One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

One of Our Conquerors
‘He for me, that he is!—”Hope the mother’s doing well?
My card”:—eh? Grave as an owl! Look, there goes the donkey,
lady to right and left, all ears for him—ha! ha! I must
have another turn with your friend. “Mother lived, did she?”
Dam funny fellow, all of the olden time! And a dinner, bachelor
dinner, six of us, at my place, next week, say Wednesday,
half-past six, for a long evening—flowing bowl—eh,
shall it be?’
Nesta came looking to find her Captain Dartrey.
Mr. Beaves Urmsing grew courtly of the olden time. He
spied Colonel Corfe anew, and ‘Donkey!’ rose to split the
roar at his mouth, and full of his anecdote, he pursued some
congenial acquaintances, crying to his host: ‘Wednesday,
mind! eh? by George, your friend’s gizzarded me for the day!’
Plumped with the rich red stream of life, this last of the
squires of old England thumped along among the guests, a
very tuning-fork to keep them at their pitch of enthusiasm.
He encountered Mr. Caddis, and it was an encounter. Mr.
Caddis represented his political opinions; but here was this
cur of a Caddis whineing his niminy note from his piminy
nob, when he was asked for his hearty echo of the praises of
this jolly good fellow come to waken the neighbourhood, to
be a blessing, a blazing hearth, a fall of manna:—and thank
the Lord for him, you desertdog! ‘He ‘s a merchant prince,
and he’s a prince of a man, if you’re for titles. Eh? you “assent
to my encomiums.” You’ll be calling me Mr. Speaker next.
Hang me, Caddis, if those Parliamentary benches of yours
aren’t freezing you from your seat up, and have got to your
jaw—my belief!’
Mr. Caddis was left reflecting, that we have, in the dispensations
of Providence, when we have a seat, to submit
to castigations from butcherly men unaccountably commissioned
to solidify the seat. He could have preached a
discourse upon Success, to quiet the discontentment of the
unseated. And our world of seats oddly gained, quaintly
occupied, maliciously beset, insensately envied, needs the
discourse. But it was not delivered, else would it have been
here written down without mercy, as a medical prescript,
one of the grand specifics. He met Victor, and, between his
dread of him and the counsels of a position subject to stripes,
he was a genial thaw. Victor beamed; for Mr. Caddis had
previously stood eminent as an iceberg of the Lakelands’
202