"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the first, "dang me if that bean't the best I ever hard. Ho! Ho! ho!" and convulsed with merriment, the man slapped his tight-breeched thighs with frequency and vigour.
"You make the very d—l of a noise, Sirrah," said Mr. Lovely fretfully.
"I axe y'r honour's pardon, but when I hard Jock there talking of maiden aunts—ho—ho—ho! and when I minds that shaapely—ah! well it doan't do to mention no naames, but it come over me sudden to laugh," and with this apology, the humorous hostler picked up his mare's near fore-leg, and continued to chuckle at intervals for the rest of the day.
Mr. Lovely began to think Tony Clare was confoundedly young, and when one young man begins to think another young man confoundedly young, it is usually a convincing proof that the pensive young man is deep in love.
"What's a fellow to do?" he sighed as he turned into the coffee-room. It was empty, so he called for a draught of ale, put his feet on the window seat and surveyed the passers-by. He wondered what had become of his friends, and why the d——l all the world was gone mad because the sun shone with unwonted brilliance for the middle of February. Then he remembered it was Valentine day and amused himself with the manufacture of paper darts which he shot at the prettiest young women in range. Unluckily, in an attempt to pierce the ripe heart of buxom Miss Page who assisted at the cook-shop, he wounded the Rector on the nose. This set him moralizing on the fortune of Love. Could anything be more incongruous than Love and the Rector. Yet why not? We are all targets of a dimpled nudity. The phrase caught his fancy. Numberless Cupids in attitudes of attack floated before his mind's eye. "Demme!" thought Mr. Lovely, "my brain is like an Italian ceiling. Targets of a dimpled nudity!" He flung back the lattice to its utmost extent and leaned out to the morning whence the chatter of the world without floated into the sunny room.
"Everybody is monstrous good-humoured," he concluded. But somehow it was no longer amusing to quiz the young woman in Mrs. Tabby's ribband-shop through his ivory rimmed perspective. Somehow since yesterday her forearm had grown coarser.
"All the world's growing old," he grumbled disconsolately. But the world would not be vapoured, and laughed and chattered and bobbed and flirted and chirped with all the selfishness of a world that is always young in defiance of the moods of her individuals.
Suddenly the mob of Cupids faded from his mind and the World at which he was scoffing ceased to exist. Surely at the very end of the High Street, he could discern something which was slowly assuming the magic shape of a swansdown tippet. His heart began to beat very fast and he felt the rushing crimson flood his cheeks. Life was wrapped in swansdown, as, through clouds of the airy texture, his soul soared to unimaginable heights. Then came the descent and, waking as from a dream, he found himself staring down into a pair of wide blue eyes. In his embarrassment he knocked over a pot of jacynths and, above the noise of the fall, heard himself telling a Swansdown Muff he had delivered the paquet. Could anything be more enchanting than the warning fore-finger, save the lips to which it was lifted? Could anything better console his enforced silence than the knowledge that between him and her existed a secret? The swansdown tippet and swansdown muff had vanished, but fragments of broken Terra Cotta strewed the pavement. The swansdown tippet and swansdown muff had floated away to some fairyland of their own, but a blue jacynth perfumed the air.
Certainly the idlers of Curtain Wells had a fruitful subject for an afternoon's debate in the sight of young Mr. Lovely climbing out of the coffee-room window. Besides, if that were not amazing enough, the idlers were immediately diverted by the aspect of young Mr. Lovely gathering up the remains of a shattered flower-pot and clasping a bruised jacynth to his silk waistcoat. They all agreed the incident had no explanation, and were even stirred out of their perpetual lethargy to muster round the entrance of the Blue Boar in order to verify a daring speculation that he was going to carry the fragments within.
"Good G——!" said Mr. Ripple who was approaching the archway from the other side. "Good G——, sir, are you mad?" To Mr. Ripple the shock was great. He had aspirations for Mr. Lovely. To be sure, he was wild, an extravagant young dog, but then he possessed an inimitable assurance of manner, a pretty talent for polite verse-making, and a consummate taste in brocades. The Beau of late had often pondered the choice of his successor. He had aspirations for Mr. Lovely and now he saw his favourite positively panting (the most ungenteel motion and fatal to the fall of a waistcoat), not merely panting but smeared with mould, hugging potsherds, and apparently quite unmoved by his degradation. Is it wonderful that Mr. Ripple cried,