"I'll give you ten pounds if you will let me burn this book," said Bentinck, taking up Fanblas.
"In the meantime," I continued, "you seem to be glancing your eye over it with something like satisfaction, for a man, such as the Duke of York describes, of unblemished reputation for chastity! But, to revert to your brother's dying, with the hot muffins in his mouth, for Lady Abdy. Would not a man, who really and seriously had made up his mind to die for love, have written a little note and, after sealing it with a death's head or something of that kind, have hidden it somewhere, to be delivered when he should be defunct—instead of talking of death, like Shakespeare's
'——certain Lord, neat and trimly dress'd,
Fresh as a bridegroom and his chin new reap'd.'"
"Thank God," said Fred Bentinck, laughing, "I shall never be in love!"
"Why you adore me, and have done so for the last twelvemonth," said I; "but I want you to transfer your love to a friend of mine."
"Do Fred," said Brummell, taking up his hat, "moderate your passion if possible, and be sure to burn those leather breeches of yours."
"I want you," continued I, after Brummell had left us, "I want you to fall in love with Julia Johnstone."
"She is a fine woman," answered Fred Bentinck; "only I am so afraid she should love me in return; and if you, Julia, or any woman were to love me, I should be sick directly."
"How do you know?" I asked; "who on earth ever tried you that way?"
"Why, there was a woman six years ago," said Frederick, "who certainly did love me."