Newcome.«

»A topper for you, Barney, my boy,« remarks Charles Heavyside, as the indignant General walks away gobbling and red. Barney calmly drinks the remains of his absinthe.

»I don't know what that old muff means,« he says innocently, when he has finished his bitter draught. »He's always flying out at me, the old turkey-cock. He quarrels with my play at whist, the old idiot, and can no more play than an old baby. He pretends to teach me billiards, and I'll give him fifteen in twenty and beat his old head off. Why do they let such fellows into clubs? Let's have a game at piquet till dinner, Heavyside? Hallo! That's my uncle, that tall man with the mustachios and the short trousers walking with that boy of his. I dare say they are going to dine in Covent Garden, and going to the play. How-dy-do, Nunky?« – and so the worthy pair went up to the card-room, where they sat at piquet until the hour of sunset and dinner arrived.

 

 

Chapter VII

In Which Mr. Clive's School-Days Are Over.

Our good Colonel had luckily to look forward to a more pleasant meeting with his son, than that unfortunate interview with his other near relatives.

He dismissed his cab at Ludgate Hill, and walked thence by the dismal precincts of Newgate, and across the muddy pavement of Smithfield, on his way back to the old school where his son was, a way which he had trodden many a time in his own early days. There was Cistercian Street, and the Red Cow of his youth; there was the quaint old Grey Friars Square, with its blackened trees and garden, surrounded by ancient houses of the build of the last century, now slumbering like pensioners in the sunshine.

Under the great archway of the hospital he could look at the old Gothic building, and a black-gowned pensioner or two crawling over the quiet square, or passing from one dark arch to another. The boarding-houses of the school were situated in the square, hard by the more ancient buildings of the hospital. A great noise of shouting, crying, clapping forms and cupboards, treble voices, bass voices, poured out of the schoolboys' windows. Their life, bustle, and gaiety contrasted strangely with the quiet of those old men, creeping along in their black gowns under the ancient arches yonder, whose struggle of life was over, whose hope and noise and bustle had sunk into that grey calm. There was Thomas Newcome, arrived at the middle of life, standing between the shouting boys and the tottering seniors, and in a situation to moralize upon both, had not his son Clive, who has espied him from within Mr. Hopkinson's, or let us say at once Hopkey's house, come jumping down the steps to greet his sire. Clive was dressed in his very best; not one of those four hundred young gentlemen had a better figure, a better tailor, or a neater boot. School-fellows grinning through the bars envied him as he walked away; senior boys made remarks on Colonel Newcome's loose clothes and long mustachios, his brown hands, and unbrushed hat. The Colonel was smoking a cheroot as he walked; and the gigantic Smith, the cock of the school, who happened to be looking majestically out of window, was pleased to say that he thought Newcome's governor was a fine manly-looking fellow.

»Tell me about your uncles, Clive,« said the Colonel, as they walked on arm in arm.

»What about them, sir?« asks the boy. »I don't think I know much.«

»You have been to stay with them. You wrote about them. Were they kind to you?«

»Oh, yes, I suppose they are very kind. They always tipped me; only, you know, when I go there I scarcely ever see them. Mr. Newcome asks me the oftenest – two or three times a quarter when he's in town – and gives me a sovereign regular.«

»Well, he must see you to give you the sovereign,« says Clive's father, laughing.

The boy blushed rather.

»Yes. When it's time to go back to Smithfield, on a Sunday night, I go into the dining-room to shake hands, and he gives it me. But he don't speak to me much, you know; and I don't care about going to Bryanston Square, except for the tip – of course that's important – because I am made to dine with the children, and they are quite little ones; and a great cross French governess, who is always crying and shrieking after them, and finding fault with them. My uncle generally has his dinner-parties on Saturday, or goes out; and aunt gives me ten shillings, and sends me to the play – that's better fun than a dinner-party.« Here the lad blushed again. »I used,« says he, »when I was younger, to stand on the stairs and prig things out of the dishes when they came out from dinner, but I'm past that now. Maria (that's my cousin) used to take the sweet things and give 'em to the governess. Fancy! she used to put lumps of sugar into her pocket and eat them in the schoolroom! Uncle Hobson don't live in such good society as Uncle Newcome.