"So much the better," said Fred Bentinck, "a man cannot be too virtuous."
"Talking of virtue," I remarked to Fred, "really that brother Charles of yours made himself rather too ridiculous by writing those letters to Lady Abdy about his intention to die, in case she continued cruel."
"I have no more patience with Charles Bentinck than you have," said Frederick, "particularly with his bringing Lady Abdy to my brother's house. I told him he ought to be ashamed of himself."
"I do not know anything about that, I only allude to the folly of a strong young man like Charles Bentinck, sitting down to his muffins and eggs in a state of perfect health, and, with his mouth crammed full of both, calling for half a sheet of paper to write to Lady Abdy, that he was, at that present writing, about to die! and therefore took up his pen, to request her to be kind to his daughter Georgiana when he should be no more!"
"I do not set up for a remarkably clever fellow," Fred Bentinck observed; "but if I had made such a fool of myself as Charles did in that business, I would blow my brains out!"
"You are helping him out of it nicely," Brummell observed to Fred Bentinck.
"I have no patience with people who expose themselves," continued Fred Bentinck; "because it is in everybody's power to be silent: and, as to love-letters, a man has no excuse for writing them."
"There's no wisdom below the girdle, some philosopher said in old times," I remarked.
"I wish I could break you of that dreadful habit of making such indecent allusions, Harriette!" said Fred Bentinck.
"I never make them to any one but you."