"Papa's a very clever man," said she; "mamma says so."
"Oh, very," said Mr. Bungay.
"And you're a very rich man, Mr. Bundy," cried the child, who could hardly speak plain.
"Mary!" said mamma, from her work.
"Oh, never mind," Bungay roared out with a great laugh; "no harm in saying I'm rich—he, he—I am pretty well off, my little dear."
"If you're rich, why don't you take papa out of piz'n?" asked the child.
Mamma at this began to wipe her eyes with the work on which she was employed. (The poor lady had hung curtains up in the room, had brought the children's picture and placed it there, and had made one or two attempts to ornament it.) Mamma began to cry; Mr. Bungay turned red, and looked fiercely out of his blood-shot little eyes; Shandon's pen went on, and Pen and Warrington arrived with their knock.
Captain Shandon looked up from his work. "How do you do, Mr. Warrington," he said. "I'll speak to you in a minute. Please sit down, gentlemen, if you can find places," and away went the pen again.
Warrington pulled forward an old portmanteau—the only available seat—and sate down on it with a bow to Mrs. Shandon, and a nod to Bungay: the child came and looked at Pen solemnly: and in a couple of minutes the swift scribbling ceased; and Shandon, turning the desk over on the bed, stooped and picked up the papers.
"I think this will do," said he. "It's the prospectus for the 'Pall-Mall Gazette.'"