The Virginians by William Makepeace Thackeray (top books to read txt) 📕

“You have shown energy, my dear Baron! He has been here but two hours. My people told me of him only as I came to dinner.”

“I knew him before!—I have met him often in London with the Baroness and my lord, his cousin,” said the Baron.

A smoking soup for Harry here came in, borne by the smiling host. “Behold, sir! Behold a potage of my fashion!” says my landlord, laying down the dish and whispering to Harry the celebrated name of the nobleman opposite. Harry thanked Monsieur Barbeau in his own language, upon which the foreign gentleman, turning round, grinned most graciously at Harry, and said, “Fous bossedez notre langue barfaidement, monsieur.” Mr. Warrington had never heard the French language pronounced in that manner in Canada. He bowed in return to the foreign gentleman.

“Tell me more about the Croesus, my good Baron,” continued his lordship, speaking rather superciliously to his companion, and taking no notice of Harry, which perhaps somewhat nettled the young man.

“What will you, that I tell you, my dear lord? Croesus is a youth like other youths; he is tall, like other youths; he is awkward, like other youths; he has black hair, as they all have who come from the Indies. Lodgings have been taken for him at Mrs. Rose's toy-shop.”

“I have lodgings there too,” thought Mr. Warrington. “Who is Croesus they are talking of? How good the soup is!”

“He travels with a large retinue,” the Baron continued, “four servants, two postchaises, and a pair of outriders. His chief attendant is a black man who saved his life from the savages in America, and who will not hear, on any account, of being made free. He persists in wearing mourning for his elder brother from whom he inherits his principality.”

“Could anything console you for the death of yours, Chevalier?” cried out the elder gentleman.

“Milor! his property might,” said the Chevalier, “which you know is not small.”

“Your brother lives on his patrimony—which you have told me is immense—you by your industry, my dear Chevalier.”

“Milor!” cries the individual addressed as Chevalier.

“By your industry or your esprit,—how much more noble! Shall you be at the Baroness's to-night? She ought to be a little of your parents, Chevalier?”

“Again I fail to comprehend your lordship,” said the other gentleman, rather sulkily.

“Why, she is a woman of great wit—she is of noble birth—she has undergone strange adventures—she has but little principle (there you happily have the advantage of her). But what care we men of the world? You intend to go and play with the young Creole, no doubt, and get as much money from him as you can. By the way, Baron, suppose he should be a guet-apens, that young Creole? Suppose our excellent friend has invented him up in London, and brings him down with his character for wealth to prey upon the innocent folks here?”

“J'y ai souvent pense, milor,” says the little Baron, placing his finger to his nose very knowingly, “that Baroness is capable of anything.”

“A Baron—a Baroness, que voulez-vous, my friend? I mean the late lamented husband. Do you know who he was?”

“Intimately. A more notorious villain never dealt a card. At Venice, at Brussels, at Spa, at Vienna—the gaols of every one of which places he knew. I knew the man, my lord.”

“I thought you would. I saw him at the Hague, where I first had the honour of meeting you, and a more disreputable rogue never entered my doors. A minister must open them to all sorts of people, Baron,—spies, sharpers, ruffians of every sort.”

“Parbleu, milor, how you treat them!” says my lord's companion.

“A man of my rank, my friend—of the rank I held then—of course, must see all sorts of people—entre autres your acquaintance. What his wife could want with such a name as his I can't conceive.”

“Apparently, it was better than the lady's own.”

“Effectively! So I have heard of my friend Paddy changing clothes with the scarecrow. I don't know which name is the most distinguished, that of the English bishop or the German baron.”

“My lord,” cried the other gentleman, rising and laying his hand on a large star on his coat, “you forget that I, too, am a Baron and a Chevalier of the Holy Roman——”

“—Order of the Spur!—not in the least, my dear knight and baron! You will have no more wine? We shall meet at Madame de Bernstein's to-night.” The knight and baron quitted the table, felt in his embroidered pockets, as if for money to give the waiter, who brought him his great laced hat, and waving that menial off with a hand surrounded by large ruffles and blazing rings, he stalked away from the room.

It was only when the person addressed as my lord had begun to speak of the bishop's widow and the German baron's wife that Harry Warrington was aware how his aunt and himself had been the subject of the two gentlemen's conversation. Ere the conviction had settled itself on his mind, one of the speakers had quitted the room, and the other, turning to a table at which two gentlemen sate, said, “What a little sharper it is! Everything I said about Bernstein relates mutato nomine to him. I knew the fellow to be a spy and a rogue. He has changed his religion I don't know how many times. I had him turned out of the Hague myself when I was ambassador, and I know he was caned in Vienna.”

“I wonder my Lord Chesterfield associates with such a villain!” called out Harry from his table. The other couple of diners looked at him. To his surprise the nobleman so addressed went on talking.

“There cannot be a more fieffe coquin than this Poellnitz. Why, Heaven be thanked, he has actually left me my snuff-box! You laugh?—the fellow is capable of taking it.” And my lord thought it was his own satire at which the young men were laughing.

“You are quite right, sir,” said one of the two diners, turning to Mr. Warrington, “though, saving your presence, I don't know what business it is of yours. My lord will play with anybody who will set him. Don't be alarmed, he is as deaf as a post, and did not hear a word that you said; and that's why my lord will play with anybody who will put a pack of cards before him, and that is the reason why he consorts with this rogue.”

“Faith, I know other noblemen who are not particular as to their company,” says Mr. Jack.

“Do you mean because I associate with you? I know my company, my good friend, and I defy most men to have the better of me.”

Not having paid the least attention to Mr. Warrington's angry interruption, my lord opposite was talking in his favourite French with Monsieur Barbeau, the landlord, and graciously complimenting him on his dinner. The host bowed again and again; was enchanted that his Excellency was satisfied: had not forgotten the art which he had learned when he was a young man in his Excellency's kingdom of Ireland. The salmi was to