"What t'do with sudden wealth, sir," Mr. Giles said with a sigh, as if ?250,000 was an intolerably sinful burden. "To spend and get and waste it on mere pleasures and fripperies, as most do, when presented with a windfall, an un-looked-for inheritance? Why did God intend for me to prosper, and not others? Thankee for the port, sir… aahh! If one ponders it a bit, one sees that wealth hidden under the proverbial bushel basket, greedily squirreled away, benefits no one. The Lord may mean for us to make ourselves comfortable, but not showy, then use His rewards for our hard work and diligence to the benefit of others, d'ye see. To be useful, of avail to improve others' lots…"
Mr. Giles was a Methodist, and a Utilitarian.
"Treat the sick," Lewrie surmised, "feed the poor, all that."
"New hospitals, yes sir," Mr. Giles replied. "Work-houses, and parish poor-houses to relieve the unfortunate, the orphans, the widows. Good works among 'em, too. Not outright charity, though. Schools for the lower classes, so that they learn honest trades, thrift, sobriety, and obedience to the laws of the realm-"
"Chastity…" Lewrie stuck in, feigning an agreeable air.
"Oh my, yes, Captain Lewrie!" Giles heartily agreed. "As well as cleanliness in their persons and habitations, and the way they live their lives. Now, Mister Putney, yonder…" Giles said, indicating a sallow stick of a fellow who looked as if an entire host of tropical diseases had had fun playing with him, "was the Collector of, uhm… some Indian city or province… Sweaty-Pore, or some such like that. Came home with an hundred thousand pounds, and what's the very first thing he did with it?"
Found a better physician, was Lewrie's best guess.
"Donated two thousand to tract societies, to spread word of new morality throughout London and Portsmouth, ha!" Giles boasted, clapping a palm on the wide arm of his leather chair-which act resulted in a waiter fetching them both a fresh bottle of the house's trademark Madeira, which wasn't exactly what Mr. Giles had in mind, but was welcome nonetheless.
"And the poor academies and Sunday schools, I trust, teach them to actually read those tracts?" Lewrie asked, smiling congenially, but bored about to tears and wide yawns. "All improving, and… useful."
"Exactly, sir, exactly," Giles chummily agreed. "Now, our Major Baird is also a 'graduate' of our Indian possessions," he said, indicating another well-tanned man in his thirties in a "ditto" suit of such starkly unrelieved black that Lewrie had taken him for a "dominee." "I heard he only came off, of late, with thirty thousand, mostly in looted pagan baubles, tsk tsk." Lewrie wasn't sure whether Mr. Giles was sad that Maj. Baird hadn't piled up loot by the keg, or had had a bad run of luck at plundering the poorer rajahs. "Invalided out of East India Company's army, sad t'say for him, poor fellow, but before he departed, I'm told he donated enough to hire a C. of E. chaplain to minister to the needs of the native soldiers in his regiment. He and his Colonel held Sunday Church Parade, rain or shine, and succeeded in converting a fair number of heathens to the Lord, before coming Home. In the market for a wife is Major Baird, at present, and I'm certain that the Good Lord will reward his efforts a thousand-fold, by steering his steps to a most suitable and companionable match, of a like mind."
Giles leaned closer to whisper, "Baird's dead-set against novels, don't ye know, any wastrel reading matter that does not uplift or serve the greatest good. Thinking of forming a society of his own, I believe, to which I do believe I may donate an hundred guineas, ha!"
"A creditable endeavour, sir," Lewrie said, fighting a stricken expression from showing; in his rooms he had four new novels he'd found in the Strand, all of a lubricious or lascivious nature. Lewrie thought of hiding them away, before one of the ugly chambermaids found them and denounced him to Maj. Baird, fearing that the Evangelical Society might just drag him about the city in chains, for an example of how "rogues were ground honest"! At the Madeira Club, reading about sex was about as close to the genuine article as one could get! In strict privacy.
"One may try to be a good, Christian Englishman," Giles stated, all but wringing his hands, "one may attend Divine Services, hold deep and abiding faith, and strive to shun the lures of the world, Captain Lewrie, but, without Good Works, one is not a complete Christian, and is but a drone in Society. One must strive to be and do, not just to seem, hey what?"
"Now, where have I heard that before?" Lewrie asked, his tongue firmly in his cheek by then. "Did Doctor Priestley say it, or…?"
"Bless me, but I can't recall," the wine-fuddled Mr. Giles said with a vague shake of his goodly head. "So, what is it that you do to make your mark on a sinful world, Captain Lewrie? Where do your interests lie when it comes to improving and uplifting?"
"I exterminate godless Frogs and heathen Dons, thus making our world safe for moral Englishmen, sir," Lewrie declared, pretending as if it was his true calling, though ready to snicker aloud.
"Ha ha! Capital, capital, ha ha!" Giles exclaimed, bellowing his delight and slapping the chair arm, again. "A glass with ye, sir, a brimming bumper!"
"Well… if you insist, Mister Giles," Lewrie replied, fraudulently trying to demur. "Though 'wine's a mocker,' and I've not much of a head for deep drinking. Not my nature, d'ye see, and… I really did intend to read at least another chapter of the Good Book tonight, before retiring… clear-headed, but… hang it. A glass it is!"
Soon after that convivial "slosh," he made his excuses, further pretending to yawn in a prodigious, jaw-locking manner, and made his goodnights to one and all.
Once out of the Common Rooms, though, he headed for the bar for a pint flask of decanted (also smuggled) French brandy, which he hid in his breast pocket. He almost made it to the stairs, but for the noble Maj. Baird, who managed to impede his progress long enough to hold a whispered conversation, enquiring just where an "inquisitive" fellow could "covertly witness and gather damning evidence upon" the immoral doings of the city, the cock hen clubs, the dissolute dens of iniquity where wagers were laid, and where "women of the town" plied their trade… "to document in eye-opening tracts," of course.
"Ask the barman for a copy of the New Atlantis," Lewrie winked back, "that guide's your boy to all the dissolute. Slip him sixpence. Failing that, just wander down Charing Cross, this very night."
He left the upright Maj. Baird to sort Sin out for himself.
"Well, you look presentable," Mr. Twigg said as Lewrie entered his hired coach, thank God a closed one, and not another damn' chariot, this time. "You're well-practiced in your responses?"
"As well as may be," Lewrie told him in a fretful tone as he sat across from him on the cold and damp-feeling leather bench facing Twigg. Twigg had decreed that Lewrie's new uniform would be best, complete with his sword and both the Cape St. Vincent and Camperdown medals hung low on Lewrie's mid-chest from their coloured ribbons.
"Sir Malcolm Shockley and some others have put in good words for you," Twigg informed him, sounding almost breezily unconcerned. "Your old school chum, Peter Rushton in Lords, sent a letter, as well. With his reputation for vice, God knows what use it'll be… though I must declare it was well-written. Clerk gave it a polishing, I expect."