Vanity Fair - Page 289/573

This day too the unlucky boy's modesty had likewise forsaken him. He

was lively and facetious at dinner. During the repast he levelled one

or two jokes against Pitt Crawley: he drank as much wine as upon the

previous day; and going quite unsuspiciously to the drawing-room, began

to entertain the ladies there with some choice Oxford stories. He

described the different pugilistic qualities of Molyneux and Dutch Sam,

offered playfully to give Lady Jane the odds upon the Tutbury Pet

against the Rottingdean man, or take them, as her Ladyship chose: and

crowned the pleasantry by proposing to back himself against his cousin

Pitt Crawley, either with or without the gloves. "And that's a fair

offer, my buck," he said, with a loud laugh, slapping Pitt on the

shoulder, "and my father told me to make it too, and he'll go halves in

the bet, ha, ha!" So saying, the engaging youth nodded knowingly at

poor Miss Briggs, and pointed his thumb over his shoulder at Pitt

Crawley in a jocular and exulting manner.

Pitt was not pleased altogether perhaps, but still not unhappy in the

main. Poor Jim had his laugh out: and staggered across the room with

his aunt's candle, when the old lady moved to retire, and offered to

salute her with the blandest tipsy smile: and he took his own leave

and went upstairs to his bedroom perfectly satisfied with himself, and

with a pleased notion that his aunt's money would be left to him in

preference to his father and all the rest of the family.

Once up in the bedroom, one would have thought he could not make

matters worse; and yet this unlucky boy did. The moon was shining very

pleasantly out on the sea, and Jim, attracted to the window by the

romantic appearance of the ocean and the heavens, thought he would

further enjoy them while smoking. Nobody would smell the tobacco, he

thought, if he cunningly opened the window and kept his head and pipe

in the fresh air. This he did: but being in an excited state, poor Jim

had forgotten that his door was open all this time, so that the breeze

blowing inwards and a fine thorough draught being established, the

clouds of tobacco were carried downstairs, and arrived with quite

undiminished fragrance to Miss Crawley and Miss Briggs.

The pipe of tobacco finished the business: and the Bute-Crawleys never

knew how many thousand pounds it cost them. Firkin rushed downstairs

to Bowls who was reading out the "Fire and the Frying Pan" to his

aide-de-camp in a loud and ghostly voice. The dreadful secret was told

to him by Firkin with so frightened a look, that for the first moment

Mr. Bowls and his young man thought that robbers were in the house, the

legs of whom had probably been discovered by the woman under Miss

Crawley's bed. When made aware of the fact, however--to rush upstairs

at three steps at a time to enter the unconscious James's apartment,

calling out, "Mr. James," in a voice stifled with alarm, and to cry,

"For Gawd's sake, sir, stop that 'ere pipe," was the work of a minute

with Mr. Bowls. "O, Mr. James, what 'AVE you done!" he said in a voice

of the deepest pathos, as he threw the implement out of the window.

"What 'ave you done, sir! Missis can't abide 'em."