"Dammy, sir, let me tell my own story my own way.I say, one night at Carlton house, playing at blind hookey with York, Wales, Tom Raikes, Prince Boothby, and Dutch Sam the boxer, Alvanley ate three suppers, and won three and twenty hundred pounds in ponies.Never saw a fellow with such an appetite, except Wales in his GOOD time.
But he destroyed the finest digestion a man ever had with maraschino, by Jove--always at it.""Try mine," said Mr.Sterne.
"What a doosid queer box," says Mr.Brummell.
"I had it from a Capuchin friar in this town.The box is but a horn one; but to the nose of sensibility Araby's perfume is not more delicate.""I call it doosid stale old rappee," says Mr.Brummell--(as for me Ideclare I could not smell anything at all in either of the boxes.)"Old boy in smock-frock, take a pinch?"
The old boy in the smock-frock, as Mr.Brummell called him, was a very old man, with long white beard, wearing, not a smock-frock, but a shirt; and he had actually nothing else save a rope round his neck, which hung behind his chair in the queerest way.
"Fair sir," he said, turning to Mr.Brummell, "when the Prince of Wales and his father laid siege to our town--""What nonsense are you talking, old cock?" says Mr.Brummell; "Wales was never here.His late Majesty George IV.passed through on his way to Hanover.My good man, you don't seem to know what's up at all.What is he talkin' about the siege of Calais? I lived here fifteen years! Ought to know.What's his old name?""I am Master Eustace of Saint Peter's," said the old gentleman in the shirt."When my Lord King Edward laid siege to this city--""Laid siege to Jericho!" cries Mr.Brummell."The old man is cracked--cracked, sir!""--Laid siege to this city," continued the old man, "I and five more promised Messire Gautier de Mauny that we would give ourselves up as ransom for the place.And we came before our Lord King Edward, attired as you see, and the fair queen begged our lives out of her gramercy.""Queen, nonsense! you mean the Princess of Wales--pretty woman, petit nez retrousse, grew monstrous stout!" suggested Mr.Brummell, whose reading was evidently not extensive."Sir Sidney Smith was a fine fellow, great talker, hook nose, so has Lord Cochrane, so has Lord Wellington.She was very sweet on Sir Sidney.""Your acquaintance with the history of Calais does not seem to be considerable," said Mr.Sterne to Mr.Brummell, with a shrug.
"Don't it, bishop?--for I conclude you are a bishop by your wig.Iknow Calais as well as any man.I lived here for years before Itook that confounded consulate at Caen.Lived in this hotel, then at Leleux's.People used to stop here.Good fellows used to ask for poor George Brummell; Hertford did, so did the Duchess of Devonshire.Not know Calais indeed! That is a good joke.Had many a good dinner here: sorry I ever left it.""My Lord King Edward," chirped the queer old gentleman in the shirt, "colonized the place with his English, after we had yielded it up to him.I have heard tell they kept it for nigh three hundred years, till my Lord de Guise took it from a fair Queen, Mary of blessed memory, a holy woman.Eh, but Sire Gautier of Mauny was a good knight, a valiant captain, gentle and courteous withal! Do you remember his ransoming the ----?""What is the old fellow twaddlin' about?" cries Brummell."He is talking about some knight?--I never spoke to a knight, and very seldom to a baronet.Firkins, my butterman, was a knight--a knight and alderman.Wales knighted him once on going into the City.""I am not surprised that the gentleman should not understand Messire Eustace of St.Peter's," said the ghostly individual addressed as Mr.Sterne."Your reading doubtless has not been very extensive?""Dammy, sir, speak for yourself!" cries Mr.Brummell, testily."Inever professed to be a reading man, but I was as good as my neighbors.Wales wasn't a reading man; York wasn't a reading man;Clarence wasn't a reading man; Sussex was, but he wasn't a man in society.I remember reading your 'Sentimental Journey,' old boy:
read it to the Duchess at Beauvoir, I recollect, and she cried over it.Doosid clever amusing book, and does you great credit.Birron wrote doosid clever books, too; so did Monk Lewis.George Spencer was an elegant poet, and my dear Duchess of Devonshire, if she had not been a grande dame, would have beat 'em all, by George.Wales couldn't write: he could sing, but he couldn't spell.""Ah, you know the great world? so did I in my time, Mr.Brummell.Ihave had the visiting tickets of half the nobility at my lodgings in Bond Street.But they left me there no more cared for than last year's calendar," sighed Mr.Sterne."I wonder who is the mode in London now? One of our late arrivals, my Lord Macaulay, has prodigious merit and learning, and, faith, his histories are more amusing than any novels, my own included.""Don't know, I'm sure not in my line.Pick this bone of chicken,"says Mr.Brummell, trifling with a skeleton bird before him.
"I remember in this city of Calais worse fare than you bird," said old Mr.Eustace of Saint Peter's."Marry, sirs, when my Lord King Edward laid siege to us, lucky was he who could get a slice of horse for his breakfast, and a rat was sold at the price of a hare.""Hare is coarse food, never tasted rat," remarked the Beau."Table-d'hote poor fare enough for a man like me, who has been accustomed to the best of cookery.But rat--stifle me! I couldn't swallow that: never could bear hardship at all.""We had to bear enough when my Lord of England pressed us.'Twas pitiful to see the faces of our women as the siege went on, and hear the little ones asking for dinner.""Always a bore, children.At dessert, they are bad enough, but at dinner they're the deuce and all," remarked Mr.Brummell.