CHAPTER NINETEEN
SOCIAL RESORTS--THE SHILLING WHIST CLUB--A PRACTICAL JOKE--THE WEDNESDAY
CLUB--THE "TUN OP MAN"--THE PIG BUTCHER--TOM KING--HUGH KELLY--GLOVER AND
HIS CHARACTERISTICS
Though Goldsmith's pride and ambition led him to mingle occasionally with
high society, and to engage in the colloquial conflicts of the learned
circle, in both of which he was ill at ease and conscious of being
undervalued, yet he had some social resorts in which he indemnified himself
for their restraints by indulging his humor without control. One of them
was a shilling whist club, which held its meetings at the Devil Tavern,
near Temple Bar, a place rendered classic, we are told, by a club held
there in old times, to which "rare Ben Jonson" had furnished the rules. The
company was of a familiar, unceremonious kind, delighting in that very
questionable wit which consists in playing off practical jokes upon each
other. Of one of these Goldsmith was made the butt. Coming to the club one
night in a hackney coach, he gave the coachman by mistake a guinea instead
of a shilling, which he set down as a dead loss, for there was no
likelihood, he said, that a fellow of this class would have the honesty to
return the money.
Pages:
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236