LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2017, 11 August 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

OUR EVENING PARTY. I thought there was something in the wind that cold Monday night when I got back from the city and found a double supply of my favourite hot buttered muffins awaiting me, and my slippers so nicely aired on the hearth. But I was sure of it when my wife aaid, smilingly —‘ I hope you will like she tea, dear; I put an extra spoonful in, becameit’s such a bleak night, for you and when my oldest daughter, Molly, laughed so heartily at my old story of the Chinese missionary, which I think so good that I take every opportunity to repeat it. * Now, Molly,’ said I, as I took down my moersoaum after tea— ‘ Now, Molly, what is it ? ‘ What is it, papa?’ aaid Molly ; but she blushed and laughed a little conscious laugh all the same. ‘ Come, - I retorted, * let ns have it. What is it you want to coax one. of me now ?’ * Well, Molly, as papa seems so canning at finding ns out, I think we had better tell him what we have been talking about,' said my wife, with a slight nervous titter. ‘ A great deal better, yon moet artful of women,’ said I, with all the sternness I could muster ; ‘ and no more compliments to my superior wisdom, if you please. I am quite aware you are only oiling the machinery to make It run round your own way. All attempts, too, to bribe the court with mo e muffins will only injure your case. Proceed, therefore.’ ‘ Well, James,’ replied my wife, ‘the girls aud I have been talkie g all the afternoon, and—ahem !— ’ ‘ And all the morning, too, I have no doubt. So far the court quite agrees with yon, madam,’ I interrupted, blowing oat one of my most sarcastic wreaths of smoke. ‘ These poor things, James, do so want you to give them’an evening party—something a little stylish, yon know—like other people,’ my wife continued, hurrying on like the stream when it has come to the brink of the precipice. * An evening party I ’ I repeated in amazement

‘Oh, yea! do, papa,’ said Molly f sitting down on the hassock at my feet, and putting her rosy cheek on my kcee the is an admirable hand at coaxing, is Molly. ‘Yea, dear, why should we not be like our neighbors, at least sometimes—like Mrs Tyner, for instance ? ’ pursued my wife, singling out an acquaintance who was my pet aversion. * Well, because we can’t, if we tried ; we haven’t got the money.’ I replied. ‘You must surely see what nonsense it is to talk of our being like Tyner, when bis partnership in JOonble X brings him in a couple of thousands a year, and I have barely as many hundreds. ‘Well, but we might just show Mrs Tyner we know what’s what.’ It was a mean advantage which my wife Jane was taking, and she knew it. Mrs Tyner was from the same county town as myself, am. on the strength of her father having a thousand a year in land (and heaven knows how much more in rustic stupidity I) had always considered herself entitled to play the part of a superior being towards us. Nor was she content with thinking thus, but was determined we should admit her glorious supremacy in style, house, furniture, and belongings. In a word, she was my special abhorrence ; and if there was one thing I should have liked, it would have been to see Mrs T. ‘ brought down a peg.’- Jane knew this weakness of mine very well, and I considered it an ungenerous act’on on her part to have appealed to it. However, for the present, I resisted the temptation firmly. In truth, the notion of our giving an evening party was a very ridiculous one. I was secretary of a city company with about three hundred a year. We had already sacrificed to the graces of London society—appearances—by taking a decent house at Netting Hill, and had hard work, what with Ned’s schooling and the ‘ finishing’ of my two daughters, to keep our heads farly above water. So, like a sensible man, I had hitherto always insisted on dining at half-past 1, and had never received my friends otherwise than at tea and supper, in the plainest of 1 plain ways.’ If they liked to drop in at such times (and many of them did), we were always delighted to see them, and under these circumstances had many a pleasanter chat and laugh, I dare say, than fall to the lot of grander houses. The very freedom of this kind of visiting, the knowledge that you can come and go when yon like, do and talk as you like, and that the more you please yourself the better yon will please your host, suit my constitution exactly ; and I believe that in liking it I am only one of a vast majority of London gentlemen. For the ladies 1 dare not speak. When we went to bed, however, my wife returned to the attack, and did not leave me until she was victorious. Her chief argument now was that we ‘ ought do give Molly a chance ; and Molly thought so herself. There was young Kelly looking vtry sweet at her ; but how could wa expect a respectable young fellow like him to come forward unless he saw we knew somebody, and were not quite out of the pale of good society. ‘ My dear, ’ said I, * pray don’t put those silly notions into Molly’s head. Kelly always seemed to me to be rather spoony on Ellen Tyner, and not at all on Molly.’ ‘ Ah, the Nyners always try to make out that he is quite devoted to them ; but I flatter myself I know white from black when I see it—yes, yes, I think so, indeed.’ * Well, if you really wo ouuht to, give Molly this party,’ said I, reluctantly. ‘ Yes, that would be a good excuse for beginning, Bat I think we ought to give one every year for the future. ’ I groaned in spirit, and said, * Pray let ns get safely over this before we talk of any more. I confess I think the whole notion absurd —the expense, the troub'e, the probability of a breakdown with snch servants as ours. But I suppose yon must have your way.’ Accordingly, in the morning my wife and two daughters formed themselves into a permanent committee of ways and means. They decided that things coaid not possibly be got ready under a month, and for the whole of that time we were in a state of disturbance, First, it was found out that the drawing-room curtains were old and shabby, and we must have new ones; then the dining-room carpet did not suit the furniture ‘ and you would not wish people to think we have no taste, dear ?’ said my wife. Now, it was my old book-case that had to be shoved into an unobtrusive corner, where I had to go au£ hunt for my papers in the desk; next, one nearly broke one’s neck over a new music stand which had arrived that morning, and left in the passage, ‘ only just for a minute, till the carpet was put down then, if any friend came in, there was scarcely a single place where one could sit down. In a word, all our quiet, homely comfortable ways were at an end ; and what with upholsterers, carpenters, piano tuners jnnd others, it was just as bad as if we were ‘flitting.’ I was heartily glad, therefore, when they at last declared themselves ready to sand out ‘ the invitations. ’ Then the consultations there were about the day, and what people were to be asked. Mr Disraeli forming a new Cabinet fcr the government of a fourth pa r t of the world, coaid not have pondered each name for a longer time, or more anxiously, and I am sure he would not have looked half so gravely important over it. For my part, I watched the proceedings with an amused eye, for my opinion, like an eminent physician’s, was only taken as a very last resource. The first name written down in ‘ all the Hats * was, of course, Fred Kelly’s—to catch whom (in plain English) our party was given. I nave: oonld quite understand how this young Kelly who was in the Civil Service, contrived to make so many mothers and daughters run after him. Perhaps (as quantity is often preferred to quality) it was only because there wsa so much of him, for he stock over six feet; but there he was as thin as a lath, and nearly as white, with the feeble attempts at a ‘straw-colored moustache aod hay-oolored beard ’ that Thackeray speaks of. More probably the reason was that he had in perfection the cool Ojibheway manner of the men about town —that affectation of stony indifference which passes for the height of fashion in all except the best ciooles, where people can dare to bo natural. He wa* never genial—never animated —never even interested; indeed, to my mind, he was more like a machine that had been taught to talk a little than a man, because, to save himself trouble, he seemed to have a pet phrase for everything. All persons

below the Civil Service were ‘Haw, those cads’—the depth of nia reprobation was, ‘ Not good form, yon know'—the height of hia approval was expressed by 4 Tol-tol,’ meaning ‘ tolerable; ’ though once I heard him certainly go so far aa to call a thing ‘Rather jolly.’ My younger daughter, Patty, who was very observant, need to laugh and say that Kelly was very wise to be lackadaisical about everything, because, as he knew eo little and had no feelings and n<» ideas, if he.was not lackadaisical he would be nothing. .And from a pretty long acquaintance with him, I can safely say that, if he had any ideas, he was always admirably successful in concealing them. In a word, he was quite the hero of certain modern novelists ; and the very difficulty of thawing this fashionable icicle made Molly and several other young ladies attempt the enterprise. But as yet the icicle remained an icicle and would melt to no warmth that they conM apply. Next after Kelly in onr common list came the names of the Vyners—father, mother, and two daughters—without whose eyes to observe our success in seecr ng Fred the triumph would scarcely have been complete. All the rich people of our acquaintance followed ; singularly enough, taera was not a shadow of doubt about any of these, nor about that tawny young idiot Northeote, who knew the younger son of a lord. Two budding barristers from the temple were also passed nem. con. —‘theymoved in snchgood society.’ t snggested asking the Prince and Princess of Wales, but found my little joke received (for the first time, I must confess) with chilling silence, as the awful gravity of the occasion required. There was also a charming unanimity about asking some of our less important acquaintance. Thus, poor Miss Graham was asked, because she was so good-natured, and ‘never objected to play any quantity of dance music’ Then '1 gmlioa could carve, and Vickers talks so well. Mrs Qrubbins, too, and the three Miss Grubbiness, would be mortally offended if tbey were left out—so ‘ there was no help for it, wa most have them.’ Other names caused more discussion. I was obstinate when I found my wife and Molly were positively thinking of leaving out my old sehoolfeilaw, Dick Wotherspoon —the best of good fellows, only rather rough in his manners, as most of these enthusiastic artists are. It was not, however, on this account so much that my wife disliked him, as the fact that, though over thirty, he seemed to be making no headway at all in life, and was himself beginning to think he had mistaken his profession. Indeed, he was so poor that I had frequently lent him a fivepound note. But I now overruled my wife’s objections to him, and insisted on his being invited. With his name our list of fortyfive was complete, that number being ten or fifteen, people more than our rooms would really hold ; but then, as my wife aaid, tbey would be sure, some of them, to ba engaged ; so we might as well have the credit of inviting them as not. (To he continued,