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ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 155
with superfine coats and superfine double-milled manners, like Dr.
Firmin, and hearts—well, never mind about that point ; gentlemen
of no h's like the good dear faithful benefactor who had rescued
her at the brink of despair; men of genius, like Ridley; great
hearty generous honest gentlemen, like Philip ;—and this illusion
about pa, I suppose, had vanished along with some other fancies of
her poor little maiden youth. The truth is, she had an understanding
with the " Admiral Byng": the landlady was instructed as to
the supplies to be furnished to the Captain ; and as for his stories,
poor Caroline knew them a great deal too well to believe in them
any more.
I would not be understood to accuse the Captain of habitual
inebriety. He was a generous officer, and his delight was, when
in cash, to order " glasses round " for the company at the club, to
whom he narrated the history of his brilliant early days, when he
lived in some of the tip-top society of this city, sir—a society in
which, we need not say, the custom always is for gentlemen to
treat other gentlemen to rum-and-water. Never mind—I wish we
were all as happy as the Captain. I see his jolly face now before
me as it blooms through the window in Thornhaugh Street, and the
wave of the somewhat dingy hand which sweeps me a gracious
recognition.
The clergyman of the neighbouring chapel was a very good
friend of the Little Sister, and has taken tea in her parlour; to
which circumstance the Captain frequently alluded, pointing out
the very chair on which the divine sat. Mr. Gann attended his
ministrations regularly every Sunday, and brought a rich, though
somewhat worn, bass voice to bear upon the anthems and hymns at
the chapel. His style was more florid than is general now among
church singers, and, indeed, had been acquired in a former age and
in the performance of rich Bacchanalian chants, such as delighted
the contemporaries of our Incledons and Brahams. With a very
little entreaty the Captain could be induced to sing at the club ;
and I must own that Phil Firmin would draw the Captain out,
and extract from him a song of ancient days ; but this must be in
the absence of his daughter, whose little face wore an air of such
extreme terror and disturbance when her father sang, that he
presently ceased from exercising his musical talents in her hearing.
He hung up his lyre, whereof it must be owned that time had
broken many of the once resounding chords.
With a sketch or two contributed by her lodgers—with a few
gimcracks from the neighbouring Wardour Street presented by
others of her friends—with the chairs, tables, and bureaux as
bright as bees'-wax and rubbing could make them—the Little