This young Todd, of Coram Street, Russell Square, was Master George's

great friend and admirer. They both had a taste for painting

theatrical characters; for hardbake and raspberry tarts; for sliding

and skating in the Regent's Park and the Serpentine, when the weather

permitted; for going to the play, whither they were often conducted, by

Mr. Osborne's orders, by Rowson, Master George's appointed

body-servant, with whom they sat in great comfort in the pit.

In the company of this gentleman they visited all the principal

theatres of the metropolis; knew the names of all the actors from Drury

Lane to Sadler's Wells; and performed, indeed, many of the plays to the

Todd family and their youthful friends, with West's famous characters,

on their pasteboard theatre. Rowson, the footman, who was of a

generous disposition, would not unfrequently, when in cash, treat his

young master to oysters after the play, and to a glass of rum-shrub for

a night-cap. We may be pretty certain that Mr. Rowson profited in his

turn by his young master's liberality and gratitude for the pleasures

to which the footman inducted him.

A famous tailor from the West End of the town--Mr. Osborne would have

none of your City or Holborn bunglers, he said, for the boy (though a

City tailor was good enough for HIM)--was summoned to ornament little

George's person, and was told to spare no expense in so doing. So, Mr.

Woolsey, of Conduit Street, gave a loose to his imagination and sent

the child home fancy trousers, fancy waistcoats, and fancy jackets

enough to furnish a school of little dandies. Georgy had little white

waistcoats for evening parties, and little cut velvet waistcoats for

dinners, and a dear little darling shawl dressing-gown, for all the

world like a little man. He dressed for dinner every day, "like a

regular West End swell," as his grandfather remarked; one of the

domestics was affected to his special service, attended him at his

toilette, answered his bell, and brought him his letters always on a

silver tray.

Georgy, after breakfast, would sit in the arm-chair in the dining-room

and read the Morning Post, just like a grown-up man. "How he DU dam

and swear," the servants would cry, delighted at his precocity. Those

who remembered the Captain his father, declared Master George was his

Pa, every inch of him. He made the house lively by his activity, his

imperiousness, his scolding, and his good-nature.

George's education was confided to a neighbouring scholar and private

pedagogue who "prepared young noblemen and gentlemen for the

Universities, the senate, and the learned professions: whose system

did not embrace the degrading corporal severities still practised at

the ancient places of education, and in whose family the pupils would

find the elegances of refined society and the confidence and affection

of a home." It was in this way that the Reverend Lawrence Veal of Hart

Street, Bloomsbury, and domestic Chaplain to the Earl of Bareacres,

strove with Mrs. Veal his wife to entice pupils.




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