That I had a better claim to personify him than is always the lot of a novelist; that I possessed, so to say, a vested interest in his life and adventures,--I will relate a little incident in proof; and my accuracy, if necessary, can be attested by another actor in the scene, who yet survives.
I was living a bachelor life at Brussels, my family being at Ostende for the bathing, during the summer of 1840. The city was comparatively empty,--all the so-called society being absent at the various spas or baths of Germany. One member of the British legation, who remained at his post to represent the mission, and myself, making common cause of our desolation and ennui, spent much of our time together, and dined _tête-à-tête_ every day.
It chanced that one evening, as we were hastening through the park on our way to dinner, we espied the major--for as major I must speak of him--lounging along with that half-careless, half-observant air we had both of us remarked as indicating a desire to be somebody's, anybody's guest, rather than surrender himself to the homeliness of domestic fare.
"There's that confounded old Monsoon," cried my diplomatic friend. "It's all up if he sees us, and I can't endure him."
Now, I must remark that my friend, though very far from insensible to the humoristic side of the major's character, was not always in the vein to enjoy it; and when so indisposed he could invest the object of his dislike with something little short of antipathy. "Promise me," said he, as Monsoon came towards us,--"promise me, you'll not ask him to dinner." Before I could make any reply, the major was shaking a hand of either of us, and rapturously expatiating over his good luck at meeting us. "Mrs. M.," said he, "has got a dreary party of old ladies to dine with her, and I have come out here to find some pleasant fellow to join me, and take our mutton-chop together."
"We're behind our time, Major," said my friend, "sorry to leave you so abruptly, but must push on. Eh, Lorrequer," added he, to evoke corroboration on my part.
"Harry says nothing of the kind," replied Monsoon, "he says, or he's going to say, 'Major, I have a nice bit of dinner waiting for me at home, enough for two, will feed three, or if there be a short-coming, nothing easier than to eke out the deficiency by another bottle of Moulton; come along with us then, Monsoon, and we shall be all the merrier for your company.'"