“By name? Why, how else would you have him enquire, my good man? Do you fancy that he carries a Bow Street runner's description of so humble a person as myself?”
“Nay, madam; but you see your name is just what I have n't yet had the honour of learning.”
The lady burst out laughing.
“Faith, good sir, my name is a somewhat important detail in the transaction I speak of. The gentleman will ask for Mistress Clive.”
“Ah,” cried the landlord, “I could have sworn that I knew the face and the voice, but I failed to think of them in connection with our Kitty.” He checked himself in his cackle of laughter, and bowed in his best style. “Madam, I implore your pardon, but—oh lord! how I've laughed in the old days at Kitty's pranks!—nay, madam, forgive my familiarity. I am your servant. Oh, lord! to think that it's Kitty Clive herself—our Kitty—madam—”
Only when he had fled to the door and had opened it did the man recover himself sufficiently to be able to repeat his bow. After he had disappeared at the other side of the door, the lady heard his outburst of laughter once again. It grew fainter as he hurried off to (she hoped) the kitchen.
Kitty Clive laughed, also, as she seated herself carefully on the settle, for it was a piece of furniture whose cushions required to be tenderly treated.
“And this is real fame,” she murmured. “To be 'our Kitty' to a hundred thousand men and women is my ambition—a laudable one, too, I swear—one worth struggling for—worth fighting Davy for, and Davy Garrick takes a deal of fighting. He has got more of it from Kitty Clive than he bargained for.”
The recollection of her constant bickerings with David Garrick seemed to offer her a good deal of satisfaction. It is doubtful if David Garrick's recollection of the same incidents would have been equally pleasing to him; for Kitty Clive was very annoying, especially when she got the better of her manager in any matter upon which he tried to get the better of her, and those occasions were frequent.
She remained on the settle smiling now and again, and giving a laugh at intervals as she thought of how she had worsted David, as his namesake had worsted the champion of Gath. But soon she became grave.