SAVERNAKE AND FORTY-FIVE.
.png)
world will believe it at last, and the great art (I am assured) is, never to lose an opportunity of pressing your point upon your intended convert. The world said that Mr. John Savernake was a good man, and I am inclined to think that he obtained this character chiefly from his having pertinaciously, and for several years, declared that he deserved it.
Now, Mr. Savernake did not look like a good man. Nevertheless, he was not ill looking, had a fresh and clean complexion, shaved all kind of hair from his face, kept his upper hair, which was black and rather short, smoothly oiled, and though as a professional gentleman (who “did“ bills) he did not think it meet to dress exactly like those who came to him for money, he was always very glossy and Sunday-fled, and his things looked new. He had rather small sharp black eyes, which did not “stand out with fatness,” like the evil Oriental’s, but rather the reverse, the plumpness of his face placing them a little in recess, as in the porcine family. His voice was harsh and coarse, and not particularly under his command, especially when his temper had mastered him, but as a rule, he affected, with his equals, a kind of jeering jollity which those who wished to speak well of him called bonhommie. They did not call it so when they had ceased to wish to speak well of him, and yet were obliged to speak civilly to him, as would sometimes happen to gentlemen who incurred money obligations which they are unable to meet. He could laugh, and show good white teeth, but his usual smile was a muscular effort which drew his mouth a little way towards his left ear, and did not produce a pleasing effect, especially upon a party who was endeavouring to Bhow excellent reasons why Mr. Savernake should forego proceedings on a certain bill, and got that smile instead of a promise to give time.
But he was not altogether a bad fellow — who is, utter in their wrath the most offensive things in these days? Savernake would give a very good dinner, and so far from stinting his excellent wine, nothing delighted him more than to see a guest take a great deal too much. Cheaply purchased by the usurer was the pleasure of being able to say to his guest next time they met, and especially if other persons were present, “How very drunk you were on Tuesday. What a ridiculous figure you cut up-stairs. Laughing- stock of the whole party. O, don’t tell me” Well, the dinner he would give you would have cost you at an hotel a guinea and a half at least. Put your own price upon the pleasure his elegant speech next day would cause you, and deduct the difference. That, at least, was the arithmetic of a good many men who had their own reasons for not rejecting his invitations, and who, during that period, declared that they got the dinner cheap. Now, out of his clutch, they say that they were very extravagant.
It has been said that John Savernake took pains to impress upon the world the fact that he was a good man. Not a religious man, mind; for he was too self-indulgent to indulge in playing at Somebody Else. He also lacked self-command for the continuous assumption of character. He usually swore a little, and sometimes a great deal, and certainly had not the educative imagination which enables some professedly pious persons to without ever becoming profane. And there were two or three other reasons why Mr. Savernake’s goodness could not exactly take the form of religion. But what he asserted to the world that he was, and what when he had had some wine, I am disposed to think he half believed himself to be, was a kindly-hearted, charitable, generous Chap (as he put it), a little impulsive, and perhaps too apt to speak his mind (“might perhaps have been a richer man if I wasn’t”), but at bottom a worthy fellow, whose Heart was in the Right Place. O, what a lot of that description there are, and what an addition they are to the necessary miseries of this life!
Our friend was very prompt at putting his name down to charities and the like, and his name was often proclaimed by the Worthy Chairman, and inserted in the printed list of Benefactors. He was something less prompt in handing his cheque to the collector, who was lucky if he found Mr. Savernake disengaged, but one has heard of that little peculiarity being exhibited by better men even than John Savernake. John sometimes waxed savage, and took high ground, when teased for his contribution. “I give my example, and my name, and my recommendation to your association. I take an interest in it, and get others to do so, and I think that it is ungrateful
and impolitic to bother me about the trumpery