“I rather suspect it's your 'grand cordon,' Fossbrooke,” said the Viceroy, laughing, while he pointed to the rope.
“Bless my stars!” exclaimed Sir Brook, blushing deeply, “how forgetful I am growing! I hope you forgive me. I am sure you could not suppose—”
“I could never think anything but good of you, Fossbrooke. Get in, and come out to 'the Lodge' to dinner.”
“No, no; impossible. I am heartily ashamed of myself. I grow worse and worse every day; people will lose patience at last, and cut me; good-bye.”
“Wait one moment. I want to ask you something about young Lendrick. Would he take an appointment in a colonial regiment? Would he—” But Fossbrooke had elbowed his way through the dense crowd by this time, and was far out of hearing,—shocked with himself, and overwhelmed with the thought that in his absurd forgetfulness he might have involved another in ridicule.
“Think of me standing talking to his Excellency with this on my arm, Tom!” said he, flushing with shame and annoyance: “how these absent fits keep advancing on me! When a man begins to forget himself in this fashion, the time is not very distant when his friends will be glad to forget him. I said so this moment to Lord Wilmington, and I am afraid that he agreed with me. Where are the screws, Tom,—have I been forgetting them also?”
“No, sir, I have them here; the holdfasts were not finished, but they will be sent over to us this evening, along with the cramps you ordered.”
“So, then, my head was clear so far,” cried he, with a smile. “In my prosperous days, Tom, these freaks of mine were taken as good jokes, and my friends laughed at them over my Burgundy; but when a man has no longer Burgundy to wash down his blunders with, it is strange how different becomes the criticism, and how much more candid the critic.”
“So that, in point of enlightenment, sir, it is better to be poor.”
“It is what I was just going to observe to you,” said he, calmly. “Can you give me a cigar?”