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ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 459
never knew that you yourself had tusks, little eyes in your hure;
a bristly mane to cut into tooth-brushes ; and a curly tail ! I have
a notion that the multitude of bores is enormous in the world. If
a man is a bore himself, when he is bored—and you can't deny this
statement—then what am I, what are you, what your father,
grandfather, son—all your amiable acquaintance, in a word ? Of
this I am sure. Major and Mrs. MacWhirter were not brilliant in
conversation. What would you and I do, or say, if we listen to
the tittle-tattle of Tours'? How the clergyman was certainly too
fond of cards, and going to the café ; how the dinners those Popjoys
gave were too absurdly ostentatious ; and Popjoy, we know, in the
Bench last year. How Mrs. Flights, going on with that Major of
French Carabiniers, was really too &c. &c. " How could I endure
those people?" Philip would ask himself, when talking of that
personage in after days, as he loved and loves to do. " How could
I endure them, I say ? Mac was a good man ; but I knew secretly
in my heart, sir, that he was a bore. Well : I loved him. I liked
his old stories. I liked his bad old dinners : there is a very comfortable
Touraine wine, by the way—a very warming little wine,
sir. Mrs. Mac you never saw, my good Mrs. Pendennis. Be sure
of this, you never would have liked her. Well, I did. I liked her
house, though it was damp, in a damp garden, frequented by dull
people. I should like to go and see that old house now. I am
perfectly happy with my wife, but I sometimes go away from her
to enjoy the luxury of living over our old days again. With nothing
in the world but an allowance which was precarious, and had been
spent in advance ; with no particular plans for the future, and a
few five-franc pieces for the present,—by Jove, sir, how did I dare
to be so happy ? What idiots we were, my love, to be happy at
all ! We were mad to marry. Don't tell me : with a purse which
didn't contain three months' consumption, would we dare to many
now ? We should be put into the mad ward of the workhouse :
that would be the only place for us. Talk about trusting in
Heaven. Stuff and nonsense, ma'am ! I have as good a right to
go and buy a house in Belgrave Square, and trust to Heaven for
the payment, as I had to marry when I did. We were paupers,
Mrs. Char, and you know that very well !"
" Oh, yes. We were very wrong: very !" says Mrs. Charlotte,
looking up to her chandelier (which, by the way, is of very handsome
Venetian old glass). "We were very wrong, were not we,
my dearest ?" And herewith she will begin to kiss and fondle two
or more babies that disport in her room, as if two or more babies had
anything to do with Philip's argument, that a man has no right
to marry who has no pretty well-assured means of keeping a wife.