write!" said Sir Bingo. "Two to one I will."

And there the affair rested, for the council of the company were in high
consultation concerning the most proper manner of opening a
communication with the mysterious stranger; and the voice of Mr.
Winterblossom, whose tones, originally fine, age had reduced to
falsetto, was calling upon the whole party for "Order, order!" So that
the bucks were obliged to lounge in silence, with both arms reclined on
the table, and testifying, by coughs and yawns, their indifference to
the matters in question, while the rest of the company debated upon
them, as if they were matters of life and death.

"A visit from one of the gentlemen--Mr. Winterblossom, if he would take
the trouble--in name of the company at large--would, Lady Penelope
Penfeather presumed to think, be a necessary preliminary to an
invitation."

Mr. Winterblossom was "quite of her ladyship's opinion, and would gladly
have been the personal representative of the company at St. Ronan's
Well--but it was up hill--her ladyship knew his tyrant, the gout, was
hovering upon the frontiers--there were other gentlemen, younger and
more worthy to fly at the lady's command than an ancient Vulcan like
him--there was the valiant Mars and the eloquent Mercury."

Thus speaking, he bowed to Captain MacTurk and the Rev. Mr. Simon
Chatterly, and reclined on his chair, sipping his negus with the
self-satisfied smile of one, who, by a pretty speech, has rid himself
of a troublesome commission. At the same time, by an act probably of
mental absence, he put in his pocket the drawing, which, after
circulating around the table, had returned back to the chair of the
president, being the point from which it had set out.

"By Cot, madam," said Captain MacTurk, "I should be proud to obey your
leddyship's commands--but, by Cot, I never call first on any man that
never called upon me at all, unless it were to carry him a friend's
message, or such like."

"Twig the old connoisseur," said the Squire to the Knight.--"He is
condiddling the drawing."

"Go it, Johnnie Mowbray--pour it into him," whispered Sir Bingo.

"Thank ye for nothing, Sir Bingo," said the Squire, in the same tone.
"Winterblossom is one of us--_was_ one of us at least--and won't stand
the ironing. He has his Wogdens still, that were right things in his
day, and can hit the hay-stack with the best of us--but stay, they are
hallooing on the parson."

They were indeed busied on all