"O, ah, yes!" said Laurence. "That's a relic of savage life which I shall get rid of in a few days; but I didn't like to have him off suddenly, on account of the change of climate. I suppose it shocks the old gentlemen here; but I can't help it. Well, now, you've got oceans of news to tell me. It's full a twelvemonth since I had letters from England; not a line since I left Jerusalem; and--ah, by Jove! I've never told you how I happened to come in such a hurry. It's horribly absurd and ridiculous, you know; I hadn't the least idea of returning for at least another year. But one sultry evening, far up the Nile, as I was lying back in my kandjia,--boat, you know,--being towed up by three naked chaps, pulling away like grim death, we met another kandjia coming down. In it were two unmistakable Englishmen; fellows in all-round collars and stiff wideawakes, with puggerees put on all the wrong way. They were chattering to each other; and I thought, under that burning sky and solemn stillness, and surrounded by all the memorials of the past, they would probably be quoting Herodotus, or Gardner Wilkinson, or, better than all, Eothen; but, just as they passed me, what do you think I heard one of them say to the other? 'No, no, Jack,' said he, 'you're wrong there: it was Buckstone that played Box!' He did, by Jove! Under the shadow of the Pyramids, and close by the Sphinx, and the vocal Memnon, and Cheops and Cephrenes, and all the rest of it, to hear of Buckstone and Box and Cox! You can't tell the singular effect it had on me. I began to feel an awful longing for home; what the Germans call Heimweh came upon me at once. I longed to get back once more, and see the clubs and the theatres, and all the old life, which I had fled from so willingly; and I ordered the Arabs to turn the boat round and get me back to Cairo as quickly as possible. When we got to Cairo, I went to Shepherd's, and found the house full of a lot of cadets and fellows going out; and one of them had a Times, and in it I saw the announcement of the new piece at the Parthenium; and, I don't know why,--I fixed upon that as a sort of date-mark, and I said, I'll be back in England to see that first night;' and the next day I started for Alexandria. And on board the P.-and-O. boat I made the acquaintance of the post-office courier in charge of the Indian mail, a very good fellow, who, when he found my anxiety to get on, took me with him in his fourgon, brought me through from Marseilles to Calais without an instant's delay; let me come on board the special boat waiting for him, and landed me at London Bridge last night, having got through my journey wonderfully. And I'm in time for the first night at the Parthenium; and--now tell me all your news."
"Blab" Bertram had been dreading the command, which he knew involved his talking more in twenty minutes than he was in the habit of doing in a month. He had been delighted to hear Laurence rattling on about his own adventures, and fondly hoped that he should avoid any revelations for that night at least. But the dread edict had been issued, and George knew his friend too well not to obey. So he said with a sigh, drawing out a small notebook, "Yes, I knew you'd be naturally anxious to hear about people, and what had happened since you've been away; and so, as I'm not much good at telling things, I got Alick Geddes of our office--you know him, Lord M'Mull's brother--to put down some notes, and I'll read them to you."
"That'll do, George," said Laurence, laughing; "like the police, 'from information you have received,' eh? Never mind, so long as I hear it.--Mr. Turquand, they've not finished that bin of Thompson and Crofts' 20 during my absence? No. Then bring us a bottle, please. --And now, George, fire away!"
For the purposes of this story it would be needless to recount all the bits of scandal and chit-chat, interesting and amusing to those acquainted with the various actors in the drama, but utterly vapid to every one else, which the combined memories of Messrs. Alexander Geddes and George Bertram, clerks in the Foreign Office, and gentlemen going a great deal into all kinds of society, had furbished up and put together for the delectation of Colonel Alsager. It was the old, old story of London life, known to every one, and, mutatis nominibus, narrated of so many people. Tom's marriage, Dick's divorce, and Harry's going to the bad. Jack Considine left the service, and become sheep-farmer in Australia. Little Tim Stratum, of the Treasury, son of old Dr. Stratum the geologist, marrying that big Indian widow woman, and becoming a heavy swell, with a house in Grosvenor Square. Ned Walters dead,--fit of heart disease, or some infernal thing,--dead, by Jove; and that pretty wife of his, and all those nice little children, gone--God knows where! Lady Cecilia married? Oh, yes; and she and Townshend get on very well, they say; but that Italian chap, Di Varese, with the black beard and the tenor voice, always hanging about the house. Gertrude Netherby rapidly becoming an old woman, thin as a whipping-post, by George! and general notion of nose-and-chinniness. Florence Sackville, as lovely and as jolly as ever, was asking after you only last night. These and a hundred other little bits of gossip about men in his old regiment, and women, reputable and disreputable, formerly of his acquaintance, of turf matters and club scandals, interspersed with such anecdotes, seasoned with gros sel, as circulate when the ladies have left the dinner-table, did Laurence Alsager listen to; and when George Bertram stopped speaking and shut up his notebook, he found himself warmly complimented on his capital budget of news by his recently-arrived friend.
"You've done admirably, old fellow," said Laurence. "'Pon my oath I don't think there's hardly any one we know that you haven't had something pleasantly unpleasant to say about. Now," taking out his watch, "we must be off to the theatre, and we've just time to smoke a cigarette as we walk down there. You took the two stalls?"
"Well--no," replied George Bertram, hesitating rather suspiciously; "I only took one for you; I--I'm going-that is--I've got a seat in a box."
"George, you old vagabond, you don't mean to say you're going to desert me the first night I come back?"
"Well, I couldn't help it. You see I was engaged to go with these people before you wrote; and--"
"All right; what people are they?"
"The Mitfords."