"You had better not, Frank," said she, moving towards the door; "you don't know whom you have to deal with." And she swept out of the room.
And this was Barbara's first lesson in the manège.
[CHAPTER XXV.]
A GARDEN-PARTY AT UPLANDS.
Although it was only in the first days of July, it had become thoroughly evident that the London season was on the wane. After a lengthened period of inaction, there had been a fierce parliamentary struggle brought about by that rising young gladiator Mr. Hope Ennythink, who had impeached the Prime Minister, brought the gravest charges against the Foreign Secretary, accused the Chancellor of the Exchequer of crass ignorance, and riddled with ridicule the incompetence of the First Lord of the Admiralty. As Mr. Hope Ennythink spoke with a certain amount of cleverness and a great amount of brass, as he was thoroughly up in all the facts which he adduced,--having devoted his life to the study of Hansard, and being a walking edition of that popular work,--and as he was warmly supported by the Opposition, whose great leaders thought highly of the young man, he ran the Government very hard, and gave the Treasury-whips a great deal of trouble to secure even the slight majority which pulled them through. But immediately the fight was over, it was evident that the session was on the point of closing. There was no more excitement; it was very hot weather; and the session and the season were simultaneously doomed. However, the wives and daughters of the members were determined to die hard; there would be at least a fortnight before the prorogation of Parliament, and during that fortnight dinners, balls, fêtes, and opera-visitings were carried on with redoubled activity. To a good many, condemned to autumnal pinchings and scrapings in a dull country-house, it was the last taste of pleasure until next spring.
Upon the gentlemen attached to the room No. 120, in the Tin-Tax Office, the general state of affairs was not without its effect. Mr. Kinchenton was away for his holiday--he generally chose July as the best month for little Percy's sea-bathing--and he rung the changes between Worthing, Bognor, and Littlehampton, in one of which places he would be found in an entire suit of shepherd's-plaid, and always with a telescope slung round him. Mr. Dibb, his liver in a worse state than ever with the hot weather, had felt himself compelled to quit the pleasant environs of Clapton, where he ordinarily resided, and had taken a bedroom at Windmill-Hill, Gravesend, whence he came up to his office every morning, having immediately established sworn animosity with every guard and regular passenger on the North-Kent Railway, and having regular hand-to-hand combats with the man who sat opposite to him, as to whether the window should be up or down--combats commencing at Gravesend and finishing at New Cross. Upon Mr. Boppy had come a new phase of existence, he having persuaded Mrs. Boppy, for the first time since their marriage, to go on a visit to some country friends, thus leaving him his own master pro tem. And Mr. Boppy availed himself of this opportunity to give a bachelor-party, cards and supper, at which Mr. Pringle was the master of the revels, and they all enjoyed themselves very much, and talked about it afterwards to Mr. Boppy; little thinking of the unrevealed misery that wretched convivialist was enduring on account of his being unable to rid the window-curtains of the smell of tobacco-smoke, by which Mrs. B. would learn of the past symposium, and would "warm" her husband accordingly. Mr. Prescott and Mr. Pringle had been going on much the same as usual; and Mr. Crump never went out of town because his pay was stopped when he was absent from his office, and he never had any friends who wished to see him.
It was a very hot morning, the sun blazed in through the windows of No. 120, aid upon the head of Mr. Pringle, who was copying items of account on to a large ruled sheet of paper.
"Item, every horse for draught or burden--item, each dog, sheep, swine--I'll be blowed if I'll do any more of it," said Mr. Pringle, casting down his pen and rubbing his head. "I must have some soda-water! Prescott, James, was there too much lemon in Quartermaine's punch last night, or was it that the whitebait are growing too large to be wholesome? Something was wrong, I know! Crump, my boy, you're nearest the cellar; just hand me a bottle of the corrective."
Mr. Crump certainly was nearest the cellar, which was in fact the cupboard which should have been his property, but which had been appropriated by Messrs. Pringle and Prescott as a soda-water store.
"That's a good fellow; now you're up, would you mind just handing me a bit of ice out of the basin? Thanks! What a good Crumpy it is! What's the matter, Mr. Dibb?"