ong seasoning to
make ordinary existence endurable. Perhaps one reason may have been
that the major's billiard play in public varied to an extraordinary
degree, so that on different occasions he had appeared to be aiming at
the process termed by the initiated "getting on the money." The warm
friendships, too, which the old soldier had contracted with sundry
vacuous and sappy youths, who were kindly piloted by him into
quasi-fashionable life and shown how and when to spend their money, had
been most uncharitably commented upon. Perhaps the vagueness about the
major's private residence and the mystery which hung over him outside
his clubs may also have excited prejudice against him. Still, however
his detractors might malign him, they could not attempt to deny the fact
that Tobias Clutterbuck was the third son of the Honourable Charles
Clutterbuck, who again was the second son of the Earl of Dunross, one of
the most ancient of Hibernian families. This pedigree the old soldier
took care to explain to every one about him, more particularly to the
sappy youths aforementioned.
It chanced that on the afternoon of which we speak the major was
engrossed by this very subject. Standing at the head of the broad stone
steps which lead up to the palatial edifice which its occupiers
irreverently term the _Rag and Bobtail_, he was explaining to a
bull-necked, olive-complexioned young man the series of marriages and
inter-marriages which had culminated in the production of his own
portly, stiff-backed figure. His companion, who was none other than
Ezra Girdlestone, of the great African firm of that name, leaned against
one of the pillars of the portico and listened gloomily to the major's
family reminiscences, giving an occasional yawn which he made no attempt
to conceal.
"It's as plain as the fingers of me hand," the old soldier said in a
wheezy muffled brogue, as if he were speaking from under a feather-bed.
"See here now, Girdlestone--this is Miss Letitia Snackles of Snackleton,
a cousin of old Sir Joseph." The major tapped his thumb with the silver
head of his walking-stick to represent the maiden Snackles. "She
marries Crawford, of the Blues--one o' the Warwickshire Crawfords;
that's him"--here he elevated his stubby forefinger; "and here's their
three children, Jemima, Harold, and John." Up went three other fingers.
"Jemima Crawford grows up, and then Charley Clutterbuck runs away with
her. This other thumb o' mine
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