The Adventures of Philip

by William Makepeace Thackeray

my lawyer in Gray's Inn; and it was then I thought of coming on to see you, as I

  was telling Mrs. Firmin; and a very nice quiet place you live in!"

  This was very well. But for the first and only time of his life, Philip was

  jealous.

  "Don't drub so with your feet! Don't like to ride when you jog so on the floor,"

  said Philip's eldest darling, who had clambered on papa's knee. "Why do you look

  so? Don't squeeze my arm, papa!"

  Mamma was utterly unaware that Philip had any cause for agitation. "You have

  walked all the way from Westminster, and the club, and you are quite hot and

  tired!" she said. "Some tea, my dear?"

  Philip nearly choked with the tea. From under his hair, which fell over his

  forehead, he looked into his wife's face. It wore such a sweet look of innocence

  and wonder, that, as he regarded her, the spasm of jealousy passed off. No:

  there was no look of guilt in those tender eyes. Philip could only read in them

  the wife's tender love and anxiety for himself.

  But what of Mr. Ringwood's face? When the first little blush and hesitation had

  passed away, Mr. Ringwood's pale countenance reassumed that calm selfsatisfied

  smile, which it customarily wore. "The coolness of the man maddened me," said

  Philip, talking about the little occurrence afterwards, and to his usual

  confidant.

  "Gracious powers," cried the other. "If I went to see Charlotte and the

  children, would you be jealous of me, you bearded Turk? Are you prepared with

  sack and bowstring for every man who visits Mrs. Firmin? If you are to come out

  in this character, you will lead yourself and your wife pretty lives. Of course

  you quarrelled with Lovelace then and there, and threatened to throw him out of

  window then and there? Your custom is to strike when you are hot; witness��"

  "Oh, dear, no!" cried Philip, interrupting me. "I have not quarrelled with him

  yet." And he ground his teeth, and gave a very fierce glare with his eyes. "I

  sate him out quite civilly. I went with him to the door; and I have left

  directions that he is never to pass it again��that's all. But I have not

  quarrelled with him in the least. Two men never behaved more politely than we

  did. We bowed and grinned at each other quite amiably. But I own, when he held

  out his hand, I was obliged to keep mine behind my back, for they felt very

  mischievous, and inclined to��Well, never mind. Perhaps it is, as you say; and

  he means no sort of harm."

  Where, I say again, do women learn all the mischief they know? Why should my

  wife have such a mistrust and horror of this gentleman? She took Philip's side

  entirely. She said she thought he was quite right in keeping that person out of

  his house. What did she know about that person? Did I not know myself? He was a

  libertine, and led a bad life. He had led young men astray, and taught them to

  gamble, and helped them to ruin themselves. We have all heard stories about the

  late Sir Philip Ringwood; that last scandal in which he was engaged, three years

  ago, and which brought his career to an end at Naples, I need not, of course,

  allude to. But fourteen or fifteen years ago, about which time this present

  portion of our little story is enacted, what did she know about Ringwood's

  misdoings?

  No: Philip Firmin did not quarrel with Philip Ringwood on this occasion. But he

  shut his door on Mr. Ringwood. He refused all invitations to Sir John's house,

  which, of course, came less frequently, and which then ceased to come at all.

  Rich folks do not like to be so treated by the poor. Had Lady Ringwood a notion

  of the reason why Philip kept away from her house? I think it is more than

  possible. Some of Philip's friends knew her; and she seemed only pained, not

  surprised or angry, at a quarrel which somehow did take place between the two

  gentlemen not very long after that visit of Mr. Ringwood to his kinsman in

  Milman Street.

  "Your friend seems very hot-headed and violent-tempered," Lady Ringwood said,

  speaking of that very quarrel. "I am sorry he keeps that kind of company. I am

  sure it must be too expensive for him."

  As luck would have it, Philip's old school friend, Lord Ascot, met us a very few

  days after the meeting and parting of Philip and his cousin in Milman Street,

  and invited us to a bachelor's dinner on the river. Our wives (without whose

  sanction no good man would surely ever look a whitebait in the face) gave us

  permission to attend this entertainment, and remained at home, and partook of a

  tea-dinner (blessings on them!) with the dear children. Men grow young again

  when they meet at these parties. We talk of flogging, proctors, old cronies; we

  recite old school and college jokes. I hope that some of us may carry on these

  pleasant entertainments until we are fourscore, and that our toothless old gums

  will mumble the old stories, and will laugh over the old jokes with ever-renewed

  gusto. Does the kind reader remember the account of such a dinner at the

  commencement of this history? On this afternoon, Ascot, Maynard, Burroughs

  (several of the men formerly mentioned), re-assembled. I think we actually like

  each other well enough to be pleased to hear of each other's successes. I know

  that one or two good fellows, upon whom fortune has frowned, have found other

  good fellows in that company to help and aid them; and that all are better for

  that kindly freemasonry.

  Before the dinner was served, the guests met on the green of the hotel, and

  examined that fair landscape, which surely does not lose its charm in our eyes

  because it is commonly seen before a good dinner. The crested elms, the shining

  river, the emerald meadows, the painted parterres of flowers around, all wafting

  an agreeable smell of friture, of flowers and flounders exquisitely commingled.

  Who has not enjoyed these delights? May some of us, I say, live to drink the '58

  claret in the year 1900! I have no doubt that the survivors of our society will

  still laugh at the jokes which we used to relish when the present century was

  still only middle-aged. Ascot was going to be married. Would he be allowed to

  dine next year? Frank Berry's wife would not let him come. Do you remember his

  tremendous fight with Biggs? Remember? who didn't? Marston was Berry's

  bottle-holder; poor Marston, who was killed in India. And Biggs and Berry were

  the closest friends in life ever after. Who would ever have thought of Brackley

  becoming serious, and being made an archdeacon? Do you remember his fight with

  Ringwood? What an infernal bully he was, and how glad we all were when Brackley

  thrashed him. What different fates await men! Who would ever have imagined Nosey

  Brackley a curate in the mining districts, and ending by wearing a rosette in

  his hat? Who would ever have thought of Ringwood becoming such a prodigious

  swell and leader of fashion? He was a very shy fellow; not at all a good-looking

  fellow: and what a wild fellow he had become, and what a lady-killer. Isn't he

  some connection of yours, Firmin? Philip said yes, but that he had scarcely met

  Ringwood at all. And one man after another told anecdotes of Ringwood; how he

  had y
oung men to play in his house; how he had played in that very "Star and

  Garter;" and how he always won. You must please to remember that our story dates

  back some sixteen years, when the dice-box still rattled occasionally, and the

  king was turned.

  As this old school gossip is going on, Lord Ascot arrives, and with him this

  very Ringwood about whom the old schoolfellows had just been talking. He came

  down in Ascot's phaeton. Of course, the greatest man of the party always waits

  for Ringwood. "If we had had a duke at Grey Friars," says some grumbler,

  "Ringwood would have made the duke bring him down."

  Philip's friend, when he beheld the arrival of Mr. Ringwood, seized Firmin's big

  arm, and whispered��

  "Hold your tongue. No fighting. No quarrels. Let bygones be bygones. Remember,

  there can be no earthly use in a scandal."

  "Leave me alone," says Philip, "and don't be afraid."

  I thought Ringwood seemed to start back for a moment, and perhaps fancied that

  he looked a little pale, but he advanced with a gracious smile towards Philip,

  and remarked, "It is a long time since we have seen you at my father's."

  Philip grinned and smiled too. "It was a long time since he had been in Hill

  Street." But Philip's smile was not at all pleasing to behold. Indeed, a worse

  performer of comedy than our friend does not walk the stage of this life.

  On this the other gaily remarked he was glad Philip had leave to join the

  bachelor's party. Meeting of old schoolfellows very pleasant. Hadn't been to one

  of them for a long time: though the "Friars" was an abominable hole; that was

  the truth. Who was that in the shovel-hat? a bishop? what bishop?"

  It was Brackley, the Archdeacon, who turned very red on seeing Ringwood. For the

  fact is, Brackley was talking to Pennystone, the little boy about whom the

  quarrel and fight had taken place at school, when Ringwood had proposed forcibly

  to take Pennystone's money from him. "I think, Mr. Ringwood, that Pennystone is

  big enough to hold his own now, don't you?" said the Archdeacon; and with this

  the Venerable man turned on his heel, leaving Ringwood to face the little

  Pennystone of former years; now a gigantic country squire, with health ringing

  in his voice, and a pair of great arms and fists that would have demolished six

  Ringwoods in the field.

  The sight of these quondam enemies rather disturbed Mr. Ringwood's tranquillity.

  "I was dreadfully bullied at that school," he said, in an appealing manner, to

  Mr. Pennystone. "I did as others did. It was a horrible place, and I hate the

  name of it. I say, Ascot, don't you think that Barnaby's motion last night was

  very ill-timed, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer answered him very

  neatly?"

  This became a cant phrase amongst some of us wags afterwards. Whenever we wished

  to change a conversation, it was, "I say, Ascot, don't you think Barnaby's

  motion was very ill-timed; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer answered him very

  neatly?" You know Mr. Ringwood would scarcely have thought of coming amongst

  such common people as his old schoolfellows, but seeing Lord Ascot's phaeton at

  Black's, he condescended to drive down to Richmond with his lordship, and I hope

  a great number of his friends in St. James's Street saw him in that noble

  company.

  Windham was the chairman of the evening��elected to that post because he is very

  fond of making speeches to which he does not in the least expect you to listen.

  All men of sense are glad to hand over this office to him: and I hope, for my

  part, a day will soon arrive (but I own, mind you, that I do not carve well)

  when we shall have the speeches done by a skilled waiter at the side table, as

  we now have the carving. Don't you find that you splash the gravy, that you

  mangle the meat, that you can't nick the joint in helping the company to a

  dinner-speech? I, for my part, own that I am in a state of tremor and absence of

  mind before the operation; in a condition of imbecility during the business; and

  that I am sure of a headache and indigestion the next morning. What then? Have I

  not seen one of the bravest men in the world, at a city-dinner last year, in a

  state of equal panic?��I feel that I am wandering from Philip's adventures to

  his biographer's, and confess I am thinking of the dismal fiasco I myself made

  on this occasion at the Richmond dinner.

  You see, the order of the day at these meetings is to joke at everything��to

  joke at the chairman, at all the speakers, at the army and navy, at the

  venerable the legislature, at the bar and bench, and so forth. If we toast a

  barrister we show how admirably he would have figured in the dock: if a sailor,

  how lamentably sea-sick he was: if a soldier, how nimbly he ran away. For

  example, we drank the Venerable Archdeacon Brackley and the army. We deplored

  the perverseness which had led him to adopt a black coat instead of a red. War

  had evidently been his vocation, as he had shown by the frequent battles in

  which he had been engaged at school. For what was the other great warrior of the

  age famous? for that Roman feature in his face, which distinguished, which gave

  a name to, our Brackley��a name by which we fondly clung (cries of "Nosey,

  Nosey!") Might that feature ornament ere long the face of��of one of the chiefs

  of that army of which he was a distinguished field-officer! Might�� Here I

  confess I fairly broke down, lost the thread of my joke��at which Brackley

  seemed to look rather severe��and finished the speech with a gobble about

  regard, esteem, everybody respect you, and good health, old boy��which answered

  quite as well as a finished oration, however the author might be discontented

  with it.

  The Archdeacon's little sermon was very brief, as the discourses of sensible

  divines sometimes will be. He was glad to meet old friends��to make friends with

  old foes (loud cries of "Bravo, Nosey!") In the battle of life, every man must

  meet with a blow or two; and every brave one would take his facer with good

  humour. Had he quarrelled with any old schoolfellow in old times? He wore peace

  not only on his coat, but in his heart. Peace and good-will were the words of

  the day in the army to which he belonged; and he hoped that all officers in it

  were animated by one esprit de corps.

  A silence ensued, during which men looked towards Mr. Ringwood, as the "old foe"

  towards whom the Archdeacon had held out the hand of amity: but Ringwood, who

  had listened to the Archdeacon's speech with an expression of great disgust, did

  not rise from his chair��only remarking to his neighbour Ascot, "Why should I

  get up? Hang him, I have nothing to say. I say, Ascot, why did you induce me to

  come into this kind of thing?"

  Fearing that a collision might take place between Philip and his kinsman, I had

  drawn Philip away from the place in the room to which Lord Ascot beckoned him,

  saying, "Never mind, Philip, about sitting by the lord," by whose side I knew

  perfectly well that Mr. Ringwood would find a place. But it was our lot to be

  separated from his lordship by merely the table's breadth, and some intervening />
  vases of flowers and fruits through which we could see and hear our opposite

  neighbours. When Ringwood spoke "of this kind of thing," Philip glared across

  the table, and started as if he was going to speak; but his neighbour pinched

  him on the knee, and whispered to him, "Silence��no scandal. Remember!" The

  other fell back, swallowed a glass of wine, and made me far from comfortable by

  performing a tattoo on my chair.

  The speeches went on. If they were not more eloquent they were more noisy and

  lively than before. Then the aid of song was called in to enliven the banquet.

  The Archdeacon, who had looked a little uneasy for the last half hour, rose up

  at the call for a song, and quitted the room. "Let us go too, Philip," said

  Philip's neighbour. "You don't want to hear those dreadful old college songs

  over again?" But Philip sulkily said, "You go, I should like to stay."

  Lord Ascot was seeing the last of his bachelor life. He liked those last

  evenings to be merry; he lingered over them, and did not wish them to end too

  quickly. His neighbour was long since tired of the entertainment, and sick of

  our company. Mr. Ringwood had lived of late in a world of such fashion that

  ordinary mortals were despicable to him. He had no affectionate remembrance of

  his early days, or of anybody belonging to them. Whilst Philip was singing his

  song of Doctor Luther, I was glad that he could not see the face of surprise and

  disgust which his kinsman bore. Other vocal performances followed, including a

  song by Lord Ascot, which, I am bound to say, was hideously out of tune; but was

  received by his near neighbour complacently enough.

  The noise now began to increase, the choruses were fuller, the speeches were

  louder and more incoherent. I don't think the company heard a speech by little

  Mr. Vanjohn, whose health was drunk as representative of the British Turf, and

  who said that he had never known anything about the turf or about play, until

  their old schoolfellow, his dear friend��his swell friend, if he might be

  permitted the expression��Mr. Ringwood, taught him the use of cards; and once,

  in his own house, in May Fair, and once in this very house, the "Star and

  Garter," showed him how to play the noble game of Blind Hookey.

  "The men are drunk. Let us go away, Ascot. I didn't come for this kind of

  thing!" cried Ringwood, furious, by Lord Ascot's side.

  This was the expression which Mr. Ringwood had used a short time before, when

  Philip was about to interrupt him. He had lifted his gun to fire then, but his

  hand had been held back. The bird passed him once more, and he could not help

  taking aim.

  "This kind of thing is very dull, isn't it, Ringwood?" he called across the

  table, pulling away a flower, and glaring at the other through the little open

  space.

  "Dull, old boy? I call it doosed good fun," cries Lord Ascot, in the height of

  good humour.

  "Dull? What do you mean?" asked my lord's neighbour.

  "I mean, you would prefer having a couple of packs of cards, and a little room,

  where you could win three or four hundred from a young fellow? It's more

  profitable and more quiet than 'this kind of thing."'

  "I say, I don't know what you mean!" cries the other.

  "What! You have forgotten already? Has not Vanjohn just told you, how you and

  Mr. Deuceace brought him down here, and won his money from him; and then how you

  gave him his revenge at your own house in��"

  "Did I come here to be insulted by that fellow?" cries Mr. Ringwood, appealing

  to his neighbour.

  "If that is an insult, you may put it in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Ringwood!"

  cries Philip.

  "Come away, come away, Ascot! Don't keep me here listening to this bla��"

  "If you say another word," says Philip, "I'll send this decanter at your head!"

  "Come, come��nonsense! No quarrelling! Make it up! Everybody has had too much!