A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ upon any pretext, would I hold intercourse with him, but maintain a perfect silence and reserve so long as our journey lasted.

      There was an insufferable jauntiness and self-satisfaction in every movement of the new arrival, even to the reckless way he pitched into the carriage three small white canvas bags, carefully sealed and docketed; the address – which! read – being, “To H.M.‘s Minister and Envoy at – , by the Hon. Grey Buller, Attaché, &c” So, then, this was one of the Young Guard of Diplomacy, one of those sucking Talleyrands, which form the hope of the Foreign Office and the terror of middle-class English abroad.

      “Do you mind smoking?” asked he, abruptly, as he scraped his lucifer match against the roof of the carriage, showing, by the promptitude of his action, how little he cared for my reply.

      “I never smoke, sir, except in the carriages reserved for smokers,” was my rebukeful answer.

      “And I always do,” said he, in a very easy tone.

      Not condescending to notice this rude rejoinder, I drew forth my newspaper, and tried to occupy myself with its contents.

      “Anything new?” asked he, abruptly.

      “Not that I am aware, sir. I was about to consult the paper.”

      “What paper is it?”

      “It is the ‘Banner,’ sir, – at your service,” said I, with a sort of sarcasm.

      “Rascally print; a vile, low, radical, mill-owning organ. Pitch it away!”

      “Certainly not, sir. Being for me and my edification, I will beg to exercise my own judgment as to how I deal with it.”

      “It’s deuced low, that’s what it is, and that’s exactly the fault of all our daily papers. Their tone is vulgar; they reflect nothing of the opinions one hears in society. Don’t you agree with me?”

      I gave a sort of muttering dissent, and he broke in quickly, – “Perhaps not; it’s just as likely you would not think them low, but take my word for it, I’m right.”

      I shook my head negatively, without speaking.

      “Well, now,” cried he, “let us put the thing to the test Read out one of those leaders. I don’t care which, or on what subject Read it out, and I pledge myself to show you at least one vulgarism, one flagrant outrage on good breeding, in every third sentence.”

      “I protest, sir,” said I, haughtily, “I shall do no such thing. I have come here neither to read aloud nor take up the defence of the public press.”

      “I say, look out!” cried he; “you ‘ll smash something in that bag you ‘re kicking there. If I don’t mistake, it’s Bohemian glass. No, no; all right,” said he, examining the number, “it’s only Yarmouth bloaters.”

      “I imagined these contained despatches, sir,” said I, with a look of what he ought to have understood as withering scorn.

      “You did, did you?” cried he, with a quick laugh. “Well, I ‘ll bet you a sovereign I make a better guess about your pack than you ‘ve done about mine.”

      “Done, sir; I take you,” said I, quickly.

      “Well; you ‘re in cutlery, or hardware, or lace goods, or ribbons, or alpaca cloth, or drugs, ain’t you?”

      “I am not, sir,” was my stern reply.

      “Not a bagman?”

      “Not a bagman, sir.”

      “Well, you ‘re an usher in a commercial academy, or ‘our own correspondent,’ or a telegraph clerk?”

      “I ‘m none of these, sir. And I now beg to remind you, that instead of one guess, you have made about a dozen.”

      “Well, you ‘ve won, there’s no denying it,” said he, taking a sovereign from his waistcoat-pocket and handing it to me. “It’s deuced odd how I should be mistaken. I ‘d have sworn you were a bagman!” But for the impertinence of these last words I should have declined to accept his lost bet, but I took it now as a sort of vindication of my wounded feelings. “Now it’s all over and ended,” said he, calmly, “what are you? I don’t ask out of any impertinent curiosity, but that I hate being foiled in a thing of this kind. What are you?”

      “I ‘ll tell you what I am, sir,” said I, indignantly, for now I was outraged beyond endurance, – “I ‘ll tell you, sir, what I am, and what I feel myself, – one singularly unlucky in a travelling-companion.”

      “Bet you a five-pound note you’re not,” broke he in. “Give you six to five on it, in anything you like.”

      “It would be a wager almost impossible to decide, sir.”

      “Nothing of the kind. Let us leave it to the first pretty woman we see at the station, the guard of the train, the fellow in the pay-office, the stoker if you like.”

      “I must own, sir, that you express a very confident opinion of your case.”

      “Will you bet?”

      “No, sir, certainly not”

      “Well, then, shut up, and say no more about it. If a man won’t back his opinion, the less he says the better.”

      I lay back in my place at this, determined that no provocation should induce me to exchange another word with him. Apparently, he had not made a like resolve, for he went on: “It’s all bosh about appearances being deceptive, and so forth. They say ‘not all gold that glitters;’ my notion is that with a fellow who really knows life, no disguise that was ever invented will be successful: the way a man wears his hair,” – here he looked at mine, – “the sort of gloves he has, if there be anything peculiar in his waistcoat, and, above all, his boots. I don’t believe the devil was ever more revealed in his hoof than a snob by his shoes.” A most condemnatory glance at my extremities accompanied this speech.

      “Must I endure this sort of persecution all the way to Dover?” was the question I asked of my misery.

      “Look out, you’re on fire!” said he, with a dry laugh. And sure enough, a spark from his cigarette had fallen on my trousers, and burned a round hole in them.

      “Really, sir,” cried I, in passionate warmth, “your conduct becomes intolerable.”

      “Well, if I knew you preferred being singed, I’d have said-nothing about it. What’s this station here? Where’s your ‘Bradshaw’?”

      “I have got no ‘Bradshaw,’ sir,” said I, with dignity.

      “No ‘Bradshaw ‘! A bagman without ‘Bradshaw’! Oh, I forgot, you ain’t a bagman. Why are we stopping here? Something smashed, I suspect. Eh! what! isn’t that she? Yes, it is! Open the door! – let me out, I say! Confound the lock! – let me out!” While he uttered these words, in an accent of the wildest impatience, I had but time to see a lady, in deep mourning, pass on to a carriage in front, just as, with a preliminary snort, the train shook, then backed, and at last set out on its thundering course again. “Such a stunning fine girl!” said he, as he lighted a fresh cigar; “saw her just as we started, and thought I ‘d run her to earth in this carriage. Precious mistake I made, eh, was n’t СКАЧАТЬ