We're on the up-grade now, fair and square. We're going to be big. We aren't going to be laughed at as Poovenoos, see!"
"Nobody laughed at you," said my aunt. "Old Bladder!"
"Nobody isn't going to laugh at me," said my uncle, glancing at his contours and suddenly sitting up.
My aunt raised her eyebrows slightly, swung her foot, and said nothing.
"We aren't keeping pace with our own progress, George. We got to. We're bumping against new people, and they set up to be gentlefolks--etiquette dinners and all the rest of it. They give themselves airs and expect us to be fish-out-of-water. We aren't going to be. They think we've no Style. Well, we give them Style for our advertisements, and we're going to give 'em Style all through.... You needn't be born to it to dance well on the wires of the Bond Street tradesmen. See?"
I handed him the cigar-box.
"Runcorn hadn't cigars like these," he said, truncating one lovingly. "We beat him at cigars. We'll beat him all round."
My aunt and I regarded him, full of apprehensions.
"I got idees," he said darkly to the cigar, deepening our dread.
He pocketed his cigar-cutter and spoke again.
"We got to learn all the rotten little game first. See, F'rinstance, we got to get samples of all the blessed wines there are--and learn 'em up. Stern, Smoor, Burgundy, all of 'em! She took Stern to-night--and when she tasted it first--you pulled a face, Susan, you did. I saw you. It surprised you. You bunched your nose. We got to get used to wine and not do that. We got to get used to wearing evening dress--YOU, Susan, too."
"Always have had a tendency to stick out of my clothes," said my aunt. "However--Who cares?" She shrugged her shoulders.
I had never seen my uncle so immensely serious.
"Got to get the hang of etiquette," he went on to the fire.
"Horses even. Practise everything. Dine every night in evening dress.... Get a brougham or something. Learn up golf and tennis and things. Country gentleman. Oh Fay. It isn't only freedom from Goochery."
"Eh?" I said.
"Oh!--Gawshery, if you like!"
"French, George," said my aunt. "But I'M not ol' Gooch. I made that face for fun."
"It isn't only freedom from Gawshery. We got to have Style.
See! Style! Just all right and one better. That's what I call Style. We can do it, and we will."
He mumbled his cigar and smoked for a space, leaning forward and looking into the fire.
"What is it," he asked, "after all? What is it? Tips about eating; tips about drinking. Clothes. How to hold yourself, and not say jes' the few little things they know for certain are wrong--jes' the shibboleth things."
He was silent again, and the cigar crept up from the horizontal towards the zenith as the confidence of his mouth increased.
"Learn the whole bag of tricks in six months." he said, becoming more cheerful. "Ah, Susan? Beat it out! George, you in particular ought to get hold of it. Ought to get into a good club, and all that."
"Always ready to learn!" I said. "Ever since you gave me the chance of Latin. So far we don't seem to have hit upon any Latin-speaking stratum in the population."
"We've come to French," said my aunt, "anyhow."
"It's a very useful language," said my uncle. "Put a point on things. Zzzz. As for accent, no Englishman has an accent. No Englishman pronounces French properly. Don't you tell ME.
It's a Bluff.--It's all a Bluff. Life's a Bluff--practically.
That's why it's so important, Susan, for us to attend to Style.
Le Steel Say Lum. The Style it's the man. Whad you laughing at, Susan? George, you're not smoking. These cigars are good for the mind.... What do YOU think of it all? We got to adapt ourselves. We have--so far.... Not going to be beat by these silly things."
IV
"What do you think of it, George?" he insisted.
What I said I thought of it I don't now recall. Only I have very distinctly the impression of meeting for a moment my aunt's impenetrable eye. And anyhow he started in with his accustomed energy to rape the mysteries of the Costly Life, and become the calmest of its lords. On the whole, I think he did it--thoroughly. I have crowded memories, a little difficult to disentangle, of his experimental stages, his experimental proceedings. It's hard at times to say which memory comes in front of which. I recall him as presenting on the whole a series of small surprises, as being again and again, unexpectedly, a little more self-confident, a little more polished, a little richer and finer, a little more aware of the positions and values of things and men.
There was a time--it must have been very early--when I saw him deeply impressed by the splendours of the dining-room of the National Liberal Club. Heaven knows who our host was or what that particular little "feed" was about now!--all that sticks is the impression of our straggling entry, a string of six or seven guests, and my uncle looking about him at the numerous bright red-shaded tables, at the exotics in great Majolica jars, at the shining ceramic columns and pilasters, at the impressive portraits of Liberal statesmen and heroes, and all that contributes to the ensemble of that palatial spectacle. He was betrayed into a whisper to me, "This is all Right, George!" he said. That artless comment seems almost incredible as I set it down; there came a time so speedily when not even the clubs of New York could have overawed my uncle, and when he could walk through the bowing magnificence of the Royal Grand Hotel to his chosen table in that aggressively exquisite gallery upon the river, with all the easy calm of one of earth's legitimate kings.
The two of them learnt the new game rapidly and well; they experimented abroad, they experimented at home. At Chiselhurst, with the aid of a new, very costly, but highly instructive cook, they tried over everything they heard of that roused their curiosity and had any reputation for difficulty, from asparagus to plover's eggs. They afterwards got a gardener who could wait at table--and he brought the soil home to one. Then there came a butler.
