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But, whatever interpretation I might put upon his conduct, I could not evade the conviction that I was really under a deep obligation to Lumley; and I felt assured that, after another meeting, all traces of embarrassment would disappear. So, as I had for the present plenty of leisure-indeed, more than was altogether agreeable, considering the uncertainty that still hung over me -I thought it best to lose no time in effecting so desirable an object, and accordingly intimated to Carlton my wish that we should at once avail ourselves of Lumley's proffered hospitality. Carlton, who, I believe, was more annoyed than he liked to show by the reminiscence of his somewhat incautious revelations, caught eagerly at the proposal; and a day or so afterwards we repaired by appointment to Lumley's quarters in Park Street.

I make no doubt that it must be a delightful thing to be lodged in a palace surrounded by the appurtenances of state; but for comfort, elegance, and luxury combined, commend me to the house of a London bachelor of cultivated taste and ample fortune. There are not many such, I know, for the clubs have sadly lessened the number of those exquisite Apician domiciles; still, there do exist a few, and among these, Lumley's was acknowledged to be the most perfect of its kind. The study, with its small but costly library, and one or two masterpieces of Venetian art, was indeed liable to this objection, that it was far too seductively arranged to serve its ostensible purpose. At all events, I should have found it very difficult to pursue any sort of serious study, surrounded by so many objects of almost irresistible attraction. Our thoughts are apt enough at any time to wander, without being exposed to special temptation; and sure I am that, had John Bunyan been quartered in a palace instead of being shut up in Bedford jail, he never could have conceived or described the glories of the Heavenly City.

There was no company beyond ourselves; and we sat down to a dainty repast at a round table, in the centre of which was that admirable invention of a former age which modern stupidity has too generally discarded-a dumb waiter. Lumley was in high spirits, which gradually extended their influence to both Carlton and myself; so that, before the business of eating was over, the real object of the visit was accomplished, and we felt altogether at our ease. There never was a better Amphytrion than Lumley. His wit sparkled as brightly as the champagne, and the flavour of the entrées did not suffer from the additional zest of his anecdotes.

After the servants had withdrawn, the conversation flowed on unimpeded, through general topics at first, but presently we approached more familiar themes; and Lumley, somewhat to my surprise, made allusion, though in the most delicate manner, to our position as being both of us men engaged and committed to matrimony. I believe he did this from deliberation, with the view of satisfying me that, whatever his feelings might have been, he had entirely succeeded in mastering them; and certainly there was nothing of chagrin or disappointment in his tone.

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I regard you both," said he, as fortunate fellows in being able to marry at a reasonably early period of life. If a man does not happen to hit the exact medium, marriage is rather a questionable step. Mere boys make the worst of husbands. They don't know their own minds, and they cannot control their tempers, or those of the unhappy girls they have chosen; and as years roll on, the indifference that succeeds to love often changes into positive aversion. On the other hand, if a man postpones the event too long, he is apt to become confirmed in his bachelor habits; and if that mode of life is not actually distasteful to him, he is reluctant to try the perilous experiment of a change."

"It is no wonder if you should feel some such reluctance," said Carlton. "The possession of such a snuggery as this is a real impediment to marriage."

"Ah, well!" said Lumley, "that is one view certainly, and, generally speaking, there may be some truth in what you say. But I demur to the notion that a single man ought to practise asceticism. I am haunted by a taste; and as I have no lack of money, why should I hesitate to gratify it? I won't deny that I am fond of pictures, books, good living, wine, and luxury; and were it not for a confounded feeling of satiety that sometimes comes over me, I think I should be tolerably contented."

"An admission," said I, "which proves that you have stretched the tether of philosophy to the utmost; for when did you ever meet with the man who professed to be entirely contented?"

"I, at least, have never stumbled on such a phenomenon," replied Lumley. "But do not let us run away from the subject. In any case I cannot plead bachelor habits as an excuse for remaining single. I am simply a veteran trout who has been so often pricked in the mouth that he will not rise to any lure."

"I wish you would favour us neophytes with some account of your experiences," said Carlton.

"A quoi bon, mon cher?" replied Lumley. "Long ago enlisted by that smart serjeant Cupid, you are about to join the honourable company of Hymen. Why should I trouble you with the history of my misadventures?"

"If for nothing else, at least to explain to us how it happens that the gay and gallant Lumley has never entered the service?"

"Nay, if you seriously wish to hear the narrative of my woes, I don't care if I inflict some part of my tediousness upon you. Observe, however, I hold myself in no way responsible if the effect of my discourse should be to throw both of you into a magnetic trance. So,

pray, fill your glasses; and let the dumb-waiter revolve whilst I give utterance to my sorrows.

"No joyful peal of bells, such as rings on the birth of an heir, greeted me when I first opened my eyes in this world. No steer was roasted, no barrels were tapped in honour of that auspicious event. Esau had preceded Jacob. My elder brother Percy had, some three years before, been exhibited to the admiring and thirsty tenantry as their future landlord.

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Although I am a stickler for the maintenance of the law of primogeniture, I must needs admit that the situation of a younger son in a wealthy family is a trying one. He is brought up in the midst of luxury, perhaps of splendour, and yet is told, so soon as he is capable of receiving distinct impressions, that the things which he is allowed in the mean time to taste and enjoy cannot permanently be his. He is desired to keep in mind that the day will arrive when he must go forth an exile from the halls of his fathers to conquer fortune for himself, carrying with him slight provision for the future beyond that share of energy and intellect with which he has been gifted, and which he is exhorted to improve. Under such circumstances, clearly the best thing that can be done for the lad is to quarter him out as early as possible, so that he may feel betimes that he has to work his own way, a lesson not easily acquired in the midst of every indulgence. My excellent father, however, had nothing of the Roman in him, and was far too fond of his children to banish them even for their good. So I was brought up as if I were to be a gentleman at large; was early trained to country sports, for which I had a peculiar aptitude; studied after a kind of fashion under the superintendence of a cultivated tutor, who was too much of a scholar to be a pedant; and when I was sent to the university, received an allowance that might have satisfied the heir to a peerage. The conse

quence was that I became somewhat dissipated, ran into debt, and failed in materially advancing the classical reputation of my college.

"At length the time arrived when the grand question of a future career had to be settled in a family divan. I was assured of a good living if I would agree to take orders; but I was far too conscientious to practise such base hypocrisy. A commission in the Guards would have suited me exactly; but that arm of the service was deemed too expensive, and I recoiled from the prospect of country quarters and long years of colonial expatriation. The advantages of the legal profession were then elaborately discussed. I was desired to look forward to the woolsack looming in the distance; but my eyesight was weak, and I failed to obtain even a glimpse of that very comfortable Pisgah. Had I seen it ever so clearly, I do not believe that I could have mustered sufficient courage to force my way through the intervening desert, and face the gorgons and chimeras that haunt the Blackstonian Sahara. Would I go into Parliament? If so, in a year or two a seat would probably be vacant, which family influence might secure for me; and it was not unreasonable to expect that I might be able to extract a plum from the public pudding. With this latter proposal I closed, the rather because it afforded me a temporary respite; and I resolved in the meanwhile to observe life and study diplomacy at Paris and Vienna.

"While I was abroad I received the mournful intelligence of the death of the best of fathers; and also a communication from the family solicitors, apprising me that eight thousand pounds was all I had to depend on. Of that sum very nearly a third was forestalled by debts I had contracted, so that I had to solve the difficult problem of maintaining myself like a gentleman on an income of two hundred a-year. I had also the mortification to learn that the seat I expected to

occupy had been appropriated by a monster manufacturer, whose appetite for bacon was so enormous, that, for several days previous to the election, the price of a flitch was considerably above thirty guineas. So there was an end to my hopes of parliamentary distinction and office.

"My brother Percy and I were on tolerable fraternal terms, but we had not much community of sentiment. He was reserved, cautious, and calculating, with decided notions of thrift, bordering on the verge of avarice; whereas I was an outspoken, improvident fellow, partaking much more of the nature of the butterfly than of the bee. Since then, time has wrought a mighty alteration. I am now feelingly

alive to the charm of a large balance at my banker's; and in a few years I expect to attain to the reputation of a screw.

"Percy, I make no doubt, would have cheerfully presented me, now and then, with a cheque for a hundred pounds, if I had asked him for such a favour; for he set much store on his dignity as head of the house, and was fond of delivering a lecture, for which there can be no better opportunity than a proposal for a pecuniary advance. But I did not choose to lay myself under any such obligation; and he was not generous enough, though he knew my straitened circumstances, to make a spontaneous offer of an annual allowance. So I had to live as I best could upon a mere pittance, and practise economy, in which I succeeded so far that I did not annually expend much more than twice the amount of my in

come.

"If I had been prudent, I should have gone into chambers and read; but I liked society, and determined to enjoy it so long as that was within my power. I possessed the art of making myself agreeable, and had the entrée to all the best houses. I was patronised by dowagers who had ceased to be shepherdesses of a flock; but mammas,

who were anxiously watching the matrimonial market with the view to disposal of their daughters, were by no means so affable or kind. In me they recognised that most equivocal of all characters, a detrimental-useful perhaps occasionally as a foil, but never to be encouraged beyond a certain point, and always to be regarded with suspicion. Regular fortune-hunters, who are pretty well known by head-mark, were not so obnoxious to those ladies as were young men of sense and acquirements. They considered that their undowered daughters were safe from the advances of the one class, but they dreaded lest their affections might be entangled by the assiduities of the other.

"Of the existence and extent of this prejudice I soon received a palpable proof. Lady Letitia Castleton, a woman of high birth and unblemished character, but of very contracted fortune, had an only daughter, Ida, who was acknowledged to be the belle of the season. A more fairy-like creature never flitted through the dance; and she was, I verily believe, as amiable as she was charming. Be that as it may, I fell desperately in love with Ida, and made no concealment of my passion. Wherever she went, there was I, constant as her shadow; and, of course, before long my attentions became the subject of remark.

"Lady Letitia, who was as clever a woman as ever brought an heirapparent to book, was horribly annoyed by my behaviour, but she was far too experienced to exhibit in presence of the public any symptom of chagrin. On the contrary, her deportment towards me was ineffably seraphic, and you would have thought that she was fully prepared to bestow on me her maternal benediction. But one day I was summoned to her boudoir.

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others. You are in love with Ida, and for that I do not blame you, because possibly you cannot help it; but I shall not allow you to ruin the prospects of my child. I shall not go through the ceremony of asking you what your intentions are, for I do not suppose you have any. Neither you nor Ida have any fortune, and therefore matrimony is wholly out of the question. Under these circumstances I shall perform a mother's duty, and request you to discontinue your visits.'

"What could I say in reply? A romantic tirade about love and broken hearts would have been utterly thrown away upon that Spartan lady, who was clearly mistress of the situation; so there was nothing for it but to accept the rebuke, express contrition for my folly, and depart. So ended my first serious love-affair. Lady Letitia Castleton vindicated her reputation for diplomacy; for a few months afterwards Ida was decked with the orange wreath, and gave her hand to an Indian gentleman of enormous wealth and dingy complexion, the reputed offspring of a Begum.

"It would be tedious to continue the chronicle of my disappointments. I had an unfortunate propensity for falling in love, but never made what the world would have called a prudent or judicious selection; consequently I began to acquire notoriety as an adept in the art of flirting; and, to say the truth, I had worked rather hard for the character. The affections are not to be played with. If a man is forced to transfer them frequently-and I maintain that there may be such coercion without innate fickleness on his part-they lose their edge. Constancy once abandoned, he submits to change as a matter of imperious necessity, and ends by regarding it as something scarcely short of a positive gratification. That is my theory of flirting, which I hold to be the inevitable product of a highly artificial but unwholesome form of society. Wisdom is of

slow growth, but it will make its way, like the ivy which spreads over even the barest wall; and I at last began to feel thoroughly disgusted and ashamed at leading a life so absolutely useless and discreditable. Modern wiseacres are fond of sneering at the Crusades upon my soul, I think that a new crusade, if we could manage to get up a respectable one, would be of infinite service, by clearing off some thousands of younger sons who can find no proper vent for their energies in this overstocked country of competition.

"All sorts of wild schemes floated across my brain. I would go to Canada and aid in the extermination of the primeval forests-I would devote myself to the exploration of the sources of the Nile or the Niger-I would take service with some native Indian prince, and become the founder of a new dynasty-I would set sail for Otaheite, and propose to Queen Pomarre! You laugh at this confession! Very good; but please remember that wiser fellows than I am have indulged in similar hallucinations.

"I was saved the trouble of carrying into execution any of these delectable designs. My brother Percy, who was too timorous to hunt, and who never trusted himself on the back of a thoroughbred, was thrown from a stumbling cob, and died of concussion of the brain. His thoughts had, for some time previously, been directed to the subject of matrimony; but as he was a tempting object for maternal pursuit, he was exceeding wary, and departed this life without having found courage enough to throw the handkerchief. I succeeded to the family estates, and found myself a wealthy man.

"Believe me when I say that I felt no exultation at the change. I had become so used to a listless and indolent way of living that I felt it rather a nuisance than otherwise to be compelled to exert myself in attending to the management of my

estate, and the numerous business details that were constantly brought under my notice. The desire for action, which had taken possession of my mind, passed away with the motive; and it seemed to me a very hard thing that the succession to some ten thousand a-year should entail a vast deal of trouble without materially enhancing my enjoyment. It is my firm belief that a single man, with no debts and an income of five or six hundred, may lead a merrier life than the millionaire, and be ten times more independent. But a truce to such stale reflections! Though true, they are practically useless; for no one will refuse to carry the pack-saddle that Plutus places on his shoulders.

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My good-luck did not interfere with the friendships I had already formed, nor did it lead to any large addition to the circle; for I was a great deal too proud to encourage the advances of men whom I had known during the days of my poverty, but who had then exhibited hauteur. But it was astonishing to observe how vastly I had risen in the estimation of the fair sex! Jewelled matrons who, but a few months before, had bristled up at my approach, now greeted me with their softest smiles, or assailed me with bewitching banter. All at once it was discovered that I possessed a vein of wit-some even called it genius-quite unusual in an age of commonplace; that my manner was singularly fascinating; and that my judgment in matters of taste was infallible. All the former precautions were abandoned, all the barriers removed from my way; and I now had full license, nay encouragement, to make love to my heart's content, without any dread of interdiction. I hope I am not a coxcomb, though what I am about to say might justify such an imputation; but I could not help thinking that several well-tutored young ladies who had once been rather disdainful, would now have listened to me with some attention, even if I had passed the boundaries of or

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