket-book. "This is what he gave her, Mac, and she kep it unknown to me; and with this money in the house, she refused to stand by me when I was locked up." The Captain could not but own that the secreting of the money had a very ugly look.
Whilst they were engaged in their conference, Rawdon dispatched Captain Macmurdo's servant to Curzon Street, with an order to the domestic there to give up a bag of clothes of which the Colonel had great need. And during the man's absence, and with great labour and a Johnson's Dictionary, which stood them in much stead, Rawdon and his second composed a letter, which the latter was to send to Lord Steyne. Captain Macmurdo had the honour of waiting upon the Marquis of Steyne, on the part of Colonel Rawdon Crawley, and begged to intimate that he was empowered by the Colonel to make any arrangements for the meeting which, he had no doubt, it was his Lordship's intention to demand, and which the circumstances of the morning had rendered inevitable. Captain Macmurdo begged Lord Steyne, in the most polite manner, to appoint a friend, with whom he (Captain M.M.) might communicate, and desired that the meeting might take place with as little delay as possible.
In a postscript the Captain stated that he had in his possession a bank-note for a large amount, which Colonel Crawley had reason to suppose was the property of the Marquis of Steyne. And he was anxious, on the Colonel's behalf, to give up the note to its owner.
By the time this note was composed, the Captain's servant returned from his mission to Colonel Crawley's house in Curzon Street, but without the carpet-bag and portmanteau, for which he had been sent, and with a very puzzled and odd face.
"They won't give 'em up," said the man; "there's a regular shinty in the house, and everything at sixes and sevens. The landlord's come in and took possession. The servants was a drinkin' up in the drawingroom. They said--they said you had gone off with the plate, Colonel"--the man added after a pause--"One of the servants is off already. And Simpson, the man as was very noisy and drunk indeed, says nothing shall go out of the house until his wages is paid up."
The account of this little revolution in May Fair astonished and gave a little gaiety to an otherwise very triste conversation. The two officers laughed at Rawdon's discomfiture.
"I'm glad the little 'un isn't at home," Rawdon said, biting his nails. "You remember him, Mac, don't you, in the Riding School? How he sat the kicker to be sure! didn't he?"
"That he did, old boy," said the good-natured Captain.
Little Rawdon was then sitting, one of fifty gown boys, in the Chapel of Whitefriars School, thinking, not about the sermon, but about going home next Saturday, when his father would certainly tip him and perhaps would take him to the play.
"He's a regular trump, that boy," the father went on, still musing about his son. "I say, Mac, if anything goes wrong--if I drop--I should like you to--to go and see him, you know, and say that I was very fond of him, and that. And--dash it--old chap, give him these gold sleeve-buttons: it's all I've got." He covered his face with his black hands, over which the tears rolled and made furrows of white. Mr. Macmurdo had also occasion to take off his silk night-cap and rub it across his eyes.
"Go down and order some breakfast," he said to his man in a loud cheerful voice. "What'll you have, Crawley? Some devilled kidneys and a herring--let's say. And, Clay, lay out some dressing things for the Colonel: we were always pretty much of a size, Rawdon, my boy, and neither of us ride so light as we did when we first entered the corps." With which, and leaving the Colonel to dress himself, Macmurdo turned round towards the wall, and resumed the perusal of Bell's Life, until such time as his friend's toilette was complete and he was at liberty to commence his own.
This, as he was about to meet a lord, Captain Macmurdo performed with particular care. He waxed his mustachios into a state of brilliant polish and put on a tight cravat and a trim buff waistcoat, so that all the young officers in the mess-room, whither Crawley had preceded his friend, complimented Mac on his appearance at breakfast and asked if he was going to be married that Sunday.

Sir Pitt Crawley's mansion was just awakening as Rawdon, in his evening costume, which he had now worn two days, walked up the steps and entered his brother's study. Lady Jane was up in the nursery helping her children dress and listening to their morning prayers, as she did every day. Rawdon sat down in the study before the Baronet's table, set out with orderly blue books and letters, bills and dispatch boxes.
A book of family sermons, from which Sir Pitt was in the habit of reading to his family on Sundays, lay ready on the table. And by the sermon-book was the Observer newspaper. His valet had taken the opportunity of looking at it before he laid it by his master's desk; and he had read a flaming account of "Festivities at Gaunt House," with the names of all the distinguished people invited by the Marquis of Steyne to meet his Royal Highness.
Poor Rawdon took up the paper and began to try and read it until his brother should arrive. But he did not know in the least what he was reading. The Government news and appointments passed in a haze before Rawdon, as he sat waiting.
Punctually at nine, Sir Pitt appeared, fresh and shaved, in a starched cravat and a grey flannel dressing-gown - a model of neatness and propriety. He started when he saw poor Rawdon in tumbled clothes, with blood-shot eyes and unkempt hair. He thought his brother was not sober, and had been out all night.
"Good gracious, Rawdon," he said, "what brings you here at this time of the morning? Why ain't you at home?"
"Home," said Rawdon with a wild laugh. "I'm not drunk, Pitt. Shut the door; I want to speak to you."
Pitt closed the door and sat down opposite him.
"Pitt, it's all over with me," the Colonel said. "I'm done."
"I always said it would come to this," the Baronet cried peevishly. "I warned you a thousand times. I can't help you any more. Every shilling of my money is tied up. Even the hundred pounds that Jane took you last night were promised to my lawyer tomorrow morning. I don't mean to say that I won't assist you ultimately. But as for paying your creditors in full, I might as well hope to pay the National Debt. You must-"
"It's not money I want," Rawdon broke in. "Never mind what happens to me."
"What is the matter, then?" said Pitt, somewhat relieved.
"It's the boy," said Rawdon huskily. "Promise me that you will take charge of him when I'm gone. Your dear wife has always been good to him; and he's fonder of her than he is of his - damn it. Look here, Pitt, I wasn't brought up like a younger brother, but was always encouraged to be extravagant and idle. Otherwise I might have been quite a different man. I didn't do my duty with the regiment so bad. You know how I was thrown over about the money, and who got it."
"Your marriage was your own doing, not mine."
"That's over now," said Rawdon, with a groan.
"Good God! is she dead?" Sir Pitt said in genuine alarm.
"I wish I was," Rawdon replied. "If it wasn't for little Rawdon I'd have cut my throat this morning - and that damned villain's too."
Sir Pitt instantly guessed that Lord Steyne was the person whose life Rawdon wished to take. The Colonel told his brother briefly, in broken accents, what had happened.
"It was planned between that scoundrel and her," he said. "I was taken by the bailiffs as I was going out of his house; when I wrote to her for money, she said she was ill in bed and put me off. And when I got home I found her in diamonds and sitting with that villain alone." He described his conflict with Lord Steyne. To an affair of that nature, of course, he said, there was only one result, and he was going away to make arrangements for the duel which must follow.
"And as it may end fatally with me," Rawdon said with a broken voice, "and as the boy has no mother, I must leave him to you and Jane, Pitt - promise to be his friend."
The elder brother, much affected, shook Rawdon's hand.
"I will, upon my honour," he said.
Then Rawdon took out the little pocket-book which he had discovered in Becky's desk, and drew from it a bundle of notes.
"Here's six hundred," he said. "I want you to give the money to Briggs, who lent it to us - and who was kind to the boy. And here's some more - I've only kept back a few pounds - which Becky may as well have, to get on with."
As he spoke his hands shook so much that the pocket-book fell, and out of it came the thousand-pound note which had been the last of Becky's winnings.
Pitt stooped and picked it up, amazed.
"Not that," Rawdon said. "I hope to put a bullet into the man whom that belongs to." He had thought to himself, it would be a fine revenge to wrap a bullet in the note and kill Steyne with it.
The brothers shook hands once more and parted. Lady Jane was waiting in the dining-room. As the men left the study, she held out her hand to Rawdon and said she was glad he was come to breakfast, though she could see by his haggard unshorn face that there was very little question of him staying. Rawdon muttered some excuses about an engagement, squeezing hard her timid little hand. Her imploring eyes read calamity in his face, but he went away without another word.
Nor did Sir Pitt give her any explanation. He kissed his children in his usual frigid manner, and their mother held their hands as they knelt down to prayers.
Rawdon Crawley meanwhile hurried on to Gaunt House, and knocked at the door. The porter who answered was scared by the Colonel's dishevelled appearance, and barred the way; but Rawdon only asked him to take his card to Lord Steyne, and to say that Colonel Crawley would be at the Regent Club after one o'clock - not at home. He strode away and took a cab to Knightsbridge Barracks.
All the bells were tolling as he reached that place. Troops of schools were on their march to church, and the shiny pavements were thronged with people out upon their Sunday pleasure; but the Colonel was much too busy to take any heed. Arriving at Knightsbridge, he speedily went to the room of his old comrade Captain Macmurdo.
Captain Macmurdo, a veteran officer and Waterloo man, greatly liked by his regiment, was enjoying the morning in bed after a supper-party. His room was hung round with boxing, sporting, and dancing pictures, presented to him by comrades as they retired from the regiment. As he was now nearly fifty, he had a singular gallery. He was one of the best shots in England, and one of the best riders; indeed, he and Crawley had been rivals when the latter was in the Army. To look at, he was a venerable bristly warrior, with a little close-shaved head, a red face and nose, and a great dyed moustache.
When Rawdon told the Captain he wanted a friend, the latter knew why. He had arranged scores of duels for his acquaintances with great prudence and skill, and was the common refuge of gentlemen in trouble.
"What's the row about, Crawley, my boy?" said the old warrior. "No more gambling business, hay, like when we shot Captain Marker?"
"It's about my wife," Crawley answered, turning very red.
The other gave a whistle. "I always said she'd throw you over," he began, and indeed they had laid bets upon it in the barracks; but seeing the savage look which Rawdon gave him, Macmurdo did not go on.
"Is there no way out of it, old boy?" he continued gravely. "Is it only suspicion, you know, or letters? Can't you keep it quiet? Best not make any noise about a thing of that sort if you can help it." Think of his only finding out now, the Captain thought; remembering a hundred conversations at the mess-table, in which Mrs. Crawley's reputation had been torn to shreds.
"There's no way but one out of it," Rawdon replied. "I found 'em alone together. I told him he was a liar and a coward, and knocked him down and thrashed him."
"Serve him right," Macmurdo said. "Who is it?"
"Lord Steyne."
"The deuce! a Marquis! they said he - that is-"
"What the devil do you mean?" roared Crawley; "did you hear a fellow doubt my wife and didn't tell me, Mac?"
"What the deuce was the good of my telling you what any tom-fools talked about?"
"It was damned unfriendly, Mac," said Rawdon, quite overcome. He covered his face with his hands, which caused the tough old campaigner opposite to wince with sympathy.
"Hold up, old boy," he said; "great man or not, we'll put a bullet in him, damn him. As for women, they're all so."
"You don't know how fond I was of that one," Rawdon said. "Damme, I gave up everything I had to her. I'm a beggar because I would marry her. I've pawned my own watch to get her anything she fancied; and she's been making a purse for herself the whole time." He told Macmurdo the story.
"She may be innocent, after all, as she says," his advisor said. "Steyne has been a hundred times alone with her in the house before."
"Maybe so," Rawdon answered sadly, "but this don't look very innocent." He showed the Captain the thousand-pound note. "This is what he gave her, Mac, and she kept it unknown to me; and with this money in the house, she refused to stand by me when I was locked up."
Macmurdo admitted that it looked ugly. Rawdon sent his servant to Curzon Street to fetch a bag of clothes. While he was gone, Rawdon and his companion composed a letter to send to Lord Steyne: it said that Captain Macmurdo had the honour of waiting upon the Marquis of Steyne, on behalf of Colonel Rawdon Crawley, to make arrangements for the meeting which, he had no doubt, his Lordship would demand, and which the circumstances of the morning had made inevitable. Captain Macmurdo asked Lord Steyne to appoint a friend as second, and desired that the meeting might take place with as little delay as possible.
In a postscript the Captain stated that he had in his possession a bank-note for a large amount, which the Colonel believed was the property of the Marquis of Steyne, and was anxious to return to its owner.
By the time this note was composed, the Captain's servant had returned from Curzon Street, but without the bag of clothes he had been sent for, and with a very puzzled face.
"They won't give 'em up," he said; "there's a regular shinty in the house, and everything at sixes and sevens. The landlord's took possession. The servants was a drinkin' up in the drawing-room. They said - they said you had gone off with the silver plate, Colonel. One of the servants is off already. And Simpson who is drunk says nothing shall go out of the house until his wages is paid."
This account gave a little gaiety to a sober conversation. Macmurdo laughed at Rawdon's discomfiture.
"I'm glad the little 'un isn't at home," Rawdon said, biting his nails.
Little Rawdon was just then sitting, one of fifty boys, in the Chapel of Whitefriars School, thinking about going home next Saturday, when his father might take him to the play.
"He's a regular trump, that boy," the father went on. "I say, Mac, if anything goes wrong - you tell him, you know, that I was very fond of him, and that. And old chap, give him these gold sleeve-buttons: it's all I've got." He covered his face with his dirty hands.
"Go down and order some breakfast," Macmurdo said to his man in a loud cheerful voice. "What'll you have, Crawley? Some devilled kidneys and a herring. And, Clay, lay out some of my clothes for the Colonel: we were always pretty much of a size, Rawdon, my boy." Leaving the Colonel to dress himself, Macmurdo finished his own toilette.
This, as he was about to meet a lord, Captain Macmurdo performed with particular care. He waxed his mustachios into a state of brilliant polish and put on a tight cravat and a trim buff waistcoat; so that all the young officers in the mess-room at breakfast asked if he was going to be married that Sunday.


On quitting Brighton, our friend George, as became a person of rank and fashion travelling in a barouche with four horses, drove in state to a fine hotel in Cavendish Square, where a suite of splendid rooms, and a table magnificently furnished with plate and surrounded by a half-dozen of black and silent waiters, was ready to receive the young gentleman and his bride. George did the honours of the place with a princely air to Jos and Dobbin; and Amelia, for the first time, and with exceeding shyness and timidity, presided at what George called her own table.
George pooh-poohed the wine and bullied the waiters royally, and Jos gobbled the turtle with immense satisfaction. Dobbin helped him to it; for the lady of the house, before whom the tureen was placed, was so ignorant of the contents, that she was going to help Mr. Sedley without bestowing upon him either calipash or calipee.
The splendour of the entertainment, and the apartments in which it was given, alarmed Mr. Dobbin, who remonstrated after dinner, when Jos was asleep in the great chair. But in vain he cried out against the enormity of turtle and champagne that was fit for an archbishop. "I've always been accustomed to travel like a gentleman," George said, "and, damme, my wife shall travel like a lady. As long as there's a shot in the locker, she shall want for nothing," said the generous fellow, quite pleased with himself for his magnificence of spirit. Nor did Dobbin try and convince him that Amelia's happiness was not centred in turtle-soup.
A while after dinner, Amelia timidly expressed a wish to go and see her mamma, at Fulham: which permission George granted her with some grumbling. And she tripped away to her enormous bedroom, in the centre of which stood the enormous funereal bed, "that the Emperor Halixander's sister slep in when the allied sufferings was here," and put on her little bonnet and shawl with the utmost eagerness and pleasure. George was still drinking claret when she returned to the dining-room, and made no signs of moving. "Ar'n't you coming with me, dearest?" she asked him. No; the "dearest" had "business" that night. His man should get her a coach and go with her. And the coach being at the door of the hotel, Amelia made George a little disappointed curtsey after looking vainly into his face once or twice, and went sadly down the great staircase, Captain Dobbin after, who handed her into the vehicle, and saw it drive away to its destination. The very valet was ashamed of mentioning the address to the hackney-coachman before the hotel waiters, and promised to instruct him when they got further on.
Dobbin walked home to his old quarters and the Slaughters', thinking very likely that it would be delightful to be in that hackney-coach, along with Mrs. Osborne. George was evidently of quite a different taste; for when he had taken wine enough, he went off to half-price at the play, to see Mr. Kean perform in Shylock. Captain Osborne was a great lover of the drama, and had himself performed high-comedy characters with great distinction in several garrison theatrical entertainments. Jos slept on until long after dark, when he woke up with a start at the motions of his servant, who was removing and emptying the decanters on the table; and the hackney-coach stand was again put into requisition for a carriage to convey this stout hero to his lodgings and bed.
Mrs. Sedley, you may be sure, clasped her daughter to her heart with all maternal eagerness and affection, running out of the door as the carriage drew up before the little garden-gate, to welcome the weeping, trembling, young bride. Old Mr. Clapp, who was in his shirt-sleeves, trimming the garden-plot, shrank back alarmed. The Irish servant-lass rushed up from the kitchen and smiled a "God bless you." Amelia could hardly walk along the flags and up the steps into the parlour.
How the floodgates were opened, and mother and daughter wept, when they were together embracing each other in this sanctuary, may readily be imagined by every reader who possesses the least sentimental turn. When don't ladies weep? At what occasion of joy, sorrow, or other business of life, and, after such an event as a marriage, mother and daughter were surely at liberty to give way to a sensibility which is as tender as it is refreshing. About a question of marriage I have seen women who hate each other kiss and cry together quite fondly. How much more do they feel when they love! Good mothers are married over again at their daughters' weddings: and as for subsequent events, who does not know how ultra-maternal grandmothers are?--in fact a woman, until she is a grandmother, does not often really know what to be a mother is. Let us respect Amelia and her mamma whispering and whimpering and laughing and crying in the parlour and the twilight. Old Mr. Sedley did. HE had not divined who was in the carriage when it drove up. He had not flown out to meet his daughter, though he kissed her very warmly when she entered the room (where he was occupied, as usual, with his papers and tapes and statements of accounts), and after sitting with the mother and daughter for a short time, he very wisely left the little apartment in their possession.
George's valet was looking on in a very supercilious manner at Mr. Clapp in his shirt-sleeves, watering his rose-bushes. He took off his hat, however, with much condescension to Mr. Sedley, who asked news about his son-in-law, and about Jos's carriage, and whether his horses had been down to Brighton, and about that infernal traitor Bonaparty, and the war; until the Irish maid-servant came with a plate and a bottle of wine, from which the old gentleman insisted upon helping the valet. He gave him a half-guinea too, which the servant pocketed with a mixture of wonder and contempt. "To the health of your master and mistress, Trotter," Mr. Sedley said, "and here's something to drink your health when you get home, Trotter."
There were but nine days past since Amelia had left that little cottage and home--and yet how far off the time seemed since she had bidden it farewell. What a gulf lay between her and that past life. She could look back to it from her present standing-place, and contemplate, almost as another being, the young unmarried girl absorbed in her love, having no eyes but for one special object, receiving parental affection if not ungratefully, at least indifferently, and as if it were her due--her whole heart and thoughts bent on the accomplishment of one desire. The review of those days, so lately gone yet so far away, touched her with shame; and the aspect of the kind parents filled her with tender remorse. Was the prize gained--the heaven of life--and the winner still doubtful and unsatisfied? As his hero and heroine pass the matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally drops the curtain, as if the drama were over then: the doubts and struggles of life ended: as if, once landed in the marriage country, all were green and pleasant there: and wife and husband had nothing to do but to link each other's arms together, and wander gently downwards towards old age in happy and perfect fruition. But our little Amelia was just on the bank of her new country, and was already looking anxiously back towards the sad friendly figures waving farewell to her across the stream, from the other distant shore.
In honour of the young bride's arrival, her mother thought it necessary to prepare I don't know what festive entertainment, and after the first ebullition of talk, took leave of Mrs. George Osborne for a while, and dived down to the lower regions of the house to a sort of kitchen-parlour (occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Clapp, and in the evening, when her dishes were washed and her curl-papers removed, by Miss Flannigan, the Irish servant), there to take measures for the preparing of a magnificent ornamented tea. All people have their ways of expressing kindness, and it seemed to Mrs. Sedley that a muffin and a quantity of orange marmalade spread out in a little cut-glass saucer would be peculiarly agreeable refreshments to Amelia in her most interesting situation.
While these delicacies were being transacted below, Amelia, leaving the drawing-room, walked upstairs and found herself, she scarce knew how, in the little room which she had occupied before her marriage, and in that very chair in which she had passed so many bitter hours. She sank back in its arms as if it were an old friend; and fell to thinking over the past week, and the life beyond it. Already to be looking sadly and vaguely back: always to be pining for something which, when obtained, brought doubt and sadness rather than pleasure; here was the lot of our poor little creature and harmless lost wanderer in the great struggling crowds of Vanity Fair.
Here she sate, and recalled to herself fondly that image of George to which she had knelt before marriage. Did she own to herself how different the real man was from that superb young hero whom she had worshipped? It requires many, many years--and a man must be very bad indeed--before a woman's pride and vanity will let her own to such a confession. Then Rebecca's twinkling green eyes and baleful smile lighted upon her, and filled her with dismay. And so she sate for awhile indulging in her usual mood of selfish brooding, in that very listless melancholy attitude in which the honest maid-servant had found her, on the day when she brought up the letter in which George renewed his offer of marriage.
She looked at the little white bed, which had been hers a few days before, and thought she would like to sleep in it that night, and wake, as formerly, with her mother smiling over her in the morning: Then she thought with terror of the great funereal damask pavilion in the vast and dingy state bedroom, which was awaiting her at the grand hotel in Cavendish Square. Dear little white bed! how many a long night had she wept on its pillow! How she had despaired and hoped to die there; and now were not all her wishes accomplished, and the lover of whom she had despaired her own for ever? Kind mother! how patiently and tenderly she had watched round that bed! She went and knelt down by the bedside; and there this wounded and timorous, but gentle and loving soul, sought for consolation, where as yet, it must be owned, our little girl had but seldom looked for it. Love had been her faith hitherto; and the sad, bleeding disappointed heart began to feel the want of another consoler.
Have we a right to repeat or to overhear her prayers? These, brother, are secrets, and out of the domain of Vanity Fair, in which our story lies.
But this may be said, that when the tea was finally announced, our young lady came downstairs a great deal more cheerful; that she did not despond, or deplore her fate, or think about George's coldness, or Rebecca's eyes, as she had been wont to do of late. She went downstairs, and kissed her father and mother, and talked to the old gentleman, and made him more merry than he had been for many a day. She sate down at the piano which Dobbin had bought for her, and sang over all her father's favourite old songs. She pronounced the tea to be excellent, and praised the exquisite taste in which the marmalade was arranged in the saucers. And in determining to make everybody else happy, she found herself so; and was sound asleep in the great funereal pavilion, and only woke up with a smile when George arrived from the theatre.
For the next day, George had more important "business" to transact than that which took him to see Mr. Kean in Shylock. Immediately on his arrival in London he had written off to his father's solicitors, signifying his royal pleasure that an interview should take place between them on the morrow. His hotel bill, losses at billiards and cards to Captain Crawley had almost drained the young man's purse, which wanted replenishing before he set out on his travels, and he had no resource but to infringe upon the two thousand pounds which the attorneys were commissioned to pay over to him. He had a perfect belief in his own mind that his father would relent before very long. How could any parent be obdurate for a length of time against such a paragon as he was? If his mere past and personal merits did not succeed in mollifying his father, George determined that he would distinguish himself so prodigiously in the ensuing campaign that the old gentleman must give in to him. And if not? Bah! the world was before him. His luck might change at cards, and there was a deal of spending in two thousand pounds.
So he sent off Amelia once more in a carriage to her mamma, with strict orders and carte blanche to the two ladies to purchase everything requisite for a lady of Mrs. George Osborne's fashion, who was going on a foreign tour. They had but one day to complete the outfit, and it may be imagined that their business therefore occupied them pretty fully. In a carriage once more, bustling about from milliner to linen-draper, escorted back to the carriage by obsequious shopmen or polite owners, Mrs. Sedley was herself again almost, and sincerely happy for the first time since their misfortunes. Nor was Mrs. Amelia at all above the pleasure of shopping, and bargaining, and seeing and buying pretty things. (Would any man, the most philosophic, give twopence for a woman who was?) She gave herself a little treat, obedient to her husband's orders, and purchased a quantity of lady's gear, showing a great deal of taste and elegant discernment, as all the shopfolks said.
And about the war that was ensuing, Mrs. Osborne was not much alarmed; Bonaparty was to be crushed almost without a struggle. Margate packets were sailing every day, filled with men of fashion and ladies of note, on their way to Brussels and Ghent. People were going not so much to a war as to a fashionable tour. The newspapers laughed the wretched upstart and swindler to scorn. Such a Corsican wretch as that withstand the armies of Europe and the genius of the immortal Wellington! Amelia held him in utter contempt; for it needs not to be said that this soft and gentle creature took her opinions from those people who surrounded her, such fidelity being much too humble-minded to think for itself. Well, in a word, she and her mother performed a great day's shopping, and she acquitted herself with considerable liveliness and credit on this her first appearance in the genteel world of London.
George meanwhile, with his hat on one side, his elbows squared, and his swaggering martial air, made for Bedford Row, and stalked into the attorney's offices as if he was lord of every pale-faced clerk who was scribbling there. He ordered somebody to inform Mr. Higgs that Captain Osborne was waiting, in a fierce and patronizing way, as if the pekin of an attorney, who had thrice his brains, fifty times his money, and a thousand times his experience, was a wretched underling who should instantly leave all his business in life to attend on the Captain's pleasure. He did not see the sneer of contempt which passed all round the room, from the first clerk to the articled gents, from the articled gents to the ragged writers and white-faced runners, in clothes too tight for them, as he sate there tapping his boot with his cane, and thinking what a parcel of miserable poor devils these were. The miserable poor devils knew all about his affairs. They talked about them over their pints of beer at their public-house clubs to other clerks of a night. Ye gods, what do not attorneys and attorneys' clerks know in London! Nothing is hidden from their inquisition, and their families mutely rule our city.
Perhaps George expected, when he entered Mr. Higgs's apartment, to find that gentleman commissioned to give him some message of compromise or conciliation from his father; perhaps his haughty and cold demeanour was adopted as a sign of his spirit and resolution: but if so, his fierceness was met by a chilling coolness and indifference on the attorney's part, that rendered swaggering absurd. He pretended to be writing at a paper, when the Captain entered. "Pray, sit down, sir," said he, "and I will attend to your little affair in a moment. Mr. Poe, get the release papers, if you please"; and then he fell to writing again.
Poe having produced those papers, his chief calculated the amount of two thousand pounds stock at the rate of the day; and asked Captain Osborne whether he would take the sum in a cheque upon the bankers, or whether he should direct the latter to purchase stock to that amount. "One of the late Mrs. Osborne's trustees is out of town," he said indifferently, "but my client wishes to meet your wishes, and have done with the business as quick as possible."
"Give me a cheque, sir," said the Captain very surlily. "Damn the shillings and halfpence, sir," he added, as the lawyer was making out the amount of the draft; and, flattering himself that by this stroke of magnanimity he had put the old quiz to the blush, he stalked out of the office with the paper in his pocket.
"That chap will be in gaol in two years," Mr. Higgs said to Mr. Poe.
"Won't O. come round, sir, don't you think?"
"Won't the monument come round," Mr. Higgs replied.
"He's going it pretty fast," said the clerk. "He's only married a week, and I saw him and some other military chaps handing Mrs. Highflyer to her carriage after the play." And then another case was called, and Mr. George Osborne thenceforth dismissed from these worthy gentlemen's memory.
The draft was upon our friends Hulker and Bullock of Lombard Street, to whose house, still thinking he was doing business, George bent his way, and from whom he received his money. Frederick Bullock, Esq., whose yellow face was over a ledger, at which sate a demure clerk, happened to be in the banking-room when George entered. His yellow face turned to a more deadly colour when he saw the Captain, and he slunk back guiltily into the inmost parlour. George was too busy gloating over the money (for he had never had such a sum before), to mark the countenance or flight of the cadaverous suitor of his sister.
Fred Bullock told old Osborne of his son's appearance and conduct. "He came in as bold as brass," said Frederick. "He has drawn out every shilling. How long will a few hundred pounds last such a chap as that?" Osborne swore with a great oath that he little cared when or how soon he spent it. Fred dined every day in Russell Square now. But altogether, George was highly pleased with his day's business. All his own baggage and outfit was put into a state of speedy preparation, and he paid Amelia's purchases with cheques on his agents, and with the splendour of a lord.

On arriving in London, George drove to a fine hotel in Cavendish Square, where a suite of splendid rooms, and a magnificently furnished table surrounded by half-a-dozen silent waiters, were ready to receive them. He welcomed Jos and Dobbin in; and Amelia, for the first time, exceedingly shyly, presided at what George called her own table.
George pooh-poohed the wine and bullied the waiters royally, and Jos gobbled the turtle with satisfaction. The splendour and expense of the rooms alarmed Mr. Dobbin, who remonstrated after dinner; but in vain.
"I've been accustomed to travel like a gentleman," George said, "and, damme, my wife shall travel like a lady. She shall want for nothing." Dobbin did not try and convince him that Amelia's happiness was not centred in turtle-soup.
After dinner, Amelia timidly expressed a wish to go and see her mamma at Fulham: which permission George granted with some grumbling. And she tripped away to her enormous bedroom, with its funereal bed, and put on her bonnet and shawl, while George stayed drinking claret in the dining-room.
"Aren't you coming with me, dearest?" she asked him. No; the "dearest" had "business" that night. So Amelia made George a little disappointed curtsey, and went sadly down the great staircase. Captain Dobbin went after her, handed her into the coach, and saw it drive away.
Then Dobbin walked home, thinking that it would be delightful to be in that hackney-coach with Mrs. Osborne. But George went off to the play, to see Mr. Kean perform in Shylock.
Mrs. Sedley, you may be sure, clasped her daughter with eager affection, running out of the door to welcome the weeping young bride. The Irish servant-lass rushed up from the kitchen and smiled a "God bless you." Amelia could hardly walk up the steps into the parlour.
How the floodgates were opened, and mother and daughter wept, embracing each other, may readily be imagined. When don't ladies weep? Let us leave Amelia and her mamma whispering and laughing and crying in the parlour. Old Mr. Sedley did. He had not flown out to meet his daughter, though he kissed her very warmly when she entered; and after sitting with the mother and daughter for a short time, he wisely left them alone.
Only nine days had passed since Amelia had left that little cottage - yet how far off that time seemed. She could look back to that past life, and contemplate the unmarried girl absorbed in love, receiving parental affection indifferently, as if it were her due.
The thought touched her with shame. Was her prize gained - and the winner still doubtful and unsatisfied? When his hero and heroine marry, the novelist generally drops the curtain, as if the doubts and struggles of life ended: as if wife and husband had nothing to do but to link each other's arms and wander happily down towards old age. But our little Amelia was just on the bank of her new country, and was already looking anxiously back towards the sad friendly figures waving farewell from the other distant shore.
In honour of her arrival, her mother had planned all sorts of festive entertainment, and after the first joyful talk, left her daughter for a while, and dived down to the kitchen-parlour (occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Clapp, and in the evening, by the Irish servant), to prepare a magnificent tea. All people have their ways of expressing kindness, and Mrs. Sedley thought that a muffin and orange marmalade in a little cut-glass saucer would be peculiarly agreeable to Amelia.
Meanwhile Amelia walked upstairs and found herself in her bedroom, and in that very chair in which she had passed so many bitter hours. She sank back in its arms as if it were an old friend; and fell to thinking over the past. Already to be looking sadly back: always to be pining and in doubt; this was the lot of our poor little creature wandering in the great struggling crowds of Vanity Fair.
She recalled her image of George before marriage. Did she admit to herself how different the real man was from that superb young hero whom she had worshipped? It requires many, many years - and a man must be very bad indeed - before a woman's vanity will allow such a confession. Then Rebecca's twinkling green eyes and baleful smile lighted upon her, and filled her with dismay. So she sat indulging in her usual selfish, listless brooding, just as she had before George renewed his offer of marriage.
She looked at the little white bed, thinking she would like to sleep in it that night, and wake with her mother smiling over her; then she thought with terror of the great funereal pavilion in the vast and dingy bedroom at Cavendish Square. Dear little white bed! how many a night had she wept on its pillow! Were not all her wishes now fulfilled? Kind mother! how patiently she had watched round that bed!
Amelia knelt down by the bedside; and this timorous but loving soul sought for consolation, where as yet, it must be owned, she had seldom looked for it. Love had been her faith until now.
Have we a right to overhear her prayers? These are secrets, and out of the domain of Vanity Fair.
But this may be said, that when tea was announced, Amelia came downstairs a great deal more cheerful; she did not think about George's coldness, or Rebecca's eyes. She kissed her father and mother, and talked to the old gentleman, and made him more merry than he had been for many a day. She sat down at the piano which Dobbin had bought, and sang her father's favourite songs. She pronounced the tea to be excellent, and praised the exquisite taste in which the marmalade was arranged. And in determining to make everybody else happy, she found herself so; and was sound asleep in the great funereal pavilion, and woke up with a smile when George arrived from the theatre.
George had written to his father's lawyers, signifying his royal pleasure that he should visit them the next day. His hotel bill and losses at billiards and cards to Captain Crawley had almost drained his purse, and he needed to infringe upon the two thousand pounds which the attorneys held for him.
He had a perfect belief that his father would soon relent. How could any parent hold out long against such a paragon as he was? If his personal merits did not succeed in mollifying his father, George determined that he would distinguish himself so prodigiously in the coming campaign that the old gentleman must give in. And if not? Bah! the world was before him. His luck might change at cards, and there was a deal of spending in two thousand pounds.
So he sent off Amelia once more in a carriage to her mamma, with orders to the two ladies to purchase everything needful for a lady of fashion who was going on a foreign tour. Bustling about from milliner to linen-draper, Mrs. Sedley was happy for the first time since their misfortunes. Nor was Amelia above the pleasure of shopping for pretty things; and obedient to her husband's orders, she purchased a quantity of lady's gear with taste and discernment.
She was not much alarmed about the coming war; Bonaparte was to be crushed almost without a struggle. Boats sailed every day to Brussels and Ghent, filled with men and ladies of fashion, as if they were going on a tour. The newspapers laughed at the Corsican upstart. Such a wretch withstand the armies of Europe and the genius of Wellington! Amelia held him in utter contempt; for she took her opinions from the people who surrounded her, being too humble-minded to think for herself.
George meanwhile, with his swaggering martial air, made for Bedford Row, and stalked into the attorney's offices like a lord. He ordered a clerk to inform Mr. Higgs that Captain Osborne was waiting, in a fierce and patronizing way, as if the attorney, who had thrice his brains, fifty times his money, and a thousand times his experience, was a wretched underling who should instantly leave his business to attend on the Captain's pleasure.
He did not see the sneer of contempt which passed around the room as he sat there tapping his boot with his cane, and thinking what miserable poor devils these were. The miserable poor devils knew all about his affairs. They talked about them over their pints of beer at night. What do attorneys' clerks not know in London! Nothing is hidden from them.
Perhaps George expected, when he entered Mr. Higgs's office, to find that gentleman bore some message of conciliation from his father; but he was met by a chilling coolness and indifference on the attorney's part.
"Pray, sit down, sir," said Mr. Higgs, "and I will attend to your little affair in a moment. Mr. Poe, get the release papers, if you please"; and he kept writing.
Poe having produced the papers, his chief calculated the amount of two thousand pounds stock at the rate of the day; and asked Captain Osborne whether he would take the sum in a cheque.
"Give me a cheque, sir," said the Captain surlily. "Damn the shillings and halfpence, sir," he added, as the lawyer was making it out; and, flattering himself that by this magnanimous stroke he had put the old man to the blush, he stalked out of the office with the paper in his pocket.
"That chap will be in gaol in two years," Mr. Higgs said to Mr. Poe.
"He's going it pretty fast," said the clerk. "He's only married a week, and I saw him and some other military chaps handing Mrs. Highflyer to her carriage after the play." And then another case was called, and Mr. George Osborne was dismissed from their memory.
George went next to the bank, Hulker and Bullock, to draw out the two thousand pounds. Frederick Bullock happened to be in the banking-room when George entered. He went pale when he saw the Captain, and slunk back guiltily into the inmost parlour. George was too busy gloating over the money (for he had never had such a sum before) to mark the flight of his sister's suitor.
Fred Bullock later told old Osborne of his son's appearance. "He came in as bold as brass. He has drawn out every shilling. How long will it last such a chap as that?" Old Osborne swore with a great oath that he did not care how soon he spent it. Fred dined every day in Russell Square now.
But George was highly pleased with his day's business. He paid for Amelia's purchases with the splendour of a lord.