The Adventures of Philip

by William Makepeace Thackeray

good if he praised it, I can tell you. I imported it myself, and gave him the

  address of the Bordeaux merchant; and he said he had seldom tasted any like it.

  Those were his very words. I must get you fellows to come and taste it some

  day."

  "Some day! What day? Name it, generous Amphitryon!" cries Rosebury.

  "Some day at seven o'clock. With a plain, quiet dinner��a clear soup, a bit of

  fish, a couple of little entr�es, a and a nice little roast. That's my kind of

  dinner. And we'll taste that claret, young men. It is not a heavy wine. It is

  not a first-class wine. I don't mean even to say it is a dear wine, but it has a

  bouquet and a pureness. What, you will smoke, you fellows?"

  "We will do it, Mr. Twysden. Better do as the rest of us do. Try one of these."

  The little man accepts the proffered cigar from the young nobleman's box, lights

  it, hems and hawks, and lapses into silence.

  "I thought that would do for him," murmurs the facetious Ascot. "It is strong

  enough to blow his old head off, and I wish it would. That cigar," he continues,

  "was given to my father by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who had it out of the

  Queen of Spain's own box. She smokes a good deal, but naturally likes 'em mild.

  I can give you a stronger one."

  "Oh, no. I dare say this is very fine. Thank you!" says poor Talbot.

  "Leave him alone, can't you?" says Philip. "Don't make a fool of him before the

  young men, Ascot."

  Philip still looked very dismal in the midst of the festivity. He was thinking

  of his differences with his absent parent.

  We might all have been easily consoled, if the doctor had taken away with him

  the elderly companion whom he had introduced to Phil's feast. He could not have

  been very welcome to our host, for Phil scowled at his guest, and whispered,

  "Hang Hunt!" to his neighbour.

  "Hang Hunt"��the Reverend Tufton Hunt was his name��was in nowise disconcerted

  by the coolness of his reception. He drank his wine very freely; addressed

  himself to his neighbours affably; and called out a loud "Hear, hear," to

  Twysden, when that gentleman announced his intention of making a night of it. As

  Mr. Hunt warmed with wine he spoke to the table. He talked a great deal about

  the Ringwood family, had been very intimate at Wingate, in old days, as he told

  Mr. Twysden, and an intimate friend of poor Cinqbars, Lord Ringwood's only son.

  Now, the memory of the late Lord Cinqbars was not an agreeable recollection to

  the relatives of the house of Ringwood. He was in life a dissipated and

  disreputable young lord. His name was seldom mentioned in his family; never by

  his father, with whom he had had many quarrels.

  "You know I introduced Cinqbars to your father, Philip?" calls out the dingy

  clergyman.

  "I have heard you mention the fact," says Philip.

  "They met at a wine in my rooms in Corpus. Brummell Firmin we used to call your

  father in those days. He was the greatest buck in the university�� always a

  dressy man, kept hunters, gave the best dinners in Cambridge. We were a wild

  set. There was Cinqbars, Brand Firmin, Beryl, Toplady, about a dozen of us,

  almost all noblemen or fellow-commoners�� fellows who all kept their horses and

  had their private servants."

  This speech was addressed to the company, who yet did not seem much edified by

  the college recollections of the dingy elderly man.

  "Almost all Trinity men, sir! We dined with each other week about. Many of them

  had their tandems. Desperate fellow across country your father was. And, but we

  won't tell tales out of school, hey?"

  "No; please don't sir," said Philip, clenching his fists, and biting his lips.

  The shabby, ill-bred, swaggering man was eating Philip's salt; Phil's lordly

  ideas of hospitality did not allow him to quarrel with the guest under his tent.

  "When he went out in medicine, we were all of us astonished. Why, sir, Brand

  Firmin, at one time, was the greatest swell in the university," continued Mr.

  Hunt, "and such a plucky fellow! So was poor Cinqbars, though he had no stamina.

  He, I, and Firmin, fought for twenty minutes before Caius' Gate with about

  twenty bargemen, and you should have seen your father hit out! I was a handy one

  in those days, too, with my fingers. We learned the noble art of self-defence in

  my time, young gentlemen! We used to have Glover, the boxer, down from London,

  who gave us lessons. Cinqbars was a pretty sparrer��but no stamina. Brandy

  killed him, sir��brandy killed him! Why, this is some of your governor's wine!

  He and I have been drinking it to-night in Parr Street, and talking over old

  times."

  "I am glad, sir, you found the wine to your taste," says Philip, gravely.

  "I did, Philip, my boy! And when your father said he was coming to your wine, I

  said I'd come to."

  "I wish somebody would fling him out of window," groaned Philip.

  "A most potent, grave, and reverend senior," whispered Rosebury to me. "I read

  billards, Boulogne, gambling-houses, in his noble lineaments. Has he long

  adorned your family circle, Firmin?"

  "I found him at home about a month ago, in my father's ante-room, in the same

  clothes, with a pair of mangy moustaches on his face; and he has been at our

  house every day since."

  "�chapp� de Toulon," says Rosebury, blandly, looking towards the stranger. "Cela

  se voit. Homme parfaitement distingu�. You are quite right, sir. I was speaking

  of you; and asking our friend Philip where it was I had the honour of meeting

  you abroad last year? This courtesy," he gently added, "will disarm tigers."

  "I was abroad, sir, last year," said the other, nodding his head.

  "Three to one he was in Boulogne gaol, or perhaps officiating chaplain at a

  gambling-house. Stop, I have it! Baden Baden, sir?"

  "I was there, safe enough," says the clergyman. "It is a very pretty place; but

  the air of the Apr�s kills you. Ha! ha! Your father used to shake his elbow when

  he was a youngster, too, Philip! I can't help calling you Philip. I've known

  your father these thirty years. We were college chums, you know."

  "Ah! what would I give," sighs Rosebury, "if that venerable being would but

  address me by my Christian name! Philip, do something to make your party go. The

  old gentlemen are throttling it? Sing something, somebody! or let us drown our

  melancholy in wine. You expressed your approbation of this claret, sir, and

  claimed a previous acquaintance with it?"

  "I've drunk two dozen of it in the last month," says Mr. Hunt, with a grin.

  "Two dozen and four, sir," remarks Mr. Brice, putting a fresh bottle on the

  table.

  "Well said, Brice! I make the Firmin Arms my head-quarters; and honour the

  landlord with a good deal of my company," remarks Mr. Hunt.

  "The Firmin Arms are honoured by having such supporters!" says Phil, glaring and

  with a heaving chest. At each moment he was growing more and more angry with

  that parson.

  At a certain stage of conviviality Phil was fond of talking of his pedigree;

  and, though a professor of very liberal opinions, was not a little proud of some

  of his ancestors.

>   "Oh, come, I say! Sink the heraldry!" cries Lord Ascot.

  "I am very sorry! I would do anything to oblige you, but I can't help being a

  gentleman!" growls Philip.

  "Oh, I say! If you intend to come King Richard III. over us��" breaks out my

  lord.

  "Ascot! your ancestors were sweeping counters when mine stood by King Richard in

  that righteous fight!" shouts Philip.

  That monarch had conferred lands upon the Ringwood family. Richard III. was

  Philip's battle-horse; when he trotted it after dinner he was splendid in his

  chivalry.

  "Oh, I say! If you are to saddle White Surrey, fight Bosworth Field, and murder

  the kids in the Tower!" continues Lord Ascot.

  "Serve the little brutes right!" roars Phil. "They were no more heirs of the

  blood royal of England than��"

  "I daresay! Only I'd rather have a song now the old boy is gone. I say; you

  fellows; chant something,�� do now! Bar all this row about Bosworth Field and

  Richard the Third! Always does it when he's beer on board��always does it, give

  you my honour!" whispers the young nobleman to his neighbour.

  "I am a fool! I am a fool!" cries Phil, smacking his forehead. "There are

  moments when the wrongs of my race will intervene. It's not your fault, Mr.

  What-d'ye-call-'em, that you alluded to my arms in a derisive manner. I bear you

  no malice! Nay, I ask your pardon! Nay! I pledge you in this claret, which is

  good, though it's my governor's. In our house everything isn't, hum��Bosh! it's

  twenty-five claret, sir! Ascot's father gave him a pipe of it for saving a life

  which might be better spent; and I believe the apothecary would have pulled you

  through, Ascot, just as well as my governor. But the wine's good! Good! Brice,

  some more claret! A song! Who spoke of a song? Warble us something, Tom Dale! A

  song, a song, a song!"

  Whereupon the exquisite ditty of "Moonlight on the Tiles" was given by Tom Dale

  with all his accustomed humour. Then politeness demanded that our host should

  sing one of his songs, and as I have heard him perform it many times, I have the

  privilege of here reprinting it: premising that the tune and chorus were taken

  from a German song-book, which used to delight us melodious youth in bygone

  days. Philip accordingly lifted up his great voice and sang:��

  DOCTOR LUTHER.

  "For the souls' edification Of this decent congregation, Worthy people! by your

  grant, I will sing a holy chant, I will sing a holy chant. If the ditty sound

  but oddly, 'Twas a father, wise and godly, Sang it so long ago. Then sing as

  Doctor Luther sang, As Doctor Luther sang, Who loves not wine, woman, and song,

  He is a fool his whole life long.

  "He, by custom patriarchal, Loved to see the beaker sparkle, And he thought the

  wine improved, Tasted by the wife he loved, By the kindly lips he loved.

  Friends! I wish this custom pious Duly were adopted by us, To combine love,

  song, wine; And sing as Doctor Luther sang, As Doctor Luther sang, Who loves not

  wine, woman, and song, He is a fool his whole life long.

  "Who refuses this our credo, And demurs to drink as we do, Were he holy as John

  Knox, I'd pronounce him heterodox, I'd pronounce him heterodox. And from out

  this congregation, With a solemn commination, Banish quick the heretic, Who

  would not sing as Luther sang, As Doctor Luther sang, Who loves not wine, woman,

  and song, He is a fool his whole life long." The reader's humble servant was

  older than most of the party assembled at this symposium; but as I listened to

  the noise, the fresh laughter, the songs remembered out of old university days,

  the talk and cant phrases of the old school of which most of us had been

  disciples, dear me, I felt quite young again, and when certain knocks came to

  the door about midnight, enjoyed quite a refreshing pang of anxious interest for

  a moment, deeming the proctors were rapping, having heard our shouts in the

  court below. The late comer, however, was only a tavern waiter, bearing a

  supper-tray; and we were free to speechify, shout, quarrel, and be as young as

  we liked, with nobody to find fault, except, perchance, the bencher below, who,

  I daresay, was kept awake with our noise.

  When that supper arrived, poor Talbot Twysden, who had come so far to enjoy it,

  was not in a state to partake of it. Lord Ascot's cigar had proved too much for

  him; and the worthy gentleman had been lying on a sofa, in a neighbouring room,

  for some time past in a state of hopeless collapse. He had told us, whilst yet

  capable of speech, what a love and regard he had for Philip; but between him and

  Philip's father there was but little love. They had had that worst and most

  irremediable of quarrels, a difference about twopence half-penny in the division

  of the property of their late father-in-law. Firmin still thought Twysden a

  shabby curmudgeon; and Twysden considered Firmin an unprincipled man. When Mrs.

  Firmin was alive, the two poor sisters had had to regulate their affections by

  the marital orders, and to be warm, cool, moderate, freezing, according to their

  husbands' state for the time being. I wonder are there many real

  reconciliations? Dear Tomkins and I are reconciled, I know. We have met and

  dined at Jones's. And ah! how fond we are of each other! Oh, very! So with

  Firmin and Twysden. They met, and shook hands with perfect animosity. So did

  Twysden junior and Firmin junior. Young Twysden was the elder, and thrashed and

  bullied Phil as a boy, until the latter arose and pitched his cousin downstairs.

  Mentally, they were always kicking each other downstairs. Well, poor Talbot

  could not partake of the supper when it came, and lay in a piteous state on the

  neighbouring sofa of the absent Mr. Vanjohn.

  Who would go home with him, where his wife must be anxious about him? I agreed

  to convoy him, and the parson said he was going our way, and would accompany us.

  We supported this senior through the Temple, and put him on the front seat of a

  cab. The cigar had disgracefully overcome him; and any lecturer on the evils of

  smoking might have pointed his moral on the helpless person of this wretched

  gentleman.

  The evening's feasting had only imparted animation to Mr. Hunt, and occasioned

  an agreeable abandon in his talk. I had seen the man before in Dr. Firmin's

  house, and own that his society was almost as odious to me as to doctor's son

  Philip. On all subjects and persons, Phil was accustomed to speak his mind out a

  great deal too openly; and Mr. Hunt had been an object of special dislike to him

  ever since he had known Hunt. I tried to make the best of the matter. Few men of

  kindly feeling and good station are without a dependent or two. Men start

  together in the race of life; and Jack wins, and Tom falls by his side. The

  successful man succours and reaches a friendly hand to the unfortunate

  competitor. Remembrance of early times gives the latter a sort of right to call

  on his luckier comrade; and a man finds himself pitying, then enduring, then

  embracing a companion for whom, in old days, perhaps, he never had had any

  regard or esteem. A prosperous man ought to have follower
s: if he has none, he

  has a hard heart.

  This philosophizing was all very well. It was good for a man not to desert the

  friends of his boyhood. But to live with such a cad as that��with that creature,

  low, servile, swaggering, besotted��How could his father, who had fine tastes,

  and loved grand company, put up with such a fellow? asked Phil. "I don't know

  when the man is the more odious, when he is familiar or when he is respectful;

  when he is paying compliments to my father's guests in Parr Street, or telling

  hideous old stale stories, as he did at my call-supper."

  The wine of which Mr. Hunt freely partook on that occasion made him, as I have

  said, communicative. "Not a bad fellow, our host," he remarked, on his part,

  when we came away together. "Bumptious, goodlooking, speaks his mind, hates me,

  and I don't care. He must be well to do in the world, Master Philip."

  I said I hoped and thought so.

  "Brummell Firmin must make four or five thousand a year. He was a wild fellow in

  my time, I can tell you��in the days of the wild Prince and Poyns��stuck at

  nothing, spent his own money, ruined himself, fell on his legs somehow, and

  married a fortune. Some of us have not been so lucky. I had nobody to pay my

  debts. I missed my Fellowship by idling and dissipating with those confounded

  hats and silver-laced gowns. I liked good company in those days��always did when

  I could get it. If you were to write my adventures, now, you would have to tell

  some queer stories. I've been everywhere; I've seen high and low��'specially

  low. I've tried schoolmastering, bear-leading, newspapering, America, West

  Indies. I've been in every city in Europe. I haven't been as lucky as Brummell

  Firmin. He rolls in his coach, he does, and I walk in my highlows. Guineas drop

  into his palm every day, and are uncommonly scarce in mine, I can tell you; and

  poor old Tufton Hunt is not much better off at fifty odd than he was when he was

  an undergraduate at eighteen. How do you do, old gentleman? Air do you good?

  Here we are at Beaunash Street; hope you've got the key, and missis won't see

  you." A large butler, too well bred to express astonishment at any event which

  occurred out of doors, opened Mr. Twysden's and let in that lamentable

  gentleman. He was very pale and solemn. He gasped out a few words, intimating

  his intention to fix a day to ask us to come and dine soon, and taste that wine

  that Winton liked so. He waved an unsteady hand to us. If Mrs. Twysden was on

  the stairs to see the condition of her lord, I hope she took possession of the

  candle. Hunt grumbled as we came out: "He might have offered us some refreshment

  after bringing him all that way home. It's only half-past one. There's no good

  in going to bed so soon as that. Let us go and have a drink somewhere. I know a

  very good crib close by. No, you wont? I say" (here he burst into a laugh which

  startled the sleeping street), "I know what you've been thinking all the time in

  the cab. You are a swell,��you are, too! You have been thinking, 'This dreary

  old parson will try and borrow money from me.' But I won't, my boy. I've got a

  banker. Look here! Fee, faw, fum. You understand. I can get the sovereigns out

  of my medical swell in Old Parr Street. I prescribe bleeding for him ��I drew

  him to-night. He is a very kind fellow, Brummell Firmin is. He can't deny such a

  dear old friend anything. Bless him!" And as he turned away to some midnight

  haunt of his own, he tossed up his hand in the air. I heard him laughing through

  the silent street, and policeman X, tramping on his beat, turned round and

  suspiciously eyed him.

  Then I thought of Dr. Firmin's dark, melancholy face and eyes. Was a benevolent

  remembrance of old times the bond of union between these men? All my house had

  long been asleep, when I opened and gently closed my house door. By the

  twinkling night-lamp I could dimly see child and mother softly breathing. Oh,

  blessed they on whose pillow no remorse sits! Happy you who have escaped