'Wonderful creature!' exclaimed the dame.
'Charming!' said Mr. Pole. 'If you ask Lady Monteagle, she will introduce him to you, and then, perhaps, you will be fortunate enough to be handed to dinner by him.'
'Oh! how I should like it!'
'You must take care, however, not to eat; he cannot endure a woman who eats.'
'I never do,' said the lady, simply; 'at least at dinner.'
'Ah! then you will quite suit him; I dare say he will write a sonnet to you, and call you Thyrza.'
'I wish I could get him to write some lines in my book, said the lady; 'Charles Fox has written some; he was staying with us in the autumn, and he has written an ode to my little dog.'
'How amiable!' said Mr. Pole; 'I dare say they are as good as his elegy on Mrs. Crewe's cat. But you must not talk of cats and dogs to Cadurcis. He is too exalted to commemorate any animal less sublime than a tiger or a barb.'
'You forget his beautiful lines on his Newfoundland,' said the lady.
'Very complimentary to us all,' said Mr. Horace Pole. 'The interesting misanthrope!'