the GROS COCHON who wanted to meet him with COUPS DE
POING) and a couple of AIDES from Paris, and an Italian confectioner,
as my OFFICIERS DE BOUCHE. All which natural appendages to a man of
fashion, the odious, stingy old Tiptoff, my kinsman and neighbour,
affected to view with horror; and he spread through the country a report
that I had my victuals cooked by Papists, lived upon frogs, and, he
verily believed, fricasseed little children.

But the squires ate my dinners very readily for all that, and old Doctor
Huff himself was compelled to allow that my venison and turtle were
most orthodox. The former gentry I knew how to conciliate, too, in
other ways. There had been only a subscription pack of fox-hounds in
the county and a few beggarly couples of mangy beagles, with which old
Tiptoff pattered about his grounds; I built a kennel and stables,
which cost L30,000, and stocked them in a manner which was worthy of
my ancestors, the Irish kings. I had two packs of hounds, and took
the field in the season four times a week, with three gentlemen in
my hunt-uniform to follow me, and open house at Hackton for all who
belonged to the hunt.

These changes and this train de vivre required, as may be supposed, no
small outlay; and I confess that I have little of that base spirit of
economy in my composition which some people practise and admire. For
instance, old Tiptoff was hoarding up his money to repair his father's
extravagance and disencumber his estates; a good deal of the money
with which he paid off his mortgages my agent procured upon mine. And,
besides, it must be remembered I had only a life-interest upon the
Lyndon property, was always of an easy temper in dealing with the
money-brokers, and had to pay heavily for insuring her Ladyship's life.

At the end of a year Lady Lyndon presented me with a son--Bryan Lyndon
I called him, in compliment to my royal ancestry: but what more had I to
leave him than a noble name? Was not the estate of his mother entailed
upon the odious little Turk, Lord Bullingdon? and whom, by the way, I
have not mentioned as yet, though he was living at Hackton, consigned to
a new governor. The insubordination of that boy was dreadful. He used
to quote passages of 'Hamlet' to his mother, which made her very angry.
Once when I took a horsewhip to chastise him, he drew a knife, and would
have stabbed me: and, 'faith, I recollected my own youth, which was
pretty similar; and, holding out my hand,