“What soil do you want?”
“Any. There is a demand, I am told, for muscle; the market is glutted with brain, or what passes for brain. As there is a deficiency in the supply of cooks, I will mount a white cap and apron and apply for a kitchen. But, seriously, apart from my affairs, which can wait, yours must be attended to.”
“But nothing can be done. You propose nothing. I can suggest nothing.”
Then in came Mrs. Welsh and Mrs. Saltren. The former was carrying the baby.
“It is all settled,” said Tryphœna Welsh. “Rejoice with me, Miss Inglett. I did want a cook, one not given to climbing ladders, and now I have got one; now James will swear, for he has been spoiled by your cookery, Miss Inglett; at last I have got a cook, the girl Thomasine Kite. Come, kiss the baby and thank Heaven.”
CHAPTER XLVIII.
L’ALLEMANDE.
“Why, blessings on me!” exclaimed Mrs. Saltren, on her return to the lodgings in Bloomsbury. “Whoever expected the pleasure! And—I am sorry that you should see us here, Captain Tubb; not settled into our West-End house. Me and my son are looking about for a suitable residence, genteel and commodious, and with a W. to the address; but there is that run on the West End, and it is almost impossible, without interest, to get a house. My brother, however, who is like to be an M.P., is using his influence. But, captain, you see that every house won’t suit me; I’m not going to be in the shade any more. Well, it is a pleasure to see an Orleigh face here; and, pray, what has brought you to town, Captain Tubb?”
The visitor was in a black suit, that obtained for his son’s funeral; he held his hat in one hand, with a broad black cloth band about it. With his disengaged hand he thrust up his beard and nibbled the ends.
Ladies play with their fans, coquette with them, talk with them, angle with them; and an uninitiated person looking on wonders what is the meaning of the many movements made with the fan—the unfurling, the snapping, the half-opening. Perhaps Captain Tubb may have been coquetting, talking with his hat, for he turned it about, then looked into it, then smoothed it where it was ruffled, then put it under his chair, then took it up and balanced it on his knee. I cannot tell. If he was not speaking with his hat, what else could he have meant by all the movements he went through with it?
“Well, ma’am,” said the captain; “seeing as how I was in London, I thought I’d come and inquire how you was getting along. How are you? And how is Mr. Jingles?”