“You may. It's your cloth, you know; but, by George, I won't!” cries Mr. Warrington, and again goes down the fist with a thump on the table. “Let any fellow say a word in my hearing against that dear old creature, and I'll pull his nose, as sure as my name is Harry Esmond. How do you do, Colonel Lambert? You find us late again, sir. Me and his reverence kept it up pretty late with some of the young fellows, after the ladies went away. I hope the dear ladies are well, sir?” and here Harry rose, greeting his friend the Colonel very kindly, who had come to pay him a morning visit, and had entered the room followed by Mr. Gumbo (the latter preferred walking very leisurely about all the affairs of life), just as Harry—suiting the action to the word—was tweaking the nose of Calumny.
“The ladies are purely. Whose nose were you pulling when I came in, Mr. Warrington?” says the Colonel, laughing.
“Isn't it a shame, sir? The parson, here, was telling me that there are villains here who attack the character of my aunt, the Baroness of Bernstein!”
“You don't mean to say so!” cries Mr. Lambert.
“I tell Mr. Harry that everybody is calumniated!” says the chaplain, with a clerical intonation; but, at the same time, he looks at Colonel Lambert and winks, as much as to say, “He knows nothing—keep him in the dark.”
The Colonel took the hint. “Yes,” says he, “the jaws of slander are for ever wagging. Witness that story about the dancing-girl, that we all believed against you, Harry Warrington.”
“What, all, sir?”
“No, not all. One didn't—Hetty didn't. You should have heard her standing up for you, Harry, t'other day, when somebody—a little bird—brought us another story about you; about a game at cards on Sunday morning, when you and a friend of yours might have been better employed.” And here there was a look of mingled humour and reproof at the clergyman.
“Faith, I own it, sir!” says the chaplain. “It was mea culpa, mea maxima—no, mea minima culpa, only the rehearsal of an old game at piquet, which we had been talking over.”
“And did Miss Hester stand up for me?” says Harry.