212520_The_Adve ... _Way_Through_The_World.pdf - OUDL Home

ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 189
other! "My dear, I have cribbed half-an-inch of plush out of
James's small-clothes." " My love, I have saved a halfpenny out
of Mary's beer. Isn't it time to dress for the duchess's ; and don't
you think John might wear that livery of Thomas's, who only had
it a year, and died of the small-pox ? It's a little tight for him, to
be sure, but," &c. What is this ? I profess to be an impartial
chronicler of poor Phil's fortunes, misfortunes, friendships, and whatnots,
and am getting almost as angry with these Twysdens as Philip
ever was himself.
Well, I am not mortally angry with poor Traviata tramping
the pavement, with the gas-lamp flaring on her poor painted smile,
else my indignant virtue and squeamish modesty would never walk
Piccadilly or get the air. But Lais, quite moral and very neatly,
primly, and straitly laced ; — Phryne, not the least dishevelled,
but with a fixature for her hair, and the best stays, fastened by
mamma ;—your High Church or Evangelical Aspasia, the model of
all proprieties, and owner of all virgin-purity blooms, ready to sell her
cheek to the oldest old fogey who has money and a title ;—these are
the Unfortunates, my dear brother and sister sinners, whom I should
like to see repentant and specially trounced first. Why, some of
these are put into reformatories in Grosvenor Square. They wear
a prison dress of diamonds and Chantilly lace. Their parents cry,
and thank Heaven as they sell them; and all sorts of revered
bishops, clergy, relations, dowagers sign the book and ratify the
ceremony. Come ! let us call a midnight meeting of those who
have been sold in marriage, I say, and what a respectable, what a
genteel, what a fashionable, what a brilliant, what an imposing,
what a multitudinous assembly we will have ; and where's the room
in all Babylon big enough to hold them ?
Look into that grave, solemn, dingy, somewhat naked, but
elegant drawing-room, in Beaunash Street, and with a little fanciful
opera-glass you may see a pretty little group or two engaged at
different periods of the day. It is after lunch, and before Rotten
Row ride time (this story, you know, relates to a period ever so
remote, and long before folks thought of riding in the Park in the
forenoon). After lunch, and before Rotten Row time, saunters into
the drawing-room a fair-haired young fellow with large feet and
chest, careless of gloves, with auburn whiskers blowing over a loose
collar, and—must I confess it ?—a most undeniable odour of cigars
about his person. He breaks out regarding the debate of the
previous night, or the pamphlet of yesterday, or the poem of the
day previous, or the scandal of the week before, or upon the streetsweeper
at the corner, or the Italian and monkey before the Park—
upon whatever, in a word, moves his mind for the moment. If