HOW THE RICH LIYE.
(Inspired by a Daily Telegraphic course of “Dow the Poor Live ” Articles, and written by One who won’t be Crowded Out.)
Feeling that no panoramic sketch of such a kind as I have proposed to myself could be complete without a close inspection of one of the mansions in Belgrave Square, I repaired there yesterday, and waited my opportunity.
There was the .usual question as soon as the door was opened, as to “ what I wanted,” rendered all the more embarrassing by the fact,
that five lackeys, in the rich plum-coloured plush, white cashmere cloth shoulder-knots and hair-powder, constituting the livery of the house, were drawn up in a line on the polished porphyry of the hall, apparently awaiting the descent of the family to breakfast. The situation, however, being not unfamiliar to me, I knew what to do. Dashing past them with a rush, and making for the stairs, I bounded up the first flight five steps at a time,_ just pausing for a second amidst a forest of exotics on the half landing, to inform them, as they seemed inclined to follow me, that I was merely “ going to wind the drawing-room clock.” This had its desired effect. They returned to the porphyry, and in another couple of leaps I had entered the splendid suite of reception-rooms of the establishment.
For a moment, the dazzling splendour of everything about me, fairly dumbfounded me. _ The ceiling entirely hidden with chande
liers, the floor covered with a velvet pile so rich, that I sank in it up to my ankles, and stumbled as I trod; hullioned tassels, blue Lyons satin, gold arm-chairs, chiming Louis XV. clocks, Cupids by Wouweiiman, and full-length family portraits frowning at me which ever way I cast my eyes, all helped to produce a dazzling effect of such luxury and refinement, for it was as yet hardly nine A.M., that for a moment I was off my guard, and threw myself into a cushioned fauteuil, to drink in the splendour of the whole thing. As I did so, a little playful well-bred scream roused me to myself. I turned sharply round with an apology. I had sat down on a Duchess. She was a magnificent creature in a delicate tulle peignoir, and was absorbed in the selection of tiaras of diamonds, several trays of which, sent on approval from the nearest jewellers, lay scattered about her, even at this early hour, in all directions on the floor.
“ And what do you want ? ” she said, looking up with an air of such perfect ton that I felt instantly at my ease, and without further hesitation, striking the comic Paul Pry attitude I found of such use when discovered by the Royalties the other day under the dining-room table at family prayers, I assumed a pleasing leer.
“ I hope I don’t intrude, your Grace ? ” 1 said; “ but the fact is, I’ve heard, so much of how the rich live, that 1 thought I would just look in for myself to see what it really was like.”
“ So do,” she rejoined, with a pretty inclination of the head, trying on three or four of the costliest tiaras at once as she spoke;
and I was about to produce my note-book, for the purpose of taking down the weekly amount of the washing of the establishment and a few other domestic particulars, when an angry oath and the rattle of a dice-box from the door of a boudoir at the furthest end of the magnificent suite attracted my attention. “Ah! those naughty boys! ” said the Duchess, shaking her bewitching head this time
almost seriously, “ they are still at it! and Plantagenet promised me not to sit up later than half-past five.” I did not wait for permission, but pushed the door gently, and put my head in.
The sounds were easily accounted, for. Two Earls and an heirpresumptive in evening dress, with white lips, bloodshot eyes, tall
glasses of brandy-and-water, and trembling hands, were seated round a small card-table literally creaking beneath the piles of bank-notes and gold with which it was heaped. Games of chance and packs of cards were strewed about the floor. Each of the players was provided with a dice-box, but I noticed that they all three wore “ advantage cuffs,” and dexterously changed the tabledice for a set of their own concealed in a back-trick pocket, when
ever it came to their individual turn to throw. I watched them for about five-and-twenty minutes. They were throwing nothing but sixes. “ Well,” I said, giving a cheery twinkle of my eye all round,
‘ ‘ you seem to be going it, anyhow.” Before they had time to kick me out. I was once more seated opposite the Duchess, note-book in hand.
‘‘I have often read in the Society papers,” I remarked, “of the way in which your young nobs, your Grace, get through a pot of money every night at the gambling-clubs in Regent Street. But,
bless me, that don’t seem a patch upon that little affair over yonder.” I gave a familiar wink in the direction of the boudoir as I spoke. The Duchess smiled.
“Ah! the naughty boys ! ” she said; “they will do it, though they know it annoys the Duke. By the way,” she added, con
siderately, “ I dare say you would like to look at the Duke. He is up-stairs, in bed.”
I was on my feet in a moment. “ Immensely! ” I rejoined, making for the door, and again tripping up in the velvet pile in my hurry. “ My dear Duchess, a live Duke in bed would be worth anything. I shall make half a column out of him if I make a line. Which is the room ? ”
“ Second floor, best back,” she said; then added, with a silvery little laugh, “ but take care you don’t go to the wrong room; for we ’re full of guests just now, and they ’re sure not to be down yet.”
“ Oh, nobody ever minds me!” 1 said, making a comic exit, to give point to my speech, and in another instant I was on the landing above, opening the doors, without knocking, one by one, and getting a few boots and hot-water cans thrown at my head as 1 went along. At last I reached evidently the door of the “ best back ” in question. This, then, was the Duke’s.
I never knock; and so, with a good-humoured rush, I was through the door, and in another second standing behind the head curtains of a massive ormolu four-poster. “ What is it this time ? ” inquired a feeble and melancholy voice from the recesses of the full Swansdown pillows—“Not the Gas?”
“No, it is not the Gas,” I said, springing out with an agreeable bonhomie, and taking up my position adroitly at the foot of the bed so as to enable me to get a good view of its occupant. “No, I’ve only just looked in to see how you’re getting on,—just to make about a couple of columns out of you, you know,—that’s aU.”
“ All! well, I’m glad it’s not the gas,” continued the Duke in a relieved tone of voice; “take a chair, and I’ll give you some
particulars.” ,
There was no doubt about it being the Duke. He might have been two-and-fifty, for a somewhat worn and wjzened, but well chiselled countenance emerged from the spotless sheets, surmounted by a cerise
satin nightcap, on the front of which the escutcheon of his house was embroidered in brass metal-work.
“ You are remarking my head-gear,” he said, as an involuntary “ Well, I never ! ” escaped me. “ The Duchess will insist upon it.
In ease of a fire breaking out at night, she wouldn’t have me shot down the esoape without some distinctive mark of my position in Society about me. So 1 have to sleep in this. There’s a bicycle bell on the top, too, to give notice of my approach.” And as he spoke the poor old Nobleman bobbed his head, and rattled the tinkling appendage in sulky illustration. “ It keeps me awake all night when I’m restless ; but it costs money, and that’s enough, for there are no limits to the boundless extravagance that goes on in this esta
blishment. And I have to pinch and screw to make up for it. Talk of how the rich live ! You little know the shifts conscientious heads of families like me are put to, to enable women like the Duchess and the rest of them to go it as they like. The very ribbon of the Garter I wear at dinner is backed with cotton; and, hang it all! if I go to a play by myself, it’s always in the upper boxes with an order that’s of no use after seven. Then, look at my exercise. Why, the very piebald that takes me up and down the Row every morning, has been so long in a circus that if ever he sees a street-organ, he sits down, with me on his back, and won’t move on again till I’ve managed to imitate the Clown’s voice, and said, ‘ Now, Chahley, here’s ap’liceman a-coming! ’ And the creature cost me five pounds from an Omnibus Company ! Ah! you outsiders little know how some of us live ! Here am I with every acre of timber cut down in five counties, and reduced to spending naif the day in bed to save shoe-leather.”
At this moment the breakfast-bell rang loudly below.
HUNTING.
Illustrated by Dumb-Crambo Junior. Show licet.
Up to Weight.
Mounted on a thorough good Fencer.
Going to Covert.
(Inspired by a Daily Telegraphic course of “Dow the Poor Live ” Articles, and written by One who won’t be Crowded Out.)
Feeling that no panoramic sketch of such a kind as I have proposed to myself could be complete without a close inspection of one of the mansions in Belgrave Square, I repaired there yesterday, and waited my opportunity.
There was the .usual question as soon as the door was opened, as to “ what I wanted,” rendered all the more embarrassing by the fact,
that five lackeys, in the rich plum-coloured plush, white cashmere cloth shoulder-knots and hair-powder, constituting the livery of the house, were drawn up in a line on the polished porphyry of the hall, apparently awaiting the descent of the family to breakfast. The situation, however, being not unfamiliar to me, I knew what to do. Dashing past them with a rush, and making for the stairs, I bounded up the first flight five steps at a time,_ just pausing for a second amidst a forest of exotics on the half landing, to inform them, as they seemed inclined to follow me, that I was merely “ going to wind the drawing-room clock.” This had its desired effect. They returned to the porphyry, and in another couple of leaps I had entered the splendid suite of reception-rooms of the establishment.
For a moment, the dazzling splendour of everything about me, fairly dumbfounded me. _ The ceiling entirely hidden with chande
liers, the floor covered with a velvet pile so rich, that I sank in it up to my ankles, and stumbled as I trod; hullioned tassels, blue Lyons satin, gold arm-chairs, chiming Louis XV. clocks, Cupids by Wouweiiman, and full-length family portraits frowning at me which ever way I cast my eyes, all helped to produce a dazzling effect of such luxury and refinement, for it was as yet hardly nine A.M., that for a moment I was off my guard, and threw myself into a cushioned fauteuil, to drink in the splendour of the whole thing. As I did so, a little playful well-bred scream roused me to myself. I turned sharply round with an apology. I had sat down on a Duchess. She was a magnificent creature in a delicate tulle peignoir, and was absorbed in the selection of tiaras of diamonds, several trays of which, sent on approval from the nearest jewellers, lay scattered about her, even at this early hour, in all directions on the floor.
“ And what do you want ? ” she said, looking up with an air of such perfect ton that I felt instantly at my ease, and without further hesitation, striking the comic Paul Pry attitude I found of such use when discovered by the Royalties the other day under the dining-room table at family prayers, I assumed a pleasing leer.
“ I hope I don’t intrude, your Grace ? ” 1 said; “ but the fact is, I’ve heard, so much of how the rich live, that 1 thought I would just look in for myself to see what it really was like.”
“ So do,” she rejoined, with a pretty inclination of the head, trying on three or four of the costliest tiaras at once as she spoke;
and I was about to produce my note-book, for the purpose of taking down the weekly amount of the washing of the establishment and a few other domestic particulars, when an angry oath and the rattle of a dice-box from the door of a boudoir at the furthest end of the magnificent suite attracted my attention. “Ah! those naughty boys! ” said the Duchess, shaking her bewitching head this time
almost seriously, “ they are still at it! and Plantagenet promised me not to sit up later than half-past five.” I did not wait for permission, but pushed the door gently, and put my head in.
The sounds were easily accounted, for. Two Earls and an heirpresumptive in evening dress, with white lips, bloodshot eyes, tall
glasses of brandy-and-water, and trembling hands, were seated round a small card-table literally creaking beneath the piles of bank-notes and gold with which it was heaped. Games of chance and packs of cards were strewed about the floor. Each of the players was provided with a dice-box, but I noticed that they all three wore “ advantage cuffs,” and dexterously changed the tabledice for a set of their own concealed in a back-trick pocket, when
ever it came to their individual turn to throw. I watched them for about five-and-twenty minutes. They were throwing nothing but sixes. “ Well,” I said, giving a cheery twinkle of my eye all round,
‘ ‘ you seem to be going it, anyhow.” Before they had time to kick me out. I was once more seated opposite the Duchess, note-book in hand.
‘‘I have often read in the Society papers,” I remarked, “of the way in which your young nobs, your Grace, get through a pot of money every night at the gambling-clubs in Regent Street. But,
bless me, that don’t seem a patch upon that little affair over yonder.” I gave a familiar wink in the direction of the boudoir as I spoke. The Duchess smiled.
“Ah! the naughty boys ! ” she said; “they will do it, though they know it annoys the Duke. By the way,” she added, con
siderately, “ I dare say you would like to look at the Duke. He is up-stairs, in bed.”
I was on my feet in a moment. “ Immensely! ” I rejoined, making for the door, and again tripping up in the velvet pile in my hurry. “ My dear Duchess, a live Duke in bed would be worth anything. I shall make half a column out of him if I make a line. Which is the room ? ”
“ Second floor, best back,” she said; then added, with a silvery little laugh, “ but take care you don’t go to the wrong room; for we ’re full of guests just now, and they ’re sure not to be down yet.”
“ Oh, nobody ever minds me!” 1 said, making a comic exit, to give point to my speech, and in another instant I was on the landing above, opening the doors, without knocking, one by one, and getting a few boots and hot-water cans thrown at my head as 1 went along. At last I reached evidently the door of the “ best back ” in question. This, then, was the Duke’s.
I never knock; and so, with a good-humoured rush, I was through the door, and in another second standing behind the head curtains of a massive ormolu four-poster. “ What is it this time ? ” inquired a feeble and melancholy voice from the recesses of the full Swansdown pillows—“Not the Gas?”
“No, it is not the Gas,” I said, springing out with an agreeable bonhomie, and taking up my position adroitly at the foot of the bed so as to enable me to get a good view of its occupant. “No, I’ve only just looked in to see how you’re getting on,—just to make about a couple of columns out of you, you know,—that’s aU.”
“ All! well, I’m glad it’s not the gas,” continued the Duke in a relieved tone of voice; “take a chair, and I’ll give you some
particulars.” ,
There was no doubt about it being the Duke. He might have been two-and-fifty, for a somewhat worn and wjzened, but well chiselled countenance emerged from the spotless sheets, surmounted by a cerise
satin nightcap, on the front of which the escutcheon of his house was embroidered in brass metal-work.
“ You are remarking my head-gear,” he said, as an involuntary “ Well, I never ! ” escaped me. “ The Duchess will insist upon it.
In ease of a fire breaking out at night, she wouldn’t have me shot down the esoape without some distinctive mark of my position in Society about me. So 1 have to sleep in this. There’s a bicycle bell on the top, too, to give notice of my approach.” And as he spoke the poor old Nobleman bobbed his head, and rattled the tinkling appendage in sulky illustration. “ It keeps me awake all night when I’m restless ; but it costs money, and that’s enough, for there are no limits to the boundless extravagance that goes on in this esta
blishment. And I have to pinch and screw to make up for it. Talk of how the rich live ! You little know the shifts conscientious heads of families like me are put to, to enable women like the Duchess and the rest of them to go it as they like. The very ribbon of the Garter I wear at dinner is backed with cotton; and, hang it all! if I go to a play by myself, it’s always in the upper boxes with an order that’s of no use after seven. Then, look at my exercise. Why, the very piebald that takes me up and down the Row every morning, has been so long in a circus that if ever he sees a street-organ, he sits down, with me on his back, and won’t move on again till I’ve managed to imitate the Clown’s voice, and said, ‘ Now, Chahley, here’s ap’liceman a-coming! ’ And the creature cost me five pounds from an Omnibus Company ! Ah! you outsiders little know how some of us live ! Here am I with every acre of timber cut down in five counties, and reduced to spending naif the day in bed to save shoe-leather.”
At this moment the breakfast-bell rang loudly below.
HUNTING.
Illustrated by Dumb-Crambo Junior. Show licet.
Up to Weight.
Mounted on a thorough good Fencer.
Going to Covert.