Says the Courtier, “Who could forget you that had ever had the honor—”
Mrs. Marsh drew back with sudden hauteur. “I did not come here for folly,” said she. Then, rather naively, “I begin to doubt your being so very mad.”
“Mad? No, of course I am not.”
“Then what brings you here?”
“Stumped.”
“What, have I mistaken the house? Is it a jail?”
“Oh, no! I'll tell you. You see I was dipped pretty deep, and duns after me, and the Derby my only chance; so I put the pot on. But a dark horse won: the Jews knew I was done: so now it was a race which should take me. Sloman had seven writs out: I was in a corner. I got a friend that knows every move to sign me into this asylum. They thought it was all up then, and he is bringing them to a shilling in the pound.”
Before he could complete this autobiographical sketch Mrs. Marsh started up in a fury, and brought her whip down on the table with a smartish cut.
“You little heartless villain!” she screamed. “Is this, the way you play upon people: bringing me from my home to console a maniac, and, instead of that, you are only what you always were, a spendthrift and a scamp? Finely they will laugh at me.”
She clutched the whip in her white but powerful hand till it quivered in the air, impatient for a victim.