“I speak to order!—No warrants for money can be extracted before intimation to the Committee of Management.”
“Pray, who mentioned money, Mr. Meiklewham?” said her ladyship.—“That wretched old pettifogger,” she added in a whisper to Tyrrel, “thinks of nothing else but the filthy pelf.”
“Ye spake of subscription, my leddy, whilk is the same thing as money, differing only in respect of time—the subscription being a contract de futuro, and having a tractus temporis in gremio—And I have kend mony honest folks in the company at the Well, complain of the subscriptions as a great abuse, as obliging them either to look unlike other folk, or to gie good lawful coin for ballants and picture-books, and things they caredna a pinch of snuff for.”
Several of the company, at the lower end of the table, assented both by nods and murmurs of approbation; and the orator was about to proceed, when Tyrrel with difficulty procured a hearing before the debate went farther, and assured the company that her ladyship's goodness had led her into an error; that he had no work in hand worthy of their patronage, and, with the deepest gratitude for Lady Penelope's goodness, had it not in his power to comply with her request. There was some tittering at her ladyship's expense, who, as the writer slyly observed, had been something ultronious in her patronage. Without attempting for the moment any rally, (as indeed the time which had passed since the removal of the dinner scarce permitted an opportunity,) Lady Penelope gave the signal for the ladies' retreat, and left the gentlemen to the circulation of the bottle.
CHAPTER VII.
THE TEA-TABLE.
——While the cups,
Which cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each.
Cowper.