The Honourable Mr. Tawnish

"You!" says I, "Should it come to pistols you could not help but stop a bullet with your vast bulk."

Hereupon Bentley must needs set himself to prove that a big man offered no better target than a more diminutive one, all of which was of course but the purest folly, as I very plainly showed him, whereat he fell a-whistling of the song "Lillibuleero" (as is his custom ever, when at all hipped or put out in any way). And so we presently came to the cross-roads. Now it has been our custom for the past twelve years to finish the day with a game of picquet with our old friend Jack Chester, so that it had become quite an institution, so to speak. What was our surprise then to see Jack himself upon his black mare, waiting for us beneath the finger-post. That he was in one of his passions was evident from the acute angle of his hat and wig, and as we approached we could hear him swearing to himself.

"Bet you fifty it's his daughter," says Bentley.

"Done!" says I, promptly.

"How now, Jack?" says Bentley, as we shook hands.

"May the Devil anoint me!" growled Jack.

"Belike he will," says Bentley.

"Here's an infernal state of affairs!" says Jack, frowning up the road, his hat and wig very much over one eye.

"Why, what's to do?" says I.

"Do?" says he, rapping out three oaths in quick succession--"do?--the devil and all's to do!"

"Make it a hundred?" says Bentley aside.

"Done!" says I.

"To think," groans Jack, blowing out his cheeks and striking himself a violent blow in the chest, "to think of a pale-faced, pranked-out, spindle-shanked, mealy-mouthed popinjay like him!"

"Him?" says I, questioningly.

"Aye--him!" snaps Jack, with another oath.

"Make it a hundred and fifty, Bentley?" says I softly.

"Agreed!" says Bentley.

"To think," says Jack again, "of a prancing puppy-dog, a walking clothes-pole like him--and she loves him, sir!"

"She?" repeated Bentley, and chuckled.

"Aye, she, sir," roared Jack; "to think after the way we have brought her up, after all our care of her, that she should go and fall in love with a dancing, dandified nincompoop, all powder and patches. Why damme! the wench is run stark, staring mad. Egad! a nice situation for a loving and affectionate father to be placed in!"

"Father?" says I.

"Aye, father, sir," roars Jack again, "though I would to heaven Penelope had some one else to father her--the jade!"

"What!" says I, unheeding Bentley's leering triumph (Bentley never wins but he must needs show it) "what, is Penelope--fallen in love with somebody?"

"Why don't I tell you?" cries Jack, "don't I tell you that I found a set of verses--actually poetry, that the jackanapes had written her?"

"Did you tax her with the discovery?" says I.

"To be sure I did, and the minx owned her love for him--vowed she'd never wed another, and positively told me she liked the poetry stuff. After that, as you may suppose, I came away; had I stayed I won't answer for it but that I might have boxed the jade's ears. Oh, egad, a pretty business!"

"And I thought we had settled she was to marry Bentley's nephew Horace some day," says I, as we turned into the High Street.

"It seems she has determined otherwise--the vixen; and a likely lad, too, as I remember him," says Jack, shaking his head.

"Where is he now, Bentley?" says I.

"Humph!" says Bentley, thoughtfully. "His last letter was writ from Venice."

"Aye, that's it," says Jack, "while he's gadding abroad, this mincing, languid ass, this--"

"What did you say was the fellow's name?" says I.

"Tawnish!" says Jack, making a wry face over it, "the Honourable Horatio Tawnish. Come, Dick and Bentley, what shall we do in the matter?"

"Speaking for myself," I returned, "it's devilish hard to determine."

"And speaking for us all," says Bentley, "suppose we thrash out the question over a bottle of wine?" and swinging into the yard of "The Chequers" hard by, he dismounted and led the way to the sanded parlour.

We found it empty (as it usually is at this hour) save for a solitary individual who lounged upon one of the settles, staring into the fire.

He was a gentleman of middling height and very slenderly built, with a pair of dreamy blue eyes set in the oval of a face whose pallor was rendered more effective by a patch at the corner of his mouth. His coat, of a fine blue satin laced with silver, sat upon him with scarce a wrinkle (the which especially recommended itself to me); white satin small-clothes and silk stockings of the same hue, with silver-buckled, red-heeled shoes, completed a costume of an elegance seldom seen out of London. I noticed also that his wig, carefully powdered and ironed, was of the very latest French mode (vastly different to the rough scratch wigs usually affected by the gentry hereabouts), while the three-cornered hat upon the table at his elbow was edged with the very finest point. Altogether, there was about him a certain delicate air that reminded me of my own vanished youth, and I sighed. As I took my seat, yet wondering who this fine gentleman might be, Jack seized me suddenly by the arm.

"Look!" says he in my ear, "damme, there sits the fellow!"

Turning my head, I saw that the gentleman had risen, and he now tripped towards us, his toes carefully pointed, while a small, gold-mounted walking cane dangled from his wrist by a riband.

"I believe," says he, speaking in a soft, affected voice, "I believe I have the felicity of addressing Sir John Chester?"