‘Well, I have no doubt he will make up for lost time,’ said Mr. Ormsby, demurely.
‘Nothing like mamma’s darling for upsetting a coach,’ said Lord Milford. ‘You ought to bring your cousin here, Valentine; we would assist the development of his unsophisticated intelligence.’
‘If I go down, I will propose it to him.’
‘Why if?’ said Mr. Cassilis; ‘sort of thing I should like to see once uncommonly: oxen roasted alive, old armour, and the girls of the village all running about as if they were behind the scenes.’
‘Is that the way you did it at your majority, George?’ said Lord Fitz-Heron.
‘Egad! I kept my arrival at years of discretion at Brighton. I believe it was the last fun there ever was at the Pavilion. The poor dear king, God bless him! proposed my health, and made the devil’s own speech; we all began to pipe. He was Regent then. Your father was there, Valentine; ask him if he remembers it. That was a scene! I won’t say how it ended; but the best joke is, I got a letter from my governor a few days after, with an account of what they had all been doing at Brandingham, and rowing me for not coming down, and I found out I had kept my coming of age the wrong day.’
‘Did you tell them?’
‘Not a word: I was afraid we might have had to go through it over again.’
‘I suppose old Bellamont is the devil’s own screw,’ said Lord Milford. ‘Rich governors, who have never been hard up, always are.’
‘No: I believe he is a very good sort of fellow,’ said Lord Valentine; ‘at least my people always say so. I do not know much about him, for they never go anywhere.’