Kicklebury has a great acquaintance at Noirbourg, and as he walks into the great concert-room at night, introducing his mother and sisters there, he seemed to look about with a little anxiety, lest all of his acquaintance should recognize him. There are some in that most strange and motley company with whom he had rather not exchange salutations, under present circumstances. Pleasure-seekers from every nation in the world are here, sharpers of both sexes, wearers of the stars and cordons of every court in Europe;Russian princesses, Spanish grandees, Belgian, French, and English nobles, every degree of Briton, from the ambassador, who has his conge, to the London apprentice who has come out for his fortnight's lark. Kicklebury knows them all, and has a good-natured nod for each.
"Who is that lady with the three daughters who saluted you, Kicklebury?" asks his mother.
"That is our Ambassadress at X., ma'am. I saw her yesterday buying a penny toy for one of her little children in Frankfort Fair."Lady Kicklebury looks towards Lady X.: she makes her excellency an undeveloped curtsy, as it were; she waves her plumed head (Lady K.
is got up in great style, in a rich dejeuner toilette, perfectly regardless of expense); she salutes the ambassadress with a sweeping gesture from her chair, and backs before her as before royalty, and turns to her daughters large eyes full of meaning, and spreads out her silks in state.
"And who is that distinguished-looking man who just passed, and who gave you a reserved nod?" asks her ladyship. "Is that Lord X.?"Kicklebury burst out laughing. "That, ma'am, is Mr. Higmore, of Conduit Street, tailor, draper, and habit-maker: and I owe him a hundred pound.""The insolence of that sort of people is really intolerable," says Lady Kicklebury. "There MUST be some distinction of classes. They ought not to be allowed to go everywhere. And who is yonder, that lady with the two boys and the--the very high complexion?" Lady Kicklebury asks.
"That is a Russian princess: and one of those little boys, the one who is sucking a piece of barley-sugar, plays, and wins five hundred louis in a night.""Kicklebury, you do not play? Promise your mother you do not!
Swear to me at this moment you do not! Where are the horrid gambling-rooms? There, at that door where the crowd is? Of course, I shall never enter them!""Of course not, ma'am," says the affectionate son on duty. "And if you come to the balls here, please don't let Fanny dance with anybody, until you ask me first: you understand. Fanny, you will take care.""Yes, Tom," says Fanny.
"What, Hicks, how are you, old fellow? How is Platts? Who would have thought of you being here? When did you come?""I had the pleasure of travelling with Lady Kicklebury and her daughters in the London boat to Antwerp," says Captain Hicks, making the ladies a bow. Kicklebury introduces Hicks to his mother as his most particular friend--and he whispers Fanny that "he's as good a fellow as ever lived, Hicks is." Fanny says, "He seems very kind and good-natured: and--and Captain Hicks waltzes very well,"says Miss Fanny with a blush, "and I hope I may have him for one of my partners."What a Babel of tongues it is in this splendid hall with gleaming marble pillars: a ceaseless rushing whisper as if the band were playing its music by a waterfall! The British lawyers are all got together, and my friend Lankin, on his arrival, has been carried off by his brother serjeants, and becomes once more a lawyer.
"Well, brother Lankin," says old Sir Thomas Minos, with his venerable kind face, "you have got your rule, I see." And they fall into talk about their law matters, as they always do, wherever they are--at a club, in a ball-room, at a dinner-table, at the top of Chimborazo. Some of the young barristers appear as bucks with uncommon splendor, and dance and hang about the ladies. But they have not the easy languid deuce-may-care air of the young bucks of the Hicks and Kicklebury school--they can't put on their clothes with that happy negligence; their neck-cloths sit quite differently on them, somehow: they become very hot when they dance, and yet do not spin round near so quickly as those London youths, who have acquired experience in corpore vili, and learned to dance easily by the practice of a thousand casinos.
Above the Babel tongues and the clang of the music, as you listen in the great saloon, you hear from a neighboring room a certain sharp ringing clatter, and a hard clear voice cries out, "Zero rouge," or " Trente-cinq noir. Impair et passe." And then there is a pause of a couple of minutes, and then the voice says, "Faites le jeu, Messieurs. Le jeu est fait, rien ne va plus"--and the sharp ringing clatter recommences. You know what that room is?
That is Hades. That is where the spirited proprietor of the establishment takes his toll, and thither the people go who pay the money which supports the spirited proprietor of this fine palace and gardens. Let us enter Hades, and see what is going on there.
