“I do wish you will tell me what you have in your head!” Matthew said.
“I am going to pay a call on Mr. Swithin Liversedge—if I can find him!”
“Gilly, for God’s sake—!” exclaimed Matthew, now seriously disturbed.
“I must know what sort of a fellow it is we have to deal with.”
“But you must he mad! If yougo to see him, he will know you mean to buy him off, and he will very likely double his price!”
“But he won’t know I’m Sale!” replied the Duke, his face alive with mischief. “I shall be the Honourable Matthew Ware! You said you had never clapped eyes on him, so he won’t know it’s a hoax!”
“Gilly, you are mad! Even if he don’t know, what I look like, he must know I don’t drive about the country in a chaise with crests on the panels, and half a dozen servants, and—Oh, I wish you will be serious!”
“I am serious. Of course, I don’t mean to travel like that! I shall go by the mail, or the stage, or some such thing. It’s famous! I have never driven in anything but my own carriage in all my life!”
“Well, you need not think there is anything so vastly agreeable in going by stage-coach!” said Matthew, with some asperity. “If you had done it as many times as I have—”
“But I have not, and I should like to find out for myself what it is like to rub shoulders with the world!”