The Third House, Letter III [pp. 29]

JAUR 19 81]*NI ~ F I.2
THE THIRD HOUSE.
" A shambles of the parliament house I"
3 Henry VI., Act 1, Scene 1.
LETTER III.
IHE FASHIONABLE LOBBYMAN.
= >,~ ~Why do we hear so much of the
hardness of the road which our
young men have to travel in order
to get on in the world? I declare,
when I see a fond parent blindly con demning his boy, the pride of his
heart, to the fierce competition of
over-stocked professions or the
drudgery of trade, I feel almost
iS\~- |-i -tempted to lay my hand upon his
' shoulder, after - the traditional man J" -. - -S~if ner of the police, and say: "My
- -- -....dear sir, consider what you are about
j I ~ to do. Why should you subject your
3 ___________ son to all this hardship? Do you
\ Ad'choose a profession for him because
it is respectable? Do you put him in
business that he may make money?
Here, sir, is a profession that is re " spectable, here is a trade that is
money-making. Let him join the
So If r by H Lobby." And then it requires no cap ital. Only Brass.
Put your boy in the Lobby, then,
/-~. ~ - ~ uif you wish him to achieve fortune.
r And let him set aside such childish.. ness as modesty, and truth, and
honesty, and manly worth, and the
weed conscience; for these will be of
,cy lo ant ~ no more use to him in his profession
than an electric telegraph to a Flat H' ead Indian in the prime of aborigi nality. Mere useless lumber.
~b~~~~ 2 l/t l a\ Of all the branches of trade carried
~~~~~ i/ iz aton in the Third House, there is none
that can be conducted so pleasantly
and on so slender a brassy basis, as
~t~#' ~that of the Fashionable Lobbyman.
He is made of brass, and a dress-coat and continuations of the
latest agony, of kids, of back hair, of a kmoustache, and a smile,
and a bow, and -small-talk. Altogether he is a nice young man,
for a small tea-party.
There is that fellow KIDDARS, whom you meet everywhere, and
who knows all the latest particulars about everybody, who is intimate at all the houses where it is worth his while to be intimate.
He came originally from no assignable place in Pennsylvania, and
nobody knows who his father was, or indeed what he himself was,
before one evening he emerged suddenly from nowhere in particular, and was on terms of violent deux-temps and redowa with all the
reigning young ladies-whom he returned to their mammas with
such exquisite politeness-and had his impudence dashed (only
they used a much naughtier word) by young MALMSEY and NED
COBOURG, who glared at him fiercely as he whirled off with their
princesses, hustling the indignant gentlemen back on the toes of
their neighbors in the pleasant little way that dancers have.
"Dash his impudence, who is he?" says DicK MALMSEY (who
sports a bar-sinister in delicate remembrance of the unfortunate
Duke of Clarence from whom, they say, he-is somehow descended)
in the intervals of partridge, or pat, or the inevitable oysters in
every style of indigestibility, with which mankind solaces its
interior at parties, "after the ladies have been helped."
"How should I know?" says COBOu0UG; "I never saw the fellow
before. Some dashed snob or other that old Mrs. BANGLEs has
picked up. One of old BANGLES' constituents, I suppose. Just
dump some of that chicken salad on this plate, will you. They
never do have enough clean plates at this house."
But JACK KIDDERS is not the man to be put down in this style.
You have all heard somebody's version (if I knew the author I
should take off my hat to him) of the questions they ask about a
new man in society. In Boston, "what does he know?" In New
York, "what is he worth?" In Philadelphia, "who is he?" But
in Washington O, grand climax! "What is He?" Isit not true?
They do. Society in our grand metropolitan village doesn't care
the removal of a postmaster to know JACK KIDDARS' mental and
literary attainments, or the state of his finances, or who his papa
was; for society is aware that he is a protege of Mrs. BANGLES, and
that GENERAL BANGLES is Senator from Arizona. And when young
MALMSEY goes, as he will, with his growl of respectability to his
friend, Miss NIMINY, that charming young lady will reply. with a
toss of her admired head, "You men! What nonsense! Why
we met them at Mrs. BANGLES'!"
Why should KIDDARS care what the men say? It is not his
department. He does the wives. Incidentally, he does the daughters. He knows that every ball-room has its ballot, as the Scotch
proverb ought to have said. He is up to parliamentary snuff, I
can tell you, and, as I once heard facetiously added, a pinch or two
over.
He knows, too, that people will presently cease to ask who he is,
and that, three weeks after he has made his appearance at Mrs.
BANGLES', no party would be complete without him. And then he
moves from WILLARD'S, where he has been staying, and takes
"rooms," meaning one, at the old place, at the corner of Alabama
Avenue and J. street, where so many good fellows have been before him; where he beguiles the young men that he thinks it
best to cultivate; and where, after a while, even the aristocratic
COBOURG and MALMSEY are persuaded to smoke the'Havanas of
peace and smack their gracious approval of his Chestnut Grove
or Burnsides' best.
And now JACK goes everywhere,and everybody is glad to see
him, or says so, which to be sure _'s the same thing. If you go to
Mrs. HAMMERcLOTr'S "Thursdays"' you will meet him there doing
the agreeable-by the sickly light, made up of gas-glare and muffled
sunlight and dark curtains, and opening of doors into the day
without, and flitting of human shadows, that some people seem to
consider indispensable to a well regulated "Thursday.?' And at
Mrs. ROBINSON'S, whose husband is in the cabinet, he is a welcomed
guest, and is the happy man who arranges the dancing list, with
such an overwhelming majority in favor of the round dances on
the evenings when Mrs. R. is "at home"' to twice as many persons
as the house will hold; much to the disgust'of poor DICE MALMSEY who thinks dancing at "'receptions" a lo1w thing and a
nuisance. "They never used to do it till the ROBINSON'S came,"
he says, despairingly.
JACK is just sufficiently attentive to half a dozen young ladies,
whom he considers "good," not to be said to be attentive to any
of them, and he has quite thrown off Mrs. BANGLES by this time,
finding her protection needless now, and thinking there are better
fish than the old General. He tells the NImINY girls such funny
stories, how the old lady used to run after him, and amiably
ridicules her little differences from the doctrines held by the late
Mr. MURRAY, and the low set in which she travels, as he expresses it.
And so the season rolls round, and with it the session, which
indeed makes the season in Washington. Every now and then you
may hear it asked'in a general igossipy way, "What's KIDDARS doing
here?" "Spending the winter," says CARRAWAY LEE, the young fellow who wrote those queer lines about Mr. ADAMS and the angel.
"Wants to get in the Marine Corps, I bet; all those fellows do," fays
COBOURG, who is as he himself states, a d-d clerk. "That's what
I said," says CARRAWAY; " only KIDDARS is rather ancient for the
Marines. He's getting to wear his head considerably balder than
he used; and when a fellow's been knockin' around as he has, I
tell you he gets no younger awful fast."
What do men do when they "spend the winter" in Washington? When nobody knows anything about them when they go
everywhere and do nothing, and live well and have plenty of
money about them, and never seem to get any from anywhere?
JACK KIDDARS has been "spending the winter."
Do you know it's a very singular thing, but I never could tell
why JACK became all of a sudden so devoted to that scraggy Miss
LOBB? It was just after Governor LOBB, her papa, who was in the
House, was put on that committee. About three or four days
before the end of the session, JAcK was actually reported as
engaged to the girl; but it turned out there was nothing in it
after all, for JACK denied it flatly, was much hurt, would hold any
man, &c., &c., wounding lady's feelings, &c., &c. I met him about
that time talking with JOBSBY in one of the parlors at WILLARD'S.
JOBSBY is one of the leaders in the Lobby. He smiled as I came
up, and said JACK was a very promising young man, whereat the
very promising young man blushed his only blush, so far as I have
heard, and had an engagement. "How's times," says I, with a
conversational disregard of grammar, when he had gone. "Pretty
well, sir," says JOBSBY; " pretty well, sir. Yes. I got a bill through
yesterday, that'll put a right smart little pile into my pockets (at
that time occupied by his hands). Yes, sir; old LoBBput it right
through in no time. Monstrous smart man, Governor LOBB is.
Know him, don't you?"
H'm? I thought. Ah! What's all this about? Is it a case of
2 + 2. Scraggy Miss LOBB, the old Governor, JOBSBY, bill,
pockets
JAcK KIDDARS left Washington a few days after that. You see,
he had "spent the winter" there.
VANITY FAIR.
29
JANUARY 19, 1861.]