CHAPTER V
MR. WAFFLES
Among a host of most meritorious young men--(any of whom would get upbehind a bill for five hundred pounds without looking to see that it wasn'ta thousand)--among a host of most meritorious young men who made theirappearance at Laverick Wells towards the close of Mr. Slocdolager's reign,was Mr. Waffles; a most enterprising youth, just on the verge of arrivingof age, and into the possession of a very considerable amount of charmingready money.
Were it not that a 'proud aristocracy,' as Sir Robert Peel called them,have shown that they can get over any little deficiency of birth if thereis sufficiency of cash, we should have thought it necessary to make thebest of Mr. Waffles' pedigree, but the tide of opinion evidently settingthe other way, we shall just give it as we had it, and let the proudaristocracy reject him if they like. Mr. Waffles' father, then, was eithera great grazier or a great brazier--which, we are unable to say, 'for asmall drop of ink having fallen,' not 'like dew,' but like a black beetle,on the first letter of the word in our correspondent's communication, itmay do for either--but in one of which trades he made a 'mint of money,'and latish on in life married a lady who hitherto had filled the honourableoffice of dairy-maid in his house; she was a fine handsome woman and a yearor two after the birth of this their only child, he departed this life,nearer eighty than seventy, leaving an 'inconsolable,' &c., whounfortunately contracted matrimony with a master pork-butcher, before shegot the fine flattering white monument up, causing young Waffles to beclaimed for dry-nursing by that expert matron the High Court of Chancery;who, of course, had him properly educated--where, it is immaterial torelate, as we shall step on till we find him at college.
Our friend, having proved rather too vivacious for the Oxford Dons, hadbeen recommended to try the effects of the Laverick Wells, or any otherwaters he liked, and had arrived with a couple of hunters and a hack, muchto the satisfaction of the neighbouring master of hounds and his huntsman;for Waffles had ridden over and maimed more hounds to his own share, duringthe two seasons he had been at Oxford, than that gentleman had been in thehabit of appropriating to the use of the whole university. Correspondingwith that gentleman's delight at getting rid of him was Mr. Slocdolager'sdismay at his appearance, for fully satisfied that Oxford was the seat offox-hunting as well as of all the other arts and sciences, Mr. Wafflesundertook to enlighten him and his huntsman on the mysteries of theircalling, and 'Old Sloc,' as he was called, being a very silent man, whileMr. Waffles was a very noisy one. Sloc was nearly talked deaf by him.
Mr. Waffles was just in the hey-day of hot, rash, youthful indiscretion andextravagance. He had not the slightest idea of the value of money, andlooked at the fortune he was so closely approaching as perfectlyinexhaustible. His rooms, the most spacious and splendid at that mostspacious and splendid hotel, the 'Imperial,' were filled with a profusionof the most useless but costly articles. Jewellery without end, picturesinnumerable, pictures that represented all sorts of imaginary sums ofmoney, just as they represented all sorts of imaginary scenes, but whosereal worth or genuineness would never be tested till the owner wanted to'convert them.'
Mr. Waffles was a 'pretty man.' Tall, slim, and slight, with long curlylight hair, pink and white complexion, visionary whispers, and a tendencyto moustache that could best be seen sideways. He had light blue eyes;while his features generally were good, but expressive of little beyondgreat good-humour. In dress, he was both smart and various; indeed, we feela difficulty in fixing him in any particular costume, so frequent andopposite were his changes. He had coats of every cut and colour. Sometimeshe was the racing man with a bright-button'd Newmarket brown cut-away, andwhite-cord trousers, with drab cloth-boots; anon, he would be the officer,and shine forth in a fancy forage cap, cocked jauntily over a profusion ofwell-waxed curls, a richly braided surtout, with military overalls strappeddown over highly varnished boots, whose hypocritical heels would sport apair of large rowelled long-necked, ringing, brass spurs. Sometimes he wasa Jack tar, with a little glazed hat, a once-round tie, a checked shirt, ablue jacket, roomy trousers, and broad-stringed pumps; and, before theadmiring ladies had well digested him in that dress, he would be seencantering away on a long-tailed white barb, in a pea-green duck-hunter,with cream-coloured leather and rose-tinted tops. He was
'All things by turns, and nothing long.'
Such was the gentleman elected to succeed the silent, matter-of-fact Mr.Slocdolager in the important office of Master of the Laverick Wells Hunt;and whatever may be the merits of either--upon which we pass no opinion--itcannot be denied that they were essentially different. Mr. Slocdolager wasa man of few words, and not at all a ladies' man. He could not even talkwhen he was crammed with wine, and though he could hold a good quantity,people soon found out they might just as well pour it into a jug as downhis throat, so they gave up asking him out. He was a man of few coats, aswell as of few words; one on, and one off, being the extent of hiswardrobe. His scarlet was growing plum-colour, and the rest of his huntingcostume has been already glanced at. He lodged above Smallbones, theveterinary surgeon, in a little back street, where he lived in the quietestway, dining when he came in from hunting,--dressing, or rather changing,only when he was wet, hunting each fox again over his brandy-and-water, andbundling off to bed long before many of his 'field' had left thedining-room. He was little better than a better sort of huntsman.
Waffles, as we said before, had made himself conspicuous towards the closeof Mr. Slocdolager's reign, chiefly by his dashing costume, his recklessriding, and his off-hand way of blowing up and slanging people.
Indeed, a stranger would have taken him for the master, a delusion that washeightened by his riding with a formidable-looking sherry-case, in theshape of a horn, at his saddle. Save when engaged in sucking this, histongue was never at fault. It was jabber, jabber, jabber; chatter, chatter,chatter; prattle, prattle, prattle; occasionally about something, oftenerabout nothing, but in cover or out, stiff country or open, trotting orgalloping, wet day or dry, good scenting day or bad, Waffles' clapper neverwas at rest. Like all noisy chaps, too, he could not bear any one to make anoise but himself. In furtherance of this, he called in the aid of hisOxfordshire rhetoric. He would halloo _at_ people, designating them by somepeculiarity that he thought he could wriggle out of, if necessary, insteadof attacking them by name. Thus, if a man spoke, or placed himself whereWaffles thought he ought not to be (that is to say, anywhere but whereWaffles was himself), he would exclaim, 'Pray, sir, hold your tongue!--you,sir!--no, sir, not you--the man that speaks as if he had a brush in histhroat!'--or, '_Do_ come away, sir!--you, sir!--the man in themushroom-looking hat!'--or, 'that gentleman in the parsimonious boots!'looking at some one with very narrow tops.
MR. WAFFLES, THE PRESENT MASTER OF THE LAVERICK WELLSHOUNDS]
Still, he was a rattling, good-natured, harum-scarum fellow; andmasterships of hounds, memberships of Parliament--all expensiveunmoney-making offices,--being things that most men are anxious to foistupon their friends, Mr. Waffles' big talk and interference in the fieldprocured him the honour of the first refusal. Not that he was the man torefuse, for he jumped at the offer, and, as he would be of age before theseason came round, and would have got all his money out of Chancery, hedisdained to talk about a subscription, and boldly took the hounds as hisown. He then became a very important personage at Laverick Wells.
He had always been a most important personage among the ladies, but as themen couldn't marry him, those who didn't want to borrow money of him, ofcourse, ran him down. It used to be, 'Look at that dandified ass, Waffles,I declare the sight of him makes me sick'; or, 'What a barber's apprenticethat fellow is, with his ringlets all smeared with Macassar.'
Now it was Waffles this, Waffles that, 'Who dines with Waffles?' 'Wafflesis the best fellow under the sun! By Jingo, I know no such man as Waffles!''_Most deserving_ young man!'
In arriving at this conclusion, their judgement was greatly assisted by themagnificent way he went to work. Old Tom Tow
ler, the whip, who had toiledat his calling for twenty long years on fifty pounds and what he could'pick up,' was advanced to a hundred and fifty, with a couple of men underhim. Instead of riding worn-out, tumble-down, twenty-pound screws, he wasmounted on hundred-guinea horses, for which the dealers were to have acouple of hundred, _when they were paid_. Everything was in the sameproportion.
Mr. Waffles' succession to the hunt made a great commotion among thefair--many elegant and interesting young ladies, who had been going on thepious tack against the Reverend Solomon Winkeyes, the popular bachelorpreacher of St. Margaret's, teaching in his schools, distributing histracts, and collecting the penny subscriptions for his clothing club, nowtook to riding in fan-tailed habits and feathered hats, and talking aboutleaping and hunting, and riding over rails. Mr. Waffles had a pound ofhat-strings sent him in a week, and muffatees innumerable. Some, we aresorry to say, worked him cigar-cases. He, in return, having expended a vastof toil and ingenuity in inventing a 'button,' now had several dozen ofthem worked up into brooches, which he scattered about with a liberal hand.It was not one of your matter-of-fact story-telling buttons--a fox with'TALLY-HO,' or a fox's head grinning in grim death--making a redcoat look like a miniature butcher's shamble, but it was one of yourqueer-twisting lettered concerns, that may pass either for a militarybutton or a naval button, or a club button, or even for a livery button.The letters, two W's, were so skilfully entwined, that even acompositor--and compositors are people who can read almost anything--wouldhave been puzzled to decipher it. The letters were gilt, riveted on steel,and the wearers of the button-brooches were very soon dubbed by thenon-recipients, 'Mr. Waffles' sheep.'
A fine button naturally requires a fine coat to put it on, and many werethe consultations and propositions as to what it should be. Mr. Slocdolagerhad done nothing in the decorative department, and many thought the failureof funds was a good deal attributable to that fact. Mr. Waffles was not theman to lose an opportunity of adding another costume to his wardrobe, andafter an infinity of trouble, and trials of almost all the colours of therainbow, he at length settled the following uniform, which, at least, hadthe charm of novelty to recommend it. The morning, or hunt-coat, was to bescarlet, with a cream-coloured collar and cuffs; and the evening, or dresscoat, was to be cream-colour, with a scarlet collar and cuffs, and scarletsilk facings and linings, looking as if the wearer had turned the morningone inside out. Waistcoats, and other articles of dress, were left to thechoice of the wearer, experience having proved that they are articles it isimpossible to legislate upon with any effect.
The old ladies, bless their disinterested hearts, alone looked on the houndfreak with other than feelings of approbation.
They thought it a pity he should take them. They wished he mightn't injurehimself--hounds were expensive things--led to habits ofirregularity--should be sorry to see such a nice young man as Mr. Wafflesled astray--not that it would make any difference to them, _but_--(lookingsignificantly at their daughters). No fox had been hunted by more houndsthan Waffles had been by the ladies; but though he had chatted and prattledwith fifty fair maids--any one of whom he might have found difficult toresist, if 'pinned' single-handed by, in a country house, yet themultiplicity of assailants completely neutralized each other, and verifiedthe truth of the adage that there is 'safety in a crowd.'
If pretty, lisping Miss Wordsworth thought she had shot an arrow home tohis heart over night, a fresh smile and dart from little Mary Ogleby's darkeyes extracted it in the morning, and made him think of her till thecommanding figure and noble air of the Honourable Miss Letitia AmeliaSusannah Jemimah de Jenkins, in all the elegance of first-rate millineryand dressmakership, drove her completely from his mind, to be in turndisplaced by some one more bewitching. Mr. Waffles was reputed to be madeof money, and he went at it as though he thought it utterly impossible toget through it. He was greatly aided in his endeavours by the fact of itsbeing all in the funds--a great convenience to the spendthrift. It keepshim constantly in cash, and enables him to 'cut and come again,' as quickas ever he likes. Land is not half so accommodating; neither is money onmortgage. What with time spent in investigating a title, or giving noticeto 'pay in,' an industrious man wants a second loan by the time, or perhapsbefore, he gets the first. Acres are not easy of conversion, and the merefact of wanting to sell implies a deficiency somewhere. With money in thefunds, a man has nothing to do but lodge a power of attorney with hisbroker, and write up for four or five thousand pounds, just as he wouldwrite to his bootmaker for four or five pairs of boots, the only differencebeing, that in all probability the money would be down before the boots.Then, with money in the funds, a man keeps up his credit to the farend--the last thousand telling no more tales than the first, and makingjust as good a show.
We are almost afraid to say what Mr. Waffles' means were, but we reallybelieve, at the time he came of age, that he had 100,000_l._ in the funds,which were nearly at 'par'--a term expressive of each hundred being worth ahundred, and not eighty-nine or ninety pounds as is now the case, whichmakes a considerable difference in the melting. Now a real _bona fide_100,000_l._ always counts as three in common parlance, which latter sumwould yield a larger income than gilds the horizon of the most mercenarymother's mind, say ten thousand a-year, which we believe is generallyallowed to be 'v--a--a--ry handsome.'
No wonder, then, that Mr. Waffles was such a hero. Another greatrecommendation about him was, that he had not had time to be much plucked.Many of the young men of fortune that appear upon town have lost half theirfeathers on the race-course or the gaming-table before the ladies get achance at them; but here was a nice, fresh-coloured youth, with all hisdowny verdure full upon him. It takes a vast of clothes, even at Oxfordprices, to come to a thousand pounds, and if we allow four or five thousandfor his other extravagances, he could not have done much harm to a hundredthousand.
Our friend, soon finding that he was 'cock of the walk,' had no notion ofexchanging his greatness for the nothingness of London, and, save going upoccasionally to see about opening the flood-gates of his fortune, he spentnearly the whole summer at Laverick Wells. A fine season it was, too--thefinest season the Wells had ever known. When at length the long Londonseason closed, there was a rush of rank and fashion to the Englishwatering-places, quite unparalleled in the 'recollection of the oldestinhabitants.' There were blooming widows in every stage of grief and woe,from the becoming cap to the fashionable corset and ball flounce--widowswho would never forget the dear deceased, or think of any otherman--_unless he had at least five thousand a year_. Lovely girls, whodidn't care a farthing if the man was 'only handsome'; and smiling mammas'egging them on,' who would look very different when they came to thehorrid L s. d. And this mercantile expression leads us to the observationthat we know nothing so dissimilar as a trading town and a watering-place.In the one, all is bustle, hurry, and activity; in the other, people don'tseem to know what to do to get through the day. The city and west-endpresent somewhat of the contrast, but not to the extent of manufacturing orsea-port towns and watering-places. Bathing-places are a shade better thanwatering-places in the way of occupation, for people can sit staring at thesea, counting the ships, or polishing their nails with a shell, whereas atwatering-places, they have generally little to do but stare at and talk ofeach other, and mark the progress of the day, by alternately drinking atthe wells, eating at the hotels, and wandering between the library and therailway station. The ladies get on better, for where there are ladies thereare always fine shops, and what between turning over the goods, andsweeping the streets with their trains, making calls, and arrangingpartners for balls, they get through their time very pleasantly; but whatis 'life' to them is often death to the men.
Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour Page 5