“It appeared that one of his most intimate friends and neighbours, an old baronet, had lately departed this life; the title and estates descend to a grandson, a minor, and General Grant had been appointed guardian. All this was bad enough, but the worst was yet to come--he had promised his dying friend that the boy should reside in his house. Now it seems that, as a sort of set-off against his luck in coming into the world with a gold spoon in his mouth, the said boy was born with even less brains than usually fall to the lot of Fortune’s favourites--in plain English, he is half an idiot. Accordingly, the General’s first care was to provide the young bear with a leader, and in his own mind he had fixed on Frere, whom he knew by reputation, as the man, and was grievously disappointed when he found he was bespoke. I suggested that, although he could not undertake the duty himself, he might possibly know some one who could, and offered to ascertain. The General jumped at the idea--_hinc illae lachrymae_--hence the whole business.”
“Just as I received your letter,” began Frere, “Leicester came in to make the inquiry. In fact the thing fitted like the advertisements in _The Times_--‘Wants a situation as serious footman in a pious family; wages not so much an object as moral cultivation.’--‘Wanted in a pious family, a decidedly serious footman, wages moderate, but the spiritual advantages unexceptionable.’--‘If A. B. is not utterly perfidious, and lost to all the noblest feelings of humanity, he will forward a small enclosure to C. D. at Mrs. Bantam’s, oilman, Tothill Street.’--‘A. B. is desirous of communicating with C. D.; if forgiven, he will never do so no more, at any price.’ You may see lots of them in the advertising sheet; they are like angry women, sure to answer one another if you leave them alone. And now, what do you think of the notion, Lewis?”
“Why, there are one or two points to be considered,” replied Lewis. “In the first place, what would be the duties of the situation? In the second, am I fitted to perform them? In the third---- But, however, I have named the most important.”
“As to the duties,” replied Leicester, “I should fancy they would be anything but overpowering--rather in the nothing-to-do-and-a-man-to help-you style than otherwise. All the General said was, ‘Mind, I must have a _gentleman_, a person who is accustomed to the rank of life in which he will have to move--he must be a young man, or he will not readily fall into my habits and wishes. As he is to live in my family, he must be altogether presentable. His chief duty will be to endeavour to develop my ward’s mind, and fit him for the position which his rank and fortune render it incumbent on him to occupy.’ To which speech, delivered in a very stately manner, I merely said, ‘Yes, exactly;’ a style of remark to which no exception could reasonably be taken, unless on the score of want of originality.”