A Family Picture.
“Why, my honoured madam, you are not going to wear these diamonds? You are? When?” cried Basil.
“Oh, at the drawing-room, on Thursday,” said Mrs. Jericho.
“Well, then, my revered lady, let me embrace you; I shall never see you again. Never,” said the despairing son.
“What do you mean, you foolish boy?” and the fond mother smiled at her child, and shook her head.
“You’ll be carried off, ma’am, stolen beyond the hope of all Hue-and-Cry. You must go to St. James’s with two policemen in your carriage; two with blunderbusses, or the property’s lost. Eh? What’s here?”—and Basil looked at the treasures of his sisters. “Pearls, eh? Why what a lot!—there’s the lining of a hundred beds of oysters.”
“Basil, how can you!” cried Agatha.
“Cost a pretty penny, eh? Take the oysters at eight-pence a dozen, and say two dozen subscribe one pearl, how much will the pair of you be worth, when you’re both drest? Eh, sir! That’s a nice bit of arithmetic,” said Basil, turning to Jericho. “How much, sir?”
“I don’t know, young man”—said Jericho with dignity. “What is more—I don’t want to know.”