“Well thought of; and here comes the man himself in search of us.”
“I have been half over the town after you this morning, General,” said Withering, as he entered; “and your son, too, could make nothing of your absence. He is in the carriage at the door now, not knowing whether he ought to come up.”
“I 'll soon reassure him on that score,” said Barrington, as he left the room, and hastened downstairs with the step of one that defied the march of time.
CHAPTER XVII. MEET COMPANIONSHIP
In a very modest chamber of a house in one of the streets which lead from the Strand to the Thames, two persons sat at supper. It is no time for lengthened introductions, and I must present Captain Duff Brown very hurriedly to my reader, as he confronted his friend Stapylton at table. The Captain was a jovial-looking, full-whiskered, somewhat corpulent man, with a ready reply, a ready laugh, and a hand readier than either, whether the weapon wielded was a billiard-cue or a pistol.
The board before them was covered with oysters and oyster-shells, porter in its pewter, a square-shaped decanter of gin, and a bundle of cigars. The cloth was dirty, the knives unclean, and the candles ill-matched and of tallow; but the guests did not seem to have bestowed much attention to these demerits, but ate and drank like men who enjoyed their fare.
“The best country in Europe,—the best in the world,—I call England for a fellow who knows life,” cried the Captain. “There is nothing you cannot do; nothing you cannot have in it.”
“With eight thousand a year, perhaps,” said Stapylton, sarcastically.
“No need of anything like it. Does any man want a better supper than we have had to-night? What better could he have? And the whole cost not over five, or at most six shillings for the pair of us.”