Tony Butler. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ fellow, who had a hundred and eighty per annum at the Board of Trade. “If you are economical, you may get two years out of it.”

      “If I thought,” growled out Tony into Skeff’s ear, “that he meant it for insolence, I’d punch his head, curls and all.”

      “Will you just be quiet?” said Skeff, again.

      “I ‘d have married Kitty myself,” said pink cheeks, “if I thought she had ten thousand.”

      “And I ‘d have gone on a visit to you,” said Mayfair, “and we ‘d have played billiards, the French game, every evening.”

      “I never thought Harris was so weak as to go and marry,” said the youngest of the party, not fully one-and-twenty.

      “Every one hasn’t your experience, Upton,” said May-fair.

      “Why do the fellows bear all this?” whispered Tony, again.

      “I say, be quiet, – do be quiet,” mumbled Skeff.

      “Who was it used to call Kitty Beaumont the Lass of Richmond Hill?” said Mayfair; and now another uproar ensued as to the authority in question, in which many contradictions were exchanged, and some wagers booked.

      “Sing us that song Bailey made on her, – ‘Fair Lady on the River’s Bank;’ you can sing it, Clinton?”

      “Yes, let us have the song,” cried several together.

      “I ‘ll wager five pounds I ‘ll name a prettier girl on the same spot,” said Tony to Skeff.

      “Butler challenges the field,” cried Skeff. “He knows, and will name, the prettiest girl in Richmond.”

      “I take him. What ‘s the figure?” said Mayfair.

      “And I – and I!” shouted three or four in a breath.

      “I think he offered a pony,” lisped out the youngest.

      “I said, I ‘d bet five pounds,” said Tony, fiercely; “don’t misrepresent me, sir.”

      “I ‘ll take your money, then,” cried Mayfair.

      “No, no; I was first: I said ‘done’ before you,” interposed a guardsman.

      “But how can it be decided? We can’t summon the rival beauties to our presence, and perform Paris and the apple,” said Skeff.

      “Come along with me and you shall see her,” broke in Tony; “she lives within less than five minutes’ walk of where we are. I am satisfied that the matter should be left to your decision, Skefflngton.”

      “No, no,” cried several, together; “take Mayfair with you. He is the fittest man amongst us for such a criticism; he has studied these matters profoundly.”

      “Here ‘s a health to all good lasses!” cried out another; and goblets were filled with champagne, and drained in a moment, while some attempted the song; and others, imagining that they had caught the air, started off with “Here’s to the Maiden of Blooming Fifteen,” making up an amount of confusion that was perfectly deafening, in which the waiter entered to observe, in a very meek tone, that the Archdeacon of Halford was entertaining a select party in the next room, and entreated that they might be permitted to hear each other occasionally.

      Such a burst of horror and indignation as followed this request! Some were for an armed intervention at once; some for a general smash of all things practicable; and two or three, haughtier in their drunkenness, declared that the Star and Garter should have no more of their patronage, and proudly ordered the waiter to fetch the bill.

      “Thirty-seven – nine – six,” said Mayfair, as he held the document near a candle; “make it an even forty for the waiters, and it leaves five pounds a head, eh? – not too much, after all.”

      “Well, I don’t know; the asparagus was miserably small.”

      “And I got no strawberries.”

      “I have my doubts about that Moselle.”

      “It ain’t dear; at least, it’s not dearer than anywhere else.”

      While these criticisms were going forward, Tony perceived that each one in turn was throwing down his sovereigns on the table, as his contribution to the fund; and he approached Skeffington, to whisper that he had forgotten his purse, – his sole excuse to explain, what he would n’t confess, that he believed he was an invited guest Skeff was, however, by this time so completely overcome by the last toast that he sat staring fatuously before him, and could only mutter, in a melancholy strain, “To be, or not to be; that’s a question.”

      “Can you lend me some money?” whispered Tony. “I if want your purse.”

      “He – takes my purse – trash – trash – ” mumbled out the other.

      “I ‘ll book up for Skeffy,” said one of the guardsmen; “and now it’s all right.”

      “No,” said Tony, aloud; “I haven’t paid. I left my purse behind, and I can’t make Skeffington understand that I want a loan from him;” and he stooped down again and whispered in his ear.

      While a buzz of voices assured Tony that “it did n’t matter; all had money, any one could pay,” and so on, Skeffington gravely handed out his cigar-case, and said, “Take as much as you like, old fellow; it was quarter-day last week.”

      In a wild, uproarious burst of laughter they now broke up; some helping Skeffington along, some performing mock-ballet steps, and two or three attempting to walk with an air of rigid propriety, which occasionally diverged into strange tangents.

      Tony was completely bewildered. Never was a poor brain more addled than his. At one moment he thought them all the best fellows in the world; he ‘d have risked his neck for any of them; and at the next he regarded them as a set of insolent snobs, daring to show off airs of superiority to a stranger, because he was not one of them; and so he oscillated between the desire to show his affection for them, or have a quarrel with any of them.

      Meanwhile Mayfair, with a reasonable good voice and some taste, broke out into a wild sort of air, whose measure changed at every moment One verse ran thus: —

      “By the light of the moon, by the light of the moon,

      We all went home by the light of the moon.

      With a ringing song

      We trampled along,

      Recalling what we ‘ll forget so soon,

      How the wine was good,

      And the talk was free,

      And pleasant and gay the company.

      “For the wine supplied

      What our wits denied,

      And we pledge the girls whose eyes we knew, whose eyes we knew.

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