“Well, Mrs. Lindsay, I'm glad to see you. How do you do, madam? Is your son with you?” he added, shaking hands with her.
“No, my lord.”
“O! an embassadress, then?”
“Something in that capacity, my lord.”
“Then I must be on my sharps, for I am told you are a keen one. But tell me—do you sleep with one eye open, as I do?”
“Indeed, my lord,” she replied, laughing, “I sleep as other people do, with both eyes shut.”
“Well, then, what's your proposal?—and, mark me, I'm wide awake.”
“By all accounts, my lord, you have seldom been otherwise. How could you have played your cards so well and so succassfully if you had not?”
“Come, that's not bad—just what I expected, and I like to deal with clever people. Did you put yourself on the whetstone before you came here? I'll go bail you did.”
“If I did not I would have little chance in dealing with your lordship,” replied Mrs, Lindsay.