"Could I?" says Sir James, with a grimace that is meant for a smile, but as such is a most startling specimen of its class.
So they go up to town, and presently arrive at the house where Horace lies unconscious of all around him. The door is opened to them by an unmistakable landlady,—a fat, indolent person, with sleepy eyes, and a large mouth, and a general air about her suggestive of perpetual beef-steaks and bottled stout.
This portly dame, on being questioned, tells them, "Mr. Branscum has just bin given his draft, and now he is snoozin' away as peaceable as a hinfant, bless 'im."
"Is he—in bed?" asks Sir James, diffidently, this large person having the power to reduce him to utter subjection.
"Lawks! no, sir. He wouldn't stay there he's that contrairy. Beggin' yore parding, sir, he's yore brother?"
Sir James nods. She may prove difficult, this stout old lady, if he declares himself no relative.
"To be shore!" says she. "I might 'a' knowed by the speakin' likeness between you. You're the born himage of 'im. After his draft we laid 'im on the sofy, and there he is now, sleepin' the sleep of the just. Just step up and see him; do, now. He is in a state of comus, and not expectit to get out of it for two hours."
"The young—lady—will go up," says Sir James, feeling, somehow, as if he has insulted Clarissa by calling her "a young lady." "She would like" (in a confidential tone that wins on the stout landlady) "to see him alone, just at first."
"Just so," says Mrs. Goodbody, with a broad wink; and Clarissa is forthwith shown up-stairs, and told to open the first door she comes to.
"And you," says Mrs. Goodbody to Sir James, "will please just to step in 'ere and wait for her, while I see about the chicking broth!"