“Why, strike me silly, Dick!” cried this exquisite, “what do you, wandering unsociable in a shag coat, and all London by the ears to lionize ye?”
“Well, I know not, George. What have I done to be lionized?”
“Done! Done? asks the man that will not devour a steak but ’tis cut raw from the buttock of the living beast! Done? asks Bluebeard (and stap me, Dick, but your chin is as blue as a watchman’s!)—done, he says, that brings grass-petticoats in his train enough to furnish the Paradise of the Grand Turk! Prithee, Dick, where hast stowed ’em all? O, thou hast a great famous reputation, I assure thee, to justify thyself of with the women! Such is the report of thy peris—their teeth, their raven hair, their eyes like stars of the night—there’s no virtue in town could resist, if asked, to be thy queen and theirs.”
He was chuckling, and taking a delicate pinch of martinique, with his little finger cocked to display a glittering stone, when his eyes lighted on a house over against which they were standing.
“Hist!” said he, pointing with his cane; “pan my honour, the single reservation.”
“Single reservation?” repeated the explorer. “To what? To this London of frailties?”
“To be sure,” said the other. “The one party, I’ll dare swear, that would not put her nose in a ring for thy sake.”
“Indeed!” said Avenant. “Then she’s the one I must wed.”
The elegant cocked his head, squinting derisive.
“I lay you a double pony to a tester you don’t, within the decade.”