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Thorpe came to assist them in getting out. Catherine was the immediate object of his gallantry; and, while they waited in the lobby for a chair, he prevented the inquiry which had travelled from her heart almost to the tip of her tongue, by asking, in a consequential manner, whether she had seen him talking with General Tilney:—"He is a fine old fellow, upon my soul!—stout, active—looks as young as his son. I have a great regard for him, I assure you: a gentleman-like, good sort of fellow as ever lived."
"But how came you to know him?"
"Know him!—There are few people much about town that I do not know. I have met him for ever at the Bedford; and I knew his face again
to-day
