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the senior. “Wish he may get it.”
“When General Daguilet was at Chatham, sir, Heavytop gave him a breakfast, and asked me for some of the wine. The General liked it just as well – wanted a pipe for the Commander-in-Chief. He’s his Royal Highness’s right-hand man.”
“It is devilish fine wine,” said the Eyebrows, and they looked more good-humoured; and George was going to take advantage of this complacency, and bring the supply question on the mahogany, when the father, relapsing into solemnity, though rather cordial in manner, bade him ring the bell for claret. “And we’ll see if that’s as good as the Madeira, George, to which his Royal Highness is welcome, I’m sure. And as we are drinking it, I’ll talk to you about a matter of importance.”
Amelia heard the claret bell ringing as she sat nervously upstairs. She thought, somehow, it was a mysterious and presentimental bell. Of the presentiments which some people are always having, some surely must come right.
“What I want to know, George,” the old gentleman said, after slowly smacking his first bumper – ”what I want to know is, how you and – ah – that little thing upstairs, are carrying on?”
“I think, sir, it is not hard to see,” George said, with a self-satisfied grin. “Pretty clear, sir. – What capital wine!”
“What d’you mean, pretty clear, sir?”
“Why, hang it, sir, don’t push me too hard. I’m a modest man. I – ah – I don’t set up to be a lady-killer; but I do own that she’s as devilish fond of me as she can be. Anybody can see that with half an eye.”
“And you yourself?”
“Why, sir, didn’t you order me to marry her, and ain’t I a good boy? Haven’t our Papas settled it ever so long?”
“A pretty boy, indeed. Haven’t I heard of your doings, sir, with Lord Tarquin, Captain Crawley of the Guards, the Honourable Mr. Deuceace and that set. Have a care sir, have a care.”
The old gentleman pronounced these aristocratic names with the greatest gusto. Whenever he met a great man he grovelled before him, and my-lorded him as only a free-born Briton can do. He came home and looked out his history in the Peerage: he introduced his name into his daily conversation; he bragged about his Lordship to his daughters. He fell down prostrate and basked in him as a Neapolitan beggar does in the sun. George was alarmed when he heard the names. He feared his father might have been informed of certain transactions at play. But the old moralist eased him by saying serenely:
“Well, well, young men will be young men. And the comfort to me is, George, that living in the best society in England, as I hope you do; as I think you do; as my means will allow you to do – ”
“Thank you, sir,” says George, making his point at once. “One can’t live with these great folks for nothing; and my purse, sir, look at it”; and he held up a little token which had been netted by Amelia, and contained the very last of Dobbin’s pound notes.
“You shan’t want, sir. The British merchant’s son shan’t want, sir. My guineas are as good as theirs, George, my boy; and I don’t grudge ‘em. Call on Mr. Chopper as you go through the City to-morrow; he’ll have something for you. I don’t grudge money when I know you’re in good society, because I know that good society can never go wrong. There’s no pride in me. I was a humbly born man – but you have had advantages. Make a good use of ‘em. Mix with the young nobility. There’s many of ‘em who can’t spend a dollar to your guinea, my boy. And as for the pink bonnets (here from under the heavy eyebrows there came a knowing and not very pleasing leer) – why boys will be boys. Only there’s one thing I order you to avoid, which, if you do not, I’ll cut you off with a shilling, by Jove; and that’s gambling.”
“Oh, of course, sir,” said George.
“But to return to the other business about Amelia: why shouldn’t you marry higher than a stockbroker’s daughter, George – that’s what I want to know?”
“It’s a family business, sir,” says George, cracking filberts. “You and Mr. Sedley made the match a hundred years ago.”
“I don’t deny it; but people’s positions alter, sir. I don’t deny that Sedley made my fortune, or rather put me in the way of acquiring, by my own talents and genius, that proud position, which, I may say, I occupy in the tallow trade and the City of London. I’ve shown my gratitude to Sedley; and he’s tried it of late, sir, as my cheque-book can show. George! I tell you in confidence I don’t like the looks of Mr. Sedley’s affairs. My chief clerk, Mr. Chopper, does not like the looks of ‘em, and he’s an old file, and knows ‘Change as well as any man in London. Hulker & Bullock are looking shy at him. He’s been dabbling on his own account I fear. They say the Jeune Amelie was his, which was taken by the Yankee privateer Molasses. And that’s flat – unless I see Amelia’s ten thousand down you don’t marry her. I’ll have no lame duck’s daughter in my family. Pass the wine, sir – or ring for coffee.”
With which Mr. Osborne spread out the evening paper, and George knew from this signal that the colloquy was ended, and that his papa was about to take a nap.
He hurried upstairs to Amelia in the highest spirits. What was it that made him more attentive to her on that night than he had been for a long time – more eager to amuse her, more tender, more brilliant in talk? Was it that his generous heart warmed to her at the prospect of misfortune; or that the idea of losing the dear little prize made him value it more?
She lived upon the recollections of that happy evening for many days afterwards, remembering his words; his looks; the song he sang; his attitude, as he leant over her or looked at her from a distance. As it seemed to her, no night ever passed so quickly at Mr. Osborne’s house before; and for once this young person was almost provoked to be angry by the premature arrival of Mr. Sambo with her shawl.
George came and took a tender leave of her the next morning; and then hurried off to the City, where he visited Mr. Chopper, his father’s head man, and received from that gentleman a document which he exchanged at Hulker & Bullock’s for a whole pocketful of money. As George entered the house, old John Sedley was passing out of the banker’s parlour, looking very dismal. But his godson was much too elated to mark the worthy stockbroker’s depression, or the dreary eyes which the kind old gentleman cast upon him. Young Bullock did not come grinning out of the parlour with him as had been his wont in former years.
And as the swinging doors of Hulker, Bullock & Co. closed upon Mr. Sedley, Mr. Quill, the cashier (whose benevolent occupation it is to hand out crisp bank-notes from a drawer and dispense sovereigns out of a copper shovel), winked at Mr. Driver, the clerk at the desk on his right. Mr. Driver winked again.
“No go,” Mr. D. whispered.
“Not at no price,” Mr. Q. said. “Mr. George Osborne, sir, how will you take it?” George crammed eagerly a quantity of notes into his pockets, and paid Dobbin fifty pounds that very evening at mess.
That very evening Amelia wrote him the tenderest of long letters. Her heart was overflowing with tenderness, but it still foreboded evil. What was the cause of Mr. Osborne’s dark looks? she asked. Had any difference arisen between him and her papa? Her poor papa returned so melancholy from the City, that all were alarmed about him at home – in fine, there were four pages of loves and fears and hopes and forebodings.
“Poor little Emmy – dear little Emmy. How fond she is of me,” George said, as he perused the missive – ”and Gad, what a headache that mixed punch has given me!” Poor little Emmy, indeed.
Chapter XIV
Miss Crawley at Home
About this time there drove up to an exceedingly snug and well-appointed house in Park Lane, a travelling chariot with a lozenge on the panels, a discontented female in a green veil and crimped curls on the rumble, and a large and confidential man on the box. It was the equipage of our friend Miss Crawley, returning from Hants. The carriage windows were shut; the fat spaniel, whose head and