“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said I. “I make many allowances for your lack of knowledge of our Western customs, but for a young lady to flirt with an ugly red-headed varlet of the lower orders is reprehensible all the world over.”
“He gave me dates and dried fruits with sugar all over them,” said Carlotta.
“Stolen from his employer,” I said. “I will have that young man locked up in prison, and if you go on receiving his feloniously obtained presents they will put you in prison too, and I shall be delighted.”
Carlotta maintained her demure expression and extracted from her skirt pocket a very dirty piece of paper.
“He writes poetry—about me,” she remarked, handing me what I recognised as the three-cornered note.
I took the thing between finger and thumb, and glanced over the poem. I have read much indifferent modern verse in my time—I sometimes take a slush-bath after tea at the club—but I could not have imagined the English language capable of such emulsion. It was execrable. The first couplet alone contained an idea.
“Thou art a lovely girl and so very nice
I dream till death upon your face.”
To the wretch’s ear it was a rhyme! I destroyed the noisome thing and cast it into the waste-paper basket.
“Prison,” said I, “would be a luxurious reward for him. In a properly civilised country he would be bastinadoed and hanged.”
“Yes, he is dam bad,” said Carlotta, serenely.