oticeable than
to-day, not only in such minor detail as the exclusion of them from the
tops of omnibuses; but they, after all, were but a fraction of what went
to make up spectacular life. Those were the days of bloods--when an
officer and a gentleman went as a matter of course to all the cockpits
and gaming houses, the night clubs and rings sacred to the "fancy"; when
it was still the thing for a gentleman to spend his nights in drinking
champagne and playing practical jokes that were forgiven him as a
high-spirited young man who must sow his wild oats and garnish each word
of conversation with an oath. From the comparative respectability of
Cremorne and Motts, and the frankly shady precincts of the "Pie" and
the "Blue Posts" down to places considerably worse, London was an
enormous gamut of opportunities for "seeing life."

Killigrew, as a merchant's son, however well off, could not penetrate to
the most sacred precincts--Motts was more or less barred to him; but on
the other hand he was in the midst of what was always called the
"Bohemian" set--in which were many artists, both the big and the little
fry. One could "see life" there too, though, as usual, most of the
artists were very respectable people. It was a respectable art then in
vogue in England. Frith was the giant of the day, and from the wax
figures at Madame Tussaud's to pictures such as the "Rake's Progress"
the plastic arts had a moral tendency. Even the animals of Sir Edwin
Landseer were the most decorous of all four-footed creatures; Killigrew
blasphemed by calling the admired paintings still-life studies of
animals. But then Killigrew was from Paris and chanted the newer creed;
he was always comparing London unfavourably with Paris even when he was
showing it off most.

The house in Tavistock Square was grand beyond anything Ishmael had ever
imagined, if a little dismal too. It was furnished with a plethora of
red plush, polished mahogany, and alabaster vases; while terrible though
genuine curios from Mr. Killigrew's foreign agents decorated the least
likely places. You were quite likely to be greeted, on opening your
wardrobe, by a bland ostrich egg, which Mrs. Killigrew, the vaguest of
dear women, would have thrust there and forgotten. She had a
deeply-rooted conviction that there was something indecent about an
ostrich egg--probably its size, emphasising that nakedness which nothing
exhibits so triumphantly as an egg, had something to do with it.