ONLY A COUSIN.

BY LASCELLES WRAXALL.

I.

SIR NORTON FOLGATE.

I DARE say most of my readers have met with one of those men who are popularly respected as the makers of their own fortune. I do not know what their opinion of such gentlemen may be, but I have an utter repugnance for them. If they would only keep their proper side of Temple-bar, they might be endured, because we should then rarely come in contact with them; but, unfortunately, in this levelling age, they will ape their betters, and force their way into society with a golden wedge. Society eats their dinners, and politely sneers at the givers, and at last they merge into insignificance by entering the House, where they sleep very comfortably, I have no doubt, and are not a particular nuisance to anybody, except, perhaps, the reporters. On the other hand, if they have just sufficient sense to recognise their short-comings, and remain in the congenial atmosphere of the City, they become lord mayors, and ask noblemen to dinner, flattering themselves with the notion, that if they are not the actual rose, they have at any rate swallowed green fat in its immediate vicinity. But, as a general rule, whether cis or trans Templebarriers, they are not the sort of men from whom I would, as matter of choice, select my companions. Men whose souls exist in their trouserspockets are not exactly the pleasantest company, and a conversation turning exclusively on money-spinning is far from grateful to the ears of those who find it only much too easy to spend rather more than they

earn.

Such a man, then, was Sir Norton Folgate, the hero of my domestic drama. He was essentially the maker of his own fortune, and was apt to dilate, much after the Bounderby fashion, and in broad Yorkshire, about his coming up to town with a bundle and a crust of bread, or something equally unpleasant. Now, per se, there is no great harm in any man coming up to London to make his fortune, with a bundle or without; but when that fortune has been made, and we all of us know that Sir Norton has any quantity of money in the funds, it rather smacks of that pride which apes humility if he will continually spice his old claret, which we drink reverentially, with equally old anecdotes, which we have heard any given number of times, and which we are expected to admire, as the price of our dinner. On principle, then, Brown, editor of the Weekly Flyblow, and myself, who are frequent guests at our friend's table, walk home together and make very sarcastic remarks about him over the whisky-toddy and cigar or so which we indulge in somewhere near Maiden-lane.

Sir Norton's career, I am sorry to say for my country, was very much

like that of most of our rich parvenus.

His first wife, rumour said,

had

been a cook, or anything of that nature, whom he had married, prudent youth, because she had saved some money, and her earnings added to his enabled him to open some sort of shop somewhere down Wapping way. It was darkly hinted he had been a ship-chandler-whatever that valuable department of trade may be-and had combined with it marine stores, not being particular as to a silver spoon or so when offered him cheap. My friend Brown positively declared he had looked back on the file, and found out that Mr. Folgate had been tried at the Old Bailey for receiving stolen property, but I think (the taste of the old claret being still in my mouth) this must be a libel. At any rate, the ship-chandler grew rich, and soon boasted ships of his own; and his name turned up repeatedly in connexion with public companies, which flourished tremendously for a while, and then went out with an odour as bad as one of Mr. Folgate's own candles. My hero was soon after heard of as a large broker, and his name became sufficiently notorious at the West-end in connexion with stamped paper. He went through the various grades of civic dignity; got knighted when the Emperor of Timbuktu visited this country during his mayoralty, and his luck was completed by the death of Mrs. Folgate the first. With this event a new era opened in Sir Norton's life, and he determined to become great in the land, or else be allied to greatness.

During the great railway mania, which has been such a godsend for all novel-writers, and would be for myself were I not strictly adhering to facts, Sir Norton went to Ireland on some business connected with a new line from the Giant's Causeway to Skibbereen. (I believe the traffic was proved to be enormous, from the fact that the workhouse poor were all to be sent for change of air to that fashionable spot.) Sir Norton became acquainted with that "reprobate, gouty old peer" the Earl of Mastodon, who, we all know, boasts an antediluvian lineage. His lordship was rather a distinguished character, and was fond of uttering very strong language about "those brutal Whigs," and he certainly had good reasons. The earl had been for many years, and a long line of ancestors before him, deputy-wastepaper-basket to his Majesty, and the perquisites, the contents, namely, of the basket, had belonged to them from time immemorial. After the passing of the Reform Bill, when so many small orators tried to raise political capital by detecting abuses, Mr. Botherby, M.P. for Droneham, moved for a select committee to inquire into the perquisites attached to the office of wastepaper. The ministry yielded (like infernal cowards as they were, the earl would add), and the committee sat. To prove the wisdom of the last generation, I may add that, after a diligent inquiry, at which all the old and second-hand bookstallkeepers and wastepaper buyers had been examined, and it had been shown that the perquisites were worth just 19s. 6d. per annum, the expenses of the committee amounted to 22377. 19s. 44d. But, on the other hand, principle had been asserted, and Mr. Botherby proved himself an enlightened patriot. This was not all, however: Mr. Proser, M.P., hit on the luminous thought of inquiring what deputy-wastepaper had to do for his money. There was another committee, and the end of it all was, that the Earl of Mastodon was quietly recommended to resign, with a hint of some other berth in the good time coming. Unfortunately, that

good time never came, and, poor fellow, he had to retire to his native bogs to nurse his wrath and his estate at the same time. I need not add that he had a perfect colony of children-cela va sans dire,—for our aristocracy are notorious for having a family always in an inverse ratio to their means of supporting them. Were it not for this beautiful provision of nature, government would be forced to the odious necessity of selecting Treasury clerks and so on from the plebs.

It may be imagined that a rich man like Sir Norton was a perfect godsend for our pauper peer. He asked him to dinner on the first introduction, and liked his stories so much that he insisted on the Sassenach making his house his home during his stay in Ireland. Lady Flora Dodo, the third daughter, attracted our hero's attention immensely, and he had a feeling come over him which, in a less cold-blooded individual, might have degenerated into love. I am sorry to say that Lady Flora took advantage of this sentiment, and strove to blow the embers into a flame to the best of her ability. Her birth-father Irish, mother Scotchpeculiarly adapted her to make hay while the sun shone; she had never had such a chance before, and she was determined she would not let it slip. It is true that she had more than a passing fancy for her cousin, Charley Fitzurse, but her mind had been well regulated by a prudent mamma. In her view, marriage represented diamonds, court balls, a carriage, footmen with largely developed calves; and if such essentials of existence could be procured at the sacrifice of a heart, she was far too wise not to jump at the chance. Ah me! how many of our great bodies wish, when too late, that Hauff's story of the "Steinerne Herz" were only true. How gladly would they exchange their heart, with all its troublesome prickings, for a fine solid lump of stone, as insensible to feeling as the clods to whom they have sold themselves for a status in society.

Sir Norton, however, was a very prudent man, as became a city magnate; with him, business came first and pleasure a long way afterwards. He finished his railway transactions, and after dropping some mysterious hints about the immense sums to be gained in London at that time by clever speculations, he took leave of his host, and left the hint to work. He was not mistaken in his calculation: in a few weeks his lordship, the Earl of Mastodon, was announced in the Morning Post as having arrived in town for the season, and within a few hours he was closeted with Sir Norton, discussing the measures to be taken by which he could make enough money to clear his estate. Sir Norton was eminently practical; and in a few hours imparted a few lights, which slightly astonished his lordship, who was intensely behind his age, as far as speculation was concerned.

In a very short time Lord Mastodon was engaged in the fascinating pursuit of money-making; and yet, strange to say, while the balance at his bankers was rapidly assuming more and more satisfactory proportions, he felt never a whit the happier. The real "small still" had lost its flavour; the very best Havannahs which he now smoked, thanks to his City friend, seemed to him no better than the poorest Pickwick; in short, the auri sacra fames had got hold of him, and, like a true Irishman, he went in for a fortune in the shortest conceivable time, regardless of the expense. Sir Norton gave him his head, and allowed him to net several thousand

pounds; he knew his man, and that he would never stop from any motives of safety. At last the time seemed ripe; his lordship risked a speculation, and dared to set his own addled brains against the one virtue of the citizen, shrewd common sense; the consequence was a heavy loss. At this moment Sir Norton stepped in; he suggested a mode by which a fortune might be made, and the earl jumped at it. It is needless to follow the ins and outs of this mysterious transaction; the fact remains the same, and the earl became eventually liable for thirty thousand pounds, while possessing hardly the same amount of representative farthings.

His lordship was evidently in a fix; and, worse than all, his Irish fertility of resources could suggest no mode of extrication. In this dilemma Sir Norton became his "guide, philosopher, and friend," and made a proposal for Lady Flora's hand, the purchase-money, if I may use the term, being a full receipt for the thirty thousand pounds still owing. It was decidedly a bitter pill for the antediluvian pride; but, as the old saying runs, Needs must, &c., and, as may be anticipated, the old earl closed with the bargain, subject to his daughter's consent. The latter was only too glad to accept house and lands and position, although encumbered with the somewhat angular person of Sir Norton Folgate; the bargain was speedily concluded, and the marriage took place with all the possible pomp desirable, and two columns and a half in the Morning Post; while the happy bridegroom most generously settled on the lady the sum of thirty thousand pounds-in the shape of her father's bond for that sum.. It was whispered that he was no loser by this transaction, for City men have told me that the thirty thousand pounds represented various shares in the Giant's Causeway direct, which he contrived, by means peculiar to the City, to saddle on his future papa-in-law at a heavy premium. These shares had been, in the first instance, assigned to him gratis for his strenuous exertions in promoting the railway, and so, when the smash came, he was very well out of it, and gained a very pretty wife in the bargain. However, as I have insinuated before, I will not believe any libellous tales about Sir Norton-so long as he keeps such first-rate claret. Of course, though, my readers, who do not benefit by that generous wine, are left quite at liberty to draw their own conclusions.

II.

CHARLEY FITZURSE.

IMAGINE, then, that two years have elapsed. Monsieur has gradually retired from business, wound up his affairs, and become member for Snorebury. Madame has been launched on the world, and has dropped into her position as naturally as all undowered patrician's daughters contrive to do. She has her house in town and in the country; she gives balls and parties, for which Sir Norton is only too happy to pay, as becomes old January at sixty-seven, when wedded to May of eighteen blushing summers. He has tried to be uxorious, but was very soon checked by the savoir faire of my lady, as he rejoices to call her; so he has gradually drifted into the position of amateur butler, and behaves himself accordingly. He is allowed full liberty to go and come when

per

he lists, just so far as the boudoir door; but there a bar is fixed, which he cannot pass without due permission being asked and mission graciously accorded - which only happens, by-the-way, when madame requires a cheque to pay her milliner or her dressmaker, that great mystery of domestic housekeeping. Sir Norton gives with both hands, as the French say; he is proud of his wife, and the sensation she creates; not that he is a witness of it, but he hears it talked about at the clubs by young Grigg and Spavin, those fast boys, from whom he picks up various hints about fashionable life. Charley Fitzurse, too, is an invaluable friend to him, by teaching him what to avoid, and in gratitude Sir Norton has bought him a step, and recommends him to call on my lady repeatedly, who must be dull, poor thing, when her husband is And Charley very willingly obeys,

away.

In short, the ménage is on the most satisfactory footing in Hill-street. It is true, at times, that Sir Norton fancies he is not quite so domesticated as in the epoch of Mrs. Folgate the first, when he blew his cloud at the public-house round the corner, and was ordered home to bed as the clock struck ten; but then, he charitably ascribes it to the different society he is moving in. My lady hardly ever comes home before four in the morning, and, of course, is much too good a wife to disturb him: he rises at ten, and after breakfast goes to his solid club, the Plesiosaurus, where elderly swells congregate in bay-windows, and tell jokes, all the point of which consists in digging each other in the ribs. In the afternoon he visits his fashionable club, the Convolvulus, where he stops till six, and then toddles home respectably to dinner at seven, and the first appearance of milady in her domestic character for the day.

But, though Sir Norton was so flexile in many matters, in one he was adamant―he had an utter detestation of all foreigners. In his earliest years he had bought some shares in a Frankfort lottery, and gained a prize worth 50,000 florins, as he was assured. At a great outlay of time and capital he went over to realise, but on trying to sell, found the château was mortgaged for 49,000 florins, with law expenses, &c., and, as soon as he stated himself to be the fortunate owner, he was arrested and put in prison for ten years' taxes due: he found himself, at the termination of the affair, just eighty-seven pounds out of pocket. No wonder, then, that he detested foreigners and all their breed. But in his hatred of foreigners he did not surpass a worthy glover of Cheapside, whom I am bound to immortalise in these pages. In 1848, when the revolution in France expelled a number of English workmen from the railways, a German friend of mine desiring gloves, entered this worthy gentleman's shop. He was received with a growl, and an inquiry whether he were not a foreigner. On his giving a mild affirmation, the shopkeeper refused to deal with him, and he had to leave the shop, gloveless, after entering a severe protest against the narrow-mindedness of the individual. There is nothing like consistency, even when it works with retroactive energy on your own pocket.

This hatred of foreigners was the skeleton in Sir Norton Folgate's house. My lady did not like the country so well as Baden, and Sir Norton's views were diametrically opposite. He would not go abroad to be "poisoned," as he termed it, and my lady was just as determined that