as a
club has been established in the town, he may begin his morning's
round there; or, in default of a club, there is the "select" room in
the principal hotel. If he is catholic in his tastes and hungry for
conversation, he may wander from one house of call to another, and he
meets a large and well-chosen assortment of hucksters who come to bind
bargains with the inevitable "drink"; he meets the gossip who knows
all the secrets of the township, he meets flashy persons who have a
manly thirst which requires perpetual assuagement. Then he converses
to his heart's content; and, alas, what conversation it is--what
intellectual exertion is expended by these forlorn gossips in the
morning round that takes up the time of many men in a quiet town!
There is a little slander, a good deal of peeping out of windows, a
little discussion of the financial prospects ascribed to various men
in the neighbourhood, and an impartial examination of everybody's
private affairs. The regular crew of gossips hold it as a duty to know
and talk about the most minute details of each other's lives, and,
when a man leaves any given room where the piquant chatter is going
on, he is quite aware that he leaves his character behind him. The
state of his banking account is guessed at, the disposition of his
will is courageously foretold, the amounts which he paid to various
shopkeepers are added up with reverence or scorn according to the
amount--and the company revel in their mean babble until it is time to
go to another place and pull the character and the financial accounts
of somebody else to pieces. By luncheon time most of these useful
beings are a little affected in complexion and speech by the trifling
potations which wash down the scandal; but no one is intoxicated. To
be seen mastered by "drink" in the morning would cause a man to lose
caste; and, besides, if he said too much while his tongue was loose,
he would not be believed when next he set down a savoury mess for the
benefit of the company. Through all the talk of these wretched
entities, be it observed that money, money runs as a species of
key-note; the men may be coarse and servile, but a shrewd eye can
detect every sign of purse-pride. Let a gentleman of some standing
walk past a window where the grievous crew are wine-bibbing and
blabbing, and some one will say, "Carries hisself high enough, don't
he? He ain't got a thousand to fly with. I bet a bottle on it! Why,
me, or Jimmy there,