“A ducking, Sir!” repeated Mr. Lovel: “I protest I think that’s rather an odd term!-but if you mean a bathing, it is an honour I have had many times.”
“And pray, if a body may be so bold, what do you do with that frizle-frize top of your own? Why, I’ll lay you what you will, there is fat and grease enough on your crown to buoy you up, if you were to go in head downwards.”
“And I don’t know,” cried Mrs. Selwyn, “but that might be the easiest way; for I’m sure it would be the lightest.”
“For the matter of that there,” said the Captain, “you must make him a soldier, before you can tell which is lightest, head or heels. Howsomever, I’d lay ten pounds to a shilling, I could whisk him so dexterously over into the pool, that he should light plump upon his foretop and turn round like a tetotum.”
“Done!” cried Lord Merton; “I take your odds.”
“Will you?” returned he; “why, then, ‘fore George, I’d do it as soon as say Jack Robinson.”
“He, he!” faintly laughed Mr. Lovel, as he moved abruptly from the window; “‘pon honour, this is pleasant enough; but I don’t see what right any body has to lay wagers about one without one’s consent.”
“There, Lovel, you are out,” cried Mr. Coverley, “any man may lay what wager about you he will; your consent is nothing to the purpose: he may lay that your nose is a sky-blue, if he pleases.”
“Ay,” said Mrs. Selwyn, “or that your mind is more adorned than your person;-or any absurdity whatsoever.”
“I protest,” said Mr. Lovel, “I think it’s a very disagreeable privilege, and I must beg that nobody may take such a liberty with me.”