“I believe you,” said Godolphin; “and that is the reason you never talk of yourselves.”
“Bah! Apropos of egoism, did you meet Jack Barabel in Rome?”
“Yes, writing his travels. ‘Pray,’ said he to me (seizing me by the button) in the Coliseum, ‘What do you think is the highest order of literary composition?’ ‘Why, an epic, I fancy,’ said I; ‘or perhaps a tragedy, or a great history, or a novel like Don Quixote.’ ‘Pooh!’ quoth Barabel, looking important, ‘there’s nothing so high in literature as a good book of travels;’ then sinking his voice into a whisper and laying his finger wisely on his nose, he hissed out, ‘I have a quarto, sir, in the press!’”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Stracey, the old wit, picking his teeth, and speaking for the first time; “if you tell Barabel you have seen a handsome woman, he says, mysteriously frowning, ‘Handsome, sir! has she travelled?—answer me that!’”
“But have you seen Paulton’s new equipage? Brown carriage, brown liveries, brown harness, brown horses, while Paulton and his wife sit within dressed in brown cap-a-pie. The best of it is that Paulton went to his coachmaker, to order his carriage, saying, ‘Mr. Houlditch, I am growing old—too old to be eccentric any longer; I must have something remarkably plain;’ and to this hour Paulton goes brown-ing about the town, crying out to every one, ‘Nothing like simplicity, believe me.’”
“He discharged his coachman for wearing white gloves instead of brown,” said Stracey. “‘What do you mean, sir,’ cried he, ‘with your d—d showy vulgarities?—don’t you see me toiling my soul out to be plain and quiet, and you must spoil all, by not being brown enough!’”
“Ah, Godolphin, you seem pensive,” whispered Fanny; “yet we are tolerably amusing, too.”
“My dear Fanny,” answered Godolphin, rousing himself, “the dialogue is gay, the actors know their parts, the lights are brilliant; but—the scene—the scene cannot shift for me! Call it what you will, I am not deceived. I see the paint and the canvas, but—and yet, away these thoughts! Shall I fill your glass, Fanny?”