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482 THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP
CHAPTER XXXI
NARRATES THAT FAMOUS JOKE ABOUT MISS GRIGSBY
FOR once Philip found that he had offended without giving
general offence. In the confidence of female intercourse,
Mrs. Mugford had already, in her own artless but powerful
language, confirmed her husband's statement regarding Mr. Bickerton,
and declared that B. was a beast, and she was only sorry that Mr.
F. had not hit him a little harder. So different are the opinions
which different individuals entertain of the same event ! I happen
to know that Bickerton, on his side, went away, averring that we
were quarrelsome under-bred people ; and that a man of any refinement
had best avoid that kind of society. He does really and
seriously believe himself our superior, and will lecture almost any
gentleman on the art of being one. This assurance is not at all
uncommon with your parvenu. Proud of his newly-acquired knowledge
of the art of exhausting the contents of an egg, the well-known
little boy of the apologue rushed to impart his knowledge to his
grandmother, who had been for many years familiar with the process
which the child had just discovered. Which of us has not met
with some such instructors ? I know men who would be ready to
step forward and teach Taglioni how to dance, Tom Sayers how to
box, or the Chevalier Bayard how to be a gentleman. We most of
us know such men, and undergo, from time to time, the ineffable
benefit of their patronage.
Mugford went away from our little entertainment vowing, by
George, that Philip shouldn't want for a friend at the proper season ;
and this proper season very speedily arrived. I laughed one day,
on going to the Pall Mall Gazette office, to find Philip installed in
the sub-editor's room, with a provision of scissors, wafers, and pastepots,
snipping paragraphs from this paper and that, altering, condensing,
giving titles, and so forth; and, in a word, in regular
harness. The three-headed calves, the great prize gooseberries, the
old maiden ladies of wonderful ages who at length died in country
places—it was wonderful (considering his little experience) how
Firmin hunted out these. He entered into ail the spirit of his
business. He prided himself on the clever titles which he found