So our host stalks towards the drawing-room, leaving Captain Clarence sipping wine.
"Don't go, too," says the captain. "He's a confounded rum fellow, my brother-in-law is. He's a confounded ill-conditioned fellow, too. They always are, you know, these tradesmen fellows, these half-bred 'uns. I used to tell my sister so; but she would have him, because he had such lots of money, you know. And she threw over a fellar she was very fond of; and I told her she'd regret it. I told Lady B. she'd regret it. It was all Lady B.'s doing. She made Cissy throw the fellar over. He was a bad match, certainly, Tom Mountain was; and not a clever fellow, you know, or that sort of thing; but at any rate, he was a gentleman, and better than a confounded sugar-baking beggar out Ratcliff Highway."
"You seem to find that claret very good!" I remark, speaking, I may say, Socratically, to my young friend, who had been swallowing bumper after bumper.
"Claret good! Yes, doosid good!"
"Well, you see our confounded sugar-baker gives you his best."
"And why shouldn't he, hang him? Why, the fellow chokes with money. What does it matter to him how much he spends? You're a poor man, I dare say. You don't look as if you were over-flush of money. Well, if you stood a good dinner, it would be all right—I mean it would show—you understand me, you know. But a sugar-baker with ten thousand a year, what does it matter to him, bottle of claret more—less?"
"Let us go into the ladies," I say.
"Go into mother! I don't want to go into my mother," cried out the artless youth. "And I don't want to go into the sugar-baker, hang him! and I don't want to go into the children; and I'd rather have a glass of brandy-and-water with you, old boy. Here, you! What's your name? Bedford! I owe you five-and-twenty shillings, do I, old Bedford? Give us a good glass of Schnaps, and I'll pay you! Look here, Batchelor. I hate that sugar-baker. Two years ago I drew a bill on him, and he wouldn't pay it—perhaps he would have paid it, but my sister wouldn't let him. And, I say, shall we go and have a cigar in your room? My mother's been abusing you to me like fun this morning. She abuses everybody. She used to abuse Cissy. Cissy used to abuse her—used to fight like two cats. . . ."
And if I narrate this conversation, dear Spartan youth! if I show thee this Helot maundering in his cups, it is that from his odious example thou mayest learn to be moderate in the use of thine own. Has the enemy who has entered thy mouth ever stolen away thy brains? Has wine ever caused thee to blab secrets; to utter egotisms and follies? Beware of it. Has it ever been thy friend at the end of the hard day's work, the cheery companion of thy companions, the promoter of harmony, kindness, harmless social pleasure? be thankful for it. Two years since, when the comet was blazing in the autumnal sky, I stood on the château-steps of a great claret proprietor. "Boirai-je de ton vin, O comète?" I said, addressing the
