Volume Two—Chapter Nine.
“Fiddle-De-Dee!”
“Fiddle-de-dee! Thomas,” said the old dowager, with considerable asperity, “why you’ll be wanting a glass coach and four, and a cocked hat next. Stuff and nonsense, sir, it’s all fiddle-de-dee!”
“But, mother—”
“But me no buts sir! I tell you I won’t have it, and that’s enough.”
“Really, mother.”
“Really, indeed! I suppose you think I’m as great a fool as you are, Thomas.”
“Pray don’t excite yourself, mother,” said Tom, trying to keep down the thermometer until he could obtain a fair hearing, but the old lady was not to be pacified, for his soothing words only added fuel to the fire.
“Excite myself, indeed! I should think there was a little cause for excitement to hear a baby like you talking of getting married! And bearding me in my own house to be sure! I tell you, Thomas, I won’t have it!” And the dowager paced rapidly backwards and forwards on one side of the dining-room with short, jerky steps, swinging her hands, with the fingers clasping and unclasping in unison with her nervous walk.
Tom walked up and down the room on the other side, the table being entrenched between them. He took long military strides, and twirled the end of his moustache impatiently every now and then, for his temper too was rising. He did not reply at once, so his mother went on with a recapitulated volley of wrath. She had only been winding up as it were, before, and now burst out in a flowing stream of words, like an alarm clock running down, as if she had never paused from her last utterance.