By thus advertising and pushing sedulously, the domestic Chaplain and
his Lady generally succeeded in having one or two scholars by them--who
paid a high figure and were thought to be in uncommonly comfortable
quarters. There was a large West Indian, whom nobody came to see, with
a mahogany complexion, a woolly head, and an exceedingly dandyfied
appearance; there was another hulking boy of three-and-twenty whose
education had been neglected and whom Mr. and Mrs. Veal were to
introduce into the polite world; there were two sons of Colonel Bangles
of the East India Company's Service: these four sat down to dinner at
Mrs. Veal's genteel board, when Georgy was introduced to her
establishment.
Georgy was, like some dozen other pupils, only a day boy; he arrived in
the morning under the guardianship of his friend Mr. Rowson, and if it
was fine, would ride away in the afternoon on his pony, followed by the
groom. The wealth of his grandfather was reported in the school to be
prodigious. The Rev. Mr. Veal used to compliment Georgy upon it
personally, warning him that he was destined for a high station; that
it became him to prepare, by sedulity and docility in youth, for the
lofty duties to which he would be called in mature age; that obedience
in the child was the best preparation for command in the man; and that
he therefore begged George would not bring toffee into the school and
ruin the health of the Masters Bangles, who had everything they wanted
at the elegant and abundant table of Mrs. Veal.
With respect to learning, "the Curriculum," as Mr. Veal loved to call
it, was of prodigious extent, and the young gentlemen in Hart Street
might learn a something of every known science. The Rev. Mr. Veal had
an orrery, an electrifying machine, a turning lathe, a theatre (in the
wash-house), a chemical apparatus, and what he called a select library
of all the works of the best authors of ancient and modern times and
languages. He took the boys to the British Museum and descanted upon
the antiquities and the specimens of natural history there, so that
audiences would gather round him as he spoke, and all Bloomsbury highly
admired him as a prodigiously well-informed man. And whenever he spoke
(which he did almost always), he took care to produce the very finest
and longest words of which the vocabulary gave him the use, rightly
judging that it was as cheap to employ a handsome, large, and sonorous
epithet, as to use a little stingy one.
Thus he would say to George in school, "I observed on my return home
from taking the indulgence of an evening's scientific conversation with
my excellent friend Doctor Bulders--a true archaeologian, gentlemen, a
true archaeologian--that the windows of your venerated grandfather's
almost princely mansion in Russell Square were illuminated as if for
the purposes of festivity. Am I right in my conjecture that Mr.
Osborne entertained a society of chosen spirits round his sumptuous
board last night?"