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The pecuniary risks and sacrifices which men are ready to make for one another, in the shape of sureties and bonds and loans and gifts, are familiar to us all, and, though these are often unscrupulously wrung from a thoughtless or over-pliant good-nature, yet there are many instances in which men knowingly, deliberately, and at considerable danger or loss to themselves, postpone their own security or convenience to the protection or relief of their friends.
In the thickest of the crush, a tall man was moving along, holding forth blissfully at the top of his voice. He was a head taller than anybody else, and very broad; but he beamed with good-nature, and wanted to embrace everybody. People ran screaming out of his way, so that a broad path was left wherever he went.
Barry . . . my dear boy . . . you are indeed a generous friend, and a friend in need, but" and here the tears stole down his withered cheeks as he tried to smile "I know your good-nature too well. I was always, as my poor wife used to say, a stupid old man, but I am not so stupid as not to know that had matters gone well with you, I should not have met you to-night where I did.
Don't you know the kind of boys there were at school, who drifted into bad company and idle ways, mostly out of mere good-nature, went out into the world with a black mark against them, having been bullied in vain by virtuous masters, the despair of their parents, always losing their employments, and often coming what we used to call social croppers untrustworthy, sensual, feckless, no one's enemy but their own, and yet preserving through it all a kind of simple good-nature, always ready to share things with others, never knowing how to take advantage of any one, trusting the most untrustworthy people; or if they were girls, getting into trouble, losing their good name, perhaps living lives of shame in big cities yet, for all that, guileless, affectionate, never excusing themselves, believing they had deserved anything that befell them?
Mat listened till he had done; then, taking his hat to go, muttered a few words of rough apology, which Valentine's good-nature induced him to accept, almost as soon as they were spoken. "We must let bygones be bygones," said the painter. "You have been candid with me, at last, at any-rate; and, in recognition of that candor, I say 'Good-night, Mr. Grice, as a friend of yours still."
Then, as on the former occasion, his optimistic good-nature seemed to rise again above whatever apprehensions he may have had. He smiled until all the multitude of wrinkles about his eyes were showing. "Estabrook," said he, "we have bad luck, eh? But I can offer a worthy substitute. Unless you find that you must go, you may discover my daughter to be as worthy an opponent as the Sheik of Baalbec."
Her rivals Suzanne Gaillard, who, in 1838, had won the advantage over her of becoming a wife married in legitimate marriage, Fanny Beaupre, Mariette, Antonia spread calumnies that were more than droll about the beauty of those young men and the complacent good-nature with which Monsieur de Rochefide welcomed them.
He had not even the scientific and literary acquirements of the Duke of Sussex, who had possessed one of the best private libraries in England. But the Duke of Cambridge's good-nature was equal to his love of asking questions a hereditary trait. He was buried, according to his own wish, at Kew.
Never did any one express more kindness and good-nature to young and unfinished authors, he promotes their interests, protects their reputation, extenuates their faults, and sets off their virtues, and by his candour guards them from the severity of his judgment.
Probe as he would with his innocent wit, Matt found himself baffled. St. Vincent certainly rang true. Simple, light-hearted, unaffected, joking and being joked in all good-nature, thoroughly democratic. Matt failed to catch the faintest echo of insincerity. "May the dogs walk on me grave," he communed with himself while studying a hand which suffered from a plethora of trumps.
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