“Perhaps it would be as well,” replied Freddy; “at all events it will add greatly to the fun of the thing.”
“And let me tell you, that's a consideration by no means to be lost sight of,” put in Lawless, who had overheard the last remark. “Depend upon it, it's a man's duty—partly to himself, partly to his neighbour—never to miss an opportunity of recruiting his exhausted and care-worn frame, and all that sort of thing, by enjoying a little innocent recreation: 'nec semper'—what do ye call it?—'tendit Apollo,' eh?”
“That's quite my view of the case,” said Freddy, whose elastic spirits were fast recovering their accustomed buoyancy. “I hate the dolefuls—Care killed a cat.”
“If that's the worst thing Care ever did, I'll forgive her, eh?” said Lawless, “for cats are horrid poaching varmints, and make awful havoc among the young rabbits. Well, Fairlegh, have you made up your mind?”
“Yes,” replied I, “I am at your service for this morning; but understand, I merely go as a spectator of your prowess.”
“As you like, man. I'll order the chestnuts—go and polish up a little—and then for walking into Governor Coleman, and bowling out the drysalter.”
The chestnuts whirled us over to Hillingford in less than an hour. Lawless, delighted at being allowed to put his project into execution, was in wild spirits, and kept me in fits of laughter the whole way, by his quaint remarks on men and things.
“Is the governor visible, John?” was his address to the footman who answered the door, and who, apparently not being favoured by Nature with any superfluous acuteness of intellect or sweetness of disposition, merely stared sulkily in reply.
“The fellow's a fool,” muttered Lawless, “and can't understand English. Hark ye, sirrah,” he continued, “is your master at home?”
As the hero of the shoulder-knot vouchsafed an affirmative reply to this somewhat more intelligible query, we alighted, and were straightway ushered into the drawing-room, where we found Mr. and Mrs. Coleman, and, as Lawless afterwards expressed it, “a party unknown,” who was immediately, with much pomp and ceremony, introduced to us by the name of Mr. Lowe Brown, an announcement which elicited from my companion the whispered remark, “The drysalter himself, by jingo! this looks like business, old fellow; there's no time to be lost, depend upon it”.