“Nonsense!” says Lady Fanny.
“—Insists upon driving straight to my chambers in the Albany, extracting thence the above-named haunch—”
“Grandmamma was very sorry to part with it,” cries Lady Fanny.
“—And then she orders us to proceed to Mr. Titmarsh’s house in the City, where the venison was left, in company with a couple of baskets of fruit bought at Grange’s by Lady Fanny herself.”
“And what was more,” said Lady Fanny, “I made Grandmamma go into Fr—into Lord Tiptoff’s rooms, and dictated out of my own mouth the letter which he wrote, and pinned up the haunch of venison that his hideous old housekeeper brought us—I am quite jealous of her—I pinned up the haunch of venison in a copy of the John Bull newspaper.”
It had one of the Ramsbottom letters in it, I remember, which Gus and I read on Sunday at breakfast, and we nearly killed ourselves with laughing. The ladies laughed too when I told them this; and good-natured Lady Jane said she would forgive her sister, and hoped I would too: which I promised to do as often as her Ladyship chose to repeat the offence.
I never had any more venison from the family; but I’ll tell you what I had. About a month after came a card of “Lord and Lady Tiptoff,” and a great piece of plum-cake; of which, I am sorry to say, Gus ate a great deal too much.
CHAPTER VI
OF THE WEST DIDDLESEX ASSOCIATION, AND OF THE EFFECT THE DIAMOND HAD THERE
Well, the magic of the pin was not over yet. Very soon after Mrs. Brough’s grand party, our director called me up to his room at the West Diddlesex, and after examining my accounts, and speaking awhile about business, said, “That’s a very fine diamond-pin, Master Titmarsh” (he spoke in a grave patronising way), “and I called you on purpose to speak to you upon the subject. I do not object to seeing the young men of this establishment well and handsomely dressed; but I know that their salaries cannot afford ornaments like those, and I grieve to see you with a thing of such value. You have paid for it, sir,—I trust you have paid for it; for, of all things, my dear—dear young friend, beware of debt.”