himself, who ought to know, as his father was in the line, told me
the jewel was worth at least ten poundsh, and that his governor
would give me as much for it.
"That's a proof," says Roundhand, "that Tit's diamond is worth at
least thirty." And we all laughed, and agreed it was.
Now I must confess that all these praises, and the respect that wag
paid me, turned my head a little; and as all the chaps said I MUST
have a black satin stock to set the stone off, was fool enough to
buy a stock that cost me five-and-twenty shillings, at Ludlam's in
Piccadilly: for Gus said I must go to the best place, to be sure,
and have none of our cheap and common East End stuff. I might have
had one for sixteen and six in Cheapside, every whit as good; but
when a young lad becomes vain, and wants to be fashionable, you see
he can't help being extravagant.
Our director, Mr. Brough, did not fail to hear of the haunch of
venison business, and my relationship with Lady Drum and the Right
Honourable Edmund Preston: only Abednego, who told him, said I was
her Ladyship's first cousin; and this made Brough think more of me,
and no worse than before.
Mr. B. was, as everybody knows, Member of Parliament for
Rottenburgh; and being considered one of the richest men in the
City of London, used to receive all the great people of the land at
his villa at Fulham; and we often read in the papers of the rare
doings going on there.
Well, the pin certainly worked wonders: for not content merely
with making me a present of a ride in a countess's carriage, of a
haunch of venison and two baskets of fruit, and the dinner at
Roundhand's above described, my diamond had other honours in store
for me, and procured me the honour of an invitation to the house of
our director, Mr. Brough.
Once a year, in June, that honourable gent gave a grand ball at his
house at Fulham; and by the accounts of the entertainment brought
back by one or two of our chaps who had been invited, it was one of
the most magnificent things to be seen about London. You saw
Members of Parliament there as thick as peas in July, lords and
ladies without end. There was everything and everybody of the tip-
top sort; and I have heard that Mr. Gunter, of Berkeley Square,
supplied the ices, supper, and footmen,--though of the latter
Brough kept a plenty, but not enough to serve the host of people
who came to him. The party, it must be remembered, was MRS.
Brough's party, not the gentleman's,--he being in the Dissenting
way, would scarcely sanction any entertainments of the kind: but
he told his City friends that his lady governed him in everything;
and it was generally observed that most of them would allow their
daughters to go to the ball if asked, on account of the immense
number of the nobility which our director assembled together: Mrs.
Roundhand, I know, for one, would have given one of her ears to go;
but, as I have said before, nothing would induce Brough to ask her.
Roundhand himself, and Gutch, nineteenth clerk, son of the brother
of an East Indian director, were the only two of our gents invited,
as we knew very well: for they had received their invitations many
weeks before, and bragged about them not a little. But two days
before the ball, and after my diamond-pin had had its due effect
upon the gents at the office, Abednego, who had been in the
directors' room, came to my desk with a great smirk, and said,
"Tit, Mr. B. says that he expects you will come down with Roundhand
to the ball on Thursday." I thought Moses was joking,--at any
rate, that Mr. B.'s message was a queer one; for people don't
usually send invitations in that abrupt peremptory sort of way;
but, sure enough, he presently came down himself and confirmed it,
saying, as he was going out of the office, "Mr. Titmarsh, you will
come down on Thursday to Mrs. Brough's party, where you will see
some relations of yours."
"West End again!" says that Gus Hoskins; and accordingly down I
went, taking a place in a cab which Roundhand hired for himself,
Gutch, and me, and for which he very generously paid eight
shillings.
There is no use to describe the grand gala, nor the number of lamps
in the lodge and in the garden, nor the crowd of carriages that
came in at the gates, nor the troops of curious people outside; nor
the ices, fiddlers, wreaths of flowers, and cold supper within.
The whole description was beautifully given in a fashionable paper,
by a reporter who observed the same from the "Yellow Lion" over the
way, and told it in his journal in the most accurate manner;
getting an account of the dresses of the great people from their
footmen and coachmen, when they came to the alehouse for their
porter. As for the names of the guests, they, you may be sure,
found their way to the same newspaper: and a great laugh was had
at my expense, because among the titles of the great people
mentioned my name appeared in the list of the "Honourables." Next
day, Brough advertised "a hundred and fifty guineas reward for an
emerald necklace lost at the party of John Brough, Esq., at
Fulham;" though some of our people said that no such thing was lost
at all, and that Brough only wanted to advertise the magnificence
of his society; but this doubt was raised by persons not invited,
and envious no doubt.
Well, I wore my diamond, as you may imagine, and rigged myself in
my best clothes, viz. my blue coat and brass buttons before
mentioned, nankeen trousers and silk stockings, a white waistcoat,
and a pair of white gloves bought for the occasion. But my coat
was of country make, very high in the waist and short in the
sleeves, and I suppose must have looked rather odd to some of the
great people assembled, for they stared at me a great deal, and a
whole crowd formed to see me dance--which I did to the best of my
power, performing all the steps accurately and with great agility,
as I had been taught by our dancing-master in the country.
And with whom do you think I had the honour to dance? With no less
a person than Lady Jane Preston; who, it appears, had not gone out
of town, and who shook me most kindly by the hand when she saw me,
and asked me to dance with her. We had my Lord Tiptoff and Lady
Fanny Rakes for our vis-a-vis.
You should have seen how the people crowded to look at us, and
admired my dancing too, for I cut the very best of capers, quite
different to the rest of the gents (my Lord among the number), who
walked through the quadrille as if they thought it a trouble, and
stared at my activity with all their might. But when I have a
dance I like to enjoy myself: and Mary Smith often said I was the
very best partner at our assemblies. While we were dancing, I told
Lady Jane how Roundhand, Gutch, and I, had come down three in a
cab, besides the driver; and my account of our adventures made her
Ladyship laugh, I warrant you. Lucky it was for me that I didn't
go back
in the same vehicle; for the driver went and intoxicated
himself at the "Yellow Lion," threw out Gutch and our head clerk as
he was driving them back, and actually fought Gutch afterwards and
blacked his eye, because he said that Gutch's red waistcoat
frightened the horse.
Lady Jane, however, spared me such an uncomfortable ride home: for
she said she had a fourth place in her carriage, and asked me if I
would accept it; and positively, at two o'clock in the morning,
there was I, after setting the ladies and my Lord down, driven to
Salisbury Square in a great thundering carriage, with flaming lamps
and two tall footmen, who nearly knocked the door and the whole
little street down with the noise they made at the rapper. You
should have seen Gus's head peeping out of window in his white
nightcap! He kept me up the whole night telling him about the
ball, and the great people I had seen there; and next day he told
at the office my stories, with his own usual embroideries upon
them.
"Mr. Titmarsh," said Lady Fanny, laughing to me, "who is that great
fat curious man, the master of the house? Do you know he asked me
if you were not related to us? and I said, 'Oh, yes, you were.'"
"Fanny!" says Lady Jane.
"Well," answered the other, "did not Grandmamma say Mr. Titmarsh
was her cousin?"
"But you know that Grandmamma's memory is not very good."
"Indeed, you're wrong, Lady Jane," says my Lord; "I think it's
prodigious."
"Yes, but not very--not very accurate."
"No, my Lady," says I; "for her Ladyship, the Countess of Drum,
said, if you remember, that my friend Gus Hoskins--"
"Whose cause you supported so bravely," cries Lady Fanny.
"--That my friend Gus is her Ladyship's cousin too, which cannot
be, for I know all his family: they live in Skinner Street and St.
Mary Axe, and are not--not quite so RESPECTABLE as MY relatives."
At this they all began to laugh; and my Lord said, rather haughtily
-
"Depend upon it, Mr. Titmarsh, that Lady Drum is no more your
cousin than she is the cousin of your friend Mr. Hoskinson."
"Hoskins, my Lord--and so I told Gus; but you see he is very fond
of me, and WILL have it that I am related to Lady D.: and say what
I will to the contrary, tells the story everywhere. Though to be
sure," added I with a laugh, "it has gained me no small good in my
time." So I described to the party our dinner at Mrs. Roundhand's,
which all came from my diamond-pin, and my reputation as a
connection of the aristocracy. Then I thanked Lady Jane handsomely
for her magnificent present of fruit and venison, and told her that
it had entertained a great number of kind friends of mine, who had
drunk her Ladyship's health with the greatest gratitude.
"A HAUNCH OF VENISON!" cried Lady Jane, quite astonished; "indeed,
Mr. Titmarsh, I am quite at a loss to understand you."
As we passed a gas-lamp, I saw Lady Fanny laughing as usual, and
turning her great arch sparkling black eyes at Lord Tiptoff.
"Why, Lady Jane," said he, "if the truth must out, the great haunch
of venison trick was one of this young lady's performing. You must
know that I had received the above-named haunch from Lord
Guttlebury's park: and knowing that Preston is not averse to
Guttlebury venison, was telling Lady Drum (in whose carriage I had
a seat that day, as Mr. Titmarsh was not in the way), that I
intended the haunch for your husband's table. Whereupon my Lady
Fanny, clapping together her little hands, declared and vowed that
the venison should not go to Preston, but should be sent to a
gentleman about whose adventures on the day previous we had just
been talking--to Mr. Titmarsh, in fact; whom Preston, as Fanny
vowed, had used most cruelly, and to whom, she said, a reparation
was due. So my Lady Fanny insists upon our driving straight to my
rooms in the Albany (you know I am only to stay in my bachelor's
quarters a month longer)--"
"Nonsense!" says Lady Fanny.
"--Insists upon driving straight to my chambers in the Albany,
extracting thence the above-named haunch--"
"Grandmamma was very sorry to part with it," cries Lady Fanny.
"--And then she orders us to proceed to Mr. Titmarsh's house in the
City, where the venison was left, in company with a couple of
baskets of fruit bought at Grange's by Lady Fanny herself."
"And what was more," said Lady Fanny, "I made Grandmamma go into
Fr--into Lord Tiptoff's rooms, and dictated out of my own mouth the
letter which he wrote, and pinned up the haunch of venison that his
hideous old housekeeper brought us--I am quite jealous of her--I
pinned up the haunch of venison in a copy of the John Bull
newspaper."
It had one of the Ramsbottom letters in it, I remember, which Gus
and I read on Sunday at breakfast, and we nearly killed ourselves
with laughing. The ladies laughed too when I told them this; and
good-natured Lady Jane said she would forgive her sister, and hoped
I would too: which I promised to do as often as her Ladyship chose
to repeat the offence.
I never had any more venison from the family; but I'll tell you
WHAT I had. About a month after came a card of "Lord and Lady
Tiptoff," and a great piece of plum-cake; of which, I am sorry to
say, Gus ate a great deal too much.
CHAPTER VI
OF THE WEST DIDDLESEX ASSOCIATION, AND OF THE EFFECT THE DIAMOND
HAD THERE
Well, the magic of the pin was not over yet. Very soon after Mrs.
Brough's grand party, our director called me up to his room at the
West Diddlesex, and after examining my accounts, and speaking
awhile about business, said, "That's a very fine diamond-pin,
Master Titmarsh" (he spoke in a grave patronising way), "and I
called you on purpose to speak to you upon the subject. I do not
object to seeing the young men of this establishment well and
handsomely dressed; but I know that their salaries cannot afford
ornaments like those, and I grieve to see you with a thing of such
value. You have paid for it, sir,-- I trust you have paid for it;
for, of all things, my dear--dear young friend, beware of debt."
I could not conceive why Brough was reading me this lecture about
debt and my having bought the diamond-pin, as I knew that he had
been asking about it already, and how I came by it--Abednego told
me so. "Why, sir," says I, "Mr. Abednego told me that he had told
you that I had told him--"
"Oh, ay-by-the-bye, now I recollect, Mr. Titmarsh--I do recollect--
yes; though I suppose, sir, you will imagine that I have other more
important things to remember."
"Oh, sir, in course," says I.
"That one of the clerks DID say something about a pin--that one of
the other gentlemen had it. And so your pin was given you, was
it?"
"It was given me, sir, by my aunt, Mrs. Hoggarty of Castle
Hoggarty," said I, raising my voice; for I was a little proud of
Castle Hoggarty.
"She
must be very rich to make such presents, Titmarsh?"
"Why, thank you, sir," says I, "she is pretty well off. Four
hundred a year jointure; a farm at Slopperton, sir; three houses at
Squashtail; and three thousand two hundred loose cash at the
banker's, as I happen to know, sir,--THAT'S ALL."
I did happen to know this, you see; because, while I was down in
Somersetshire, Mr. MacManus, my aunt's agent in Ireland, wrote to
say that a mortgage she had on Lord Brallaghan's property had just
been paid off, and that the money was lodged at Coutts's. Ireland
was in a very disturbed state in those days; and my aunt wisely
determined not to invest her money in that country any more, but to
look out for some good security in England. However, as she had
always received six per cent. in Ireland, she would not hear of a
smaller interest; and had warned me, as I was a commercial man, on
coming to town, to look out for some means by which she could
invest her money at that rate at least.
"And how do you come to know Mrs. Hoggarty's property so
accurately?" said Mr. Brough; upon which I told him.
"Good heavens, sir! and do you mean that you, a clerk in the West
Diddlesex Insurance Office, applied to by a respectable lady as to
the manner in which she should invest property, never spoke to her
about the Company which you have the honour to serve? Do you mean,
sir, that you, knowing there was a bonus of five per cent. for
yourself upon shares taken, did not press Mrs. Hoggarty to join
us?"
"Sir," says I, "I'm an honest man, and would not take a bonus from
my own relation."
"Honest I know you are, my boy--give me your hand! So am I honest-
-so is every man in this Company honest; but we must be prudent as
well. We have five millions of capital on our books, as you see--
five bona fide millions of bona fide sovereigns paid up, sir,--
there is no dishonesty there. But why should we not have twenty
millions--a hundred millions? Why should not this be the greatest
commercial Association in the world?--as it shall be, sir,--it
shall, as sure as my name is John Brough, if Heaven bless my honest
endeavours to establish it! But do you suppose that it can be so,
unless every man among us use his utmost exertions to forward the
success of the enterprise? Never, sir,--never; and, for me, I say
so everywhere. I glory in what I do. There is not a house in
which I enter, but I leave a prospectus of the West Diddlesex.
There is not a single tradesman I employ, but has shares in it to
some amount. My servants, sir,--my very servants and grooms, are
bound up with it. And the first question I ask of anyone who
applies to me for a place is, Are you insured or a shareholder in
the West Diddlesex? the second, Have you a good character? And if
the first question is answered in the negative, I say to the party
coming to me, Then be a shareholder before you ask for a place in
my household. Did you not see me--me, John Brough, whose name is
good for millions--step out of my coach-and-four into this office,
with four pounds nineteen, which I paid in to Mr. Roundhand as the
price of half a share for the porter at my lodge-gate? Did you
remark that I deducted a shilling from the five pound?"
"Yes, sir; it was the day you drew out eight hundred and seventy-
three ten and six--Thursday week," says I.
"And why did I deduct that shilling, sir? Because it was MY
COMMISSION--John Brough's commission; honestly earned by him, and
openly taken. Was there any disguise about it? No. Did I do it
for the love of a shilling? No," says Brough, laying his hand on
his heart, "I did it from PRINCIPLE,--from that motive which guides
every one of my actions, as I can look up to Heaven and say. I
wish all my young men to see my example, and follow it: I wish--I
pray that they may. Think of that example, sir. That porter of
The Great Hoggarty Diamond Page 5