, tapped it and put it away again.
"Nunky," he murmured, "since you're so curst wide-awake I'm free to
confess that for the last six months I've worshipped at the shrine of
the Admirable Betty--de-votedly, sir!"

"There be others also, I think!" said the Major, handing his foil to
the Sergeant.

"Gad love me, sir, 'tis true enough! The whole town is run mad for her
pasitively, and 'tis small wonder! She's a blooming peach, nunky, a
pearl of price--let me perish! A goddess, a veritable----"

"Woman!" said the Major.

"And, sir, this glory of her sex blooms and blossoms--next door. Ha'
ye seen her yet?"

"Once or twice, Tom."

"Now I protest, sir--ain't she the most glorious creature--a peerless
piece--a paragon? By heaven, 'tis the sweetest, perversest witch and
so do my hopes soar."

"Doth she prove so kind, nephew?"

"O sir, she doth flout me consistently."

"Flout you?"

"Constantly, thank Vanus! 'Tis when she's kind I fall i' the dumps."

"God bless me!" exclaimed the Major.

"Look'ee sir, there's Tripp, for instance, dear old bottlenose Ben, she
smiles on him and suffers him to bear her fan, misfortunate dog!
There's Alton, she permits him to attend her regularly and hand her
from chair or coach, poor devil! There's West and Marchdale, I've
known her talk with them in corners, unhappy wights! There's
Dalroyd----"

"The 'die-away' gentleman?" said the Major.

"O he's death and the devil for her, he is--a sleepy, smouldering
flame, rat me! And she is scarce so kind to him I could wish. But as
for me, nunky, me she scorns, flouts, contemns and quarrels with, so
doth hope sing within me!"

"Hum!" said the Major, clapping on his wig.

"So I am here in the fervent hope that ere the year is out she may be
my Viscountess and--O my stricken sawl!"

"What is't, nephew?"

"Aye, sir, that's the question--what? Faith, it might be anything."

"You mean my wig, Tom?" enquired the Major, laughing, yet flushing a
little.

"Wig?" murmured the Viscount, "after all, sir, there is a
resemblance--though faint. Sure you never venture abroad in the thing?

"Why not?"

"'Twould be pasitively indecent, sir!"

Here the Major laughed, but the Sergeant, setting the furniture in
place, scowled fixedly at the chair he chanced to be grasping.

"Perhaps 'tis time I got me a new one," said the Major, slipping into
his coat.

"One!" exclaimed the Viscount. "O pink me, sir--a man of your standing
and po