"Go to Poole? God forbid!" said Yeldham with ludicrous energy. "Why, my dear fellow, if I were to be seen in a coat of that sort"--touching the silk-lined skirts of Frere's frock--"or in a pair of trousers that fitted me like those, there's not an attorney in London would give me any more employment. No, sir! In Store Street, Tottenham-Court Road, resides the artificer who for years has built my garments on what he assures me are sound mathematical principles, and I shall continue to employ him until one of us is removed to a sphere where clothes are unnecessary. And now, once more, where have you been all this morning?"
"Ah! that's exactly what I came home to talk to you about. I've been calling on a deuced pretty girl, Master Charley, and I want to tell you all about it."
"A very pretty girl, eh?" said Yeldham in rather a hard tone of voice. "A very pretty girl! All right, my boy; tell away."
"I think I've mentioned her before, Charley," said Frere; "Miss Guyon--Kate Guyon, daughter of old Guyon, whom you've heard me speak of; a member of the club, you know; fellow who plays a deuced good game of whist, and that kind of thing. And the girl's really wonderful; very handsome, and with a regular well-bred look about her. None of your dumpy, dowdy, slummakin women--I hate that style--but tall and elegant; carries herself well, and has plenty to say for herself--when she chooses."
"When she chooses, eh!" said Yeldham, with a slight smile; "and I suppose she does choose--to you."
"Well, you know, that's not for a fellow to say. She's always been very civil; and I rode with her yesterday in the Park, and was in her box at the Opera last night--when I say her box I mean Lady Henmarsh's, the old cat who is her principal chaperone--and we got on capitally together, and I think it was all right. I should have told you of it when I got home, but I looked into your room, and you were sound as a top; or this morning, but you were closeted in the office with some fellow on business. So I went off to call on her--there was a kind of tacit arrangement that I should do so--and, by George, I really think I'm hit this time, and that I mean more than ever I did before."
"Mean more! In what way, Gordon?"
"In the way of marriage, of course, you old idiot. Mean that if I were to ask her, I think she'd have me. And she'd be a deuced creditable wife to have about with one; and the governor must just stir himself, and use his influence and get me a consulship, or a commissionership, or something where there's a decent income, and not very much to do for it. There are such things, of course."
"I don't know, Gordon. Recollect these are the days when every thing is won by merit, and not won without a competitive examination."
"O yes; competitive examination be hanged! I'm not going in for any thing of that sort. If a man who's sat for the same borough for five-and-twenty-years, and never voted against his party except once, by mistake, when he'd been dining out and strolled into the wrong lobby--if such a patriot as this can't get a decent berth for his son without any bother about examination and all that kind of thing, where are our privileges as citizens? O no; that'll come all square, of course. But what do you advise me about the girl?"