Lady Penelope by her lips, and many of the young ladies with their eyes, assured him there was no mistake in the matter; that he was really the gifted person whom the nymphs had summoned to their presence, and that they were well acquainted with his talents as a poet and a painter. Tyrrel disclaimed, with earnestness and gravity, the charge of poetry, and professed, that, far from attempting the art itself, he “read with reluctance all but the productions of the very first-rate poets, and some of these—he was almost afraid to say—he should have liked better in humble prose.”
“You have now only to disown your skill as an artist,” said Lady Penelope, “and we must consider Mr. Tyrrel as the falsest and most deceitful of his sex, who has a mind to deprive us of the opportunity of benefiting by the productions of his unparalleled endowments. I assure you I shall put my young friends on their guard. Such dissimulation cannot be without its object.”
“And I,” said Mr. Winterblossom, “can produce a piece of real evidence against the culprit.”
So saying, he unrolled the sketch which he had filched from Trotting Nelly, and which he had pared and pasted, (arts in which he was eminent,) so as to take out its creases, repair its breaches, and vamp it as well as my old friend Mrs. Weir could have repaired the damages of time on a folio Shakspeare.
“The vara corpus delicti,” said the writer, grinning and rubbing his hands.
“If you are so good as to call such scratches drawings,” said Tyrrel, “I must stand so far confessed. I used to do them for my own amusement; but since my landlady, Mrs. Dods, has of late discovered that I gain my livelihood by them, why should I disown it?”
This avowal, made without the least appearance either of shame or retenue, seemed to have a striking effect on the whole society. The president's trembling hand stole the sketch back to the portfolio, afraid doubtless it might be claimed in form, or else compensation expected by the artist. Lady Penelope was disconcerted, like an awkward horse when it changes the leading foot in galloping. She had to recede from the respectful and easy footing on which he had contrived to place himself, to one which might express patronage on her own part, and dependence on Tyrrel's; and this could not be done in a moment.
The Man of Law murmured, “Circumstances—circumstances—I thought so!”
Sir Bingo whispered to his friend the Squire, “Run out—blown up—off the course—pity—d——d pretty fellow he has been!”
“A raff from the beginning!” whispered Mowbray.—“I never thought him any thing else.”
“I'll hold ye a poney of that, my dear, and I'll ask him.”
“Done, for a poney, provided you ask him in ten minutes,” said the Squire; “but you dare not, Bingie—he has a d——d cross game look, with all that civil chaff of his.”
“Done,” said Sir Bingo, but in a less confident tone than before, and with a determination to proceed with some caution in the matter.—“I have got a rouleau above, and Winterblossom shall hold stakes.”
“I have no rouleau,” said the Squire; “but I'll fly a cheque on Meiklewham.”
“See it be better than your last,” said Sir Bingo, “for I won't be skylarked again. Jack, my boy, you are had.”
“Not till the bet's won; and I shall see yon walking dandy break your head, Bingie, before that,” answered Mowbray. “Best speak to the Captain before hand—it is a hellish scrape you are running into—I'll let you off yet, Bingie, for a guinea forfeit.—See, I am just going to start the tattler.”
“Start, and be d——d!” said Sir Bingo. “You are gotten, I assure you o' that, Jack.” And with a bow and a shuffle, he went up and introduced himself to the stranger as Sir Bingo Binks.
“Had—honour—write—sir,” were the only sounds which his throat, or rather his cravat, seemed to send forth.
“Confound the booby!” thought Mowbray; “he will get out of leading strings, if he goes on at this rate; and doubly confounded be this cursed tramper, who, the Lord knows why, has come hither from the Lord knows where, to drive the pigs through my game.”
In the meantime, while his friend stood with his stop-watch in his hand, with a visage lengthened under the influence of these reflections, Sir Bingo, with an instinctive tact, which self-preservation seemed to dictate to a brain neither the most delicate nor subtle in the world, premised his enquiry by some general remark on fishing and field-sports. With all these, he found Tyrrel more than passably acquainted. Of fishing and shooting, particularly, he spoke with something like enthusiasm; so that Sir Bingo began to hold him in considerable respect, and to assure himself that he could not be, or at least could not originally have been bred, the itinerant artist which he now gave himself out—and this, with the fast lapse of the time, induced him thus to address Tyrrel.—“I say, Mr. Tyrrel—why, you have been one of us—I say”——
“If you mean a sportsman, Sir Bingo—I have been, and am a pretty keen one still,” replied Tyrrel.
“Why, then, you did not always do them sort of things?”
“What sort of things do you mean, Sir Bingo?” said Tyrrel. “I have not the pleasure of understanding you.”
“Why, I mean them sketches,” said Sir Bingo. “I'll give you a handsome order for them, if you will tell me. I will, on my honour.”
“Does it concern you particularly, Sir Bingo, to know any thing of my affairs?” said Tyrrel.
“No—certainly—not immediately,” answered Sir Bingo, with some hesitation, for he liked not the dry tone in which Tyrrel's answers were returned, half so well as a bumper of dry sherry; “only I said you were a d——d gnostic fellow, and I laid a bet you have not been always professional—that's all.”
Mr. Tyrrel replied, “A bet with Mr. Mowbray, I suppose?”
“Yes, with Jack,” replied the Baronet—“you