but is the evidence of true art. Let us go up-stairs. What a nice party, and, like the butler who is not a butler, they have all put on a genial, wedding-day smile. Mr. and Mrs. Lacquerby Veneer were married this day twenty-five years (it was in 1836; do the sum now, it may not be so easy after champagne), and so they are going to keep an Electrotype Wedding.
Lorenzo, to discriminate is just, and, Lorenzo, or whatever your name is, my valued and intimate friend, if you are going to laugh in the wrong place, or indeed to laugh at all on a sacred and touching occasion like this, you had better go away. Because, though the Veneers ask me to their parties, inasmuch as I am a pleasing man and know some Lords, I am not strong enough with them to run any risks. And I love them, and should be sorry to lose the two good dinners which Veneer gives during the season—the others I am unfortunate enough to be unable to accept. So behave yourself properly, and I will introduce you to pretty Miss Flora Veneer, but don’t lose your heart, because you have no money, and, entre nous, Miss Flora will have none. I know that as a family friend and in confidence, mind, but young Archibald Rollestone, who is spoonifying there, thinks she will have l0,000l., and would have a right to think so if the City thought better of Madagascar Central Convertibles. Archy Rollestone is awfully hard up, and his cousin Walter Rollestone, who comes here, knows all about it, and if it were not that of course cousinly affection compels him to keep the secret, Walter could settle Archy’s business with one shrug. There is nothing serious, therefore, and you may go and flirt if you like, but remember Madagascar. It is an island in the Indian ocean, and when there are silver mines in it, and they pay, Lacquerby Veneer will be a rich man, if he has not been obliged to pawn his shares in the meantime.
But here comes papa, rubbing his white hands gently. Handsome rings, Lorenzo, and none of your Burlington Arcade rubbish, but real. They were nearly all Testimonials, and that massive gold, real gold chain was a testimonial. He is a good man? Why, of course he is. Do you think I would bring you to the house of any but a good man? But his goodness has no exact bearing on that jewellery, because he belongs to a Testimonial Association—why, of course it’s secret, but I know it as a family friend, and in confidence, mind—and the members present one another with elegant things, and make elegant speeches-you should have seen Veneer cry when they gave him that watch, and sob out that every beat of his heart was responsive to its ticking. He is a good-looking man; very, I think. Virtue and goodness keep the countenance pleasant, and he is only fifty, at least he says so, though I know somebody who heard him incautiously mention that he was taken as a boy to see Mr. Pitt’s funeral, and Pitt died—of course you young fellows don’t know when, but it was in 1805, and Lacky Veneer must have been five years old then, if he was taken to see a funeral. But perhaps he told a story, or perhaps he was tipsy, and did not know what he was saying; let us be charitable. He does not look much more than fifty, does he? O, never mind the crow’s feet and the hard lines; is that the way to look at a man on his wedding-day? Be charitable, Lorenzo, I tell you; I dare say you will have hard lines and crow’s feet when you have been a humbug for thirty or forty years, like Mr. Lacquerby. Let me introduce you. Signor Lorenzo—Mr. Veneer. Only too happy, my dear Mr. Veneer, to be the humble means of making two gentlemen acquainted who ought to know one another. But you are an impostor, Lacquerby, and Mrs. Lacquerby there, is another. Twenty-five years—don’t talk such nonsense to us; ten, or if you insist upon it, twelve, not an hour more. Neither of you looks it, and so do not attempt, for the first time in your life, to deceive your friends. Ha! ha! Meet again below? Certainly, I trust so, ha! ha! Yes, that is Sir Habakkuk Zephaniah; pray go and speak to him, Mr. Veneer. We’ll meet again below.
I don’t know what he means, Lorenzo, but I mean in the dining-room. Is he not a pleasant fellow? Why did I call you Signor? Because Lorenzo is a ridiculous name, and I am not going to be ridiculous. Who gave you that name? I did. Very well, then I have a right to give you another. Besides, I have made you an Italian, and the girls will be delighted to know you; only keep up the character, and say and look things which you would not dare to say and look as an Englishman—they won’t mind. I’ll say you were private secretary to the Queen of Naples, and dismissed because the King was jealous of your good looks, and would have served you Rizzio fashion, only that you hid yourself in a bomb, and were shot into the bay. They’ll believe anything a foreigner tells them. Besides, they don’t know what a bomb is. Their father does, I believe. Now then, let us speak to Mrs. Lacquerby, if we can get near her; we ought to have done so at first, but we must tell her that we vainly tried to break into the circle of congratulations.
You don’t like her, Signor? Will you hold your tongue? You are bound to like her, you are going to have a capital lunch at her table presently. Why don’t you like her? Her voice is false, and her smile is false, and she is a humbug. Very rude observations, Signor, and, as I have before had occasion to remark, you ought to be charitable. She always detested Veneer, Signor, and now she despises him. She was made to marry him, instead of a young surgeon in the army, whom she liked, and had to give up because Lacquerby Veneer was a bouncing, bumptious man, who made her parents think she was marrying Golconda, with California for a country seat. But she might have learned to like him,—almost any woman can be made to like almost any man, unless the man is an utter humbug. Then she gets to despise him, and that is not so well. She might even have borne that, if his humbug had been a success, and he had been a good fellow with it. But it was not. He has only pretended to succeed, and has, all his life, been struggling to keep up appearances. She ought to have helped him? Of course she ought, and did, although his temper was brutal, and he treated her with vulgar coarseness. She did help him, and is helping him now, and that’s the reason she speaks in that speech, and smiles with that