‘Why, then, we must ballast it with a few bags of sicca rupees,’ replied the Colonel.
‘Aha! sits the wind there? Then I suppose the young dog carries off my mistress Julia?’
‘Even so, Counsellor.’
‘These rascals, the post-nati, get the better of us of the old school at every turn,’ said Mr. Pleydell. ‘But she must convey and make over her interest in me to Lucy.’
‘To tell you the truth, I am afraid your flank will be turned there too,’ replied the Colonel.
‘Indeed?’
‘Here has been Sir Robert Hazlewood,’ said Mannering, ‘upon a visit to Bertram, thinking and deeming and opining--’
‘O Lord! pray spare me the worthy Baronet’s triads!’
‘Well, sir,’ continued Mannering, ‘to make short, he conceived that, as the property of Singleside lay like a wedge between two farms of his, and was four or five miles separated from Ellangowan, something like a sale or exchange or arrangement might take place, to the mutual convenience of both parties.’
‘Well, and Bertram--’