His mother had given him a couple of neckcloths, and carefully hemmed and made some little shirts for him;but when her Eli came to see the widow, they were replaced by much finer linen.He had little jewelled buttons in the lawn shirt fronts.Her humble presents had been put aside--I believe Miss Osborne had given them to the coachman's boy.Amelia tried to think she was pleased at the change.Indeed, she was happy and charmed to see the boy looking so beautiful.
She had had a little black profile of him done for a shilling, and this was hung up by the side of another portrait over her bed.One day the boy came on his accustomed visit, galloping down the little street at Brompton, and bringing, as usual, all the inhabitants to the windows to admire his splendour, and with great eagerness and a look of triumph in his face, he pulled a case out of his great-coat--it was a natty white great-coat, with a cape and a velvet collar--pulled out a red morocco case, which he gave her.
"I bought it with my own money, Mamma," he said.
"I thought you'd like it."
Amelia opened the case, and giving a little cry of delighted affection, seized the boy and embraced him a hundred times.It was a miniature-of himself, very prettily done (though not half handsome enough, we may be sure, the widow thought).His grandfather had wished to have a picture of him by an artist whose works, exhibited in a shop-window, in Southampton Row, had caught the old gentleman's eye; and George, who had plenty of money, bethought him of asking the painter how much a copy of the little portrait would cost, saying that he would pay for it out of his own money and that he wanted to give it to his mother.The pleased painter executed it for a small price, and old Osborne himself, when he heard of the incident, growled out his satisfaction and gave the boy twice as many sovereigns as he paid for the miniature.
But what was the grandfather's pleasure compared to Amelia's ecstacy? That proof of the boy's affection charmed her so that she thought no child in the world was like hers for goodness.For long weeks after, the thought of his love made her happy.She slept better with the picture under her pillow, and how many many times did she kiss it and weep and pray over it! Asmall kindness from those she loved made that timid heart grateful.Since her parting with George she had had no such joy and consolation.
At his new home Master George ruled like a lord;at dinner he invited the ladies to drink wine with the utmost coolness, and took off his champagne in a way which charmed his old grandfather."Look at him," the old man would say, nudging his neighbour with a delighted purple face, "did you ever see such a chap?
Lord, Lord! he'll be ordering a dressing-case next, and razors to shave with; I'm blessed if he won't."The antics of the lad did not, however, delight Mr.
Osborne's friends so much as they pleased the old gentleman.It gave Mr.Justice Coffin no pleasure to hear Georgy cut into the conversation and spoil his stories.
Colonel Fogey was not interested in seeing the little boy half tipsy.Mr.Sergeant Toffy's lady felt no particular gratitude, when, with a twist of his elbow, he tilted a glass of port-wine over her yellow satin and laughed at the disaster; nor was she better pleased, although old Osborne was highly delighted, when Georgy "whopped"her third boy (a young gentleman a year older than Georgy, and by chance home for the holidays from Dr.
Tickleus's at Ealing School) in Russell Square.George's grandfather gave the boy a couple of sovereigns for that feat and promised to reward him further for every boy above his own size and age whom he whopped in a similar manner.It is difficult to say what good the old man saw in these combats; he had a vague notion that quarrelling made boys hardy, and that tyranny was a useful accomplishment for them to learn.English youth have been so educated time out of mind, and we have hundreds of thousands of apologists and admirers of injustice, misery, and brutality, as perpetrated among children.Flushed with praise and victory over Master Toffy, George wished naturally to pursue his conquests further, and one day as he was strutting about in prodigiously dandified new clothes, near St.Pancras, and a young baker's boy made sarcastic comments upon his appearance, the youthful patrician pulled off his dandy jacket with great spirit, and giving it in charge to the friend who accompanied him (Master Todd, of Great Coram Street, Russell Square, son of the junior partner of the house of Osborne and Co.), George tried to whop the little baker.But the chances of war were unfavourable this time, and the little baker whopped Georgy, who came home with a rueful black eye and all his fine shirt frill dabbled with the claret drawn from his own little nose.He told his grandfather that he had been in combat with a giant, and frightened his poor mother at Brompton with long, and by no means authentic, accounts of the battle.
This young Todd, of Coram Street, Russell Square, was Master George's great friend and admirer.They both had a taste for painting theatrical characters; for hardbake and raspberry tarts; for sliding and skating in the Regent's Park and the Serpentine, when the weather permitted; for going to the play, whither they were often conducted, by Mr.Osborne's orders, by Rowson, Master George's appointed body-servant, with whom they sat in great comfort in the pit.
In the company of this gentleman they visited all the principal theatres of the metropolis; knew the names of all the actors from Drury Lane to Sadler's Wells; and performed, indeed, many of the plays to the Todd family and their youthful friends, with West's famous characters, on their pasteboard theatre.Rowson, the footman, who was of a generous disposition, would not unfrequently, when in cash, treat his young master to oysters after the play, and to a glass of rum-shrub for a night-cap.