第48章

'Nice place, isn't it?' said Ponto.'Quiet and unpretending.I like everything quiet.You've not brought your valet with you? Stripes will arrange your dressing things;' and that functionary, entering at the same time, proceeded to gut my portmanteau, and to lay out the black kerseymeres, 'the rich cut velvet Genoa waistcoat,' the white choker, and other polite articles of evening costume, with great gravity and despatch.'Agreat dinner-party,' thinks I to myself, seeing these preparations (and not, perhaps, displeased at the idea that some of the best people in the neighbourhood were coming to see me).'Hark, theres the first bell ringing!

'said Ponto, moving away; and, in fact, a clamorous harbinger of victuals began clanging from the stable turret, and announced the agreeable fact that dinner would appear in half-an-hour.'If the dinner is as grand as the dinner-bell,' thought I, 'faith, I'm in good quarters!' and had leisure, during the half-hour's interval, not only to advance my own person to the utmost polish of elegance which it is capable of receiving, to admire the pedigree of the Pontos hanging over the chimney, and the Ponto crest and arms emblazoned on the wash-hand basin and jug, but to make a thousand reflections on the happiness of a country life--upon the innocent friendliness and cordiality of rustic intercourse; and to sigh for an opportunity of retiring, like Ponto, to my own fields, to my own vine and fig-tree, with a placens uxor in my domus, and a half-score of sweet young pledges of affection sporting round my paternal knee.

Clang! At the end of thirty minutes, dinner-bell number two pealed from the adjacent turret.I hastened downstairs, expecting to find a score of healthy country folk in the drawing-room.There was only one person there; a tall and Roman-nosed lady, glistering over with bugles, in deep mourning.She rose, advanced two steps, made a majestic curtsey, during which all the bugles in her awful head-dress began to twiddle and quiver--and then said, 'Mr.Snob, we are very happy to see you at the Evergreens,' and heaved a great sigh.

This, then, was Mrs.Major Ponto; to whom making my very best bow, I replied, that I was very proud to make her acquaintance, as also that of so charming a place as the Evergreens.

Another sigh.'We are distantly related, Mr.Snob,' said she, shaking her melancholy head.'Poor dear Lord Rubadub!'

'Oh!' said I; not knowing what the deuce Mrs.Major Ponto meant.

'Major Ponto told me that you were of the Leicestershire Snobs: a very old family, and related to Lord Snobbington, who married Laura Rubadub, who is a cousin of mine, as was her poor dear father, for whom we are mourning.What a seizure! only sixty-three, and apoplexy quite unknown until now in our family! In life we are in death, Mr.Snob.Does Lady Snobbington bear the deprivation well?'

'Why, really, ma'am, I--I don't know,' I replied, more and more confused.

As she was speaking I heard a sort of CLOOP, by which well-known sound I was aware that somebody was opening a bottle of wine, and Ponto entered, in a huge white neckcloth, and a rather shabby black suit.

'My love,' Mrs.Major Ponto said to her husband, 'we were talking of our cousin--poor dear Lord Rubadub.His death has placed some of the first families in England in mourning.Does Lady Rubadub keep the house in Hill Street, do you know?'

I didn't know, but I said, 'I believe she does,' at a venture; and, looking down to the drawing-room table, saw the inevitable, abominable, maniacal, absurd, disgusting 'Peerage' open on the table, interleaved with annotations, and open at the article 'Snobbington.'

'Dinner is served,' says Stripes, flinging open the door;and I gave Mrs.Major Ponto my arm.