第57章

A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS

Notable as my reception had been (under that unfortunate mistake of Mrs.Ponto that I was related to Lord Snobbington, which I was not permitted to correct), it was nothing compared to the bowing and kotooing, the raptures and flurry which preceded and welcomed the visit of a real live lord and lord's son, a brother officer of Cornet Wellesley Ponto, in the 120th Hussars, who came over with the young Cornet from Guttlebury, where their distinguished regiment was quartered.This was my Lord Gules, Lord Saltire's grandson and heir: a very young, short, sandy-haired and tobacco-smoking nobleman, who cannot have left the nursery very long, and who, though he accepted the honest Major's invitation to the Evergreens in a letter written in a school-boy handwriting, with a number of faults of spelling, may yet be a very fine classical scholar for what I know: having had his education at Eton, where he and young Ponto were inseparable.

At any rate, if he can't write, he has mastered a number of other accomplishments wonderful for one of his age and size.He is one of the best shots and riders in England.

He rode his horse Abracadabra, and won the famous Guttlebury steeple-chase.He has horses entered at half the races in the country (under other people's names; for the old lord is a strict hand, and will not hear of betting or gambling).He has lost and won such sums of money as my Lord George himself might be proud of.He knows all the stables, and all the jockeys, and has all the 'information,' and is a match for the best Leg at Newmarket.Nobody was ever known to be 'too much' for him at play or in the stable.

Although his grandfather makes him a moderate allowance, by the aid of POST-OBITS and convenient friends he can live in a splendour becoming his rank.He has not distinguished himself in the knocking down of policemen much; he is not big enough for that.But, as a light-weight, his skill is of the very highest order.At billiards he is said to be first-rate.He drinks and smokes as much as any two of the biggest officers in his regiment.With such high talents, who can say how far he may not go? He may take to politics as a DELASSEMENT, and be Prime Minister after Lord George Bentinck.

My young friend Wellesley Ponto is a gaunt and bony youth, with a pale face profusely blotched.From his continually pulling something on his chin, I am led to fancy that he believes he has what is called an Imperial growing there.That is not the only tuft that is hunted in the family, by the way.He can't, of course, indulge in those expensive amusements which render his aristocratic comrade so respected: he bets pretty freely when he is in cash, and rides when somebody mounts him (for he can't afford more than his regulation chargers).

At drinking he is by no means inferior; and why do you think he brought his noble friend, Lord Gules, to the Evergreens?--Why? because he intended to ask his mother to order his father to pay his debts, which she couldn't refuse before such an exalted presence.Young Ponto gave me all this information with the most engaging frankness.

We are old friends.I used to tip him when he was at school.

'Gad!': says he, 'our wedgment's so DOOTHID exthpenthif.

Must hunt, you know.A man couldn't live in the wedgment if he didn't.Mess expenses enawmuth.Must dine at mess.Must drink champagne and claret.Ours ain't a port and sherry light-infantry mess.Uniform's awful.