Friend Rawdon drove on then to Mr. Moss's mansion in Cursitor Street,
and was duly inducted into that dismal place of hospitality. Morning
was breaking over the cheerful house-tops of Chancery Lane as the
rattling cab woke up the echoes there. A little pink-eyed Jew-boy,
with a head as ruddy as the rising morn, let the party into the house,
and Rawdon was welcomed to the ground-floor apartments by Mr. Moss, his
travelling companion and host, who cheerfully asked him if he would
like a glass of something warm after his drive.
The Colonel was not so depressed as some mortals would be, who,
quitting a palace and a placens uxor, find themselves barred into a
spunging-house; for, if the truth must be told, he had been a lodger at
Mr. Moss's establishment once or twice before. We have not thought it
necessary in the previous course of this narrative to mention these
trivial little domestic incidents: but the reader may be assured that
they can't unfrequently occur in the life of a man who lives on nothing
a year.
Upon his first visit to Mr. Moss, the Colonel, then a bachelor, had
been liberated by the generosity of his aunt; on the second mishap,
little Becky, with the greatest spirit and kindness, had borrowed a sum
of money from Lord Southdown and had coaxed her husband's creditor (who
was her shawl, velvet-gown, lace pocket-handkerchief, trinket, and
gim-crack purveyor, indeed) to take a portion of the sum claimed and
Rawdon's promissory note for the remainder: so on both these occasions
the capture and release had been conducted with the utmost gallantry on
all sides, and Moss and the Colonel were therefore on the very best of
terms.
"You'll find your old bed, Colonel, and everything comfortable," that
gentleman said, "as I may honestly say. You may be pretty sure its kep
aired, and by the best of company, too. It was slep in the night afore
last by the Honorable Capting Famish, of the Fiftieth Dragoons, whose
Mar took him out, after a fortnight, jest to punish him, she said.
But, Law bless you, I promise you, he punished my champagne, and had a
party ere every night--reglar tip-top swells, down from the clubs and
the West End--Capting Ragg, the Honorable Deuceace, who lives in the
Temple, and some fellers as knows a good glass of wine, I warrant you.
I've got a Doctor of Diwinity upstairs, five gents in the coffee-room,
and Mrs. Moss has a tably-dy-hoty at half-past five, and a little
cards or music afterwards, when we shall be most happy to see you."
"I'll ring when I want anything," said Rawdon and went quietly to his
bedroom. He was an old soldier, we have said, and not to be disturbed
by any little shocks of fate. A weaker man would have sent off a
letter to his wife on the instant of his capture. "But what is the use
of disturbing her night's rest?" thought Rawdon. "She won't know
whether I am in my room or not. It will be time enough to write to her
when she has had her sleep out, and I have had mine. It's only a
hundred-and-seventy, and the deuce is in it if we can't raise that."
And so, thinking about little Rawdon (whom he would not have know that
he was in such a queer place), the Colonel turned into the bed lately
occupied by Captain Famish and fell asleep. It was ten o'clock when he
woke up, and the ruddy-headed youth brought him, with conscious pride,
a fine silver dressing-case, wherewith he might perform the operation
of shaving. Indeed Mr. Moss's house, though somewhat dirty, was
splendid throughout. There were dirty trays, and wine-coolers en
permanence on the sideboard, huge dirty gilt cornices, with dingy
yellow satin hangings to the barred windows which looked into Cursitor
Street--vast and dirty gilt picture frames surrounding pieces sporting
and sacred, all of which works were by the greatest masters--and
fetched the greatest prices, too, in the bill transactions, in the
course of which they were sold and bought over and over again. The
Colonel's breakfast was served to him in the same dingy and gorgeous
plated ware. Miss Moss, a dark-eyed maid in curl-papers, appeared with
the teapot, and, smiling, asked the Colonel how he had slep? And she
brought him in the Morning Post, with the names of all the great people
who had figured at Lord Steyne's entertainment the night before. It
contained a brilliant account of the festivities and of the beautiful
and accomplished Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's admirable personifications.