“Really, Lawless,” I began, “I am quite ashamed.” “Oh, you are, are you?” was the rejoinder. “I should rather think you ought to be, too. But it's always the way with you fellows who pretend to be steady and moral, and all that sort of thing: when you do find a chance of getting into mischief, you're worse a great deal than a man like myself, for instance, who, without being bothered with any particular principles of any kind, has what I call a general sense of fitness and propriety, and does his dissipation sensibly and correctly. But to go tearing off like a lunatic after the first petticoat you see fluttering among the bushes in a gentleman's park, and leaving your friend to hold in two thorough-bred peppery devils, that are enough to pull a man's arms off, for above a quarter of an hour, it's too bad a great deal. Why, just before you came, I fully expected when that mare was plunging about on her hind legs——”
“How lovely she looked!” interrupted I, thinking aloud.
“You thought so, did you?” rejoined Lawless; “I wish you'd just had to hold her; her mouth's as hard——”
“Her mouth is perfect,” replied I emphatically; “quite perfect.”
“Well, that's cool,” muttered Lawless; “he'll put me in a passion directly;—pray, sir, may I ask how on earth you come to know anything about her mouth?”
“How do I know anything about her mouth?” exclaimed I. “Did I not watch with delight its ever-varying expression?—mark each movement of those beautiful lips, and drink in every syllable that fell from them?—not observe her mouth! Think you, when we have been conversing together for the last quarter of an hour, that I could fail to do so?”
"Oh he's gone stark staring mad!” exclaimed Lawless; “strait-waistcoats, Bedlam, and all that sort o' thing, you know;—conversing with my bay mare for the last quarter of an hour, and drinking in every syllable that fell from her beautiful lips—oh, he's raving!”
“What do you mean?” said I, at length awaking to some consciousness of sublunary affairs—“Your mare!—who ever thought of your mare? it's Miss Saville I'm talking about.”
“Miss Saville!” repeated Lawless, giving vent to a long whistle, expressive of incredulity; “why, you don't mean to say you've been talking to Miss Saville all this time, do you?”
“To be sure I have,” replied I; “and a very interesting and agreeable conversation it was too.”