DOI article:
Beerbohm, Max: The happy hypocrite
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.38746#0018
14 The Happy Hypocrite
Of all the sins of his lordship’s life, surely not one was more
wanton than his neglect of Follard Chase. Some whispered (nor
did he ever trouble to deny) that he had won it by foul means, by
loaded dice. Indeed no card-player in St. James’s cheated more
persistently than he. As he was rich and had no wife and family
to support, and as his luck was always capital, I can offer no
excuse for his conduct. At Carlton House, in the presence of
many bishops and cabinet ministers, he once dunned the Regent
most arrogantly for 5000 guineas out of which he had cheated
him some months before, and went so far as to declare that he
would not leave the house till he got it ; whereupon His Royal
Highness, with that unfailing tact for which he was ever famous,
invited him to stay there as a guest ; which, in fact, Lord George
did, for several months. After this, we can hardly be surprised
when we read that he “ seldom sat down to the fashionable game of
Limbo with less than four, and sometimes with as many as 7 aces up
his sleeve.” * We can only wonder that he was tolerated at all.
At Garble’s, that nightly resort of titled rips and roysterers, he
usually spent the early part of his evenings. Round the illumin-
ated garden, with La Gambogi, the dancer, on his arm and a
Bacchic retinue at his heels, he would amble leisurely, clad in
Georgian costume, which was not then, of course, fancy dress, as it
is now.f Now and again, in the midst of his noisy talk, he would
crack a joke of the period, or break into a sentimental ballad, dance
a little
* Contemporary Bucks, vol. i. page 73.
t It would seem, however, that, on special occasions, his lordship
indulged in odd costumes. “ I have seen him,” says Captain Tarleton
(vol. i. p. 69), “attired as a French clown, as a sailor, or in the crimson
hose cf a Sicilian grandee—peu beau spectacle. He never disguised his
face, whatever his costume, nevertheless.”
Of all the sins of his lordship’s life, surely not one was more
wanton than his neglect of Follard Chase. Some whispered (nor
did he ever trouble to deny) that he had won it by foul means, by
loaded dice. Indeed no card-player in St. James’s cheated more
persistently than he. As he was rich and had no wife and family
to support, and as his luck was always capital, I can offer no
excuse for his conduct. At Carlton House, in the presence of
many bishops and cabinet ministers, he once dunned the Regent
most arrogantly for 5000 guineas out of which he had cheated
him some months before, and went so far as to declare that he
would not leave the house till he got it ; whereupon His Royal
Highness, with that unfailing tact for which he was ever famous,
invited him to stay there as a guest ; which, in fact, Lord George
did, for several months. After this, we can hardly be surprised
when we read that he “ seldom sat down to the fashionable game of
Limbo with less than four, and sometimes with as many as 7 aces up
his sleeve.” * We can only wonder that he was tolerated at all.
At Garble’s, that nightly resort of titled rips and roysterers, he
usually spent the early part of his evenings. Round the illumin-
ated garden, with La Gambogi, the dancer, on his arm and a
Bacchic retinue at his heels, he would amble leisurely, clad in
Georgian costume, which was not then, of course, fancy dress, as it
is now.f Now and again, in the midst of his noisy talk, he would
crack a joke of the period, or break into a sentimental ballad, dance
a little
* Contemporary Bucks, vol. i. page 73.
t It would seem, however, that, on special occasions, his lordship
indulged in odd costumes. “ I have seen him,” says Captain Tarleton
(vol. i. p. 69), “attired as a French clown, as a sailor, or in the crimson
hose cf a Sicilian grandee—peu beau spectacle. He never disguised his
face, whatever his costume, nevertheless.”