We scarcely thought that the distinguished public servant, Mr. Ogden, was likely to occupy once more any portion of our readers' attention; and yet it so fell out that this useful personage, being on the Continent getting up his Austria and Northern Italy for the coming session, received a few lines from the Earl of Sommerville, half mandatory, half entreating, asking him to find out the young Marquis of Agincourt, and take him back with him to England.
Now the Earl was a great man, for he was father-in-law of a Cabinet Minister, and related to half the leaders of the party, so that Mr. Ogden, however little the mission suited his other plans, was fain at once to accept it, and set out in search of his charge.
We need not follow him in his pursuit through Lombardy and the Legations, down to Tuscany and Lucca, which latter city he reached at the close of a cold and dreary day of winter, cheered to him, however, by the certainty that he had at length come up with the object of his chase.
It was a habit with Quackinboss, whenever he sent out Layton's servant on an errand, to leave the house door ajar, that the sick man might not be disturbed by the loud summons of the bell; and so on the evening in question was it found by Mr. Ogden, who, after some gentle admonitions by his knuckles and some preparatory coughs, at last groped his way into the interior, and eventually entered the spacious sitting-room. Quackinboss had dined, and was seated at his wine beside an ample fireplace, with a blazing wood-fire. An old-fashioned screen sheltered him from the draught of the ill-fitting windows, while a comfortable buffalo rug was stretched under his feet. The Colonel was in his second cigar, and in the drowsy mood of its easy enjoyment, when the harsh accents of Mr. Ogden's voice startled him, by asking, “Can you inform me if Lord Agincourt lives here?”
“You 're a Britisher now, I expect?” said the Colonel, as he slowly puffed out a long volume of smoke, but never moved from his seat.
“My question having the precedence, sir, it will be, perhaps, more regular to answer it first,” said Ogden, with a slow pertinacity.
“Well, I ain't quite sure o' that, stranger.” drawled out the other. “Mine was a sort of an amendment, and so might be put before the original motion.”
The remark chimed in well with the humor of one never indisposed to word-fencing, and so he deferred to the suggestion, told his name and his object in coming. “And now, sir,” added he, “I hope not to be deemed indiscreet in asking an equal candor from you.”