"Humph!" grunted the old man, with a glance round the mean room. "I feared you would resent my too abrupt entry. After what I had learnt in your letters about your magnificent, expensive, modish apartment, I could not suppose I was walking straight into your parlour—h'm! study; h'm! bedroom and—pantry, h'm!"
"No apologies, my friend, I beg. You take me at a disadvantage, having but just consumed my modest repast——"
"Fish! My nose informs me. 'Tis the fortieth smell that has offended my senses within a quarter of an hour. 'Twas somewhat difficult to discover your—mansion. You are not, it appears, so well known at the Hague as you give out; and when I named you at my inn, with your address, I was advised to bring an escort. I came alone——"
"Ah! Nicolas Berkeley knows how to take care of himself—eh, Squire?"
"But had I known to what an ordeal, to what a series of ordeals, my nostrils would be exposed, I doubt I could not have plucked up the courage."
"'Twas ill done to come upon me so suddenly. The smells—hang me, Squire, I have smelt worse when I was the guest of the Czar of Muscovy. But had you given me a week's, a day's notice, I would have made ready an entertainment worthy of you, my old friend."
"No doubt, no doubt——"
"And indeed I was on the point of writing you when you entered."
"Ay, on the point of; you write to me twice a day, do you? for unless I mistake, you have already writ once to-day. Under the plate, Captain Aglionby—surely I see writ on the paper there some semblance of my name."
"'Tis so; what eyes you have for your age, Squire! I was just trying a new pen, and so full were my thoughts of my generous friend and patron that the pen ran of its own accord, mark you, into the familiar curves. And as I know how you abhor a letter, I will e'en tear up the paper and——"