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All first things are voted the best: first kisses, first toga virilis, first hair of the first whisker; first speeches are often so superior that members subside after making them, fearful of eclipsing themselves; first money won at play must always be best, as always the dearest bought; and first wives are always so super-excellent, that, if a man lose one, he is generally as fearful of hazarding a second as a trout of biting twice.
But of all first things commend me to one's first uniform. No matter that we get sick of harness, and get into mufti as soon as we can now; there is no more exquisite pleasure than the first sight of one's self in shako and sabretasche. How we survey ourselves in the glass, and ring for hot water, that the handsome housemaid may see us in all our glory, and lounge accidentally into our sisters' schoolroom, that the governess, who is nice looking and rather flirty, may go down on the spot before us and our scarlet and gold, chains and buttons! One's first uniform! Oh! the exquisite sensation locked up for us in that first box from Sagnarelli, or Bond Street!
I remember my first uniform. I was eighteen—as raw a young cub as you could want to see. I had not been licked into shape by a public school, whose tongue may be rough, but cleans off grievances and nonsense better than anything else. I had been in that hotbed of effeminacy, Church principles and weak tea, a Private Tutor's, where mamma's darlings are wrapped up, and stuffed with a little Terence and Horace to show grand at home; and upon my life I do believe my sister Julia, aged thirteen, was more wide awake and up to life than I was, when the governor, an old rector, who always put me in mind of the Vicar of Wakefield, got me gazetted to as crack a corps as any in the Line.
The——th (familiarly known in the Service as the "Dare Devils," from old Peninsular deeds) were just then at Malta, and with, among other trifles, a chest protector from my father, and a recipe for milk-arrowroot from my Aunt Matilda who lived in a constant state of catarrh and of cure for the same, tumbled across the Bay of Biscay, and found myself in Byron's confounded "little military hot-house," where most military men, some time or other, have roasted themselves to death, climbing its hilly streets, flirting with its Valetta belles, drinking Bass in its hot verandas, yawning with ennui in its palace, cursing its sirocco, and being done by its Jew sharpers.
From a private tutor's to a crack mess at Malta!—from a convent to a casino could hardly be a greater change. Just at first I was as much astray as a young pup taken into a stubble-field, and wondering what the deuce he is to do there; but as it is a pup's nature to sniff at birds and start them, so is it a boy's nature to snatch at the champagne of life as soon as he catches sight of it, though you may have brought him up on water from his cradle. I took to it, at least, like a retriever to water-ducks, though I was green enough to be a first-rate butt for many a day, and the practical jokes I had passed on me would have furnished the Times with food for crushers on "The Shocking State of the Army" for a twelvemonth. My chief friend and ally, tormentor and initiator, was a little fellow, Cosmo Grandison; in Ours he was "Little Grand" to everybody, from the Colonel to the baggage-women. He was seventeen, and had joined about a year. What a pretty boy he was, too! All the fair ones in Valetta, from his Excellency's wife to our washerwomen, admired that boy, and spoilt him and petted him, and I do not believe there was a man of Ours who would have had heart to sit in court-martial on Little Grand if he had broken every one of the Queen's regulations, and set every General Order at defiance. I think I see him now—he was new to Malta as I, having just landed with the Dare Devils, en route from India to Portsmouth—as he sat one day on the table in the mess-room as cool as a cucumber, in spite of the broiling sun, smoking, and swinging his legs, and settling his forage-cap on one side of his head, as pretty-looking, plucky, impudent a young monkey as ever piqued himself on being an old hand, and a knowing bird not to be caught by any chaff however ingeniously prepared.
"Simon," began Little Grand (my "St. John," first barbarized by Mr. Pope for the convenience of his dactyles and hexameters into Sinjin, being further barbarized by this little imp into Simon)—"Simon, do you want to see the finest woman in this confounded little pepper-box? You're no judge of a woman, though, you muff—taste been warped, perhaps, by constant contemplation of that virgin Aunt Minerva—Matilda, is it? all the same."
"Hang your chaff," said I; "you'd make one out a fool."
"Precisely, my dear Simon; just what you are!" responded Little Grand, pleasantly, "Bless your heart, I've been engaged to half a dozen women since I joined. A man can hardly help it, you see; they've such a way of drawing you on, you don't like to disappoint them, poor little dears, and so you compromise yourself out of sheer benevolence. There's such a run on a handsome man—it's a great bore. Sometimes I think I shall shave my head, or do something to disfigure myself, as Spurina did. Poor fellow, I feel for him! Well, Simon, you don't seem curious to know who my beauty is?"
"One of those Mitchell girls of the Twenty-first? You waltzed with 'em all night; but they're too tall for you, Grand."
"The Mitchell girls!" ejaculated he, with supreme scorn. "Great maypoles! they go about with the Fusiliers like a pair of colors. On every ball-room battlefield one's safe to see them flaunting away, and as everybody has a shot at 'em, their hearts must be pretty well riddled into holes by this time. No, mine's rather higher game than that. My mother's brother-in-law's aunt's sister's cousin's cousin once removed was Viscount Twaddle, and I don't go anything lower than the Peerage."
"What, is it somebody you've met at his Excellency's?"
"Wrong again, beloved Simon. It's nobody I've met at old Stars and Garters', though his lady-wife could no more do without me than without her sal volatile and flirtations. No, she don't go there; she's too high for that sort of thing—sick of it. After all the European Courts, Malta must be rather small and slow. I was introduced to her yesterday, and," continued Little Grand, more solemnly than was his wont, "I do assure you she's superb, divine; and I'm not very easy to please."
"What's her name?" I asked, rather impressed with this view of a lady too high for old Stars and Garters, as we irreverently termed her Majesty's representative in her island of Malta.
Little Grand took his pipe out of his lips to correct me with more dignity.
"Her title, my dear Simon, is the Marchioness St. Julian."
"Is that an English peerage, Grand?"
"Hum! What! Oh yes, of course! What else should it be, you owl!"
Not being in a condition to decide this point, I was silent, and he went on, growing more impressive at each phrase:
"She is splendid, really! And I'm a very difficile fellow, you know; but such hair, such eyes, one doesn't see every day in those sun-dried Mitchells or those little pink Bovilliers. Well, yesterday, after that confounded luncheon (how I hate all those complimentary affairs!—one can't enjoy the truffles for talking to the ladies, nor enjoy the ladies for discussing the truffles), I went for a ride with Conran out to Villa Neponte. I left him there, and went down to see the overland steamers come in. While I was waiting, I got into talk, somehow or other, with a very agreeable, gentleman-like fellow, who asked me if I'd only just come to Malta, and all that sort of thing—you know the introductory style of action—till we got quite good friends, and he told me he was living outside this wretched little hole at the Casa di Fiori, and said—wasn't it civil of him?—said he should be very happy to see me if I'd call any time. He gave me his card—Lord Adolphus Fitzhervey—and a man with him called him 'Dolph.' As good luck had it, my weed went out just while we were talking, and Fitzhervey was monstrously pleasant, searched all over him for a fusee, couldn't find one, and asked me to go up with him to the Casa di Fiori and get a light. Of course I did, and he and I and Guatamara had some sherbet and a smoke together, and then he introduced me to the Marchioness St. Julian, his sister—by Jove! such a magnificent woman, Simon, you never saw one like her, I'll wager. She was uncommonly agreeable, too, and such a smile, my boy! She seemed to like me wonderfully—not rare that, though, you'll say—and asked me to go and take coffee there to-night after mess, and bring one of my chums with me; and as I like to show you life, young one, and your taste wants improving after Aunt