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Updated: May 4, 2025
As Bonaparte observed upon another occasion, "From the sublime to the ridiculous is but one step." So it was with the Flybekins.
Humbled and confused, the unhappy Flybekins could not retrieve the blunder they had committed, and prudently resigned all their ambitious schemes. So they returned to Devonshire with the unlucky fire-escapes, sincerely regretting they had ever been tempted to purchase them.
Flybekins resolved to visit Town, scarcely a night passed in which they did not start in terror from their dreams, screaming "Fire, Fire!"
The signs of this custom are indeed still to be seen in the extinguishers attached to the railings in front of many houses, which served for the footmen to extinguish their lights. Meantime the Flybekins slept on, not dreaming of the honour intended them, and were as sound asleep as Duncan in Macbeth's castle, when a long thundering rap at the door startled them amid their slumbers.
Accordingly, the Flybekins were the centre of attraction on the following Sunday, after morning service. Hearty congratulations, and ardent wishes for a pleasant trip, with various commissions, pressed upon them. The newest fashions were promised to be brought down, and the village milliner looked forward to a glorious triumph over all her rivals in the trade about the country.
Leaving them to enjoy their repose, we return to Grosvenor-square. The noble pair returned to a family dinner, and on entering the house, read, with strained eyeballs, the card deposited that morning by the Flybekins, and with some such an expression of countenance as one may be supposed to assume in discovering something in a drawer more than was anticipated.
But unhappily for the Flybekins, the naked truth at length forced its way into Devonshire, and the true statement of the matter was circulated as above related, and now handed down to their posterity.
As the Flybekins drove along the streets, the words "PATENT FIRE-ESCAPES," in large letters, upon the front of a tall house, attracted their attention, and roused all their latent fears of London fires, with accounts of which the newspapers so frequently teemed. A fire-escape would impart security to sleep, and might be taken down into the country.
"Umph!" said the peer, "the Flybekins in town! what could have brought them up so far from the country?" "Something that will not detain them long, I hope;" dryly answered Lady B. "Yet, we must take some notice of these country cousins," said the peer: "Let us invite them to a family dinner."
Now it is quite clear that however brilliant might have been the prospects of the Flybekins, the peer and his lady wished them any where but in London; and, rather than invite them to Grosvenor-square to dinner, the former would have been glad to be let off with a writership for one of the sons in India.
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