Our Admirable Betty Part 14

"Aye, and cuckoos!" said the Viscount serenely.

"Indeed, the country hath a beauty all its own, sir, so am I come to----"

"Be near her, nephew!"

"Eh? O! Begad!" saying which Viscount Merivale took out a highly ornate gold snuff-box, looked at it, tapped it and put it away again.

"Nunky," he murmured, "since you're so curst wide-awake I'm free to confess that for the last six months I've worshipped at the shrine of the Admirable Betty--de-votedly, sir!"

"There be others also, I think!" said the Major, handing his foil to the Sergeant.

"Gad love me, sir, 'tis true enough! The whole town is run mad for her pasitively, and 'tis small wonder! She's a blooming peach, nunky, a pearl of price--let me perish! A G.o.ddess, a veritable----"

"Woman!" said the Major.

"And, sir, this glory of her s.e.x blooms and blossoms--next door. Ha'

ye seen her yet?"

"Once or twice, Tom."

"Now I protest, sir--ain't she the most glorious creature--a peerless piece--a paragon? By heaven, 'tis the sweetest, perversest witch and so do my hopes soar."

"Doth she prove so kind, nephew?"

"O sir, she doth flout me consistently."

"Flout you?"

"Constantly, thank Va.n.u.s! 'Tis when she's kind I fall i' the dumps."

"G.o.d bless me!" exclaimed the Major.

"Look'ee sir, there's Tripp, for instance, dear old bottlenose Ben, she smiles on him and suffers him to bear her fan, misfortunate dog!

There's Alton, she permits him to attend her regularly and hand her from chair or coach, poor devil! There's West and Marchdale, I've known her talk with them in corners, unhappy wights! There's Dalroyd----"

"The 'die-away' gentleman?" said the Major.

"O he's death and the devil for her, he is--a sleepy, smouldering flame, rat me! And she is scarce so kind to him I could wish. But as for me, nunky, me she scorns, flouts, contemns and quarrels with, so doth hope sing within me!"

"Hum!" said the Major, clapping on his wig.

"So I am here in the fervent hope that ere the year is out she may be my Viscountess and--O my stricken sawl!"

"What is't, nephew?"

"Aye, sir, that's the question--what? Faith, it might be anything."

"You mean my wig, Tom?" enquired the Major, laughing, yet flushing a little.

"Wig?" murmured the Viscount, "after all, sir, there is a resemblance--though faint. Sure you never venture abroad in the thing?

"Why not?"

"'Twould be pasitively indecent, sir!"

Here the Major laughed, but the Sergeant, setting the furniture in place, scowled fixedly at the chair he chanced to be grasping.

"Perhaps 'tis time I got me a new one," said the Major, slipping into his coat.

"One!" exclaimed the Viscount. "O pink me, sir--a man of your standing and position needs a dozen. A wig, sir, is as capricious as a woman--it can make a gentleman a dowdy, a fool look wise and a wise man an a.s.s, 'tis therefore a--what the----"

The Viscount rose and putting up his gla.s.s peered at his uncle in pained astonishment:

"Sir--sir," he faltered, "'tis a perfectly curst object that--may I venture to enquire----"

"What, my coat, Tom?"

"Coat--coat--O let me perish!" And the Viscount sank limply into a chair and drooped there in dejection. "Calls it a coat!" he murmured.

"'Tis past its first bloom, I'll allow----"

"Bloom--O stap me!" whispered the Viscount.

"But 'twas a very good coat once----"

"Nay sir, nay, I protest," cried the Viscount, "upon a far, far distant day it may have been a something to keep a man warm, but 'twas never, O never a coat----"

"Indeed, Tom?"

"Indeed, sir, in its halcyon days 'twas an ill dream, now--'tis a pasitive nightmare. Have you any other garment a trifle less gruesome, sir?"

"I have two other suits I think, Sergeant?"

"Three, your honour, there's your d'Oyley stuff suit" (the Viscount groaned), "there's your blue and silver and the black velvet garnished with----"

"Sounds curst funereal, Zeb! O my poor nunky! Go fetch 'em, Sergeant, and let me see 'em--'twill distress and pain me I know but--go fetch 'em!"

Here, at a nod from the Major, Sergeant Zebedee departed.

"I--er--live very retired, Tom," began the Major.

"We'll change all that, sir----"

"The devil, you say!"

"O nunky, nunky, 'tis time I took you in hand. D'ye ever hunt now?"

"Why no!"

"Visit your neighbours?"