opening
his chest, and shaking his fist at Dobus; "look what Angelica and that
infernal Dobus have brought me to."
I thought it might be a flannel waistcoat into which madame had
forced him; but it was worse: I give you my word of honour it was a
PITCH-PLASTER!
We all roared at this, and the doctor as loud as anyone; but he vowed
that he had no hand in the pitch-plaster. It was a favourite family
remedy of the late apothecary Sir George Catacomb, and had been put on
by Mrs. Berry's own fair hands.
When Anatole came in with coffee, Berry was in such high courage, that
he told him to go to the deuce with it; and we never caught sight of
Lady Pash more, except when, muffled up to the nose, she passed through
the salle-a-manger to go to her carriage, in which Dobus and the parson
were likewise to be transported to Paris. "Be a man, Frank," says she,
"and hold your own"--for the good old lady had taken her nephew's part
in the matrimonial business--"and you, Mr. Fitz-Boodle, come and see him
often. You're a good fellow, take old one-eyed Callipash's word for it.
Shall I take you to Paris?"
Dear kind Angelica, she had told her aunt all I said!
"Don't go, George," says Berry, squeezing me by the hand. So I said I
was going to sleep at Versailles that night; but if she would give a
convoy to Jack Butts, it would be conferring a great obligation on him;
with which favour the old lady accordingly complied, saying to him,
with great coolness, "Get up and sit with John in the rumble, Mr.
What-d'ye-call-'im." The fact is, the good old soul despises an artist
as much as she does a tailor.
Jack tripped to his place very meekly; and "Remember Saturday," cried
the Doctor; and "Don't forget Thursday!" exclaimed the divine,--"a
bachelor's party, you know." And so the cavalcade drove thundering down
the gloomy old Avenue de Paris.
The Frenchman, I forgot to say, had gone away exceedingly ill long
before; and the reminiscences of "Thursday" and "Saturday" evoked by
Dobus and Whey, were, to tell the truth, parts of our conspiracy; for in
the heat of Berry's courage, we had made him promise to dine with us all
round en garcon; with all except Captain Goff, who "racklacted" that he
was engaged every day for the next three weeks: as indeed he is, to
a thirty-sous ordinary which the gallant officer frequents, when not
invited elsewhere.
Cutler and I then were the last on the field; and though we were for
moving away, Berry, w
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