Who was Mr. Charke?'
'Mr. Charke, my dear, was a gentleman on the turf--that is the phrase, I
think--one of those London men, without birth or breeding, who merely in
right of their vices and their money are admitted to associate with young
dandies who like hounds and horses, and all that sort of thing. That set
knew him very well, but of course no one else. He was at the Matlock
races, and your uncle asked him to Bartram-Haugh; and the creature, Jew
or Gentile, whatever he was, fancied there was more honour than, perhaps,
there really was in a visit to Bartram-Haugh.'
'For the kind of person you describe, it _was_, I think, a rather unusual
honour to be invited to stay in the house of a man of Uncle Ruthyn's
birth.'
'Well, so it was perhaps; for though they knew him very well on the course,
and would ask him to their tavern dinners, they would not, of course, admit
him to the houses where ladies were. But Silas's wife was not much regarded
at Bartram-Haugh. Indeed, she was very little seen, for she was every
evening tipsy in her bedroom, poor woman!'
'How miserable!' I exclaimed.
'I don't think it troubled Silas very much, for she drank gin, they said,
poor thing, and the expense was not much; and, on the whole, I really think
he was glad she drank, for it kept her out of his way, and was likely to
kill her.
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