LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2067, 8 October 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A FORCED CARD, [Abridged from * The Hound Table.’j ‘ Come on, air; you'Jl be too late!’ It is the guard who speaks, as with one band ho holds open the door of a secondclass carriage, and with the other raises to his lips the whistle with which to start the train, ‘No, no I I’m a first-class passenger,’ remonstrates an over dressed, vulgar-looking old man ; • I j ve got my ticket here in this pocket—no, in this.’ And he begins to fumble in the various recesses of his coat with the futile effort which is born of hysterio haste and a thick glove. ‘Never mind the class, sir,’ continntea the guard ; * no particular class of carriage guaranteed by this train, and all the other compartments are full. This is the last express to Feachbonrne. ’

‘ But, I say ’ The whistle sounds, the train begins to move, and in spite of his protests the old fellow is ‘ ballooned ’ into the carriage, entering it ignominionsly on all fours. A hand heips him on to his legs, and steadies him till he staggers to a seat, into which he subsides and gives himself up the sulks. Andrew Dobson is seriously annoyed at being put into a second-class carriage. He lives on the fat of the land in a big houss in a dear neighborhood; his wife and daughters go to the most fashionable dressmakers, and show the resalt with religions punctuality in the park. He can get the best box on the grand tier at the opera, and the best seat in the grand stand at the Derby, When he travels he does so as expensively as he can, aud always patronises the first hotels.

‘ Yes, ’he reflects; * I can jostle the great ones of the earth, though I don’t know them and they won’t know me. And now, on my way to join my wife and daughter at the seaside, I find myself sitting in a second, class carriage, cheek by jowl with people who are—well, who are no better than myself. ’ As he makes this reflection he looks round at his travelling companions, and they certainly do not appear more anxious to be favoured with his o mvernation than be is, at present, to offer it. A quiet man in a corner of the carriage, presumably a clergyman, is as completely buried in a ‘Rock’ as if he were buried under it, A young gentleman, apparently a city clerk, and a young woman, who, from her playfully affectionate ways, would seem to have very recently become his wife, are also occupied entirely to their own satisfaction. Dobson’s fourth companion Is a man who evidently wauts to smoke. He is fingering a briar-wood pipe, and looking appealingly at bis neighbours, three of whom are, however, too much engrossed to notice him. There seems no reason why he should not smoke. It is a smoking carriage, and the lady evidently is not unused to tobacco, for she Is deeply interested in her husband’s occupation of polishing a meerschaum with a silk handkerchief, preparatory, no doubt, to lighting it. Dobson is quite impressed at the odd man’s diffidence, for it can be nothing else; and when the appealing glance meets his own eye, he nods approvingly, as who should say, ‘ Kmoko as far as I’m concerned ’ The other, however, misunderstands the nod, and fancies he is mistaken for an acquaintance. *1 do nut think I have the pleasure,’he begins, and stops, and—yea—and again fingers his ripe. Dobcon is confused, very much confused. Recovering himself, however, he draws from his pocket a letter he received .from his wife just before starting, and his late rebuff having tr ade him less desirous than ever for conversation, he applies himself to a re-perusal over a quiet cigar. As he strikes a veauvian to light it with, the hero of tho briar root pipe makes advances on bis part. ‘ Thank you,’ says he, taking the match from his hand ; and Dobson finds, to his surprise, that the diffidence which he so much admired w.*s entirely attributable to his fellow-traveller’s lack of the wherewithal to light his pipe. If impudence does not inspire admiration, it sometimes excites a certain amonnt of cariosity, and thus It is no donbt that after the episode of the pipe Dobson beg ns to regard his companion with renewed interest His fare is not of a very gentleman-Hke type, so far as Dobson can judge, despite the carefully tended whiskers and neatly brushed hair which frame it Nor ia his dress of a style which usually betokens a man in society. Having grasped these details, he falls to the study of his wifi’a .letter : “Eoyal Hotel, Beachbourne, “ October 24th. “My dear Andrew, —We reached this place quite safely about two hours after you saw us off on Thursday, but had a great deal of trouble when we arrived about our quurters. You remember we ascertained that all the best people went to the ‘lmperial,’ so of course Rnaie and I drove there straight from the station. There was not a bed to be had in the home, for, although the season is so far advanced, there are several g* 1 families still stopping on here, a great many of them carriage people; and indeed the cld Marquis of Egham and hia son Lord Snnningdale keep on their rooms, I hear, for another fortnight ; so wo had to come to the ‘Royal,’ whioh after all is very comfortable, though the c impany ia not quite the same as at the ‘ Imperial.’ Wo nave seen no one we know except the Towsera, whom I did not particularly care to meet. They were luckly enough to get in at the ‘lmperial,’ and, I really think, hold their heads a littie higher in consequence She ia dressing like a girl of eighteen, and had on such a hat and black feathers to day! But then, yon know, I never conld bear black feathers. They always remind me of that horrid time when we were furnishing. However, that is ail over now, thank good ness ! And now I have got a pleasant litt’e surprise for yen. We went to one of the hotel balls at the * Imperial’ (the Towers, I am bound to say, asked us,) and Lord Sunniogdale was there. He was quite the gentleman, most affablo, and to .k a deal of notice of Rosie. He asked to bo presented to ‘the young lady with the eyes,’ and danced with her three timvs. Rosie said he was most delightful company. He assisted her to lemonade, and talked so pleasantly, that two or three times she quite forgot to call him ‘ your lordship ’ It is so late in the season that I do not think they’ll have many more balls at the ‘ Imperial,’ but we know that his lordship walks every day on the pier with the old marquis, his father, who 1s rather an invalid, from twelve to one, and that is so much the finest of the day, that Rosie and 1 generally prefer that time too to walk there. It ia true hia lordship has not yet re sognished her again, bnt then girls look so different with their hats and without them. lam afraid he could not have caught her name when they were introduced, as he never, Rosie tells me, addressed her by it while they were dancing, and he talks of her now only as ‘the girl with the ej es ’ Still I am sure he would know her again if he saw her in her ball dress, though, of course, she cannot wear that on the pie: ! I would call at the ‘lmperial,’ on the Towers, but I don’t much care to appear thick with them, because, even if his lordship don’t happen to remember seeing Tower’s name in those large gold letters in tho quadrant, that portrait of him on tho boxes of scented soap is such a terribly good likeness that he mu*t recognise him at once, for tho scentod soap is in every chemist’s shop in the placa, to say nothing of the advertisements at ihe railway fetation ; I daresay you’ll think all this very silly ; but since you’ve given up ‘ furnishing,’ aud got a crest from the B.eralda’ College, I don’t see why we should not fly a little high. You’ll be r own on Saturday, and then we can talk more about it “ Your affectionate wife, “Maui Ann Dobson.”

No, Hobson docs not think i: suly ; he didn’t think so when he first read the letter, and still less does he think so now.

‘I can give my gin,* ho reflects, ‘thirty thouear d pounds down, besides what sbe’U get when I sm gone, and that’s a precious deal more than y mug Sunningdale will inherit from his father, or ever make for himself. I know well enough what they are worth, I heard all about it at the time of the uncle, l.ord ( hensey’s funeral. and that’s a funeral I ought to remember pretty well. The shabbiest eflair J ever saw? I should have been quite ashamed to have had such a turn out start from my plane.’ Dobson’s thoughts are interrupted by the man with tho pipe, who requests the loan of a newspaper. Dobson has with him two or three society journals. One of these ho

hands to hia companion, who has not read for more than a minute b fore he bursts into a laugh, and leaning forwards to Dobson, points to a paragraph with the stem of bis pipe, and remarks, ‘ What rubbish these papers put in, to be sure! Lady Flitterly don’t care a bit for the captain, and he and her husband are the best of frieuda. I saw them all three together, half a dozen times in the season; and they were at Lady B ’a ’ (naming a well-known leader of society), ’at her very last party, just the week before Goodwood.’ Dobsonjprloks up his ears, and looks with a strange mixture of bewilderment and onriosity, at his companion. His interest is now effectually aroused, and he is determined to try and find ont what the man can be.

The pipe and the drees seem out of all harmony with the aristocratic names on his neighbor's tongue ; and yet Dobson gets hot again as he remembers hia nod. and at the same time calls to mind stories he has heard of archbishops who smoke short clays, and dukes who dress like old clothesmen. But then, the second-class 1 No, it oonld not be. He returns again to the subject of Lady Flitterly. ‘ They say she drinks, don't they.’ ‘ Who says so ? Nobody that knows anything about her; I can tell you what she drinks—nothing hut light claret and apollinaris ; I ought to know, for I never give her anything else.’ A new light breaks in upon Dobson, as he hears the last words. Surely they proclaim in sufficiently explicit terms the gentleman’s calling ; he mast be a fashionable doctor ; no longer any cause for wonder at the incongruity of hia conversation and his costume, for everybody knows that physicians are not, as a rale, the best dressed men in world. He is probably going to visit a patient at Beachbonrne, and a man on his way to earn a hnndred-gninea fee ne*d not be over particular about the appearance he makes at the bedside, so long as he does make an appearance there. ‘ Do you know Beachbonrne well ?’ asks Dobson.

* Oh, yes,’ is the reply; *I go there every year. ’

* The country round is very fine.’ * So I am told.’ ‘ Told ! But don’t yon know it V •No.’

‘ Rather odd,’ thinks Dobson; ‘ goes there every year, and knows nothing of the surrounding neighbourhood? Either he must pay very short visits, or hia patient must require the closest and most unremitting attention. You never stay there, 1 suppose, long ?’ ‘ Usually about three months.’ Dobson’s perplexity increases; but he continues his questions. ‘ At the Imperial Hotel, I suppose !* ‘Yes.’ Then with a little hesitation. ‘ Do you go there ?’ ‘ No ; I’m going to the Royal.’ ‘Oh !’ in a distinct tone|of relief ; ‘ that’s all right.’ The reply strikes Dobson as rather rude. Why is it all right that ho should be going to a different hotel from his companion ? or docs he mean that the Royal Hotel is all right! If so, it would seem that the Imperial must be all wrong. Yet surely a medio si man would not send his patients or go himself to an hotel that was draughty or damp, or badly drained. He resolves to ask about it.

‘No,’replies the stranger, ‘I don’t know that it is damp, except in the basement, and yon wouldn’t sleep there, of course,’ ‘Of course not; who would ?’

‘ And I doubt if It is more draughty than other seaside hotels, unless you stand about much in thin black clothes.’ Thin black clothes! The hotel balls must be of more frequent occurrence than Dobson had supposed, or perhaps the gentleman is, although himself a comparatively young man, a disciple of that school of oldfashioned practioners which still regards a sable suit as the only legitimate medical wear.

‘Yes,’ continues the stranger, ‘it’s a relief to get out of them sometimes, as I did one year for a long stretch when I travelled abroad with the Marquis of Bgham.’ * The Marquis of Eghara ! Do you know him !’

‘ Oh, yes.’ ‘ He’s" stopping at the Imperial.’ ‘ So I saw in the * Morning Post.’ ’

Dobson can scarcely believe hia ears. His interest in the stranger has now become of an absolutely personal character, and is keener than ever. Lord Egham 1 The very man whose acquaintance he is most anxious to make, or rather improve, for in an un satisfactory and semi-public way he has once or twice met him, or, more strictly speaking, been in the same room with him ou parochial business in London. But here he finds himself sitting next to his lordship’s late travelling phys'cian, perhaps confidential friend, and if he can only a scare first his good opinion, and next, perhaps, his good offices, what may not be the result! The result of what ? Wonderful to think of —travelling in a second-class carriage! Dobson feels that now or never is the time to secure another Interview with bis medical friend. * I hope,’ says ho, * we shall meet again in a day or two.’ ‘Do you?’ rejoins the other, with something like a grin ; ‘ I don’t think you’d care ab >ut it ’ * Oh, don’t say that,’ protests Dobson ; then, after a pause, during which ho reflects that to meet a doctor in his professional capacity is not always considered pleasaut, he adds, l ah ! I sea what yon mean; but when I make an acquaintance I like to improve it at once; I cm never wait. Can you ?’ ‘ Yes ; I am used to waiting ’ Within a m’nute or two of the terminus Dobson resolves on a last desperate effort. * I am sure you’ll excuse me, bnt I have not the pleasure of knowing your name.’ ‘My name? Oh, my name is George.’ ‘ Of course,’and Dobson, as he pulls out his card case, wonders whether it is Doctor George, or Mr George, or Sir Somebody George, and tries to recall the name ks that of a leading London physician ; but in vain. ‘Here,’ says he, ‘is my card, and if you can somehow contrive—oh, I haven’t got any more private cards—yes, I have ; hi re is something loose in my overcoat pocket. Dear me ! it must have been there a long time, for I have not worn this coat for an age.’ As he speaks, the train enters the tunnel just outride Beashhourne Station, and with tome difficulty, for it is pitch dark, he manages to pass the card into Mr George’s hand. •If,’says ho, ‘you can contrive, in some judicious way, which I will leave to your own tact, to get this under Lord Egham’s eyes, I shall be very much obliged to yon.’ ‘ Mr George ’ poouets the card ttus preseed npon him, as the train begins slowly to emerge from the tunnel; and as it finally stops, Dobson, with the assurance that his wife and daughter will be delighted to see him whenever he likes to call at the Boyal H tel, shakes his new friend warmly by the hand, and the two go their several ways. # * * % «

The season at Beachbourne is coming to an end, and Miss Dobson has not had another opportunity of meeting Lord Snnningdalo. Her parents are thinking of making a move homewards, when one day wnom should they meet on the Parade but the Towsers.

Ihe Towsers are not people whom they cultivate in town. The fact ia, Mrs Dobson has superior views. The Towsera still do too much in a retail way of business, and the Dobsons, feeling i'. necsssary to draw the lino somewhere, draw it at retail trade. However, at the seaside it is another matter, oud there, especially in dull weather, you find you are delighted to see people who in London almost escape yonr not ce. Towser is very friendly, and begs them all three to come and dine with him at the Impeiial. They hesitate. ‘ ileal nobs there, and no mistake,’ says Towser ; * the old Marquis of Eglam and the viscount dine at the table d' hole every day.’ They hesitate no longer. The chance of another Interchange of civilities is too tempting to be resisted, and at half past seven t' e visitors file into a room built to scoommo date two hundred guests, and sit down to a dinner prepared for twenty. There, sure enongh, is the old marquis, with his napkin tucked under his chin, waitlog for his soup ; and there ia his son, who —yes, actually catches Miss Rosie’s eye 1 directly she gets to her place, whioh is just opposite his, and returns her bow with a look of unmiatakeable pleasure.

His father has just come off victorious in an unusually hard tassel wth 11* eld enemy, the gout ; for long years of trai!le» and champagne are doing their work, and. but for an occasional sudden and vigorous resistance, might finith it any mnm u nt. The last combat has !• ft him more exhausted than ever, and this evening, from some cause or another, ho is particularly fretful and peevish, Lverylh ng irritate® him ; and a delay that occurs in serving the dinner does not by any means improve bl« temper. 1 The attendance is terrible bad here, I know,* says 'lcwser, ‘but there is a new waiter for this end of the table, and 1 suppose he hasn’t quite got into the ways of th& place yet. Ah? here he is.’

A voice that he fancies he recognises murmurs in Dobson’s ear.

‘Thick or clear coop, sir?' and looking up, his eyes fall on the serene face of “Mr George.” Not by so much as the movement of» mnsc ; e does that well-disciplined countenance betray the fact that its owner has ever seen Dobson before. He placer a plate of julienne before bis late fe'low-travel'er, and passes on to tho next diner ; bat in the flood of recollections that pour on the instantiate Dobaon’a mind, two horrible facts rise conspicuously to the surface ; the rne that he has given his card, with a messing personal invitation, to an hoi el waiter, and tho other that he has trusted to the tact of the waiter, and his assumed friendly relations with a noble marquis, to convey another card in a dip’oraatic way to his lordship. Dobar.n trembles to think in what manner this behest may have been obeyed, and wonders how, in the fortunate event of the card not having been delivered, it may yet be possible to recover it or to secure its destruction. Ke 1 ngs to speak to the man, if only for a moment, but that is impossible. At length the dinner comes to an end.

Mr George has flicked the last ernmbs off the table, the ceremony of handing round fos-il biscuits and la t year s filberts has been gone through, the ladi:s have declined to take any more wine, and ore beginning to trail out of the room, but Dobson nervously seeks for an excuse to hang back and got a. moment alone with Mr George. The old marqnis is ope of the last to move, and his son, who seems to look upon him as a sort cf elderly baby, takes Lis napkin from, his neck, and gives him an arm to help him ont of the room.

‘Good night,’ says his lordship, as be raai-es Miss Dobson, ‘ I must eo with my father now. He is not very well this evening, for something has worded him, though I don’t know exactly what it Is,’ Miss Dobson is respectfully concerned, but thinks it discreet to make no further inquiries at present. Dobson looks round in a helplers manner towards the door through which the servants are disappearing, and seams to see Mr Geo-ge vanish in a cloud of cab’e-cloths, at tenled by a bevy of infedor waiters. The next day Mr and Mias Dobson are together on the pier, and meat Lord Sunningdale. The young lady has- ena to inquire after the health of the marquis, and his son replies that he is much better now, but that hia naturally nervous temperament had been considerably affected by a cruel and heartless practice! joke. Both father and daughter are at once politely interested to know .the nature of the offence, and Mi a Dobson, lakes the opportunity of parenthetic illy introducing her parent to his lordship, hut only as ’papa,’ without msn’ioning his name. ‘ Well.’ says his lordship, ‘ yon know howill my father has been, and how fearfully nerveus every fresh attack of gent makes him. Yon wi'l hardly btlieve it, lat some scoundrel, whom, if I could only spot him, I would thrash within an inch of hia life, yesterday pi seed this infernal thing on my father’s table.’

As he speaks he draws from his pocket aboard, with a deep black border, and on tfe Dob-on reads, with feelings of confneioa unutterable—‘Andrew Dobson and 00., general undertakers.—Funerals furnished in town and country.’