Ten guineas a week is five hundred a
year. That is pretty nearly as much money as I shall want, and I need not
draw the dear old governor's allowance at all." He wrote an ardent
letter, full of happiness and affection, to the kind father, which he
shall find a month after he has arrived in India, and read to his friends
in Calcutta and Barrackpore. Clive invited many of his artist friends to
a grand feast in honour of the thirty shillings. The King's Arms,
Kensington, was the hotel selected (tavern beloved of artists for many
score years!). Gandish was there, and the Gandishites, and some chosen
spirits from the Life Academy, Clipstone Street, and J. J. was
vice-president, with Fred Bayham by his side, to make the speeches and
carve the mutton; and I promise you many a merry song was sung, and many
a health drunk in flowing bumpers; and as jolly a party was assembled as
any London contained that day. The beau-monde had quitted it; the Park
was empty as we crossed it; and the leaves of Kensington Gardens had
begun to fall, dying after the fatigues of a London season.
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