"I see no harm in that," Berkeley Craven remarked; "I am sure I would sell anything I did not want, and I don't care to whom."
"Then, I suppose, Berkeley, you would have no objection to part with that coat?" said Meyler, alluding to a very threadbare one worn that evening by Mr. Craven, and speaking in his usual slow way.
Brummell, who had done us the honour to come over from the Duke of Rutland's where he was staying to dine with us, said that, though he knew little of the man Charlton, he could not but repeat, in common justice, what he had before stated, namely, that the perfume he used for his pocket handkerchief was unusually good.
The evening hunt-dress is red, lined with white; and the buttons and whole style of it are very becoming. I could not help remarking that the gentlemen never looked half so handsome anywhere in the world, as when, glowing with health, they took their seats at dinner, in the dress and costume of the Melton hunt.
A day or two after this conversation about Charlton, that gentleman happened, by mere accident of course, to say to Alvanly, in answer to some remark he made about hunting, "Oh! Lord bless your soul, no! That is talking like a fool."
"Look you here, my good fellow," said Lord Alvanly, lisping in his usual queer way, "I will tell you what, you have got a trick of calling me a fool, which is what I disliked exceedingly from the first. In fact, I should have taken notice of it long ago, only I happened to be so devilishly afraid of fighting. This fact is well known. In short, I proved it beyond doubt, by cutting the army altogether directly I found that sort of thing was going on. I went into the army, it is true; but, then, as I have often mentioned to my friends before, I conceived my regiment to be kept entirely as a body-guard to his Majesty. In other words, I never expected it would have left London."
Everybody began to laugh except Charlton, who did not exactly know how to take it.
"Gentlemen," added Alvanly, moving towards them, "it is not particularly feeling in you to laugh, when I am discussing a subject which is so very awful to me as fighting, and particularly at a moment when I am likely to become a principal."
He then turned his head towards Mr. Charlton, and resumed his discourse as follows:
"Now, you see, sir, my fears being so excessive as to fighting, I will give you leave to call me fool twice more after to-day; but, by God, if you call me so a third time during the whole course of my life, it is all over with me; for you and I must fight!"