.
Tenby 's the fellow's name, and it's the only thing I haven't heard him
pun on. Puns are the smallpox of the language;--we're cursed with an
epidemic. By gad, the next time I meet him I 'll roar out for vaccine
matter.'

He described the dinner given by Edbury at a celebrated City tavern where
my father and this so-called Dauphin were brought together. 'Dinner
to-night,' he nodded, as he limped away on his blissful visit of ceremony
to sprightly Chassediane (a bouquet had gone in advance): he left me
stupefied. The sense of ridicule enveloped me in suffocating folds,
howling sentences of the squire's Boeotian burlesque by fits. I felt that
I could not but take the world's part against the man who allowed himself
to be made preposterous externally, when I knew him to be staking his
frail chances and my fortune with such rashness. It was unpardonable for
one in his position to incur ridicule. Nothing but a sense of duty kept
me from rushing out of London, and I might have indulged the impulse
advantageously. Delay threw me into the clutches of Lady Kane herself, on
whom I looked with as composed a visage as I could command, while she
leaned out of her carriage chattering at me, and sometimes over my head
to passing gentlemen.

She wanted me to take a seat beside her, she had so much to say. Was
there not some funny story abroad of a Pretender to the Throne of France?
she asked, wrinkling her crow'sfeet eyelids to peer at me, and wished to
have the particulars. I had none to offer. 'Ah! well,' said she; 'you
stay in London? Come and see me. I'm sure you 're sensible. You and I can
put our heads together. He's too often in Courtenay Square, and he's ten
years too young for that, still. He ought to have good advice. Tell me,
how can a woman who can't guide herself help a man?--and the most
difficult man alive! I'm sure you understand me. I can't drive out in the
afternoon for them. They make a crush here, and a clatter of tongues!
. . . That's my private grievance. But he's now keeping persons away who
have the first social claim . . . I know they can't appear. Don't look
confused; no one accuses you. Only I do say it 's getting terribly hot in
London for somebody. Call on me. Will you?'

She named her hours. I bowed as soon as I perceived my opportunity. Her
allusions were to Lady Edbury, and to imputed usurpations of my father's.
I walked down to the Chambers where Temple was reading Law, for a refuge
from these annoy