第70章

"I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth,' says Gray, gravely.'That fork is the only one we have.

Fanny has it generally.'

'Raymond!'- cries Mrs.Gray, with an imploring face.

'She was used to better things, you know: and I hope one day to get her a dinner-service.I'm told the electro-plate is uncommonly good.Where the deuce IS that boy with the beer? And now,' said he, springing up, 'I'll be a gentleman.' And so he put on his coat, and sat down quite gravely, with four fresh mutton-chops which he had by this time broiled.

'We don t have meat every day, Mr.Goldmore,' he continued, 'and it's a treat to me to get a dinner like this.You little know, you gentlemen of England, who live at home at ease, what hardships briefless barristers endure.'

'Gracious mercy!' says Mr.Goldmore.

'Where's the half-and-half? Fanny, go over to the 'Keys'

and get the beer.Here's sixpence.' And what was our astonishment when Fanny got up as if to go!

'Gracious mercy! let ME,' cries Goldmore.

'Not for worlds, my dear sir.She's used to it.They wouldn't serve you as well as they serve her.Leave her alone.Law bless you!' Raymond said, with astounding composure.And Mrs.Gray left the room, and actually came back with a tray on which there was a pewter flagon of beer.Little Polly (to whom, at her christening, Ihad the honour of presenting a silver mug EX OFFICIO)followed with a couple of tobacco-pipes, and the queerest roguish look in her round little chubby face.

'Did you speak to Tapling about the gin, Fanny, my dear?'

Gray asked, after bidding Polly put the pipes on the chimney-piece, which that little person had some difficulty in reaching.'The last was turpentine, and even your brewing didn't make good punch of it.'

'You would hardly suspect, Goldmore, that my wife, a Harley Baker, would ever make gin-punch? I think my mother-in-law would commit suicide if she saw her.'

'Don't be always laughing at mamma, Raymond,' says Mrs.

Gray.

'Well, well, she wouldn't die, and I DON'T wish she would.And you don't make gin-punch, and you don't like it either and--Goldmore do you drink your beer out of the glass, or out of the pewter?'

'Gracious mercy!' ejaculates Croesus once more, as little Polly, taking the pot with both her little bunches of hands, offers it, smiling, to that astonished Director.

And so, in a word, the dinner commenced, and was presently ended in a similar fashion.Gray pursued his unfortunate guest with the most queer and outrageous description of his struggles, misery, and poverty.He described how he cleaned the knives when they were first married; and how he used to drag the children in a little cart; how his wife could toss pancakes; and what parts of his dress she made.He told Tibbits, his clerk (who was in fact the functionary who had brought the beer from the public-house, which Mrs.Fanny had fetched from the neighbouring apartment)--to fetch 'the bottle of port-wine,' when the dinner was over; and told Goldmore as wonderful a history about the way in which that bottle of wine had come into his hands as any of his former stories had been.When the repast was all over, and it was near time to move to the play, and Mrs.Gray had retired, and we were sitting ruminating rather silently over the last glasses of the port, Gray suddenly breaks the silence by slapping Goldmore on the shoulder, and saying, 'Now, Goldmore, tell me something.'

'What?' asks Croesus.

'Haven't you had a good dinner?'

Goldmore started, as if a sudden truth had just dawned upon him.He HAD had a good dinner; and didn't know it until then.The three mutton-chops consumed by him were best of the mutton kind; the potatoes were perfect of their order; as for the rolypoly, it was too good.The porter was frothy and cool, and the port-wine was worthy of the gills of a bishop.I speak with ulterior views;for there is more in Gray's cellar.

'Well,' says Goldmore, after a pause, during which he took time to consider the momentous question Gray put to him--' 'Pon my word--now you say so--I--I have--I really have had a monsous good dinnah-- monsous good, upon my ward! Here's your health, Gray my boy, and your amiable lady; and when Mrs.Goldmore comes back, I hope we shall see you more in Portland Place.' And with this the time came for the play, and we went to see Mr.Phelps at Sadler's Wells.The best of this story (for the truth of every word of which I pledge my honour) is, that after this banquet, which Goldmore enjoyed so, the honest fellow felt a prodigious compassion and regard for the starving and miserable giver of the feast, and determined to help him in his profession.And being a Director of the newly-established Antibilious Life Assurance Company, he has had Gray appointed Standing Counsel, with a pretty annual fee; and only yesterday, in an appeal from Bombay (Buckmuckjee Bobbachee v.Ramchowder-Bahawder) in the Privy Council, Lord Brougham complimented Mr.Gray, who was in the case, on his curious and exact knowledge of the Sanscrit language.

Whether he knows Sanscrit or not, I can't say; but Goldmore got him the business; and so I cannot help having a lurking regard for that pompous old Bigwig.