may, when he entered his house, to find there a man in possession!
Andrew flew into such a rage that he committed an assault on the man. So ungovernable was his passion that for some minutes Harriet’s measured voice summoned him from over the bannisters above, quite in vain. The miserable Englishman refused to be taught that his house had ceased to be his castle. It was something beyond a joke, this! The intruder, perfectly docile, seeing that by accurate calculation every shake he got involved a bottle of wine for him, and ultimate compensation probably to the amount of a couple of sovereigns, allowed himself to be lugged upstairs, in default of summary ejection on the point of Andrew’s toe into the street. There he was faced to the lady of the house, who apologised to him, and requested her husband to state what had made him guilty of this indecent behaviour. The man showed his papers. They were quite in order. “At the suit of Messrs. Grist.”
“My own lawyers!” cried Andrew, smacking his forehead, and Old Tom’s devilry flashed on him at once. He sank into a chair.
“Why did you bring this person up here?” said Harriet, like a speaking statue.
“My dear!” Andrew answered, and spread out his hand, and waggled his head; “My—please!—I—I don’t know. We all want exercise.”
The man laughed, which was kindly of him, but offensive to Mrs. Cogglesby, who gave Andrew a glance which was full payment for his imbecile pleasantry, and promised more.
With a hospitable inquiry as to the condition of his appetite, and a request that he would be pleased to satisfy it to the full, the man was dismissed: whereat, as one delivered of noxious presences, the Countess rustled into sight. Not noticing Andrew, she lisped to Harriet: “Misfortunes are sometimes no curses! I bless the catarrh that has confined Silva to his chamber, and saved him from a bestial exhibition.”
The two ladies then swept from the room, and left Andrew to perspire at leisure.
Fresh tribulations awaited him when he sat down to dinner. Andrew liked his dinner to be comfortable, good, and in plenty. This may not seem strange. The fact is stated that I may win for him the warm sympathies of the body of his countrymen. He was greeted by a piece of cold boiled neck of mutton and a solitary dish of steaming potatoes. The blank expanse of table-cloth returned his desolate stare.
“Why, what’s the meaning of this?” Andrew brutally exclaimed, as he thumped the table.
The Countess gave a start, and rolled a look as of piteous supplication to spare a lady’s nerves, addressed to a ferocious brigand. Harriet answered: “It means that I will have no butcher’s bills.”
“Butcher’s bills! butcher’s bills!” echoed Andrew; “why, you must have butcher’s bills; why, confound! why, you’ll have a bill for this, won’t you, Harry? eh? of course!”
“There will be no more bills, dating from yesterday,” said his wife.
“What! this is paid for, then?”
“Yes, Mr. Cogglesby; and so will all household expenses be, while my pocket-money lasts.”
Resting his eyes full on Harriet a minute, Andrew dropped them on the savourless white-rimmed chop, which looked as lonely in his plate as its parent dish on the table. The poor dear creature’s pocket-money had paid for it! The thought, mingling with a rush of emotion, made his ideas spin. His imagination surged deliriously. He fancied himself at the Zoological Gardens, exchanging pathetic glances with a melancholy marmoset. Wonderfully like one the chop looked! There was no use in his trying to eat it. He seemed to be fixing his teeth in solid tears. He choked. Twice he took up knife and fork, put them down again, and plucking forth his handkerchief, blew a tremendous trumpet, that sent the Countess’s eyes rolling to the ceiling, as if heaven were her sole refuge from such vulgarity.
“Damn that Old Tom!” he shouted at last, and pitched back in his chair.
“Mr. Cogglesby!” and “in the presence of ladies!” were the admonishing interjections of the sisters, at whom the little man frowned in turns.
“Do you wish us to quit the room, sir?” inquired his wife.
“God bless your soul, you little darling!” he apostrophised that stately person. “Here, come along with me, Harry. A wife’s a wife, I say—hang it! Just outside the room—just a second! or up in a corner will do.”
Mrs. Cogglesby was amazed to see him jump up and run round to her. She was prepared to defend her neck from his caress, and refused to go; but the words, “Something particular to tell you,” awakened her curiosity, which urged her to compliance. She rose and went with him to the door.
“Well, sir; what is it?”
No doubt he was acting under a momentary weakness: he was about to betray the plot and take his chance of forgiveness: but her towering port, her commanding aspect, restored his courage. (There may be a contrary view of the case). He enclosed her briskly in a connubial hug, and remarked with mad ecstasy: “What a duck you are, Harry! What a likeness between you and your mother.”
Mrs. Cogglesby disengaged herself imperiously. Had he called her aside for this gratuitous insult? Contrite, he saw his dreadful error.
“Harry! I declare!” was all he was allowed to say. Mrs. Cogglesby marched back to her chair, and recommenced the repast in majestic silence.
Andrew sighed; he attempted to do the same. He stuck his fork in the blanched whiskerage of his marmoset, and exclaimed: “I can’t!”
He was unnoticed.
“You do not object to plain diet?” said Harriet to Louisa.
“Oh, no! in verity!” murmured the Countess. “However plain it be! Absence of appetite, dearest. You are aware I partook of luncheon at mid-day with the Honourable and Reverend Mr. Duffian. You must not look condemnation at your Louy for that. Luncheon is not conversion!”
Harriet observed that this might be true; but still, to her mind, it was a mistake to be too intimate with dangerous people. “And besides,” she added, “Mr. Duffian is no longer ‘the