The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

The Colonel selected the ditty of "Wapping Old Stairs," and gave his heart and soul to the simple ballad. When the song was over, Clive held up his head too, and looked round with surprise and pleasure in his eyes. The Colonel bowed and smiled with good nature at our plaudits. "I learnt that song forty years ago," he said, turning round to his boy. "I used to slip out from Grey Friars to hear it. Lord! Lord! how the time passes!"

Whilst he was singing his ballad, there had reeled into the room my friend Captain Costizan, in his usual condition at this hour of the night.

"Captain Costizan, will you take something to drink?"

"Bedad I will," says the Captain, "and I'll sing ye a song too."

Having procured a glass of whisky and water, the unlucky wretch, who scarcely knew what he was doing or saying, selected one of the most outrageous of what he called his prime songs, and began his music. At the end of the second verse, the Colonel started up, and looking as ferocious as though he had been going to do battle with a Pindaree, roared out "Silence!"

"Do you dare, sir," cries the Colonel, trembling with anger, "to call yourself a gentleman, and to say that you hold the king's commission, and to sit down amongst Christians and men of honour, and defile the ears of young boys with this wicked balderdash?"

"Why do you bring young boys here, old man?" cries a malcontent.

"Why? Because I thought I was coming to a society of gentlemen. I never could have believed that Englishmen could meet together and allow an old man so to disgrace himself. For shame! Go home to your bed, you hoary old sinner! And for my part, I'm not sorry that my son should see for once in his life to what degradation, drunkenness, and whisky may bring a man. Never mind the change, sir!" says the Colonel, to the amazed waiter. "Keep it till you see me in this place again, which will be never--by George, never!" And shouldering his stick, and scowling round at the company, the indignant gentleman stalked away, his boy after him.

Clive seemed rather shamefaced; but I fear the rest of the company looked still more foolish.

II.--Clive Newman in Love

The Colonel, in conjunction with an Indian friend of his, Mr. Binnie, took a house in London, No. 120, Fitzroy Square, and there was fine amusement for Clive and his father and Mr. Binnie in the purchase of furniture for the new mansion. It was like nobody else's house. What cosy pipes did we not smoke in the dining room, in the drawing room, or where we would!

Clive had a tutor, whom we recommended to him, and with whom the young gentleman did not fatigue his brains very much; but his great forte decidedly lay in drawing. He sketched the horses, he drew the dogs. He drew his father in all postures--asleep, on foot, on horseback; and jolly little Mr. Binnie, with his plump legs on a chair, or jumping briskly on the back of a cob which he rode.

"Oh," says Clive, if you talk to him now about those early days, "it was a jolly time! I do not believe there was any young fellow in London so happy." And there hangs up in his painting-room now a head, with hair touched with grey, with a large moustache, and melancholy eyes. And Clive shows that portrait of their grandfather to his children, and tells them that the whole world never saw a nobler gentleman.

Of course our young man commenced as an historical painter, deeming that the highest branch of art. He painted a prodigious battle-piece of Assaye, and will it be believed that the Royal Academicians rejected this masterpiece? Clive himself, after a month's trip to Paris with his father, declared the thing was rubbish.

It was during this time, when Clive and his father were in Paris, that Mr. Binnie, laid up with a wrenched ankle, was consoled by a visit from his sister, Mrs. Mackenzie, a brisk, plump little widow, and her daughter, Miss Rosey, a blue-eyed, fair-haired lass, with a very sweet voice.

Of course the most hospitable and polite of colonels would not hear of Mrs. Mackenzie and her daughter quitting his house when he returned to it, after the pleasant sojourn in Paris; nor indeed, did his fair guest show the least anxiety or intention to go away. Certainly, the house was a great deal more cheerful for the presence of the two pleasant ladies. Everybody liked them. Binnie received their caresses very good-humouredly. The Colonel liked every woman under the sun. Clive laughed and joked and waltzed alternately with Rosey and her mamma. None of us could avoid seeing that Mrs. Mackenzie was, as the phrase is, "setting her cap" openly at Clive; and Clive laughed at her simple manoeuvres as merrily as the rest.