The unexpected apparition, rendered more formidable by the blazing fire in the background, throwing a lurid light over the giant, completely deprived little Paul of his breath, and he stood gaping and shaking as if he expected the monster to address him.
“Who may you please to want?” at length demanded Ben, in a deep sonorous tone of mingled defiance and contempt.
“P—p—p—please, wo—wo—wo—want,” stuttered little Paul, now recollecting that he had never been told who to ask for.
“Yes, who do you wish to see?” demanded Ben, in a clear explanatory tone, for though he had agreed to dress up for the occasion on the reciprocity principle of course—Miss Willing winking at his having two nephews living in the house—he by no means undertook to furnish civility to any of the undergraduates of life, as he called such apologies as Paul.
“I—I—I’ll ask,” replied Paul, glad to escape back to the coach, out of which the Royal Archer’s bull-head was now protruding, anxious to be emancipated.
“Who—ho—ho am I to a—a—ask for, pa—pa—per—please?” stuttered Paul, trembling all over with fear and excitement, for he had never seen such a sight except in a show.
“Ask for!” muttered Billy, now recollecting for the first time that the fair lady and he were mutually ignorant of each other’s names. “Ask for! What if it should be a hoax?” thought he; “how foolish he would look!”
While these thoughts were revolving in Billy’s mind, Big Ben, having thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his cherry-coloured shorts, was contemplating the dismal-looking coach in the disdainful cock-up-nose sort of way that a high-life Johnny looks at what he considers a low-life equipage; wondering, we dare say, who was to be deceived by such a thing.
Billy, seeing the case was desperate, resolved to put a bold face on the matter, especially as he remembered his person could not be seen in the glass coach; so, raising his crush hat to his face, he holloaed out, “I say! is this the Earl of Delacey’s?”
“It is,” replied Ben, with a slight inclination of his gigantic person.