“Egad! she seems the only thing left; like the dog on the wreck, eh, Haggy?”
“Just so, my Lord,” said the other, with a complacent laugh.
“What a mass of old crockery she must have got together by this time!” said the Viscount, yawning with a terrible recollection of her tiresomeness.
“You came out with a yacht, my Lord?” asked Haggerstone.
“Pretty well, for a man that they call ru-ru-ruined,” said Purvis, laughing.
Norwood turned a look of angry indignation at him, and then, as if seeing the unworthiness of the object, merely said,
“A yacht is the only real economy nowadays. You get rid at once of all trains of servants, household, stable people; even the bores of your acquaintance you cut off. By-by, Purvis.” And, with a significant wink at Haggerstone, he passed across the street, in time to overtake Onslow, who was just passing.
“I think I ga-ga-gave it him there,” cried Purvis, with an hysteric giggle of delight; who, provided that he was permitted to fire his shot, never cared how severely he was himself riddled by the enemy's fire. Meanwhile, the Viscount and his friend were hastening forward to the Mazzarini Palace, as totally forgetful of Purvis as though that valuable individual had never existed.
We may take this opportunity to mention, that when the rumors which attributed a grand breach of honorable conduct to Lord Norwood had arrived at Florence, Sir Stafford, who never had any peculiar affection for the Viscount, declared himself in the very strongest terms on the subject of his offending, and took especial pains to show the marked distinction between occasions of mere wasteful extravagance and instances of fraudulent and dishonest debt.
It was in vain he was told that the rigid rule of English morality is always relaxed abroad, and that the moral latitude is very different in London and Naples. He was old-fashioned enough to believe that honor is the same in all climates; and having received from England a very detailed and specific history of the noble Lord's misdoings, he firmly resolved not to receive him.