The Christmas Books of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh | Page 7

St. James's Park of a morning before breakfast. He dockets
his tailor's bills, and nicks off his dinner-notes in diplomatic paragraphs,
and keeps precis of them all. If he ever makes a joke, it is a quotation
from Horace, like Sir Robert Peel. The only relaxation he permits
himself, is to read Thucydides in the holidays.
Everybody asks him out to dinner, on account of his brass-buttons with
the Queen's cipher, and to have the air of being well with the Foreign
Office. "Where I dine," he says solemnly, "I think it is my duty to go to
evening-parties." That is why he is here. He never dances, never sups,
never drinks. He has gruel when he goes home to bed. I think it is in his
brains.
He is such an ass and so respectable, that one wonders he has not
succeeded in the world; and yet somehow they laugh at him; and you
and I shall be Ministers as soon as he will.
Yonder, making believe to look over the print-books, is that merry
rogue, Jack Hubbard.
See how jovial he looks! He is the life and soul of every party, and his
impromptu singing after supper will make you die of laughing. He is
meditating an impromptu now, and at the same time thinking about a
bill that is coming due next Thursday. Happy dog!

MRS. TROTTER, MISS TROTTER, MISS TOADY, LORD
METHUSELAH.
Dear Emma Trotter has been silent and rather ill-humored all the
evening until now her pretty face lights up with smiles. Cannot you
guess why? Pity the simple and affectionate creature! Lord Methuselah
has not arrived until this moment: and see how the artless girl steps
forward to greet him!
In the midst of all the selfishness and turmoil of the world, how
charming it is to find virgin hearts quite unsullied, and to look on at
little romantic pictures of mutual love! Lord Methuselah, though you
know his age by the peerage--though he is old, wigged, gouty, rouged,
wicked, has lighted up a pure flame in that gentle bosom. There was a
talk about Tom Willoughby last year; and then, for a time, young
Hawbuck (Sir John Hawbuck's youngest son) seemed the favored man;
but Emma never knew her mind until she met the dear creature before
you in a Rhine steamboat. "Why are you so late, Edward?" says she.
Dear artless child!
Her mother looks on with tender satisfaction. One can appreciate the
joys of such an admirable parent!
"Look at them!" says Miss Toady. "I vow and protest they're the
handsomest couple in the room!"
Methuselah's grandchildren are rather jealous and angry, and
Mademoiselle Ariane, of the French theatre, is furious. But there's no
accounting for the mercenary envy of some people; and it is impossible
to satisfy everybody.
MR. BEAUMORIS, MR. GRIG, MR. FLYNDERS.
Those three young men are described in a twinkling: Captain Grig of
the Heavies; Mr. Beaumoris, the handsome young man; Tom Flinders
(Flynders Flynders he now calls himself), the fat gentleman who
dresses after Beaumoris.

Beaumoris is in the Treasury: he has a salary of eighty pounds a year,
on which he maintains the best cab and horses of the season; and out of
which he pays seventy guineas merely for his subscriptions to clubs. He
hunts in Leicestershire, where great men mount him; he is a prodigious
favorite behind the scenes at the theatres; you may get glimpses of him
at Richmond, with all sorts of pink bonnets; and he is the sworn friend
of half the most famous roues about town, such as Old Methuselah,
Lord Billygoat, Lord Tarquin, and the rest: a respectable race. It is to
oblige the former that the good-natured young fellow is here to-night;
though it must not be imagined that he gives himself any airs of
superiority. Dandy as he is, he is quite affable, and would borrow ten
guineas from any man in the room, in the most jovial way possible.
It is neither Beau's birth, which is doubtful; nor his money, which is
entirely negative; nor his honesty, which goes along with his
money-qualification; nor his wit, for he can barely spell,--which
recommend him to the fashionable world: but a sort of Grand Seigneur
splendor and dandified je ne scais quoi, which make the man he is of
him. The way in which his boots and gloves fit him is a wonder which
no other man can achieve; and though he has not an atom of principle,
it must be confessed that he invented the Taglioni shirt.
When I see these magnificent dandies yawning out of "White's," or
caracoling in the Park on shining chargers, I like to think that
Brummell was the greatest of them all, and that Brummell's father was
a footman.
Flynders is Beaumoris's toady: