“And don’t,” said Barclay, placing a chair for the MC, and then sitting down and putting his hands in his pockets.
“For shame, Jo-si-ah. I do indeed, Mr Denville, and it do make me so hot.”
“There, that’ll do, old lady. Mr Denville wants to see me on business. Don’t you, Denville?”
“Yes—on a trifle of business; but I know that Mrs Barclay is in your confidence. You’ll pardon me, Mrs Barclay?”
A looker-on would have imagined that he was about to dance a minuet with the lady, but he delicately took her fingers by the very tip and led her back to her seat, into which she meant to glide gracefully, but plumped down in a very feather-beddy way, and then blushed and frowned.
“Oh, Mr Denville won’t mind me; and him an old neighbour, too, as knows how I keep your books and everything. It isn’t as if he was one of your wicked bucks, and bloods, and macaronies as they calls ’em.”
“Now, when you’ve done talking, woman, perhaps you’ll let Denville speak.”
“Jo-si-ah!” exclaimed the lady, reddening, or to speak more correctly, growing more red, as she raised a large fan, which hung by a silken cord, and used it furiously.
“Now then, Denville, what is it?” said Barclay, throwing himself back in his chair, and looking the extreme of vulgarity beside the visitor’s refinement.
“You’ll pardon me, Mr Barclay?” said the MC, bowing. “Thanks. The fact is, my dear Barclay, the time has arrived when I must launch my son Morton upon the stream of the fashionable world.”