第41章

SOME CONTINENTAL SNOBS

Now that September has come, and all our Parliamentary duties are over, perhaps no class of Snobs are in such high feather as the Continental Snobs.I watch these daily as they commence their migrations from the beach at Folkestone.I see shoals of them depart (not perhaps without an innate longing too to quit the Island along with those happy Snobs).Farewell, dear friends, I say:

you little know that the individual who regards you from the beach is your friend and historiographer and brother.

I went to-day to see our excellent friend Snooks, on board the 'Queen of the French;' many scores of Snobs were there, on the deck of that fine ship, marching forth in their pride and bravery.They will be at Ostend in four hours; they will inundate the Continent next week;they will carry into far lands the famous image of the British Snob.I shall not see them--but am with them in spirit: and indeed there is hardly a country in the known and civilized world in which these eyes have not beheld them.

I have seen Snobs, in pink coats and hunting-boots, scouring over the Campagna of Rome; and have heard their oaths and their well-known slang in the galleries of the Vatican, and under the shadowy arches of the Colosseum.

I have met a Snob on a dromedary in the desert, and picnicking under the Pyramid of Cheops.I like to think how many gallant British Snobs there are, at this minute of writing, pushing their heads out of every window in the courtyard of 'Meurice's' in the Rue de Rivoli; or roaring out, 'Garsong, du pang,' 'Garsong, du Yang;' or swaggering down the Toledo at Naples; or even how many will be on the look-out for Snooks on Ostend Pier,--for Snooks, and the rest of the Snobs on board the 'Queen of the French.'

Look at the Marquis of Carabas and his two carriages.My Lady Marchioness comes on board, looks round with that happy air of mingled terror and impertinence which distinguishes her ladyship, and rushes to her carriage, for it is impossible that she should mingle with the other Snobs on deck.There she sits, and will be ill in private.The strawberry leaves on her chariot-panels are engraved on her ladyship's heart.If she were going to heaven instead of to Ostend, I rather think she would expect to have DES PLACES RESERVEES for her, and would send to order the best rooms.A courier, with his money-bag of office round his shoulders--a huge scowling footman, whose dark pepper-and-salt livery glistens with the heraldic insignia of the Carabases--a brazen-looking, tawdry French FEMME-DE-CHAMBRE (none but a female pen can do justice to that wonderful tawdry toilette of the lady's-maid EN VOYAGE)--and a miserable DAME DECOMPAGNIE, are ministering to the wants of her ladyship and her King Charles's spaniel.They are rushing to and fro with eau-de-Cologne, pocket-handkerchiefs, which are all fringe and cipher, and popping mysterious cushions behind and before, and in every available corner of the carriage.

The little Marquis, her husband is walking about the deck in a bewildered manner, with a lean daughter on each arm:

the carroty-tufted hope of the family is already smoking on the foredeck in a travelling costume checked all over, and in little lacquer-tip pod jean boots, and a shirt embroidered with pink boa-constrictors.'What is it that gives travelling Snobs such a marvellous propensity to rush into a costume? Why should a man not travel in a coat, &c.? but think proper to dress himself like a harlequin in mourning? See, even young Aldermanbury, the tallow-merchant, who has just stepped on board, has got a travelling-dress gaping all over with pockets; and little Tom Tapeworm, the lawyer's clerk out of the City, who has but three weeks' leave, turns out in gaiters and a bran-new shooting-jacket, and must let the moustaches grow on his little sniffy upper lip, forsooth!

Pompey Hicks is giving elaborate directions to his servant, and asking loudly, 'Davis, where's the dwessing-case?' and 'Davis, you'd best take the pistol-case into the cabin.' Little Pompey travels with a dressing-case, and without a beard: whom he is going to shoot with his pistols, who on earth can tell? and what he is to do with his servant but wait upon him, I am at a loss to conjecture.

Look at honest Nathan Houndsditch and his lady, and their little son.What a noble air of blazing contentment illuminates the features of those Snobs of Eastern race!