To return, we proceeded that Sunday to Teddington Lock, when suddenly, alongside of us, waiting for the lock to open, appeared Susan Marks and the young man Tomkins. The woman recognised us both instantly, and proclaimed the fact.
"Lor! if that ain't that little beast Dolphin! Look, Tommy; and it was that old Guy Fawkes as 'eard me 'n you talking. She split an' told him. But it shan't wash; I swear it shan't. He's promised marriage, you know that; and all the old grandmothers in the world shan't save him!"
"Who are you, you brazen creature? I don't know you--never saw you before in my life," said grandfather, calmly.
"Don't you talk to me like that, you wretch," bawled the virago, "or I'll come over and wring your neck."
"Poor soul! Take her out of the sun and send for a medical man," said my grandfather.
Then Tomkins spoke. He was a small, weak person.
"You can't bounce it like that, you know," he said. "You're Dan Dolphin, engaged to Miss Marks; I ought to know you well enough; I've had a summons out against you for three months. You'd better give me your address, and not make a scene here."
"You're labouring under a case of mistaken identity," said grandfather, not taking any notice of the intimation to give his address. "And as for that beauty there, if she's engaged to me or some other fellow, what are you doing with her here on the river? Now row away, and try and behave yourselves. I'm afraid you're no better than you ought to be, either of you."
In this cool manner, with a quiet air of experience and superiority, did grandfather cow the man Tomkins. The woman Marks, however, was not cowed. She shook her fist and raved and disgraced her sex and made a scene; but grandfather only laughed and proceeded. As he truly remarked, they had got "precious little change" out of him.
Not less than an hour later, I saw another of grandpapa's old flames; one whom I had never met before. The Princess Hopskipschoff, with a party of younger sons and music-hall artistes, passed us in a steam-launch. Grandpapa was very excited, and his admiration for her, which waxed at forty-five and dwindled to nothing at thirty, now at twenty-one, burst out anew.