of varying it, as he occasionally did, by singing preternaturally sharp. Of course it is an understood thing, that in a chorus, every singer should choose his own key, or where is the liberty of the subject?—so that need not be alluded to. But all this is over; and the guests of Mr. Hemmar have risen to depart, and have found the act of rising to depart by no means the trifle they thought it. It is very hard, of course, in such an atmosphere of tobacco, to find the door; and that, no doubt, is the reason why so many gentlemen seek for it in the wrong direction, and buffet insanely with their arms against the wall, in search of that orifice.
Now, there are two gentlemen in whom Mr. Hemmar’s neat wines have developed a friendship of the warmest description. Those two gentlemen are none other than the two master-spirits of the evening, the Left-handed Smasher and Brandolph of the Brand—who, by the bye, in private life, is known as Augustus de Clifford. His name is not written thus in the register of his baptism. On that malicious document he is described as William Watson; but to his friends and the public he has for fifteen years been admired and beloved as the great De Clifford, although often familiarly called Brandolph, in delicate allusion to his greatest character.
Now, Brandolph is positively convinced that the Smasher is not in a fit state to go home alone, and the Smasher is equally assured that Brandolph will do himself a mischief unless he is watched; so Brandolph is going to see the Smasher home to his hotel, which is a considerable distance from the Gloves Tavern; and then the Smasher is coming back again to see Brandolph to his lodgings, which are next door but two to the Gloves Tavern. So, after having bade good night to every one else, in some instances with tears, and always with an affectionate pathos verging upon tears, Brandolph flings on his loose overcoat, just as Manfred might have flung on his cloak prior to making a morning call upon the witch of the Alps, and the Smasher twists about five yards of particoloured woollen raiment, which he calls a comforter, round his neck, and they sally forth.
A glorious autumn night; the full moon high in the heavens, with a tiny star following in her wake like a well-bred tuft-hunter, and all the other stars keeping their distance, as if they had retired to their own “grounds,” as the French say, and were at variance with their queen on some matter connected with taxes. A glorious night; as light as day—nay, almost lighter; for it is a light which will bear looking at, and which does not dazzle our eyes as the sun does, when we are presumptuous enough to elevate our absurdly infinitesimal optics to his sublimity. Not a speck on the Liverpool pavement, not a dog asleep on the doorstep, or a dissipated cat sneaking home down an area, but is as visible as in the broad glare of noon. “Such a night as this” was almost too much for Lara, and Brandolph of the Brand grows sentimental.
“You wouldn’t think,” he murmurs, abstractedly, gazing at the moon, as he and the Smasher meander arm-in-arm over the pavement; “you wouldn’t think she hadn’t an atmosphere, would you? A man might build a theatre there, and he might get his company up in balloons; but I question if it would pay, on account of that trivial want—she hasn’t got an atmosphere.”
“Hasn’t she?” said the Smasher, who certainly, if anything, had, in the matter of sobriety, the advantage of the tragedian. “You’ll have a black eye though, if you don’t steer clear of that ’ere lamp-post you’re makin’ for. I never did see such a cove,” he added; “with his hatmospheres, and his moons, and his b’loons, one would think he’d never had a glass or two of wine before.”
Now, to reach the hotel which the left-handed one honoured by his presence, it was necessary to pass the quay; and the sight of the water and the shipping reposing in the stillness under the light of the moon, again awakened all the poetry in the nature of the romantic Brandolph.
“It is beautiful!” he said, taking his pet position, and waving his arm in the orthodox circle, prior to pointing to the scene before him. “It is peaceful: it is we who are the blots upon the beauty of the earth. Oh, why—why are we false to the beautiful and heroic, as the author of the Lady of Lyons would observe? Why are we false to the true? Why do we drink too much and see double? Standing amidst the supreme silences, with breathless creation listening to our words, we look up to the stars that looked down upon the philosopher of the cave; and we feel that we have retrograded.” Here the eminent tragedian gave a lurch, and seated himself with some violence and precipitation on the kerbstone. “We feel,” he repeated, “that we have retrograded. It is a pity!”
“Now, who’s to pick him up?” inquired the Smasher, looking round in silent appeal to the lamp-posts about him. “Who’s to pick him up? I can’t; and if he sleeps here he’ll very likely get cold. Get up, you snivelling fool, can’t you?” he said, with some asperity, to the descendant of Thespis, who, after weeping piteously, was drying his eyes with an announce bill of the “Tyrant of the Ganges,” and by no means improving his personal appearance with the red and black printer’s ink thereof.
How mine host of the Cheerful Cherokee would ever have extricated his companion from this degraded position, without the timely intervention of others, is not to be said; for at this very moment the Smasher beheld a gentleman alight from a cab at a little distance from where he stood, ask two or three questions of the cabman, pay and dismiss him, and then walk on in the direction of some steps that led to the water. This gentleman wore his hat very much slouched over his face; he was wrapped in a heavy loose coat, that entirely concealed his figure, and evidently carried a parcel of some kind under his left arm.
“Hi!” said the Smasher, as the pedestrian approached; “Hi, you there! Give us a hand, will you?”
The gentleman addressed as “you there” took not the slightest notice of this appeal, except, indeed, that he quickened his pace considerably, and tried to pass the left-handed one.
“No, you don’t,” said our pugilistic friend; “the cove as refuses to pick up the man that’s down is a blot upon the English character, and the sooner he’s scratched out the better;” wherewith the Smasher squared his fists and placed himself directly in the path of the gentleman with the slouched hat.
“I tell you what it is, my good fellow,” said this individual, “you may pick up your drunken friend yourself, or you may wait the advent of the next policeman, who will do the public a service by conveying you both to the station-house, where you may finish the evening in your own highly-intellectual manner. But perhaps you will be good enough to let me pass, for I’m in a hurry! You see that American vessel yonder—she’s dropped down the river to wait for the wind: the breeze is springing up as fast as it can, and she may set sail as it is before I can reach her; so, if you want to earn a sovereign, come and see if you can help me in arousing a waterman and getting off to her?”
“Oh, you are off to America, are you?” said the Smasher, thoughtfully. “Blow that ’ere wine of Hemmar’s! I ought to know the cut of your figure-head. I’ve seen you before—I’ve seen you somewheres before, though where that somewheres was, spiflicate me if I can call to mind! Come, lend a hand with this ’ere friend o’ mine, and I’ll lend you a hand with the boatman.”
“D—n your friend,” said the other, savagely; “let me pass, will you, you drunken fool?”
This was quite enough for the Smasher, who was just in that agreeable frame of mind attendant on the consumption of strong waters, in which the jaundiced eye is apt to behold an enemy even in a friend, and the equally prejudiced ear is ready to hear an insult in the most civil address.
“Come on, then,” said he; and putting himself in a scientific attitude, he dodged from side to side two or three times, as if setting to his partner in a quadrille, and then, with a movement rapid as lightning, went in with his left fist, and planted a species of postman’s knock exactly between the eyes of the stranger, who fell to the ground as an ox falls under the hand of an accomplished butcher.
It is needless to say that, in
