"Sure, you aren't abroad on a love-affair, too, William?"
"Not of my own, George, but I have an onus in the matter. Some one has stolen a porcelain shepherdess from my booth in Vanity Fair."
"That would be the young woman with whom I supped to-night in this inn. Her name was Courteen."
"What! then we all have an interest in this matter, and can discuss the proper conduct of it over the very excellent supper whose arrival I anticipate without apprehension. This is a capital house, George."
"The landlord is an oddity," said Clare, "called me tulip and onion in a breath, and begged to be allowed to brush the mud off my boots which he said was a famous manure for carnation gillyflowers. I 'faith, the old boy made me feel devilish unclean."
Mrs. Tabrum came in to say the widow would not take supper with the gentlemen. She was much fatigued, and would be glad to retire to bed if Mr. Pipple—or was it Ripple—had no objection.
"None whatsoever," replied the latter in a pensive tone of voice. He was meditating rather sadly upon the circumscription of human fame.
A mere five-and-twenty miles from Curtain Wells, and already there was a doubt as to whether he were Pipple or Ripple.
"The widow don't intend to proceed," said Charles, when Mrs. Tabrum had curtseyed her way out.
"She is a foolish woman," said the Beau.