Vaughan caught his name and awoke from a reverie. “Very good,” he said, raising his glass. “What is it?”
“Maids and Missuses!” the Honourable Bob replied, with a wink at his neighbour. And then, incited by the fumes of the wine he had taken, he rose to his feet and raised his glass. “Gentlemen,” he said, “gentlemen!”
“Silence,” they cried. “Silence! Silence for Bob’s speech.”
“Gentlemen,” he resumed, a spark of malice in his eyes, “I’ve a piece of news to give you! It’s news that—that’s been mighty slyly kept by a gentleman here present. Devilish close he’s kept it, I’ll say that for him! But he’s a neat hand that can bamboozle Bob Flixton, and I’ve run him to earth, run him to earth this morning and got it out of him.”
“Hear! Hear! Bob! Go on, Bob; what is it?” from the company.
“You are going to hear, my Trojans! And no flam! Gentlemen, charge your glasses! I’ve the honour to inform you that our old friend and tiptopper, Arthur Vaughan, otherwise the Counsellor, has got himself regularly put up, knocked down, and sold to as pretty a piece of the feminine as you’ll see in a twelvemonth! Prettiest in Bristol, ’pon honour,” with feeling, “be the other who she may! Regular case of—” and in irresistibly comic accents, with his head and glass alike tilted, he drolled,
“There first for thee my passion grew,
Sweet, sweet Matilda Pottingen;
Thou wast the daughter of my tu-
tor, law professor at the U-