"A delightful object in the garden, Miss Etherage, a delightful object everywhere. The delight of the young especially, hey, Miss Agnes? ha, ha! hey? and one of the sweetest products of nature Eh, Miss Agnes? ha, ha, ha! Miss Etherage, I give you my honour every word I say is true."
"I do declare, Captain Shrapnell, it seems to me you have gone perfectly mad!" said Miss Charity, who was out-spoken and emphatic.
"Always a mad fellow, Miss Etherage, ha, ha, ha! Very true; that's my character, hey? ha, ha, ha, egad! So the ladies tell me," said the gay, young Captain. "Wish I'd a guinea for every time they've called me mad, among them. I give you my honour I'd be a rich fellow this moment."
"Now, Captain Shrapnell," said Miss Charity, with a frank stare with her honest goggle eyes, "you are talking the greatest nonsense I ever heard in my life."
"Miss Agnes, here, does not think so, hey?" giggled the Captain. "Now, come, Miss Agnes, what do you think of young Verney, hey? There's a question."
How Miss Agnes hated the gibing, giggling wretch, and detested the club of whose prattle and gossip he was the inexhaustible spokesman; and would at that moment have hailed the appearance of a ship-of-war with her broadside directed upon the bow window of that haunt, with just, of course, such notice to her worthy father, whose gray head was visible in it, as was accorded to the righteous Lot—under orders, with shot, shell, rockets, and marlin-spikes, to blow the entire concern into impalpable dust.
It must be allowed that Miss Agnes was unjust; that it would not have been fair to visit upon the harmless and, on the whole, good-natured persons who congregated in that lively receptacle, and read the Times through their spectacles there, the waggeries and exaggerations of the agreeable captain, and to have reached that incorrigible offender, and demolished his stronghold at so great a waste of human life.
"Come, now; I won't let you off, Miss Aggie. I say, there's a question. What do you say? Come, now, you really must tell us. What do you think of young Verney?"
"If you wish to know what I think," interposed Miss Charity, "I think he's the very nicest man I ever spoke to. He's so nice about religion. Wasn't he, Aggie?"
Here the Captain exploded.