“Excuse me! excuse me!” he cried. “It was wrong—it was rude—but oh! what an idea! what an idea! Did you think you were shot?”
“Really, I had no time to think. I was too much surprised by the lady’s very novel reception of her father’s guest, to reflect upon my danger.”
“Nay, don’t be annoyed by the child’s nonsense,” he exclaimed, recovering his composure. “She is very much to blame for alarming you, and I shall rate her soundly for her conduct.”
“Oh, pray say no more about it, uncle. I confess she surprised me, but I should be very sorry for her to think that I am offended. One thing I must hasten to do when we meet: I must vindicate my character from the charge of cowardice. She looked so very fierce, and levelled her loaded pistol in so very threatening a manner, that the stoutest hero might well have been allowed to feel a little timid.”
“I wish,” answered my uncle, looking now thoroughly annoyed, “that she would give up this foolish practice of firing pistols. I like to think my girl plucky; but every day I expect to hear of some accident. Ever since her mother’s death, she has had her own way in everything—though, for all that, I don’t think her nature has been spoilt by my indulgence.” He said this with a shake of the head, that plainly said, “I am sure it hasn’t.”
“You have a charming house,” said I, anxious to change the subject, now that I saw he was annoyed.
“Not such a snuggery as Tom’s,” he answered, and took me to a window at the back of the drawing-room, which commanded a fair view of the grounds, and told me of some titled poet, I forget what lord, who had resided here in seventeen hundred and something four, and of the several famous people, such as Wilkes and Foote, and Selwyn, whom his lordship had entertained. These memories appeared to constitute its great charm in his eyes, and it was with no small pride that he told me there was a room upstairs, in which Soame Jenyns had written his “Art of Dancing.” (I quote from memory, and won’t be sure that I give the right names.) Had he only guessed how tired I was, he would have reserved his gossip.
He presently asked me if I would like to go to my bed-room, and on my answering yes, laid hold of my carpet bag—which by the way he laughed at, desiring me to tell him what time I meant to spend at his house—and conducted me to a room furnished so luxuriously, and commanding so fine a view, that I couldn’t have been more impressed, had I been shown into a state bed-chamber at Windsor Castle.
“There,” said he, looking round him with a glowing face, “in this room, my boy, I have been told, on the very best authority, Smollett corrected the last pages of his ‘Adventures of an Atom.’ What do you say to that?”
“I have read ‘Roderick Random,’” I answered, “and think it in parts as funny as ‘Pickwick.’”