"To be doocid good! Slubber is the only old fellow I ever knew who kept pace with the times."
"Indeed!" said I, with an affected air of perfect unconcern. "I have heard of him—he is said to have proposed to our fair friend in front."
"Ah, may I ask which of them?"
"For Lady Louisa."
"It is very likely—the families are extremely intimate, and I know that she has gone twice to the Continent in Slubber's yacht."
Berkeley said this with a bearing cooler even than mine; but I was aware that the fellow was scanning me closely through his confounded eyeglass.
"His fortune is, I believe, handsome?"
"Magnificent! Sixty thousand a year, at least—haw! His father was a reckless fellow in the days of the Regency, going double-quick to the dogs; but luckily died in time to let the estates go to nurse during the present man's minority. I have heard a good story told of the late Lord Slubber de Gullion, who, having lost a vast sum on the Derby, applied to a well-known broker in town to give him five thousand pounds on my Lady Slubber's jewels.
"'Number the brilliants,' said he, 'and put false stones in their places; she will never know the difference.'
"'You are mosh too late, my lord,' replied he of the three six-pounders, with a grin.