“Ah! you’re a pretty pair.”
“We was in the old days, Jenny,” said the young man, with a smirk, “before we began to go off and look seedy, him with being married to her ladyship, and me pulled down, fretting about you.”
“Get along with your nonsense! I know. You were a pair of regular rackety rakes, and her ladyship has done wonders for Sir Hilton.”
“Well, ain’t you done wonders and improved me, dear? You know I ain’t like the same chap.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I sometimes feel I’m very stupid to think about you. You’re always talking about your old ramping, scamping days.”
“But there wasn’t any harm in ’em, Jenny. Only a bit of sport—a race here, a steeplechase there, and a turn at hunting in the winter. Ah! they was times, Jenny, my gal Reglar old English gentleman sort of life. Go to bed when you liked; get up when you liked. Breakfast in bed or out of it. None of your tea-and-toasting, but a hock and seltzer for a start; nice little devilled something after, and there you were, fit as a fiddle. None of your time-table life, like it is here.”
“Yes, you were a nice pair.”
“We were, Jenny, and we’re not to be sneezed at now; but you’re a bit hard on us, Jenny, both of you.”
“I’m too soft on you, Mark, and you know it.”
“Well—say sometimes, my dear; but you know you are orful nubbly now and then, and you say things to me that buzz in my ears like bluebottles in a stable window. I don’t grumble, but I’m sorry for the guv’nor, that I am.”