“Here, Emily,” I said, when the maiden answered the bell, “fetch that catalogue out of my coat-pocket in the dressing-room. Don’t show it to any one else. Bring it straight here;” for I was rather alarmed lest Mrs Scribe should see the figures made beside the lots I had secured.
Emily soon returned, and then, with a somewhat darkened brow, I began to refer to the different items.
“What did you bid for, Tom?” I said to my friend, who was poring over the list, evidently deep in for furnishing. “But I never thought of your getting married, old chap; though I did half fancy that you were sweet after Miss V.”
“Why, you don’t suppose I should have wasted a day at a sale if I had not wanted things, do you?”
“Never gave it a thought,” said I. “And so you didn’t buy anything after all?”
“No,” said Retort. “Did you?”
“Well—er—er—um, ye-e-es; a few things—a few.”
“Things went dear, though, didn’t they?”
“Well, yes, on the whole, they did. But what did you bid for?”
“Oh, I thought that Turkey carpet would just suit us; and as you were going in for the drawing-room Brussels, why, I bid for it; but those Israelitish villains run it up to twenty-two pounds.”