our own terms with them.

"Good fun--excellent!"

"_I_ came to meet a man of business," said his Lordship, with a strong
emphasis on the pronoun. "He couldn't prolong his journey farther south,
and so we agreed to rendezvous here."

"I have a little affair also to transact--a mere trifle, a nothing,
in fact--with a lawyer, who promises to meet me here by the end of the
month, so that we have just time to take our baths, drink the waters,
and all that sort of thing, while we are waiting."

And he rubbed his hands, and laughed away again.

"What a boon for my wife to learn that Lady Grace is here! She was
getting so hipped with the place--not so much the place as the odious
people--that I suspect she'd have left me to wait for Dunn all alone."

"Dunn! Dunn! not Davenport Dunn?" exclaimed Twining.

"The very man--do you know him?"

"To be sure, he's the fellow I'm waiting for. Capital fun, isn't it?"

And he slapped his legs again, while he repeated the name of Dunn over
and over again.

"I want to know something about this same Mr. Dunn," said Lord
Lackington, confidentially.

"So do I; like it of all things," cried Twining. "Clever
fellow-wonderful fellow--up to everything--acquainted with everybody.
Great fun!"

"He occupies a very distinguished position in Ireland, I fancy," said
his Lordship, with such a marked stress on the locality as to show that
such did not constitute an imperial reputation.

"Yes, yes, man of the day there; do what he likes; very
popular--immensely popular!" said Twining, as he laughed on.

"So that you know no more of him than his public repute---no more than I
know myself," said his Lordship.

"Not so much as your Lordship, I'm certain," said Twining, as though
it would have been unbecoming in him to do so; "in fact, my business
transactions are such mere nothings, that it's quite a kindness on his
part to undertake them--trifles, no more!"

And Twining almost hugged himself in the ecstasy which his last words
suggested.

"_Mine_," said Lord Lackington, haughtily, "are of consequence enough
to fetch him hither--a good thousand miles away from England; but he is
pretty certain of its being well worth his while, to come."

"Quite convinced of that--could swear it," said Twining, eagerly.

"Here are a mob of insufferable bores," said his Lordship, testily, as a
number of people were heard approaching, for somehow--it is not easy
to say exactly why--he had got into a train