Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour

by Robert Smith Surtees

  CHAPTER XXXI

  MR. PUFFINGTON; OR THE YOUNG MAN ABOUT TOWN

  Mr. Puffington took the Mangeysterne, now the Hanby hounds, because hethought they would give him consequence. Not that he was particularlydeficient in that article; but being a new man in the county, he thoughtthat taking them would make him popular, and give him standing. He had nonatural inclination for hunting, but seeing friends who had no taste forthe turf take upon themselves the responsibility of stewardships, he sawno reason why he should not make a similar sacrifice at the shrine ofDiana. Indeed, Puff was not bred for a sportsman. His father, a mostestimable man, and one with whom we have spent many a convivial evening,was a great starch-maker at Stepney; and his mother was the daughter of aneminent Worcestershire stone-china maker. Save such ludicrous hunts as theymight have seen on their brown jugs, we do not believe either of them hadany acquaintance whatever with the chase. Old Puffington was, however, whata wise heir esteems a great deal more--an excellent man of business, andamassed mountains of money. To see his establishment at Stepney, one wouldthink the whole world was going to be starched. Enormous dock-taileddray-horses emerged with ponderous waggons heaped up to the very skies,while others would come rumbling in, laden with wheat, potatoes, and otherstarch-making ingredients. Puffington's blue roans were well known abouttown, and were considered the handsomest horses of the day; quite equal toBarclay and Perkin's piebalds.

  Old Puffington was not like a sportsman. He was a little, soft, rosy,roundabout man, with stiff resolute legs that did not look as if they couldbe bent to a saddle. He was great, however, in a gig, and slouched like asack.

  Mrs. Puffington, _nee_ Smith, was a tall handsome woman, who thought a gooddeal of herself. When she and her spouse married, they lived close to themanufactory, in a sweet little villa replete with every elegance andconvenience--a pond, which they called a lake--laburnums without end; ayew, clipped into a dock-tailed waggon-horse; standing for three horses andgigs, with an acre and half of land for a cow.

  Old Puffington, however, being unable to keep those dearest documents ofthe British merchant, his balance-sheets, to himself, and Mrs. Puffingtonfinding a considerable sum going to the 'good' every year, insisted, on thebirth of their only child, our friend, upon migrating to the 'west,' as shecalled it, and at one bold stroke they established themselves in HeathcoteStreet, Mecklenburgh Square. Novelists had not then written this part downas 'Mesopotamia,' and it was quite as genteel as Harley or Wimpole Streetare now. Their chief object then was to increase their wealth and maketheir only son 'a gentleman.' They sent him to Eton, and in due time toChrist Church, where, of course, he established a red coat to persecute SirThomas Mostyn's and the Duke of Beaufort's hounds, much to the annoyance oftheir respective huntsmen, Stephen Goodall and Philip Payne, and theaggravation of poor old Griff. Lloyd.

  What between the field and college, young Puffington made the acquaintanceof several very dashing young sparks--Lord Firebrand, Lord Mudlark, LordDeuceace, Sir Harry Blueun, and others, whom he always spoke of as'Deuceace,' 'Blueun,' etc., in the easy style that marks the perfectgentleman.[1] How proud the old people were of him! How they would sitlistening to him, flashing, and telling how Deuceace and he floored aCharley, or Blueun and he pitched a snob out of the boxes into the pit.This was in the old Tom-and-Jerry days, when fisticuffs were the fashion.One evening, after he had indulged us with a more than usual dose, and wasleaving the room to dress for an eight o'clock dinner at Long's, 'Buzzer!'exclaimed the old man, clutching our arm, as the tears started to his eyes,'Buzzer! that's an am_aa_zin' instance of a pop'lar man!' And certainly, ifa large acquaintance is a criterion of popularity, young Puffington, as hewas then called, had his fair share. He once did us the honour--an honourwe shall never forget--of walking down Bond Street with us, in thespring-tide of fashion, of a glorious summer's day, when you could notcross Conduit Street under a lapse of a quarter of an hour, and carriagesseemed to have come to an interminable lock at the Piccadilly end of thestreet. In those days great people went about like great people, inhandsome hammer-clothed, arms-emblazoned coaches, with plethoricthree-corner-hatted coachmen, and gigantic, lace-bedizened,quivering-calved Johnnies, instead of rumbling along like apothecaries inpill-boxes, with a handle inside to let themselves out. Young men, too,dressed as if they were dressed--as if they were got up with some care andattention--instead of wearing the loose, careless, flowing, sack-likegarments they do now.

  We remember the day as if it were but yesterday; Puffington overtook us inOxford Street, where we were taking our usual sauntering stare into theshop windows, and instead of shirking or slipping behind our back, heactually ran his arm up to the hilt in ours, and turned us into the middleof the flags, with an 'Ah, Buzzer, old boy, what are you doing in thisdebauched part of the town? Come along with me, and I'll show you Life!'

  So saying he linked arms, and pursuing our course at a proper kill-timesort of pace, we were at length brought up at the end of Vere Street, alongwhich there was a regular rush of carriages, cutting away as if they weregoing to a fire instead of to a finery shop.

  Many were the smiles, and bows, and nods, and finger kisses, and brighteyes, and sweet glances, that the fair flyers shot at our friend as theydarted past. We were lost in astonishment at the sight. 'Verily,' said we,'but the old man was right. This _is_ an am_aa_zin' instance of a pop'larman.'

  Young Puffington was then in the heyday of youth, about one-and-twenty orso, fair-haired, fresh-complexioned, slim, and standing, with the aid ofhigh-heeled boots, little under six feet high. He had taken after hismother, not after old Tom Trodgers, as they called his papa. At length wecrossed over Oxford Street, and taking the shady side of Bond Street, werequickly among the real swells of the world--men who crawled along as iflife was a perfect burden to them--men with eye-glasses fixed and tasselledcanes in their hands, scarcely less ponderous than those borne by thefootmen. Great Heavens! but they were tight, and smart, and shiny; andPuffington was just as tight, and smart, and shiny as any of them. He wasas much in his element here as he appeared to be out of it in OxfordStreet. It might be prejudice, or want of penetration on our part, but wethought he looked as high-bred as any of them. They all seemed to know eachother, and the nodding, and winking, and jerking, began as soon as we gotacross. Puff kindly acted as cicerone, or we should not have been aware ofthe consequence we were encountering.

  'Well, Jemmy!' exclaimed a debauched-looking youth to our friend, 'how areyou?--breakfasted yet?'

  'Going to,' replied Puffington, whom they called Jemmy because his name wasTommy.

  'That,' said he, in an undertone, 'is a _capital_ fellow--Lord Legbail,eldest son of the Marquis of Loosefish--will be Lord Loosefish. We were atthe Finish together till six this morning--such fun!--bonneted a Charley,stole his rattle, and broke an early breakfast-man's stall all to shivers.'Just then up came a broad-brimmed hat, above a confused mass of greatcoatsand coloured shawls.

  'Holloa, Jack!' exclaimed Mr. Puffington, laying hold of a mother-of-pearlbutton nearly as large as a tart-plate, 'not off yet?'

  'Just going,' replied Jack, with a touch of his hat, as he rolled on,adding, 'want aught down the road?'

  'What coachman is that?' asked we.

  '_Coachman!_' replied Puff, with a snort. 'That's Jack Linchpin--HonourableJack Linchpin--son of Lord Splinterbars--best gentleman coachman inEngland.'

  So Puffington sauntered along, good morninging 'Sir Harrys' and 'SirJameses,' and 'Lord Johns' and 'Lord Toms,' till, seeing a batch ofirreproachable dandies flattening their noses against the windows of theSailors' Old Club, in whose eyes, he perhaps thought, our city coat andcountry gaiters would not find much favour, he gave us a hasty partingsqueeze of the arm and bolted into Long's just as a mountainoushackney-coach was rumbling between us and them.

  But to the old man. Time rolled on, and at length old Puffington paid thedebt of nature--the only debt, by the way, that he was slow indischarging--and our friend found himself in possession, not only
of thestarch manufactory, but of a very great accumulation of consols--so greatthat, though starch is as inoffensive a thing as a man can well deal in, athing that never obtrudes itself, or, indeed appears in a shop unless it isasked for--notwithstanding all this, and though it was bringing him in lotsof money, our friend determined to 'cut the shop' and be done with tradealtogether.

  Accordingly, he sold the premises and good-will, with all the stock ofpotatoes and wheat, to the foreman, old Soapsuds, at something below whatthey were really worth, rather than make any row in the way of advertising;and the name of 'Soapsuds, Brothers & Co.' reigns on theblue-and-whitey-brown parcel-ends, where formerly that of Puffington stoodsupreme.

  It is a melancholy fact, which those best acquainted with London societycan vouch for, that her 'swells' are a very ephemeral race. Take the lastfive-and-twenty years--say from the days of the Golden Ball and Pea-greenHayne down to those of Molly C----l and Mr. D-l-f-ld--and see what asuccession of joyous--no, not joyous, but rattling, careless, dashing,sixty-percenting youths we have had.

  And where are they all now? Some dead, some at Boulogne-sur-Mer, some inDenman Lodge, some perhaps undergoing the polite attentions of Mr.Commissioner Phillips, or figuring in Mr. Hemp's periodical publication ofgentlemen 'who are wanted.'

  In speaking of 'swells,' of course we are not alluding to men withreference to their clothes alone, but to men whose dashing, and perhapseccentric, exteriors are but indicative of their general system ofextravagance. The man who rests his claims to distinction solely on hisclothes will very soon find himself in want of society. Many thingscontribute to thin the ranks of our swells. Many, as we said before, outrunthe constable. Some get fat, some get married, some get tired, and a fewget wiser. There is, however, always a fine pushing crop coming on. A manlike Puffington, who starts a dandy (in contradistinction to a swell), andadheres steadily to clothes--talking eternally of the cuts of coats or theties of cravats--up to the sober age of forty, must be always falling backon the rising generation for society.

  Puffington was not what the old ladies call a profligate young man. On thecontrary, he was naturally a nice, steady young man; and only indulged inthe vagaries we have described because they were indulged in by thehigh-born and gay.

  Tom and Jerry had a great deal to answer for in the way of leadingsoft-headed young men astray; and old Puffington having had the misfortuneto christen our friend 'Thomas,' of course his companions dubbed him'Corinthian Tom'; by which name he has been known ever since.

  A man of such undoubted wealth could not be otherwise than a greatfavourite with the fair, and innumerable were the invitations that pouredinto his chambers in the Albany--dinner parties, evening parties, balls,concerts, boxes for the opera; and as each succeeding season drew to aclose, invitations to those last efforts of the desperate, boating andwhitebait parties.

  Corinthian Tom went to them all--at least, to as many as he couldmanage--always dressing in the most exemplary way, as though he had beenasked to show his fine clothes instead of to make love to the ladies.Manifold were the hopes and expectations that he raised. Puff could notunderstand that, though it is all very well to be 'an am_aa_zin' instanceof a pop'lar man' with the men, that the same sort of thing does not dowith the ladies.

  We have heard that there were six mammas, bowling about in their barouches,at the close of his second season, innuendoing, nodding, and hinting totheir friends, 'that, &c.,' when there wasn't one of their daughters whohad penetrated the rhinoceros-like hide of his own conceit. The consequencewas that all these ladies, all their daughters, all the relations andconnexions of this life, thought it incumbent upon them to 'blow' ourfriend Puff--proclaim how infamously he had behaved--all because he haddanced three supper dances with one girl, brought another a fine bouquetfrom Covent Garden, walked a third away from her party at a picnic atErith, begged the mamma of a fourth to take her to a Woolwich ball, sent afifth a ticket for a Toxophilite meeting, and dangled about the carriage ofthe sixth at a review at the Scrubbs. Poor Puff never thought of beingmore than an am_aa_zin' instance of a pop'lar man!

  Not that the ladies' denunciations did the Corinthian any harm atfirst--old ladies know each other better than that; and each new mamma hadno doubt but Mrs. Depecarde or Mrs. Mainchance, as the case might be, hadbeen deceiving herself--'was always doing so, indeed; her ugly girls werenot likely to attract any one--certainly not such an elegant man asCorinthian Tom.'

  But as season after season passed away, and the Corinthian still played theold game--still went the old rounds--the dinner and ball invitationsgradually dwindled away, till he became a mere stop-gap at the one, and alanding-place appendage at the other.

  MR. PUFFINGTON, FROM THE ORIGINAL PICTURE]