A mere guess. I will tell you why.
Brummell talked to Julia while he looked at me; and as soon as he could manage it with decency, he contrived to place himself by my side.
"What do you think of Colonel Cotton?" said he, when I mentioned Julia.
"A very fine dark man," I answered, "though not at all to my taste, for I never admire dark men."
"No man in England stinks like Cotton," said Brummell.
"Ah! ah!" thought I, "me voilà au fait!"
"A little Eau de Portugal would do no harm in that quarter, at all events," I remarked laughing, while alluding to his dislike of perfumery.
Amy gave us merely a tray-supper in one corner of the drawing-room, with plenty of champagne and claret. Brummell, in his zeal for cold chicken, soon appeared to forget everybody in the room. A loud discordant laugh from the Honourable John Ward, who was addressing something to Luttrell at the other end of the table, led me to understand that he had just, in his own opinion, said a very good thing; yet I saw his corner of the room full of serious faces.
"Do you keep a valet, sir?" said I.
"I believe I have a rascal of that kind at home," said the learned, ugly scion of nobility, with disgusting affectation.