'No shrimps? There's nothing to be had! 'Tis a wretched county this!'
'You'll get nice shrimps at Southampton, sir, by what I can hear,' said Mr. Dubster. 'Tom Hicks says he has been sick with 'em many a day, he's eat such a heap. They gets 'em by hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds at a time.'
'Pray, nephew, how long shall you stay? because of my nieces coming back at the same time.'
'A fortnight's enough to tire me anywhere, sir. Pray what do you all do with yourselves here after breakfast? What's your mode?'
'Mode, nephew? we've got no particular mode that ever I heard of. However, among so many of us, I think it's a little hard, if you can find nothing to say to us; all, in a manner, your relations too.'
'We take no notice of relations now, sir; that's out.'
'I'm sorry for it, nephew, for a relation's a relation, whether you take notice of him or not. And there's ne'er an ode in Virgil will tell you to the contrary, as I believe.'
A short silence now ensued, which was broken by a sigh from Sir Hugh, who ejaculated to himself, though aloud, 'I can't but think what my poor friend Westwyn will do, if his son's come home in this manner! caring for nobody, but an oyster, or a shrimp; ... unless it's a newspaper!'
'And what should a man care for else, my good old friend, in a desart place such as this?'
'Good old friend!' repeated the baronet; 'to be sure, I'm not very young.... However, as to that ... but you mean no harm, I know, for which reason I can't be so ill-natured as to take it ill. However, if poor Westwyn is served in this ... way.... He's my dearest friend that I've got, out of us all here, of my own kin, and he's got only one son, and he sent him to foreign parts only for cheapness; and if he should happen to like nothing he can get at home, it won't answer much in saving, to send out for things all day long.'