Temple Bar by George Augustus Sala

Author:George Augustus Sala
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nabu Press

Shall not a place be found, too, for the sporting Government clerks, and stockbrokers, and rich young tradesmen, just a step lower in the hierarchy of " swelldom," who are at all the races, and bet, and drink, and "carry on," as the phrase is, but who seldom come to such desperate grief as their more aristocratic competitors, for the simple reason that they have not so far to fall, and have a way of letting the mud into which they have fallen dry, and then rubbing it off with a will? Many more young sparks of the sporting world might I descant upon; but they are cheaper swells: they don't patronise the Grand Stand; they come down by the rail, and not in four-in-hands, or even Hansom cabs; and their losses and winnings are on a scale not at all pretentious.

But there must not be passed over a variety of the genuine "swell" tribe,—noble in birth often, generally affluent, at least, in means,—the only remnant we possess, in this hard-working age,—when almost every man, high or low, prince or peasant, does something, whether it be for good or evil,—of the "dandies" of by-gone times. They are growing rarer every day, like that intolerable old (and young) nuisance,—the "gent," who has been all but absorbed by the Volunteer Movement; but you may still see the perfectly listless, do-nothing, care-for-nothing—I trust not good-for-nothing; and yet wliat u he good for?—dandy in the Grand Stand on a great race-day. He is always exquisitely dressed; his hair and appendages are marvels of Truefitism. His jewellery is resplendent; his linen irreproachable. He carries, wet or dry, a slim umbrella. Mr. John Leech has drawn him in Punch five hundred times. I wish that he could fix him to a woodblock, so that he pervaded society no longer. He smokes as he talks, in a languid, drawling kind of way, and wastes half of his weeds, as he wastes half of his words. He never knows what to do with his legs. He does know what to do with his hands, and thrusts them, nearly up to the elbows, into his pockets. He comes to the "races" in the most elaborate equipage and costume attainable, simply because it is "the thing." He does not bet. It is a bore to bet. The men in his set don't bet. He is quite unsusceptible to the excitement of the race, and has just completed the leisurely adjustment of his eye-glass by the time the winning horse has passed the post. He does not even take much interest in the brilliant ladies in the carriages outside,—save to remark to a friend and duplicate that he has seen Baby Molyneux, or Ada Tressilian (nee Runt), and that "she looks older." He does not in the least understand the rude witticisms of the road homewards; and at a handful of salt more or less attic being flung at him, returns a look of such calm bewilderment as to disarm the most practised "chaffer.

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