Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 2. Lever Charles James

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      After a long pause he sighed heavily, and said: “I suppose every one, if truth were told, would have rather a sad tale to tell of the world when he comes to my age. It don’t improve upon acquaintance, I promise you. Not that I want to discourage you about it, my girl. You ‘ll come to my way of thinking one of these days, and it will be quite soon enough.”

      “And have you really found men so false and worthless as you say?”

      “I’ll tell you in one word the whole story, Lizzy. The fellows that are born to a good station and good property are all fair and honest, if they like it; the rest of the world must be rogues, whether they like it or not.”

      “This is a very disenchanting picture you put before me.” “Here ‘s how it is, girl,” said he, warming with his subject. “Every man in the world is a gambler; let him rail against dice, racing, cards, or billiards, he has a game of his own in his heart, and he’s playing for a seat in the Cabinet, a place in the colonies, a bishopric, or the command of a regiment. The difference is, merely, that your regular play-man admits chance into his calculations, the other fellows don’t; they pit pure skill against the table, and trust to their knowledge of the game.”

      She sighed deeply, but did not speak.

      “And the women are the same,” resumed he: “some scheming to get their husbands high office, some intriguing for honors or Court favor; all of them ready to do a sharp thing, – to make a hit on the Stock Exchange.”

      “And are there none above these mean and petty subterfuges?” cried she, indignantly.

      “Yes; the few I have told you, – they who come into the world to claim the stakes. They can afford to be high-minded, and generous, and noble-hearted, as much as they please. They are booked ‘all right,’ and need never trouble their heads about the race; and that is the real reason, girl, why these men have an ascendancy over all others. They are not driven to scramble for a place; they have no struggles to encounter; the crowd makes way for them as they want to pass; and if they have anything good, ay, or even good-looking, about them, what credit don’t they get for it!”

      “But surely there must be many a lowly walk where a man with contentment can maintain himself honorably and even proudly?”

      “I don’t know of them, if there be,” said Davis, sulkily. “Lawyers, parsons, merchants, are all, I fancy, pretty much alike, – all on ‘the dodge.’”

      “And Beecher, – poor Beecher?” broke in Lizzy. And there was a blended pity and tenderness in the tone that made it very difficult to say what her question really implied.

      “Why do you call him poor Beecher?” asked he, quickly. “He ain’t so poor in one sense of the word.”

      “It was in no allusion to his fortune I spoke. I was thinking of him solely with reference to his character.”

      “And he is poor Beecher, is he, then?” asked Davis, half sternly.

      If she did not reply, it was rather in the fear of offending her father, whose manner, so suddenly changing, apprised her of an interest in the subject she had never suspected.

      “Look here, Lizzy,” said he, drawing her arm more closely to his side, while he bespoke her attention; “men born in Beecher’s class don’t need to be clever; they have no necessity for the wiles and schemes and subtleties that – that fellows like myself, in short, must practise. What they want is good address, pleasing manners, – all the better if they be good-looking. It don’t require genius to write a check on one’s banker; there is no great talent needed to say ‘Yes,’ or ‘No,’ in the House of Lords. The world – I mean their own world – likes them all the more if they have n’t got great abilities. Now Beecher is just the fellow to suit them.”

      “He is not a peer, surely?” asked she, hastily.

      “No, he ain’t yet, but he may be one any day. He is as sure of the peerage as – I am not! and then, poor Beecher – as you called him awhile ago – becomes the Lord Viscount Lackington, with twelve or fourteen thousand a year! I tell you, girl, that of all the trades men follow, the very best, to enjoy life, is to be an English lord with a good fortune.”

      “And is it true, as I have read,” asked Lizzy, “that this high station, so fenced around by privileges, is a prize open to all who have talent or ability to deserve it, – that men of humble origin, if they be gifted with high qualities, and devote them ardently to their country’s service, are adopted, from time to time, into that noble brotherhood?”

      “All rubbish; don’t believe a word of it. It’s a flam and a humbug, – a fiction like the old story about an Englishman’s house being his castle, or that balderdash, ‘No man need criminate himself.’ They ‘re always inventing ‘wise saws’ like these in England, and they get abroad, and are believed, at last, just by dint of repeating. Here ‘s the true state of the case,” said he, coming suddenly to a halt, and speaking with greater emphasis. “Here I stand, Christopher Davis, with as much wit under the crown of my hat as any noble lord on the woolsack, and I might just as well try to turn myself into a horse and be first favorite for the Oaks, as attempt to become a peer of Great Britain. It ain’t to be done, girl, – it ain’t to be done!”

      “But, surely, I have heard of men suddenly raised to rank and title for the services – ”

      “So you do. They want a clever lawyer, now and then, to help them on with a peerage case; or, if the country grows forgetful of them, they attract some notice by asking a lucky general to join them; and even then they do it the way a set of old ladies would offer a seat in the coach to a stout-looking fellow on a road beset with robbers, – they hope he ‘ll fight for ‘em; but, after all, it takes about three generations before one of these new hands gets regularly recognized by the rest.”

      “What haughty pride!” exclaimed she; but nothing in her tone implied reprobation.

      “Ain’t it haughty pride?” cried he; “but if you only knew how it is nurtured in them, how they are worshipped! They walk down St. James’s Street, and the policeman elbows me out of the way to make room for them; they stroll into Tattersall’s, and the very horses cock their tails and step higher as they trot past; they go into church, and the parson clears his throat and speaks up in a fine round voice for them. It’s only because the blessed sun is not an English institution, or he ‘d keep all his warmth and light for the peerage!”

      “And have they, who render all this homage, no shame for their self-abasement?”

      “Shame! why, the very approach to them is an honor. When a lord in the ring at Newmarket nods his head to me and says, ‘How d’ ye do, Davis?’ my pals – my acquaintances, I mean – are twice as respectful to me for the rest of the day. Not that I care for that,” added he, sternly; “I know them a deuced sight better than they fancy! – far better than they know me!”

      Lizzy fell into a revery; her thoughts went back to a conversation she had once held with Beecher about the habits of the great world, and all the difficulties to its approach.

      “I wish I could dare to put a question to you, papa,” said she, at last.

      “Do so, girl. I ‘ll do my best to answer it”

      “And not be angry at my presumption, – not be offended with me?”

      “Not a bit. Be frank with me, and you ‘ll find me just as candid.”

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