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18 A SHABBY GENTEEL STORY
filthy reeking gigot a l'eau, with a turnip poultice ? I should die
if I did. As for fish in a watering-place, I never touch it ; it is sure
to be bad. Nor care I for little sinewy, dry, black-legged fowls.
Cutlets are my only resource ; I have them nicely enough broiled
by a little humble companion of the family (a companion, ye gods,
in this family !), who blushed hugely when she confessed that the
cooking was hers, and that her name was Caroline. For drink I
indulge in gin, of which I consume two wine-glasses daily, in two
tumblers of cold water ; it is the only liquor that one can be sure
to find genuine in a common house in England.
" This Gann, I take it, has similar likings, for I hear him occasionally
at midnight floundering up the stairs (his boots lie dirty
in the passage)—floundering, I say, up the stairs, and cursing the
candlestick, whence escape now and anon the snuffers and extinguisher,
and with brazen rattle disturb the silence of the night.
Thrice a week, at least, does Gann breakfast in bed—sure sign of
pridian intoxication ; and thrice a week, in the morning, I hear a
hoarse voice roaring for 'my soda-water.' How long have the
rogues drunk soda-water ?
"At nine, Mrs. Gann and daughters are accustomed to breakfast
; a handsome pair of girls, truly, and much followed, as I hear,
in the quarter. These dear creatures are always paying me visits—
visits with the tea-kettle, visits with the newspaper (one brings it,
and one comes for it) ; but the one is always at the other's heels,
and so one cannot show oneself to be that dear, gay, seducing fellow
that one has been, at home and on the Continent. Do you remember
cette chère marquise at Pau ? That cursed conjugal pistolbullet
still plays the deuce with my shoulder. Do you remember
Betty Bundy, the butcher's daughter? A pretty race of fools are
we to go mad after such women, and risk all—oaths, prayers,
promises, long wearisome courtships—for what ?—for vanity, truly.
When the battle is over, behold your conquest ! Betty Bundy is a
vulgar country wench ; and cette belle marquise is old, rouged, and
has false hair. Vanitas vanitatum ! what a moral man I will be
some day or other !
" I have found an old acquaintance (and be hanged to him !),
who has come to lodge in this very house. Do you recollect at
Rome a young artist, Fitch by name, the handsome gaby with the
large beard, that mad Mrs. Carrickfergus was doubly mad about ?
On the second floor of Mrs. Gann's house dwells this youth. His
beard brings the gamins of the streets trooping and yelling about
him; his fine braided coats have grown somewhat shabby now;
and the poor fellow is, like your humble servant (by the way, have
you a 500 franc billet to spare ?)—like your humble servant, I say,